Bible Commentaries

The Beatitudes Illustrated By Events in the Passion

Matthew 5:1-2

I. The Sermon on the Mount was spoken to the Disciples, to the Church.—It has been so truly said, the Sermon on the Mount was spoken in the ear of the Church but was overheard by the world. The Sermon on the Mount was not, then, primarily spoken to the world at all. Again and again it is true that the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is beyond those who belong to the kingdom of this world. Our Lord's teaching with regard to forgiveness or resisting evil, or with regard to the simplicity of faith, all these things are confessedly beyond those who belong to the kingdom of the world. But these things are spoken to those who are members of the Body of Christ, in grace, living and walking in the Spirit. When you are dealing with the world at large, then again it may be necessary to make concessions as Moses had to do. It becomes difficult when you speak not only of the State but of the Christian State; the State cannot require the same standard from its members that the Church can and does require from its members. The Sermon on the Mount, let us remember, was spoken to the Church. It was not so impracticable as it seems, because we work not on the scale of time, but on the scale of eternity. No doubt it is true that if the few and evil years of this life were all that you and I had to reckon upon, it would be frankly absurd to set before us such a standard as that in the Sermon on the Mount. Do you not feel and understand how that the Sermon on the Mount does correspond with your own immortality? It is not only here that we progress and grow; there is a Paradise, a heaven beyond, and depend upon it Paradise will be a busy place indeed; there they rest from their labours, but there there will be work, if we may say Matthew 5:1-2

In a letter to the Westminster Gazette (7 June, 1904), an Old Liberal declares that he can reproduce with absolute fidelity the purport and spirit of some words in a great speech of John Bright at the unveiling of Cobden's statue in the Bradford Exchange. "I remember," said the orator, "on the morning of my dear friend's funeral, I was standing beside his coffin, looking at that which contained all that was mortal of the man I had known so long. His daughter, who was in the room with me, said, "My dear father was always very fond of the Sermon on the Mount"." And then Bright's voice swelled and grew in depth and volume as it was wont to do when he was deeply moved, and he went on, "And I think that my friend's whole life was a sermon upon that highest and holiest of all texts". He repeated, as only he could have done, the blessings uttered by the Divine lips upon the poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungerers after righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers; and then, in his own severely simple words, summed up the labours of Cobden and his associates in a single phrase, "We tried to put Holy Writ to an Act of Parliament".

References.—V:1 , 2.—G. Jackson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. Matthew 5:2

There are no real pleasures without real needs.

—Voltaire.

No list of circumstances will ever make a paradise.

—George Eliot.

In the ninth chapter of the second book of Sartor Resartus, Carlyle distinguishes happiness and blessedness as follows: "I asked myself: What is this that, ever since earliest years, thou hast been fretting and fuming, and lamenting and self-tormenting, on account of? Say it in a word: Is it not because thou art not happy? Because the thou (sweet gentleman) is not sufficiently honoured, nourished, soft-bedded, and lovingly cared for? Foolish soul! what Act of Legislature was there that thou shouldst be Happy?... There is in man a higher than Love of Happiness: he can do without Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach forth this same higher that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, in all times, have spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, through life and through death, of the Godlike that is in Matthew 5:3

I. The Old Testament is full of descriptions of the spirit of the world, the spirit of selfish wealth with its attendant cruelty: and by contrast to this are descriptions of the oppressed poor who are the friends of God. Our Lord took up all this language upon His own lips when, as St. Luke records, He turned to His disciples and said, "Blessed are ye poor... woe unto you that are rich". But all the actually poor are not the disciples of Christ. So our Lord has, as recorded by St. Matthew 5:3

I. It seems to me that this foundation beatitude, on which all the other beatitudes are built up, sets forth a universal law of human life, that it describes the attitude of mind characteristic of the wisest, strongest, best of the human family. The greater a man is in any walk of life the wider his vision, and the keener his insight the greater is his poverty of spirit in the presence of the perfection he has seen.

1. The thesis may be worked out in detail. Take the man of science in the presence of the majesty of nature.

Look at the same thing from the point of view of art.

2. The presence of poverty of spirit is still more manifest in the moral sphere. Here, too, the contrast between the ideal and the real, between what ought to be and what Matthew 5:3

Poverty in any shape helps to stir in man a sense of need, a disposition to consider himself as dependent.... The real puzzle of life consists not in the fact of widespread poverty but in that of widespread affluence; in the fact that so many are sufficiently endowed with "goods" as to believe they can live by them, and so cease to look for their true life to God their Father.

