If it is not the salt of the earth, it's good for nothing and it will be trampled under the foot of fallen man. If a man of one tribe injured a man of another tribe, then at once all the members of the tribe of the injured man were out to take vengeance on all the members of the tribe of the man who committed the injury; and the vengeance desired was nothing less than death. What did he mean by that? This never could be in virtue of His descent from Mary, unless He had also inherited the title of the royal stem. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?" Without humility there can be no true religion. See how it is cleared by the command of the Lord Jesus, who teaches us another lesson: "But I say unto you, I, who come to be the great Peace-Maker, the general Reconciler, who loved you when you were strangers and enemies, I say, Love your enemies," Matthew 5:44; Matthew 5:44. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 5:43-48 The Jewish teachers by neighbour understood only those who were of their own country, nation, and religion, whom they were pleased to look upon as their friends. Everything they say should be true, honest and straightforward (Matthew 5:33-37). Take heed lest there be a base thought in your heart, and you say, 'The seventh year, the year of release is near,' and your eye be hostile to your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the Lord against you, and it be sin in you. It is true that that law was a law of mercy; it is true that it was a law for a judge and not for a private individual; it is true that it was never literally carried out; it is true that there were accents of mercy speaking at the same time. As the Lord begins to minister to me, the power of his Holy Spirit and his strength, and I begin now to experience those victories of Jesus Christ in my life and that makes me indeed happy. There were two reasons. We cannot go on hating another man in the presence of God. How can we sincerely ask God to bless someone we hate? Therefore, not only are we supposed to obey the message in this verse, we are supposed to do so gladly and with a happy heart. Because of the love of God in Christ and the transforming power of the gospel, many who curse God today will be preaching His Word tomorrow. A man can do the irreducible minimum and not a stroke more; he can do it in such a way as to make it clear that he hates the whole thing; he can do it with the barest minimum of efficiency and no more; or he can do it with a smile, with a gracious courtesy, with a determination, not only to do this thing, but to do it well and graciously. In the other case, there would be a lack of testimony for Christ, and grace makes one rejoice to be counted worthy of suffering for His name: but righteousness is not in question. And in noticing this, "if your right eye offends thee, pluck it out and cast" he's not speaking literally of just plucking out your eye and throwing it away because through that eye you looked at a gal and you go "ooh eee" you know, that'll be nice. Love your enemies This is the most sublime piece of morality ever given to man. And they were interpreting the law so that they were having this tremendous attitude of self-righteousness and pride looking down then upon everybody else. We hope that these will help you better understand the meaning and purpose of God's Word in your life today. "Blessed are ye, [there is thus a change. But even then the answer of Matthew is after a divine sort. (ii) There is the noun eros and the accompanying verb eran (compare G2037) . or that if God has thus been pleased to draw out two distinct lines of truth, we are not to gather up the divine principle of each and all? Get Your Bible Minute in Your Inbox Every Morning, It is something that is easy to say and nearly impossible to do: love your enemies. But when we realize how God has loved us, the one desire of life is to answer to that love, and that is the greatest task in all the world, for it presents a man with a task the like of which the man who thinks in terms of law never dreams of, and with an obligation more binding than the obligation to any law. The Scribe or the Rabbi never dared to express even an opinion of his own unless he could buttress it with supporting quotations from the great teachers of the past. What they mean is that anything which helps to seduce us to sin is to be ruthlessly rooted out of life. First of all, this law was not given to the common people. Blessed are the peacemakers: For they shall be called the children of God ( Matthew 5:8-9 ). When we follow the rich, life-giving teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, we become spirits set free, free from yesterdays pain, free from the ugliness of sin that stains and infects our relationships, free from the life-crippling burden of unforgiveness. If that were literal, you'd develop the skill in the left hand.So he's not talking literally of plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand but he is just trying to show to you, because to every one of us, the thought of plucking out our right eye is a very repugnant, repulsive, oh