Matthew 7:28

Matthew 7:28

I. Note some characteristics which the Sermon on the Mount possesses. (1) The wonderful literary beauty of the language cannot have been unobserved by any one. (2) We have all marked the desultory arrangement, and the apparently disconnected progress of ideas. (3) From beginning to end there is no allusion in it to the atonement made by our Redeemer. Christ is here as the preaching prophet, not in any disclosure as the atoning priest. (4) The history of the sermon affords a conspicuous example of the way in which men sometimes pervert God's Word. For those sceptical moralists who reject the notion of sin of the awful curse denounced on sin and due to it, of the need and provision of a ransom for sin calmly and superciliously appeal away from all warning by saying, "Our sufficient creed is the Sermon on the Mount." Most of us would admit this statement, for we remember a startling and supernatural reach of requirement in this discourse: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

II. What was the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount? (1) We find in it the description of a character. The Sermon on the Mount pictures a character perfectly easy to recognize anywhere, if we could meet it. (2) We find in this discourse a rule of life. It is a thing to be acted and breathed, as well as read and quoted. Jesus of Nazareth lived this wonderful discourse. He put it forth to be lived by everybody under the New Testament dispensation. (3) We find here, likewise, a standard of spiritual and experimental attainment. (4) We find in this sermon an instrument of condemnation. It is astonishing that any man can take comfort in turning away from the Gospel scheme of atonement, and resting on this sermon for peace; for there are verses in it crowded and awful with monitions of coming wrath. (5) We find in this discourse an incitement to holiness.

C. S. Robinson, Sermons on Neglected Texts,p. 248.

References: Matthew 7:28. Parker, Inner Life of Christ,vol. i., p. 288. Matthew 7:28; Matthew 7:29. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 284.