—E. Lyttelton.

References.—V:3.—J. Brett, The Blessed Life, p7. J. Iverach, The Other Side of Greatness, p1. J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, pp23 , 54. W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxviii. p3. J. Stalker, ibid. vol. lvi1899 , p379. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p113. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p50. W. H. Hutchings, Sermon-Sketches, p42. C. J. Ridgeway, The Mountain of Blessedness, p12. A. W. Potts, School Sermons, p64. Henry Wace, Christianity and Morality, p17. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p108. W. Sanday, The Anglican Pulpit of Today, p334. F. Temple, ibid. p83. W. Boyd Carpenter, The Great Charter of Christ, p83. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii. (Sermon-Sketches), p12. B. F. Westcott, Social Aspects of Christianity, p101. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p27. Parker, The Inner Life of Christ, vol. i. p149. Davidson, Lectures and Sermons, p551. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p209. Jenkins, Eternal Life, p258. Magee, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii. p353 (1872). Expositor (1Series), vol. i. pp70 , 128 , and196. A. M. Fairbairn, ibid. vol. viii. p188. Bradley, Christian World Pulpit, 29 June, 1881. C. Morris, Preacher's Lantern, vol. iii. p503. A. B. Bruce, The Galilean Gospel, p39. Goodwin's Works, vol. viii. p220. Parker, A Homiletic Analysis of the New Testament, vol. i. p52. See Prof. Tholuck, Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. V:3 , 4.—Archbishop Lang, Church Times, vol. lvii1907 , p219. V:3-5.—C. J. Vaughan, Characteristics of Christ's Teaching, p1. T. D. Barlow, Rays from the Sun of Righteousness, p130. V:3-12.—W. Boyd Carpenter, The Great Charter of Christ, p101. V:3-16.—J. Elder Cumming, The Blessed Life, p11.

The Second Beatitude

Matthew 5:4

The world says "Get as much pleasure as you can out of life; suck it in wherever you can; and hug yourself as close as you can from all that disquiets you or makes you uncomfortable; in a word, get as much pleasure and avoid as much pain as by intelligence and forethought you can possibly do". In startling opposition to this maxim of the world, our Lord puts His maxim, "Blessed are they that mourn". I. What does that mean? Briefly: there are two chief kinds of mourning into which it is the duty of every true servant of our Lord to enter—the mourning for sin and the mourning for pain.

1. We must mourn for sin, for we are sinners.

2. The mourning of sympathy with others" pain. There are moments when a Christian may legitimately, like His Lord, in the garden of Gethsemane, be engrossed in the bearing of "his own burden". But in the main a Christian ought, like his Lord, or like St. Paul, to have his own burden so well in hand, that he is able to leave the large spaces of his heart for other people to lay their sorrows upon.

II. And in proportion to the fullness with which you enter into penitence for sin and into sympathy for the sufferings of men, you shall get, not the miserable laughter of forgetfulness, which lasts but for a moment, but the comfort (or encouragement) of God.

III. There is a false as well as a true mourning. It is possible to be discontented with the world but to lack the courage of faith which makes our discontent fruitful of reform. We are discontented; but our discontent is pride, not the humility of true sorrow. It will not be comforted, it will not thankfully take the Divine offer of absolution. The "woman that was a sinner" made no delay in believing herself forgiven, but set to work at once to show the love which springs of gratitude in the heart of those who accept their release.

—Bishop Gore, The Sermon on the Mount, p27.

Matthew 5:4

We reach happiness only through tears. True bliss does not consist in the absence of tears but in the presence of consolation, and real misery is not so much to weep as to weep without being consoled. If Christianity accords moments to sorrow, it devotes our whole life to joy.

—Vinet.

References.—V:4.—J. Brett, The Blessed Life, p35. W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxviii1890 , p95. W. Wynn, ibid. vol. xxxix1891 , p179. George Macdonald, ibid. vol. xlii1892 , p47. F. W. Farrar, ibid. vol. xlvii1895 , p33. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p139. J. Wright, The Guarded Gate, p29. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p45. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p24. C. J. Ridgeway, The Mountain of Blessedness, p57. J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p65. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p117. E. M. Goulburn, Three Counsels of the Divine Master, vol. i. p118.

