R.T. Kendall's Blog, page 19

The Sermon on the Mount 2

The Beatitudes (Matt.5:1-12) not only introduce the Sermon on the Mount but provide the “text” of Jesus’ famous sermon. In other words, what he would say in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt.5-7) is a filling out of the Beatitudes. They also point to the true meaning of the “kingdom” – not something that is visible, physical or political but that which is in our hearts (Luke 17:21).

Salvation does not come however by living by the Sermon on the Mount. It is interesting but sad that so many non-believers are fascinated by the Sermon on the Mount and hail Jesus as a wonderful teacher because of its content. What they don’t grasp is that the language of the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Not only that; we cannot begin to keep the Sermon on the Mount until we have been saved – that is, converted by the Holy Spirit. We are saved not by keeping the Sermon on the Mount but by transferring the faith that we have in our good works to what Jesus has done for us on the cross. When Jesus said that he had not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it (Matt.5:17) – the most “stupendous” claim Jesus ever made (according to Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones), he was pointing to the way we are saved. Not by our keeping the Law or affirming Jesus’ interpretation of it but by recognizing that Jesus kept the Law for us.

When Jesus said he had come to fulfill the Law it was a daring announcement early on in his ministry that he himself – and by himself – would literally keep the Mosaic Law. Not merely the Ten Commandments (which nobody had ever done) but also the finer points of the Law (over 2,000 pieces of legislation). Why did he say he would do this? It is because the Law needed to be fulfilled. No body had fulfilled it. Ever. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Even those Jews who were the most candid but loathe to let Gentiles in on the Covenant admitted that no one had kept the Law (Acts 15:10). So when Jesus said he would keep the Law it was an amazing commitment

But the mission was accomplished when he died on the cross and “finished” the work he was sent to do (John 19:30). We are therefore saved by trusting what Jesus did for us: he fulfilled the Law by his sinless life and sacrificial death.

That said, what is the point of his teaching? The answer: once we are saved by faith in Jesus’ blood we are called to persist in faith (Col.2:6-7). Persisting in faith leads us to apply Jesus’ teaching – starting with the Beatitudes. When for example we are broken, meek, pure in heart and hunger for righteousness we inherit the kingdom. Kingdom living is what believers are required to do in order to show they have been saved and that they take Jesus’ teaching seriously.

RT

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Published on November 06, 2012 08:25

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Published on October 31, 2012 06:22

The Sermon on the Mount 1

When Jesus introduced the kingdom of heaven no one knew what he was talking about. But they assumed it would be something visible, especially something that would put Israel on the map. They could only think in terms of what was political. They had the same problem with their concept of Messiah; they only thought of a great charismatic, political and military leader who, like David of old, would overthrow Rome and restore Israel to its former greatness. In other words, they lived for the “good old days” and dreamed of seeing the back of all those Roman soldiers that had occupied their beloved land.

But Jesus’ language did not ring a bell with them. He spoke with “authority” in the Sermon on the Mount, yes (Matt.7:29). They hung on to his every word. But they did not “twig”, that is, they didn’t “get it”. The proof of this is when – after Jesus death and resurrection – they asked, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6). Despite Jesus’ having said that the kingdom of God does not come by “observation” but was “within” them (Luke 17:20-21), they could never think outside the political or physical box. Therefore when Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with the words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt.5:3), this was a new language for them, a new way of thinking. They did not adjust to it quickly. Not until after Pentecost – when they were filled with the indirect and immediately Holy Spirit – did Jesus’ teaching begin to make sense.

The Sermon on the Mount, then, was an entirely new way of thinking for them. It elevated them to a level of having to understand for which they had not been prepared. Jesus’ teaching was therefore an essential part of redemption. He could have died on the cross as a man years before he did; but had he done so there would have been no understanding of his fulfilling the Law for us, much less a teaching that told us what the kingdom was truly predestined to be or how his followers would be saved and then be challenged to inherit that kingdom.

The question is, how many truly understand the Sermon on the Mount today? So many of us have our own theology that we take with us to Jesus’ teaching and never grasp what he was getting at. We have our own “box” out of which we cannot think. To get back to Jesus’ actual teaching is not easy for us to do when we have centuries of tradition that shape our thinking – not unlike the position in which the ancient Pharisees found themselves.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to enable us to read and understand Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount – without our prejudices and need to “prove” what we want to believe.

RT

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Published on October 29, 2012 06:08