Matt 5:1–12 — Teaching For Members of Christ’s Kingdom

The Sermon on the Mount occupies Matthew 5–7. Tonight I want to orient us to the sermon as a whole and consider how we should interpret it. This is not an easy portion of Scripture. There are faithful ways of preaching and applying it, but there are also harmful approaches. We will begin with two mistaken approaches and then consider the author, audience, and atmosphere of the Sermon on the Mount.

Two Mistaken Approaches

The Neonomian Approach

The first mistaken approach is what we might call the neonomian way. The word simply means “new law.” This approach preaches the Sermon on the Mount as if Jesus were reiterating the old covenant law given at Mount Sinai without any Christ-centered understanding of it.

This reading often becomes perfectionistic. After all, Jesus says at the end of Matthew 5, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). He also says, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (v. 20). If such verses are isolated from their context, the sermon can be made to sound as though Jesus is saying that we must attain perfection in order to be saved.

Other passages in Scripture can be mishandled in a similar way. First John 3:9 says, “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.” Taken by itself, this might make us think that committing any sin proves we have never been born again. Yet the opening chapter of the same letter says that if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves. John directs believers to confess their sins, with the assurance that God is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse them.

Most Christian preachers know that the Sermon on the Mount cannot teach salvation through sinless perfection. Nevertheless, it is still possible to preach it in a heavy, neonomian manner. The warnings against anger and lust in the latter half of Matthew 5 may be treated as tests by which believers should continually question whether they are regenerate. Any struggle with anger or lust then becomes grounds for doubting whether one is truly saved.

This confuses the presence of spiritual conflict with the absence of spiritual life. Jesus takes anger and lust with complete seriousness, and the believer must not excuse either one. But his purpose is not to teach that the existence of such a struggle automatically proves that a person remains outside the kingdom. A disciple may be genuinely grieved by sin, seek forgiveness, and fight against it while still falling short of the perfection to which Christ calls him.

The same problem appears when the Beatitudes are turned into commands. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The neonomian approach changes these announcements into conditions: you must first make yourself poor in spirit, pure in heart, merciful, and peaceable before you may have confidence that you will inherit the kingdom.

But the Beatitudes are not imperatives or entrance requirements. They are declarations of blessing addressed to Christ’s disciples. Jesus is saying, in effect, “Blessed are you, my disciples. You are poor in spirit, and yours is the kingdom of heaven.” This does not eliminate the ethical implications of the Beatitudes, but grace comes before those implications.

The neonomian reading destroys assurance. The entire sermon becomes a law that displays our failures without allowing us to receive its instruction as beloved disciples. It also conflicts with Jesus’ own description of his teaching in Matthew 11:28–30: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me … for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” The yoke is the teaching under which a disciple lives. Jesus calls us to learn from him, but he does not place his followers beneath a yoke of condemnation.

His yoke remains a yoke: disciples truly submit to his instruction and learn obedience from him. Yet it is the yoke of the gentle and lowly Savior who gives rest. Any interpretation that makes the sermon an unrelenting instrument of uncertainty has failed to reckon with the character of the teacher.

The Antinomian Approach

The second mistaken approach arises as a reaction against the first. We might call it the antinomian reading. It says that the Sermon on the Mount serves only to reveal how far we fall short, convict us of sin, and show us our need for Christ. On this view, it offers no positive instruction for the Christian life.

For example, Matthew 5:20—“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”—is interpreted exclusively as a reference to Christ’s imputed righteousness. The righteousness of believers exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees because Christ’s perfect righteousness is credited to us through faith alone.

The imputation of Christ’s righteousness is a true and essential doctrine. Paul teaches it clearly. But that is not Jesus’ point in this verse. Jesus is calling his disciples to a genuine way of life that exceeds the external, legalistic righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. Their righteousness did not reach the heart or arise from a sincere desire to obey God. Jesus, by contrast, teaches his disciples an obedience that begins within.

If every command in the Sermon on the Mount merely exposes our failure, the sermon gives us no positive direction for the Christian life. Yet its whole tenor shows Jesus seriously instructing disciples in how to live as members of his kingdom. He prepares them for persecution. He calls them the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He teaches them how to pray, giving them the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9–13. These are genuine instructions for Christian discipleship, not merely impossible standards intended to crush us.