you know, I shudder at that. But you're really saying no, I really don't want to. Now Stephen points out that the prophets of God were not really accepted. [2.] For man may look on the outward appearance but God is looking upon your heart, and that's what God is interested in tonight, a heart that is broken before him. Moros also means fool, but the man who is moros ( G3474) is the man who is a moral fool. It will always mean that all Christian discipline and all Christian punishment must be aimed, not at vengeance, but at cure. Of course, the words of Jesus are not to be taken with a crude literalism. He goes on to take three examples of the Christian spirit in operation. Nevertheless, even if this is not what God does, our prayers change our hearts. The word which is used here is kalos ( G2570) . The whole of Roman religion and society was originally founded on the home. Next comes a remarkable prophecy of Christ, of which we must say a word the prophecy of Hosea. You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in the land.". It is with divine wisdom that Matthew mentions the angel's visit to Joseph; with no less direction from on high does Luke relate Gabriel's visit to Mary (as before to Zacharias); and the reason is plain. The one purpose of light is to give light. Jesus said, "Don't be surprised that men hate you, they hated me. For in Luke we have another temptation after this; and of course, therefore, Satan must be presented as abiding, not as gone away. What Jesus is saying is this--the truly good man will never need to take an oath; the truth of his sayings and the reality of his promises need no such guarantee. And they began, as they do today, to interpret the law.You know how that our laws have been so interpreted now by the courts that they become more liberal all the time. There is only greater pain. It is a symbol of the division that . It is the word of warm, tender affection, the highest kind of love. Well who wouldn't like that doctrine? Here in chapter three, James reveals that our tongue is a test of our maturity.Journey 15 | Savior. Jesus says that we must have this love that we may become "the sons of our Father who is in heaven." Jesus answered the popular teaching by going back to the Old Testament that commanded love for enemies (Exodus 23:4-5). Now, let me say that interpreting the Sermon on the Mount or the words of Jesus Christ, that we must take care in interpreting, because if our interpretation of a passage makes the passage ridiculous then we have the wrong interpretation. Having obtained the mercy of God, then we indeed should be merciful, but here he puts it the other way. The Holy Ghost gives it all to us as a connected whole. The second way is to fill the mind with good thoughts. is liable to be cast into the Gehenna of fire. At that time Mr. Winston Churchill, as he then was, said a very wise thing: "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.". In his mercy God judges us, not only by our achievements, but also by our dreams. Do good to them that hate you; such as hate you in their hearts, and discover their hatred by their actions; do not make returns in the same way, but on the contrary, do them all the good you can; perform all the kind offices that lie in your power; let them partake of your bounty and liberality; if poor, feed, clothe, and supply them, as you are able, with the necessaries of life; and give them wholesome advice for the good of their souls: by "so doing", you will "heap coals of fire on their heads"; of enemies, make them friends; engage their affections to you, and you may be happy instruments in doing them good, both in soul and body: and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. (i) They used it to mean the Ten Commandments. In general, including all those things wherein we must be followers of God as dear children. When they came to Jerusalem, it was not any longer an outward sign to guide. (i) Jesus never asked us to love our enemies in the same way as we love our nearest and our dearest. One of the gods most commonly worshipped was Serapis. The man who makes peace is engaged on the very work which the God of peace is doing ( Romans 15:33; 2 Corinthians 13:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:23; Hebrews 13:20). When did anyone ever find fault with it? It is the word skandalon ( G4625) . It was like grace before meat. You're the preserving influence. It is inevitable because the Church, when it really is the Church, is bound to be the conscience of the nation and the conscience of society. Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by those of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Don't swear at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is God's footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. I content myself now with giving what appears to me the true reason why the Spirit of God here adheres to the order of the facts. I lay the screw-driver on the slot of the screw, and I find that it exactly fits. persecutors and murderers, saying, "Lord, lay not this sin to In the second of these chapters (Matthew 6:1-34) composing the discourse, two main parts appear. It is thus, then, we come down to the birth of Christ. The characteristic phrase of the prophet was: "Thus saith the Lord." (i) Salt was connected with purity. or that the Spirit of God had not His own blessed reasons for giving prominency to both facts? (ii) They used it to mean the first five books of the Bible. How easily a unified people become Balkanized (broken into competing groups, divided) when pride and self-interests supersede love and a common heritage in God. First then, let us look at marriage amongst the Greeks. You see a person who is proud and haughty, he is a man who has not had a true encounter with God. (verses Matthew 7:5-11.). Why, then, does Jesus demand that a man should have this love, this unconquerable benevolence, this invincible goodwill? I am persuaded that the name one is sufficient intimation to any Christian heart and conscience. These, like Matthew, and Zacchaeus, were tax collectors. Hurray, hurray. You love me? In the teaching on the mount He was, in fact, instructing the disciples in righteousness: hence, too, one reason why we have not a word about redemption. Cicero said that when anger entered into the scene "nothing could be done rightly and nothing sensibly." ( Galatians 1:20). (c) The Christians were accused of being incendiaries. The one saving clause was that he must return her dowry intact. If you're only greeting those that greet you or only greeting your brothers, you're not doing any more than anybody else. Happy are they that mourn. The houses in Palestine were very dark with only one little circular window perhaps not more than eighteen inches across. And he said, "in these two are all the law and the prophets"( Matthew 22:36-40 ). It is this meekness, Jesus says, which will inherit the earth. (iii) Jesus then goes on to speak of being compelled to go one mile; and says that in such a case the Christian must willingly go two miles. So they asked: What is work? The man who truly sees God sees himself in truth. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him; because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. Nor did Jesus argue about this, or seek in any way to justify himself for so doing, or seek to prove his right to do so. In the time of Jesus divorce had grown easier and easier, so that a situation had arisen in which girls were actually unwilling to marry, because marriage was so insecure. shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Blessed are the meek: they shall inherit the eaRuth ( Matthew 5:5 ). For the wisest purposes, I have no doubt, the Spirit of God has arranged and conveyed it to us as one whole, without notice of the interruptions, occasions, etc. Now we had one gal in a class at Bible school who was a real problem to me, she was extremely loud and weird. A very ill-favoured passer-by gave him a greeting. It is a commandment of which we should say first and foremost: "This means me.". We will seek to understand the presenting issues and context that brought about that statement from our Lord Jesus and discover the meaning for our lives. Further, to these Easterns intimation is given of God, and they returned another way, thus defeating the design of the treacherous heart and cruel head of the Edomite king, notwithstanding the slaughter of the innocents. So a plain bandage might to put on a wound, but no ointment; plain wadding might be put into a sore ear, but not medicated wadding. "The hope of the poor shall not perish for ever" ( Psalms 9:18). The man whom Jesus here condemns is the man who deliberately uses his eyes to stimulate his desires; the man who finds a strange delight in things which waken the desire for the forbidden thing. And she walked away saying, thank you, Lord, for the persecution, you know. 44.Love your enemies. Somehow we don't think of the poor in spirit as being very happy people, and yet Jesus, in beginning his description of the child of God declares. First, it was never held that sacrifice could atone for deliberate sin, for what the Jews called "the sin of a high hand." Moreover, those who persecute us today may, in Gods grace, become those who protect us tomorrow. There were the Essenes, an ancient sect of the Jews. Joseph was the descendant of David, the king, through Solomon: the Messiah must therefore, somehow or other, be the son of Joseph; yet had He really been the son of Joseph, all would have been lost. As we had His miracles all put together, as I may say, in the gross, so with His discourses. These were the two main consequences of the rejection of the Messiah by Israel. It is no new thing for the most excellent saints to be hated, and cursed, and persecuted, and despitefully used, by wicked people; Christ himself was so treated. On the contrary, there is no one of the Gospel writers who departs from that order, when his subject demands it, more freely than he, as I hope to prove to the satisfaction of those open to conviction, before we close. see it: the earth offers them its fulness, but they desire it not; all their desire is to renounce and to suffer that they may come. It is a