Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them, saying…(Matthew 5:1,2).
Here’s a question you may never have pondered: Why did Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount – which contains the Beatitudes – from a mountainside??
Interestingly, Jesus’ 2 primary discourses in Matthew – the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7) and His Olivet Discourse (chapters 24&25) – were both taught from mountains. And Matthew is careful to note this somewhat otherwise inconsequential geographical feature at the beginning of each.
So, what is the significance of the unnamed mountain in
the first and the identification of the Mount of Olives in the second?
It has been suggested that Matthew – writing primarily to a Jewish audience and demonstrating that Jesus is irrefutably the long-awaited Hebrew Messiah – was subtly in his text casting Jesus as a second, and greater Moses. (Luke’s record of the Beatitudes in chapter 6 of his Gospel details Jesus as teaching from a level place or plain. This was obviously
similar teaching but at a different time and place.)
Moses is forever associated with Mount Sinai. And when he descended from that mountain (Exodus 32), he was to mediate and teach God’s Covenant with the Hebrew people.
Through miraculous intervention, God had liberated His
people from the unspeakable misery of slavery. The event was forever
commemorated as the Exodus from Egypt.
After travelling by foot for about 60 days, the Hebrew
people reached Mount Sinai where the Lord displayed His awesome power and glory
by way of thunder and lightning; a thick cloud enveloping the mountain; a very
loud trumpet blast that crescendoed in volume; heavy, billowing smoke; and the
Lord descending onto the mountain in fire.
The Lord told the people to stand back. I doubt that
instruction had to be repeated.
Yahweh’s intention was to lead Israel to the Promised Land in fulfillment of His covenant promise to Abraham over 5 centuries earlier (Genesis 12:1). And at Sinai, He provided the constitution by which His Chosen People would live, now and when they occupied that geography.
So what’s the parallel to the sermons taught by Jesus as He spoke from those mountains as recorded in Matthew?
The Covenant of Moses provided to the Hebrews a list of
standards, principles, and kingdom objectives that God was requiring them to
live by. In addition, Yahweh was binding Himself to bless this people above all
other peoples on the earth when and if they lived by these standards.
In the calculus of the Jewish rabbis, God’s Law through Moses totaled 613 specific covenant prohibitions and assertions.
His promised blessing would result to the citizens of the
new nation of Israel when and if, they
were vigilant and obedient in observing the stipulations of this contract.
In like manner, the Lord Jesus – particularly in the Sermon on the Mount – was providing a constitutional summary of the standards, principles, ideals of His monarchy: the Kingdom of Heaven of which He was the King.
Against the growing backdrop of rejection and threats
from the Jewish elite, Jesus was defining righteousness for those who would be
citizens of His Kingdom.
Jesus’ Beatitudes provide a rich image – an audacious verbal illustration – of God’s super-abundant promises to those who practice self-denial and follow God the Son.
In that lengthy sermon, Jesus promised assurance was this: righteousness would – now and forever – conquer evil.
And He therefore
called His people to be spiritual separatists: those committed to living
differently because they loved and followed Him. Their lives were to be
characterized by righteousness as defined in the Beatitudes in particular, and
the Sermon on the Mount more generally.
TAKEAWAY: So how are we to interpret the
Sermon on the Mount for Christ-followers living in the 21st century?
1) Liberal theologians fixate on the Sermon to the exclusion of much of the rest of the Gospels, ignoring most of the balance of the New Testament.
They argue that the Sermon on the Mount is the core of Christian message, and is intended to completely su mmarize Christian ethics and objectives. Isn’t Christianity about living a good life, after all.
Therefore all else in the
Gospels and New Testament is seen as peripheral, relatively insignificant, and therefore
dismissed.
So what’s the problem? Well, this view has no place for the Cross of Christ, for Jesus’ subsequent resurrection, His substitutionary atonement and the imputation of His righteousness to those receiving Him by repentant faith.
And this position affirms that Jesus is a great teacher and possibly a prophet, but typically – and rigorously – denies that He is God.
2) A view held by some within the camp of dispensationalists see the Sermon on the Mount as relevant only during the 3+ year ministry of Jesus. Therefore the Sermon, and the Beatitudes within it, are binding on the followers of Jesus only for that short season of His public witness.
And subsequent to Jesus
preaching the Sermon, this teaching was repealed having been superseded by the
Gospel of Christ ever since the Cross rendered His earlier teaching extraneous.
But, if that was true, why
would Matthew writing 2 decades later, devote 3 chapters to meticulously
recording the content of the most famous Sermon ever preached??
3) Careful biblical hermeneutics supports the view that the Sermon on the Mount and the specific Beatitudes that introduce this discourse demonstrate and proclaim the definition of righteousness – those eternal values – that characterize citizens of His kingdom.
The kingdom of heaven is that sphere
where Christ is regarded as Cosmic King in the hearts and minds of His people;
those who have come into eternal relationship by faith with Almighty God
through the transaction of Gospel salvation.
From that moment, the Holy Spirit of God works relentlessly in the lives of Kingdom citizens to bring about a love for Christ’s righteousness and an adoption of – and living out – Kingdom ethics, values and principles.
Christ’s eternal New Covenant is His promised blessing in seeing righteousness conquering evil and it happens in the lives of His people.
And His promised blessing
accumulates to those who live as such Kingdom spiritual separatists.
~graphic
by IsraelMyGlory.org