When Jesus warns that his followers will be reviled and persecuted on his account, he prepares them for circumstances they will actually face. When he calls them salt and light, he assigns them a real vocation in the world. When he says, “Pray then like this,” he gives words they are meant to use. The natural force of these passages is lost if every instruction is converted into nothing more than an accusation.

The Great Commission confirms this. After his resurrection, Jesus commands the apostles to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Matthew surely intends this command to include the teaching recorded in the Sermon on the Mount. The apostles are to pass Jesus’ instruction on to new generations of disciples.

Scripture does contain occasions when Jesus uses the law primarily to expose self-righteousness and drive a sinner away from confidence in himself. The rich young ruler in Matthew 19 is a clear example. He asks what good deed he must do to have eternal life, already assuming that he can merit life through his own righteousness. Jesus directs him to the commandments. The young man confidently claims that he has kept them, so Jesus tells him to sell his possessions, give to the poor, and follow him. He goes away sorrowful because he loves his possessions. His idolatry reveals that he has not kept the law as he imagines.

This is often called the first use of the law. God’s perfect standard strips away confidence in our own righteousness, reveals our guilt, and drives us to seek righteousness in Christ. We must preserve that use of the law. The mistake is assuming that it exhausts every purpose of Christ’s teaching and leaves no place for the law as a guide to the redeemed life.

Jesus uses the law there to uncover the man’s false confidence and show him his need. But the tone and audience of that encounter differ from the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 19, Jesus addresses a proud man who trusts his own obedience. In Matthew 5–7, he addresses his disciples and teaches them how to live in his kingdom.

We should therefore avoid both errors. The Sermon on the Mount is not a new covenant of works that makes our performance the basis of salvation. Nor is it merely an impossible standard with nothing positive to say about discipleship. It is teaching for members of Christ’s kingdom. We can see this by examining its author, audience, and atmosphere.

The Author: Jesus, the New Moses

We must read the Sermon on the Mount in the context of Matthew 1–4. From the beginning of the Gospel, Jesus is presented as the Savior. The angel tells Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). The one who teaches in Matthew 5 is first of all the one who saves his people.

Matthew also presents Jesus as the true Israel. Hosea’s words, “Out of Egypt I called my son,” are fulfilled when the child Jesus returns from Egypt. At his baptism, the Father declares, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The Spirit then leads him into the wilderness to be tested. Israel was tested in the wilderness and failed, but Jesus, the true and faithful Son, passes the test.

These themes are not incidental background. They identify the speaker before we encounter his commands. The one seated on the mountain is the faithful Son who has obeyed where Israel failed and the Savior who has come to rescue his people from their sins. We must hear the sermon from his lips rather than treating it as an anonymous list of moral demands.

Jesus is also the new Moses who ascends the mountain to reveal God’s will for his people. Matthew writes, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them.” The setting deliberately recalls Moses ascending Mount Sinai to receive the law.

There is, however, an important contrast. When God descended upon Sinai, there were thunder, lightning, a thick cloud, fire, smoke, and a loud trumpet blast. The mountain trembled, and the people were terrified. They asked Moses to approach God on their behalf. In Matthew 5, Jesus ascends a mountain and his disciples draw near to him. He teaches them not from a mountain of condemnation but from a mountain of grace.

The Law in the Hand of Christ

Theologians have used the expression “the law in the hand of Christ” to describe this reality. The moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, is rooted in God’s unchanging character. Its moral content therefore remains authoritative for Christians. Jesus will address the sixth and seventh commandments—“You shall not murder” and “You shall not commit adultery”—and draw out the desires and attitudes of the heart that lie beneath them. He does not abolish their moral demands.

We must distinguish, however, between the content of the law and its covenantal context. Christians are not under the law as a covenant of works that condemns them. We receive the moral law within the covenant of grace as a gracious rule for life. Christ gives us the law from his own hand and with his own authority. As Paul writes in Galatians 6:2, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

The same command can therefore confront people in different covenantal settings. At Sinai, the law exposed transgression and pronounced its curse upon disobedience. In Christ’s hand, its moral content does not become less holy, but it comes to people whom he has redeemed from condemnation. The law now describes the grateful obedience of those who belong to him. This distinction allows us to uphold the commandments without placing believers back under a covenant of works.