serious question, and which we should frequently put to ourselves, "What do we more than others? For dowry was actually alimony in advance. Thais was the hetaira (compare, G2083) of Alexander the Great. The Virgin's Son was to be called "Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins." And when your attitude was wrong before God, you were guilty before God and you should then be seeking God's forgiveness and God's help. A man had to be prepared to be lonely in order to be a Christian. Despitefully use you. Part of the meat went to the priests as their perquisite; and part of the meat was returned to the worshipper. It might be the feeblest recognition of God and man; it might be but a remnant of Israelites; but, at least, they owned the truth about themselves; and Jesus was with them in owning the ruin fully, and felt it all. This beatitude demands from us the most exacting self-examination. And so Jesus is going back more towards the original. (i) Giving must not be refused. We have seen what Jesus meant when he commanded us to have this Christian love; and now we must go on to see why he demanded that we should have it. The word "enemies" also has a wide meaning and includes any individuals who elicit anger, hatred, and retaliation from the disciple. This is not the same as It is written. In doing this we serve ourselves and consult our own advantage; and what reward can we expect for that, unless a regard to God, and a sense of duty, carrying us further than our natural inclination and worldly interest? Whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca ( Matthew 5:22 ). Then, set free and at rest in our souls, we return to learn of Him, to look upon Him, to follow Him, to hear His word, to delight ourselves in His ways. 1 John 3:18 - Love in deed and truth. Writing of divorcement. The Greeks always contrasted they quality which they called praotes ( G4236) , and which the King James Version translates meekness, with the quality which they called hupselokardia, which means lofty-heartedness. In the sentence, "It was his custom to go to Church every Sunday," in Greek it was his custom to go would be expressed by a single verb in the imperfect tense, because it describes continuous and often-repeated action in the past. 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Oh isn't he wonderful. Never. And the weapons of our warfare cannot be carnal, but they are spiritual and they are mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds of the enemy; but that's prayer and we need to be doing it more and more and more.You are the salt of the earth; you're the preserving influence. Barnes's Matthew 5:44 Bible Commentary. The Sermon on the Mount is not one single sermon which Jesus preached on one definite situation; it is the summary of his consistent teaching to his disciples. He changes his place of sojourn from Nazareth to Capernaum. The reality was coming: as for him, he was merely one to announce the advent of the King. (iii) The most important point is this. drink": unless our Lord should be supposed rather to regard the Matthew 5:43-48, love your enemies. You see, he did it in such a way that God was glorified as the people saw the good works that he did. Of these 107 verses 29 are found all together in Lk 6:20-49; 47 have no parallel in Luke's version; and 34 are found scattered all over Luke's gospel in different contexts. Luke 6:27-36). COMMENTARY What is the meaning of Matthew 5:44? Without humility a man cannot learn, for the first step to learning is the realization of our own ignorance. miracle, or whatever other fact is brought before us, only brings out, to my mind, more distinctly the manifest design of God to give expression to the glory of the Son in each gospel according to a special point of view. His answer was that she must remember that the name of wife was a title of dignity, not of pleasure. It leaves upon us the obligation to make ourselves such that men will so see our transparent goodness that they will never ask an oath from us; and it leaves upon us the obligation to seek to make this world such a world that falsehood and infidelity will be so eliminated from it that the necessity for oaths will be abolished. Therefore, we find no more a cloud that covers Him, no pillar of fire that shields Him. And there will be many a man, whose outward actions are a model of rectitude, whose inward thoughts stand condemned before God. Nero wrapped the Christians in pitch and set them alight, and used them as living torches to light his gardens. Shammai and his school defined some indecency as meaning unchastity and nothing but unchastity. The story is told in his biography. And the basic difference between the way they were teaching it and the way God intended it to be was that they were teaching it as purely a physical thing to be fulfilled in a physical way. But it is Jesus' warning that the righteousness of the Christian must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. Lewis Aslan, on the move! When faced with the enemies of God, it is best to take those who have hurt us or even persecutors and leave them at the foot of