The Sermon on the Mount is undoubtedly the most famous sermon ever preached. Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5–7 contains the most familiar phrases in the Bible: the Beatitudes, salt and light, loving your enemies, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Golden Rule. Even many non-Christians recognize these teachings, even if they are unaware of their origin. If we want to understand what it looks like to follow Christ, these three chapters provide a clear picture of the sermon on the mount happiness pathway.
Despite its fame, scholars often disagree on its interpretation. One researcher cited thirty-six different perspectives, while others list numerous incorrect approaches before arriving at a conclusion. Even when Christians agree on the literal meaning, they often debate how to apply these instructions. Many approach these chapters like a boxing match, feeling as though each verse is designed to pummel them into submission. From warnings against anger to instructions on lust and earthly treasures, it can feel as though the text is intended solely to highlight our failures.
Making Sense of the Mountain Message
But is conviction of failure the primary purpose of this teaching? Was Jesus calling his disciples to a life of unremitting struggle, or is there a more hopeful way to view his words? By examining the Sermon on the Mount in its proper context, we discover that it is actually a profound sermon on the mount human flourishing pathway designed to lead us toward true life.
First, we should note that the Sermon on the Mount is part of a larger pattern in Matthew’s Gospel. The Sermon on the Mount is special because it is such a large chunk of uninterrupted teaching from Jesus. It’s also special because of the attention Christians have given it throughout the years. But in another sense, it’s one of many distinct teaching sections in Matthew’s Gospel. After an opening prologue about Jesus’s origin and birth (Matt. 1:1–2:23), Matthew organizes his material into five sections, each having the same pattern: a narrative about the kingdom, then a discourse about the kingdom, then a transition statement into the next section.
- Section 1: The introduction of the kingdom (narrative 2:1–4:25; discourse 5:1–7:29; transition 7:28–29)
- Section 2: The in-breaking of the kingdom (narrative 8:1–10:4; discourse 10:5–11:1; transition 11:1)
- Section 3: Opposition to the kingdom (narrative 11:2–12:50; discourse 13:1–53; transition 13:53)
- Section 4: Division on account of the kingdom (narrative 13:54–17:27; discourse 18:1–19:2; transition 19:1–2)
- Section 5: Seeming defeat and the ultimate triumph of the kingdom (narrative 19:3–23:39; discourse 24:1–25:46; transition 26:1–5)
After these five sections, we have a conclusion focusing on Jesus’s death and resurrection to mirror the prologue, which focused on Jesus’s origin and birth. The book ends with a summons to take the commands of Jesus and go make disciples of all nations.
Interesting, you say, but what does this have to do with how we interpret the Sermon on the Mount? Well, if the Sermon on the Mount is part of the larger structure and progression in Matthew’s Gospel, then we can’t make the sermon about something other than what the rest of the book is about. Matthew is clearly not about a legalistic summons to earn your way into heaven. After all, we read from the beginning that Jesus came to save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). But neither is Matthew about Jesus’s plan to teach about a kingdom no one can enter, lay out a course of discipleship that no one can pass, and make commands that no one can really follow. When the book ends with Jesus telling the eleven disciples to teach all that he has commanded, there is no asterisk that says, “Ha, ha, but obviously no one can really obey any of my commandments.”
This leads to the second principle we must keep in mind as we approach and apply the Sermon on the Mount: the sermon is about the kingdom. We see this in the opening and closing of these chapters (Matt. 5:3; 7:21–23) and all throughout the sermon (5:10, 17–20; 6:10, 33). The Sermon on the Mount is the explication of what it means to repent and receive the gospel of the kingdom (4:17, 23). Jesus’s message is not about building the kingdom, creating the kingdom, or expanding the kingdom. It’s about his people living like God’s reign and rule have come into their lives.
Third, the Sermon on the Mount is also about discipleship. While the crowds had once again gathered to hear Jesus by the end of Matthew 7, the sermon explicitly began as an opportunity to teach Jesus’s disciples (5:1). We import later theological content into the term disciple and assume that these are regenerate, justified believers. By disciple, at this point in Jesus’s ministry, he simply means those who are following Jesus from place to place and are eager to hear what he has to say. The Sermon on the Mount answers the question, “What does this kingdom stuff involve? What is it like to be a follower of Jesus?”
Fourth, the Sermon on the Mount is a reapplication of God’s law. The first several chapters of Matthew draw a number of parallels between Jesus and Moses. There is the death threat by a jealous king, the coming out of Egypt, the crossing of the Jordan River (like the Red Sea), the wilderness temptations for forty days (like Israel endured for forty years), and the going up on a mountain to receive instructions from God’s lawgiver. Jesus is the new Moses deepening the force of the Ten Commandments and explaining what it looks like to live as a kingdom of priests. To be sure, the Sermon on the Mount, like the Ten Commandments, reveals our need for a Savior, but it does more than that. It also shows us how we should live as God’s people.
Excerpted from Impossible Christianity by Kevin DeYoung, ©2023. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.