The seventeenth-century Puritan Samuel Bolton expressed it well:

We are freed from the law, as given by Moses, and are only tied to the obedience of it, as it is given in Christ: and though … we are subject to those commands and that law which Moses gave, yet not as he gave it, but as Christ renews it, and as it comes out of his hand and from his authority. … We look not to Sinai, the hill of bondage, but to Zion, the mountain of grace.

The symbolism of Jesus going up the mountain identifies him as the new Moses, but he gives the law within a different covenantal setting. He does not pronounce condemnation upon those who have been united to him. He shows his redeemed people how he desires them to live.

The author of the Sermon on the Mount is therefore Jesus: the Savior, the true Israel, and the new Moses. His teaching is not designed to make believers despair over whether they are saved, nor may it be reduced to a reminder of imputed righteousness. Christ gives it for our sanctification and growth in grace.

The Audience: Members of Christ’s Kingdom

The audience of the Sermon on the Mount consists of the followers of Jesus, the members of his kingdom. Although the crowds are nearby and may hear his words, Matthew explicitly says that the disciples came to Jesus and that “he taught them.” The sermon is addressed to disciples.

The context of Matthew 4 confirms this. Jesus proclaims, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He then calls Simon Peter, Andrew, James, and John, saying, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” When he sits down upon the mountain, he teaches those who have answered his call and begun to follow him as members of his kingdom of grace.

References throughout the sermon presuppose this audience. Jesus says, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you … falsely on my account” (Matt. 5:11). They will suffer because they are identified with him. This anticipates the identity later expressed by the word Christian: those who bear Christ’s name and belong to him.

Jesus also contrasts his hearers with the Gentiles. “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matt. 5:47). He later says, “When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do” (Matt. 6:7), and tells his disciples not to be anxious about food and clothing because “the Gentiles seek after all these things” (v. 32). In this context, “Gentiles” refers not simply to non-Jews but to those outside the kingdom who do not know God as Father.

The contrast would make little sense if Jesus were merely describing how an unbeliever might qualify for entrance into the kingdom. He speaks to people who already stand on the inside and teaches them not to imitate the unbelieving world. Their conduct is to display the distinctive life of those who know the living God.

The sermon also refers repeatedly to “brothers,” indicating life within the community of disciples. Jesus warns against anger toward a brother and commands reconciliation before worship (Matt. 5:22–24). He tells his disciples first to remove the log from their own eye before addressing the speck in a brother’s eye (Matt. 7:3–5). This is instruction for relationships among the people of God.

The immediate audience included the first disciples, but the sermon was never intended for them alone. In the Great Commission, Jesus commands those disciples to make more disciples and teach them to observe everything he commanded. The instruction of Matthew 5–7 therefore extends to every generation of Christ’s followers.

Later portions of Matthew develop themes introduced here and apply them to the church. Matthew 18 expands upon reconciliation when a brother sins. The parable of the unforgiving servant teaches that those who have received great forgiveness must forgive others, echoing Matthew 6:14–15. The teaching about divorce in Matthew 19 expands upon the briefer instruction in Matthew 5:31–32. Matthew’s development of these themes confirms that the Sermon on the Mount provides enduring instruction for the community of Christian disciples.

Jesus is describing the way his followers ought to live as members of his kingdom. The commands are not merely an unreachable ideal. They are teaching that Christians should seriously seek to obey, though always within the grace of the kingdom into which Christ has already brought them.

The Atmosphere: Grace

The atmosphere of the Sermon on the Mount is one of grace. Matthew 4:17 and 23 provide the setting. Jesus announces, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and Matthew describes his ministry as “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.” The arrival of the kingdom is good news because the King comes bringing salvation.

When Jesus sits down with his disciples in Matthew 5, he teaches people who have already been called into this kingdom of salvation and grace. That gospel atmosphere undergirds the entire sermon.