the cross in prayer. In the ancient days the Essenes would not in any circumstances take an oath, and to this day the Quakers are the same. First, there are the blessednesses of righteousness, to which the persecution for righteousness' sake pertains; next, the blessednesses of mercy or grace. What Did Jesus Really Mean by 'Love Your Enemies'? It is in the story of Jesus' visit to the house of Martha and Mary at Bethany ( Luke 10:38-42). The trained botanist would see this and that, and call it by name and know its use; and he might even see something of infinite value and rarity because he had eyes to see. But then Jesus goes on to illustrate what he meant by that, for he tells them. The Jewish Rabbis held that the highest task which a man can perform is to establish right relationships between man and man. Abraham Lincoln once said: "Die when I may, I would like it to be said of me, that I always pulled up a weed and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow." When she left, she left louder than anybody else, when she talked she talked louder than anybody else and she was just purely obnoxious as far as I was concerned. John the Baptist preached the nearness of this kingdom in the wilderness of Judaea. You should not have to swear to the truth that you are declaring. It is necessary only because of the evil of the world. And I showed her the scripture "Let the women keep silent in the church"( 1 Corinthians 14:34 ). At a conference at which D. L. Moody was present there were also present some young people who took their Christian faith very seriously. Swearing is avoided by them and they esteem it worse than perjury. So, then, the basic meaning of katharos ( G2513) is unmixed, unadulterated, unalloyed. What Jesus is saying here is this: "In the old days men condemned murder; and truly murder is for ever wrong. Clearly it is much more likely that Jesus would be thinking in terms of Jewish law; and this situation was by no means impossible under Jewish law. The first was what might be called frivolous swearing, taking an oath where no oath was necessary or proper. internal affection of the mind; since outward expressions of It is what no saint can afford lightly to pass over; it is what, if a saint recognize not, he will understand the Scripture most imperfectly; nay, I believe he must grievously misunderstand the ways of God. The cursings or evil words of the second, we are to meet with good words and blessings. Man reaches only true manhood when he is always conscious that he is the creature and that God is the Creator, and that without God he can do nothing. This one precept is a sufficient proof of the holiness of the Gospel, and of the truth of the Christian religion. It was Aristotle's fixed method to define every virtue as the mean between two extremes. It was not only the man who committed adultery who was guilty; the man who allowed the unclean desire to settle in his heart was also guilty. He came as a man; he came seeing things with men's eyes, feeling things with men's feelings, thinking things with men's minds. It had become far too common a custom to introduce a statement by saying, "By thy life," or, "By my head," or, "May I never see the comfort of Israel if. The sin of contempt is liable to an even severer judgment. It is not here a question of law; it was too late for this ever a ruinous thing for the sinner. A working man's wage was the equivalent of three pence a day, and, even making every allowance for the difference in the purchasing power of money, no man ever got fat on that wage. Jesus seems to lay it down that the law is so sacred that not the smallest detail of it will ever pass away. Now Jesus is talking about that deceitfulness of being able to say no, though it sounds like yes or saying yes when you really don't mean yes. If a man committed a sin unawares, if he was swept into sin in a moment of passion when self-control broke, then sacrifice was effective; but if a man deliberately, defiantly, callously and open-eyed committed sin, then sacrifice was powerless to atone. The Roman matron was not secluded like her Greek counterpart. 1. Then the righteousness spoken of branches out into three parts: alms, which is one part of it; prayer, another part; and fasting, a part of it not to be despised. He demands a super-natural love. Those men that were trying them, beat them and warned them not to speak anymore in the name of Jesus Christ. But if helpers and assistants are to do their work intelligently and effectively, they must first have instruction. