PRELIMINARY LESSONS
The Sermon on the Mount as it is popularly styled, though the title always seems inadequate and poor — was delivered specially to the disciples. The first and second verses of the fifth chapter of Matthew very clearly declare this, "And seeing the multitudes he went up into the mountain; and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth and taught them saying." The multitude followed and gathered round this little group of Teacher and taught, but the teaching was for the disciples only — that is, for such as were brought into those necessary relations, of which our first article spoke, and so could follow and in some measure receive the wondrous words. In actual experience the teaching of this sermon is very far in advance even of this advanced age. Men have hardly begun to guess at the glory and beauty of this wonderful ideal, but in relation to the Teacher it is elementary and preliminary. All the wealth of His knowledge — knowledge that He is waiting to impart — lies beyond anything said here. Here He deals with the first ideals of true life, and reveals to men the divine purpose for them today. These are His "first lessons." Any exhaustive dealing with all the wonderful and delicate detail is impossible, and it is not indeed the purpose of this article. A general analysis of the whole, that we may catch its sweep and scope, and obtain an outline of the system, is what is possible and necessary. We shall now proceed to this consideration, noticing seven points of importance. This article should be taken with your Bible as your companion, tracing the teaching therein.
1. SUPREMACY OF CHARACTER (Matt. 5:1-12). The very first word that falls from His lips is a revelation of the will of God for man. "Blessed." "Happy." “Born Again.” That is the divine thought and intention for us.
Sorrow, tears, pain, disappointment, all these may be, and are, of inestimable value in the Father's discipline; but they are means to an end, made necessary by man's sin. The end, in the purpose of God is blessedness. Happiness is that after which all men in every age seek, and the first note in the Savior’s teaching reveals it, as what God is seeking also. How, then, is it to be realized? This section contains the Master's answer. Men hold two views of what happiness consists: having and doing. To possess much, or to do some great thing, constitutes the sum of human blessedness according to popular theory. Our Teacher sweeps these conceptions away by absolutely ignoring them. No "blessed" of His light up for man either the "having" or "doing" of man. Being is everything. A man's happiness depends upon what he is in himself. These "blessed’s" of Jesus touch human life in its lowliest phases, and reveal the highest possibilities even for such. Henceforth for the disciples of Jesus themselves, and for a basis of their estimate of others, character is to be utmost. There is infinite tenderness in this on its positive side, and it is stern and inexorable on the negative. Such teaching will produce lives running contrary to all worldly estimate and custom, and discipleship will mean persecution, and so the Teacher adds a "blessed" for those who suffer through character.
2. INFLUENCE THE INTENTION (5:13-16). This grows out of the former, and is at once the statement of a fact and the declaration of an intention. The fact is that character tells upon others. If a man lives in the atmosphere of the beatitudes of Jesus, his life being of the character described, he will, apart from any effort along the line of actual work, exert certain influences. This is not only a fact; it is part of the divine intention. Salt savor less light under a bushel, are worse than useless; that is, however, the statement of an impossible hypothesis. Savor less salt ceases to be salt. Light under a bushel goes out. The Master intends us to understand this, and hence the terrific force of His figures of speech.
These symbols mark for us distinctly the influence that the blessed life exerts. Salt is antiseptic, pungent, preventing the spread of corruption, and making that portion where health borders on disease start. Remember absolute corruption never smarts. When men start under the influence of the antiseptic life of righteousness, it is a sign for which we should be thankful, conscience is not altogether dead, they are not "past feeling." The disciples then are to be salt, preventing corruption, and arousing the dormant sense of health. Light is here used, I think, in its sense of guidance. Men are groping after God in this age with no light of their own by which to find Him. Your life is to be a light, by the aid of which men come to glorify God. Let no man whose life fails to be antiseptic, and never helps another God ward, imagine himself living within the circle of beatitudes.
3. THE NEW MORAL CODE (5:17-48). Having thus seen the utmost of character as the secret of happiness and the source of influence, we ask what are the laws which govern the development of such character The new code of ethics is startling. The Mosaic law of conduct was easy to obey when compared to this. The former is done away in the sense in which the less is included in the greater. Greater it surely is. Let this section be carefully read, remembering the following points:
1. The righteousness of the disciples is to exceed that of the Pharisees, as inner purity exceeds external whiteness.
2. Gifts on the altar do not expiate wrongdoing.
3. To look on sin with desire is sin; in other words, Suppression of sin is still sin, because it recognizes the presence of a principle antagonistic to God and excuses it.
4. Retaliation is forbidden, and love is to be the one law of relative life. No one can reverently study this ideal of life without seeing the necessity for the fulfilling of the conditions of entrance to discipleship.
4. SELF-STRICKEN (6). This article may, and undoubtedly does, contain very much teaching along other lines, but the underlying principle is that of self-abnegation. Note how the injunctions run counter to every popular idea of life:
1. Alms are to be given privately, not blazoned abroad.
2. Prayer is preeminently a matter between the soul and God; certainly not to be a means of advertising self's piety.
3. Men are still to fast, but with glad face, not "appearing" so to do, so that self is to have no glory for its denial of itself.
4. Wealth is not to be held, except on trust.
5. Self is to be smitten so that anxiety concerning necessities cannot exist. Surely never were self-consideration and self-consciousness so smitten hip and thigh as here.
5. RELATIVE CHARITY (7:1-5). The consideration of my brother's fault is to drive me to self-examination rather that to the passing of judgment on him. I am ever to count my fault a beam and his a mote.
6. THE OPEN TREASURE HOUSE (7:7-14). With what light and glory of tender love does this section come to us. Just as one's spirit is in danger of being overwhelmed with the sense of the impossibility of realizing such ideals, He reveals to us the wealth that lies at our disposal in the love and power of the Father, and in simplest and best understood words, He reveals our privilege in that matter. "Ask." "Seek." "Knock." For daily help remember the acrostic here. Take the preliminary letters A, S, K, and reflect that the words for which they stand reveal the secret combination that admits us into the treasure house of love, where there is stored for us all that we need for the realization of the ideal.
7. WARNING (7:15-23). What solemn words of warning are these. Siren voices will seek to lure us. No teaching but His can produce the true character. The truth of every message is to be tested by the life of the Teacher, and if failure is found there, we are to know him for "false" no matter how cleverly the sheep's clothing conceals the devouring wolf. How careful we need to be, lest all should be marred by our being drawn aside by specious teaching which is contrary to His will.
These lessons are all preliminary, lying at the very foundation of all Christ has to teach men. In proportion as they are realized He is able to lead us forward to deeper truths. These principles cannot be carried out in any country except where the King hood of Jesus is recognized, and men are His disciples. None except disciples can understand, much less obey His teaching. The crowds leaving the mountain were impressed with the authority of the teaching, but they were not captivated with its beauty, for all this was beyond their comprehension. Christianity did not come by force of arms, nor could it. Christianity will never come by act of Parliament or Congress. The wisest of earth's scholars, and the most astute of her politicians, can lift no finger to help the Kingdom of God unless by coming in to the school of Jesus, and learning of Him by the in-shining of the Holy Spirit. That lonely, laboring soul in back court, or isolated village, or far-off heathen hut, who is spelling out under the unique Teacher the lessons of this great deliverance, and so building character on these sayings of His, is doing more to realize on earth the Kingdom of God, and so to bring the golden age, than all the company of diplomats and politicians, who are forgetful in all practical things of the Nazarene. To the learning of these first great lessons, let us set ourselves with all submission of spirit and surrender of life.
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