Blessings, Not Conditions

Jesus begins with the Beatitudes before he interprets the commandments or instructs the disciples in righteous living. The word beatitude means blessing. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” “Blessed are those who mourn.” “Blessed are the meek.” These are not commands or conditions for earning the kingdom. They announce blessings already received through grace.

The first and eighth Beatitudes form a frame around the whole series. Verse 3 says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Verse 10 says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The present tense is important: the kingdom already belongs to them.

The kingdom certainly has a future fulfillment. When Christ returns, believers will receive glorified bodies and live forever in the new creation. Yet it is also a present possession. Those who come to Christ in faith already belong to his kingdom. Jesus begins by telling his disciples what they possess before telling them what they must do.

The Beatitudes do have ethical implications. “Blessed are the peacemakers” implies that disciples should pursue peace, and Jesus will explain that calling when he addresses anger and retaliation. But the imperative rests upon the prior blessing. He does not say, “Become a peacemaker so that you may earn adoption.” He says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

Because the Beatitudes are phrased in the third person—“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—we may mistakenly read them as conditions applying to an undefined class of people. Luke’s parallel account makes the personal address clear: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20). Matthew himself shifts into the second person in verse 11: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you.” Jesus is speaking blessings over the disciples before him.

He begins with grace and then calls them to live in its light. They have received the kingdom because they have received its King. Their obedience does not purchase this blessing; it flows from it.

Your Father in Heaven

The repeated references to God as the disciples’ Father also establish this atmosphere of grace. Eleven times in Matthew 5–7, Jesus speaks of “your Father.” He tells his disciples to let their light shine so that others may see their good works and glorify “your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). He teaches them to practice righteousness before their Father rather than seeking praise from other people. Their Father sees in secret, knows their needs before they ask, provides for them, and gives good gifts to those who seek him.

This theme runs through the sermon’s practical instruction. Believers may love their enemies because they are sons of the Father who shows common kindness even to the evil and unjust. They may pray and fast without performing for an audience because their Father sees what is done in secret. They may refuse anxiety because their Father knows their needs. The commands are repeatedly grounded in an existing relationship of divine care.

Most famously, Jesus teaches them to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” The disciples do not obey in order to persuade God to adopt them. God already is their Father. Through Christ they have been received as sons and daughters, reconciled to God, and welcomed into his household.

This changes the whole character of obedience. We do not approach God as an angry judge waiting to cast us away after one mistake. We approach him as a Father who has forgiven our sins and welcomed us into his kingdom. We need not walk on eggshells, anxiously trying to achieve perfection. We may rest in his love and, out of trust, gratitude, and love, seek to live in a way that pleases him.

Rest and effort are not opposites in the Christian life. Resting in the Father’s acceptance frees us from the frantic labor of trying to establish our own worth. From that security comes a sincere desire to honor him. The obedience Christ commands is filial obedience—the response of children who know they are loved—not the labor of servants trying to earn a place in the household.

This gracious foundation also explains the sermon’s emphasis on mercy and forgiveness. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy” (Matt. 5:7). In the Lord’s Prayer, disciples ask, “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Those who know themselves as needy recipients of mercy are called to extend mercy to others.

A High Standard and a Gracious Savior

The antinomian reading contains a measure of truth: the standard of the Sermon on the Mount is extraordinarily high. Jesus’ teaching reaches beyond outward conduct to the motives and desires of the heart. Ultimately, the sermon portrays the perfect character of Christ himself. He is pure in heart. He refused retaliation and loved his enemies even while they persecuted him.

None of us embodies this character perfectly. The sermon therefore does expose our sin and send us to Christ for forgiveness. But we do not stop after saying, “At least Christ’s righteousness is imputed to me, so the commands no longer matter.” We also ask him for sanctifying grace. The Savior who forgives progressively renews his people so that, in small but genuine measure, they begin to display his character.

The Sermon on the Mount sets Christ’s perfect character before us as the pattern to which we are called. We pursue that pattern not to enter his kingdom, but because by grace we already belong to it. We will never reach perfection in this life, so we continue to depend upon Christ for both forgiveness and growth. As Jesus declares, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”