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away; and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." Now it was actually the Jewish law that a man's tunic might be taken as a pledge, but not his cloak. I need not enlarge; these names in divine history must speak for themselves. for my sake;" which answers to the higher mercy of the last three. To the Jew the Law was absolutely holy and absolutely divine; it is impossible to exaggerate the place that the Law had in their reverence. He names in certain cases the mother, and not the father only; but never without a divine reason. They utterly refused to compromise. I mean, he did that, she was gone, she had no recourse, she was out.That's why this custom of dowry became popular. The only way to defeat evil thoughts is to begin to think of something else. Giving must never be such as to encourage him in laziness and in shiftlessness, for such giving can only hurt. No one had ever heard anything like this before. The greatest of all Jewish days was the Day of Atonement. It really means the Valley of Hinnom. There should be a sheer sparkle about the Christian but too often he dresses like a mourner at a funeral, and talks like a specter at a feast. He was given the inevitable choice--sacrifice to the godhead of Caesar or die. We will regard all promises as sacred, if we remember that all promises are made in the presence of God. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." Jesus said, "You have heard that it has been said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate your enemy.'" We showed where the law said to love our neighbor, but could not find where it said hate your enemy. And so you'd see a Pharisee out on the corner putting his finger down his throat and gagging and straining and pushing and trying to throw up. If it came to a choice between a loyalty and a living, the real Christian never hesitated to choose loyalty. In this field the Church is present and working, every one of us, Pastors, priests, deacons, religious and lay faithful. Suppose a right-handed man is standing in front of another man, and suppose he wants to slap the other man on the right cheek, how must he do it? They had their sayings. If you were only chronicling the events of a year, you keep to the order in which they happened; but whenever you rise to the higher task of bringing out moral features, you may be frequently obliged to abandon the consecutive order of events as they occurred. We may best see this in action. Let your yes be yes and your no be no and don't get into these long deceitful kind of well, I would be very happy to do it and I'll tell you what. It would appear that, in John the Baptist's preaching it, we have no ground for supposing that either he believed at this time, or that any other men till afterwards were led into the understanding of the form which it was to assume through Christ's rejection and going on high as now. That is to say, the fact that it is sometimes necessary to make a man take an oath is a demonstration of the evil in Christless human nature. The young Shaftesbury saw it and said to himself "When I grow up, I'm going to give my life to see that things like that don't happen." The book of Matthew reveals Jesus as the Promised One of the nation of Israel . And of course, the Jews hated that yoke of Roman control and government. (ii) The word blessed which is used in each of the beatitudes is a very special word. And God totally disregards the things that the man is doing because of the attitude in which he is doing it. There the correct translation is: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the whole of. But the word praus ( G4239) has a second standard Greek usage. Turning, then, from the temptation (which we may hope to resume in another point of view, when the gospel of Luke comes before us and we shall have the different temptations on the moral side, with their changed order), I may in passing notice, that a very characteristic difference in the gospel of Matthew meets us in what follows. How thwarting to mere Jewish expectations of the Messiah! When they are sorry for someone, it is, as it were, from the outside; they do not make the deliberate effort to get inside the other person's mind and heart, until they see and feel things as he sees and feels them. II. (vi) Lastly--and it may be most important of all--we must note that this commandment does not only involve allowing people to do as they like to us; it also involves that we should do something for them. This breathes out the true spirit of Christianity, and is peculiar to it. "Get thee behind me, Satan," was thus appropriate language then. Selfish anger is always a sin; selfless anger can be one of the great moral dynamics of the world. Spite of what men might look down upon in these proud days, their hearts in their simplicity were true. But then he proclaims repentance; not here in view of deeper things, as in the gospel of Luke, but as a spiritual preparation for Messiah and the kingdom of heaven. Punishment will never be merely retributive; it will always be remedial. A student who has reached a mature knowledge of his subject is teleios ( G5046) as opposed to a learner who is just beginning, and who as yet has no grasp of things. The Revised Standard Version has it that a man must answer simply yes or no, "anything more than this comes from evil." There is many a person who thinks that he is loving peace, when in fact he is piling up trouble for the future, because he refuses to face the situation and to take the action which the situation demands. In the ancient world most feasts were held in the temple of some god. That law became part and parcel of the ethic of the