The Law and the Sermon on the Mount

The Law and the Sermon on the Mount

"You have heard it said…but I say unto you…” (Matthew 5)

The Man who stood on the mount to preach His sermon was none other than the God who had stood on Mount Sinai to give the law through Moses.  Now He had come to fulfill it.  This was done not only through His matchless life which accomplished all of the law's demands, but also through the full flowering of its meaning.  Nine times there is the great statement, "I say unto you" (Matthew 5).  This is the God of the Heavens who speaks from the mountain.  He was fulfilling the law; that is, He was bringing it to its full development.

The French Catholic commentator, M. Auguste Crampon, writes on this verse,
"Jesus brought to realization in His person all the types and prophecies.  When He tore away from the law the human interpretations which altered its spiritual intent, He brought it back to its divine ideal: thus the new covenant will be established upon the old as upon a divinely prepared foundation, just as the fruit will follow the flower quite naturally, without there being any destruction or overthrow, but rather by blossoming and development" (note on Matthew 5:17).

Nevertheless, there are people who, in their blindness, claim that the Sermon on the Mount is their creed.  It is far from that, this great sermon.  It is really that which condemns them even more than the law of the Old Testament.  It is the declaration that transgression comes from the heart and that the heart is evil and corrupt.  This is the verdict of God which declares man’s lost condition.

This is the reason why it is necessary to be born again.  There is nothing in any man which could give him strength to live up to the code given by God through Moses; how much more, then, must we realize that there is nothing in man which could give him strength to live up to the even more impossible code which is given by Christ?  We are forced away from any thought of salvation by character.  We must flee to the cross where the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin, and where His righteousness, the righteousness of Christ within us, can be placed to our account.

Dr. Barnhouse warns us that God judges not only the outward action but the heart as well.  Anger is judged like murder…lust like adultery; it is the human heart that condemns us.

Further Reading: Matt.7:21-29