Old Testament. In this passage, Jesus is seated before a crowd and teaching the Word of God that is being fulfilled in His own person. Doubtless there may have been a special reason for the omission; but whatever may be our judgment of the true solution of the difficulty, it is evident that a priest who was giving his own genealogy would not put it forward in a defective form. One of the great functions of the Cross is to open the eyes of men and women to the horror of sin. That is to say, he came really to bring out the real meaning of the Law. He will become completely detached from things, for he will know that things have not got it in them to bring happiness or security; and he will become completely attached to God, for he will know that God alone can bring him help, and hope, and strength. Secondly, to represent the duties of charity, which depend on the law, as matters on which they are left at liberty, is highly foolish. The Father's voice pronounces the Son's relationship, and His own complacency; while the Holy Ghost anoints Him as man. This earth is not the earth that God created. If the Christian is to be the salt of the earth, he must have a certain antiseptic influence on life. We must be careful not to think that this beatitude calls actual material poverty a good thing. The school of Shammai was so wedded to the truth that they forbade the ordinary courteous politenesses of society, as, for instance, when a bride was complimented for her charming appearance when in fact she was plain. Again and again it is the experience of life that, if a quarrel, or a difference, or a dispute is not healed immediately, it can go on breeding worse and worse trouble as time goes on. We speak of the Sermon on the Mount as if it was one single sermon preached on one single occasion. Ye are the light of the world ( Matthew 5:14 ). In this passage, Jesus continues to explore the relevance of the Law for his followers and society. If blessedness came only to him who achieved, then none would be blessed. Jesus will show that agape love manifests itself in three radical ways: in blessing, in doing good, and in praying. There is no mention of Sarah, no hint of Rebecca, no notice whatever of so many holy and illustrious names in the female line of our Lord Jesus. So they had to depend upon the scribes and Pharisees teaching them and thus "Ye have heard that it hath been said" ( Matthew 5:21 ), you have heard that it had been said, it has been said. They have suggested that, since Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels, and since Matthew wrote it specially to convince Jews, this is a saying which Matthew put into Jesus' mouth, and that this is not a saying of Jesus at all. The Law And The Gospel ( Matthew 5:17-20 Continued). Jesus said we do err because we so often are comparing ourselves with others around us. Go out and order my Mercedes. There was nothing wrong with the Old Testament teaching of recognizing the enemies of God. Jesus Christ, the Hope of Humanity. (Matthew 5:1-48) Thus, in the former of these, a word detects, as it were, the thirst of blood, as corruption lies in a look or desire. The blessing is on the peace-makers, not necessarily on the peace-lovers. And Jesus is declaring that God intended it to be a spiritual thing, governing the spiritual attitudes of man and that God is more interested in your attitude than he is the actions.Now there are many people today who are trying to be so careful in their actions but their attitudes stink. We may thus look for deep profit. So, then, ancient ethics were based on the law of tit for tat. Let me add, as to the passage of Isaiah 53:1-12, that the remainder of the verse also accords with this: not " for," but, "and He shall bear their iniquities." And if no man of sense doubts that this should be so in our own case, has not God always had His own perfect mind in the various accounts He has given us of Christ? First, we relinquish anger. The bill of divorcement simply ran: "Let this be from me thy writ of divorce and letter of dismissal, and deed of liberation, that thou mayest marry whatsoever man thou. Indefeasible was His title: what were the circumstances that met Him when He was found at length in Israel? You know what constitutes the violation that thou shalt not murder? Supposing you are describing a certain character; you put together striking traits from the whole course of his life; you do not restrain yourself to the bare dates at which they occurred. They saw the star; they set forth to seek the Messiah's kingdom. But who can obey it? Who will help me to find the ideal? Suppose a man was a stone-mason. It may be that we have never committed adultery; but who can say that he has never experienced the desire for the forbidden thing? Because they did not let him wear a business suit when he stood before the jury but he was in jail attire, they set him free. You know, they killed a member of our clan, we're going to kill a member of their clan. ", The Light Of The World ( Matthew 5:14-15). loved, tenderness be used to him, and pity shown him: all men, The same thing is true of what follows: "Ye are the salt of the earth" it is that which keeps pure what is pure. (Matthew 6:1-34) As to this, we know from Luke 11:1-54 there was a request preferred by the disciples which led to it. When a man has to suffer something for his faith, that is the way to the closest possible companionship with Christ. A boy or a girl may go his or her own way, and may never think of effects and consequences; and then some day something happens and that boy or girl sees the stricken look in a father's or a mother's eyes; and suddenly sin is seen for what it is. This, then, is the vast field of labour that stands before the labourers sent forth by the "householder" to work in his vineyard. Juvenal writes: "Is one husband enough for lberina? Christianity did in fact split families as we have seen; and so Christianity was represented as something which divided man and wife, and disrupted the home. Therefore if when you are bringing your gift to the altar, and you suddenly remember that your brother has ought against you; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift ( Matthew 5:22-24 ). Christianity begins with a sense of sin. The ordinary person can walk along a country road, and see by the hedgerows nothing but a tangle of weeds and wild flowers and grasses. That is why Jesus is using the example of Noah's time to warn us about our behavior now and what will happen to us in the future. And Jesus shows how, first of all, how they were teaching it and then he declares what was intended when God gave it. Now, the law required death for disobedience. . It is the man who has that experience who will indeed be comforted; for that experience is what we call penitence, and the broken and the contrite heart God will never despise ( Psalms 51:17). For verily I say unto you, Until heaven and earth shall pass, not one jot or one tittle shall in any wise pass from the law, until it is all fulfilled ( Matthew 5:19 ). Further, a man might be summarily arrested if he was discovered to be exercising the rights of a citizen when he had been disfranchised, or if he returned to his state or city after being exiled. The voice of God had said, "I hate divorce" ( Malachi 2:16). The beloved John writes, "But whoso hath this worlds good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels [of compassion] from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? This is obviously a case of debt, for, if peace is not made, the last farthing will have to be paid. The word bless here means to speak well of or to. With Him all things are possible; and faith receives all with assurance. This is in opposition to being proud, and this is always the inevitable consequence of a man coming into a personal, real confrontation with God. If you're hungering and thirsting after righteousness, surely God will answer that hunger and thirst of your heart and you will be filled with the righteousness of God.Now we come into more positive kind of characteristics. He was clear that he had come "not to make life easy, but to make men great.". Here then indeed is an amazing kind of bliss: Blessed is the man who mourns like one mourning for the dead. When we speak of blessing men, it unites the two meanings, and signifies to confer favour, to thank, or to speak well of. we get the definition: the Kingdom of God is a society where God's will is as perfectly done in earth as it is in heaven. Robert Louis Stevenson once entered in his diary, as if he was recording an extraordinary phenomenon, "I have been to Church to-day, and am not depressed.". His value before and after the injury was assessed, and the man responsible for the injury had to pay the difference. If we tabulate these things, the matter will become clear: Now, as we have seen, Matthew is essentially the teaching gospel; it is Matthew's characteristic that he collects the teaching of Jesus under certain great headings; and it is surely far more likely that Matthew collected Jesus' teaching into one whole pattern, than that Luke took the pattern and broke it up and scattered the pieces all over his gospel. And His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. So, then, what Jesus is saying is this: "The Christian never stands upon his rights; he never disputes about his legal rights; he does not consider himself to have any legal rights at all." I hunger and thirst for righteousness in this world and in my own life. We have seen the state of marriage in Palestine in the time of Jesus, but the day was soon to come when Christianity would go out far beyond Palestine, and it is necessary that we should look at the state of marriage in that wider world into which the teachings of Christianity were to go. Matthew has said as plainly as Greek will say it that the Sermon on the Mount is not one sermon of Jesus, given at one particular time and on one particular occasion; it is the essence of all that Jesus continuously and habitually taught his disciples. As to other instruction, there were facts or questions, found in Luke, which drew out the remarks of the Lord, common to him and Matthew, if not Mark. 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