The Third Beatitude

Matthew 5:5

I. The world says "Stand up for your rights; make the most of yourself; don"t let any man put upon you". And so we are always standing on our dignity, always thinking ourselves insulted or imposed upon. "Blessed are the meek," our Lord says. The meek—that is manifestly those who are ready to be put upon as far as they themselves are concerned. This is the character of our Lord, Who, "when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously".

II. Of course, from another point of view, we may be quite bound from time to time to assert ourselves. We may have to assert ourselves for the sake of the moral order of the Church and of the world. But no one gets true peace, or has really got to the foundation of things, until, as far as his own dignity is concerned, he is in a position to say, You can wrong God and you can wrong society; and it may be my duty to stand up for God and for society; but me, as far as I am concerned, you cannot provoke. This is the ideal to which we have to attain.

III. And the result of this entire absence of self-assertion is that we can make no claim on the world which God will not at the last substantiate. "Blessed are the meek"—our Lord is here quoting the Psalm—" for they shall inherit the earth". What is an heir? An heir is a person who enters into rightful possession. Now, if we go about the world making claims on society which God does not authorize, refusing to bear what God will have us bear, the day will come when the true Master appears, and we shall be exposed to shame. But the meek, who have committed themselves to Him that judgeth righteously, have nothing to fear. "Friend, come up higher," is all that is before them. They will simply, in steady and royal advance, enter into the full heritage of that which men kept back from them, but God has in store for them.

—Bishop Gore, The Sermon on the Mount, p32.

Matthew 5:5

The history of the world confirms the prophecy that the meek shall inherit the earth. A nation that sells its birthright of peace, and backslides from the front rank of industrialism into the file of filibusterism, makes a poor bargain indeed.

—From Prof. Nitobe"s, Bushido, pp186 , 187.

When have we ever before held such a clew to the meaning of Christ's Sermon on the Mount? "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." In the cruel strife of centuries has it not often seemed as if the earth were to be rather the prize of the hardest heart and the strongest fist? To many men these words of Christ have been as foolishness and as a stumbling-block, and the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount have been openly derided as too good for this world.... It is none the less true that when once the degree of civilization is such as to allow this highest type of character, distinguished by its meekness and kindness, to take root and thrive, its methods are incomparable in their potency.—Fiske, Man's Destiny, chap. xv.

Could the world unite in the practice of that despised train of virtues, which the Divine ethics of our Saviour hath so inculcated upon us, the furious face of things must disappear; Eden would be yet to be found, and the angels might look down, not with pity, but joy upon us.

—Sir Thomas Browne, Christian Morals.

The declaration of our Saviour that the meek shall inherit the earth may be understood, I think, as verified in the very nature and attributes of meekness. The dross of the earth the meek do not inherit; but all the true enjoyments, the Matthew 5:5

Say what you will of Pietism, no one can deny the sterling worth of the characters which it formed. It gave to them the highest thing that man can possess—that peace, that cheerful spirit, that inner harmony with self which can be disturbed by no passion. No pressure of circumstances or persecution of men could make them discontented, no rivalry could provoke them to anger and bitterness. Even the casual observer was touched with an involuntary feeling of respect before such men. I yet remember what happened on one occasion when difficulties arose between the strap-makers and the saddlers in regard to their respective rights. My father's interests were seriously affected; yet even in conversation the difference was discussed by my parents with such tolerance and indulgence towards the opposite party, and with such a fixed trust in Providence, that, boy as I then was, the memory of it will never leave me.

—Kant.

Describing the character of Mr. Robert Cunningham, minister of Holywood in Ireland during the early part of the seventeenth century, Livingstone declares that "he was the one man to my discerning, of all that ever I saw, who resembled most the meekness of Jesus Christ in his whole carriage, and was so far reverenced by all, even the most wicked, that he was oft troubled with that Scripture, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you! ""

References.—V:5.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p126. J. Brett, The Blessed Life, p22. W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxviii1890 , p134. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p163. E. M. Goulburn, Three Counsels of the Divine Master, vol. i. p133. S. A. Tipple, Sunday Mornings at Norwood, p65. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p61. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p66. C. J. Ridgeway, The Mountain of Blessedness, p34. J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p74.

The Fourth Beatitude

Matthew 5:6

I. The citizens of the new kingdom "hunger and thirst after righteousness". Everyone knows what appetite Matthew 5:6

Grace is a nourishment, and the richness of its sustaining quality is determined by one thing alone—the genuineness of our desire.

—E. Lyttelton.

References.—V:6.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxv. No2103. G. Salmon, Gnosticism and Agnosticism, p124. C. J. Vaughan, Characteristics of Christ's Teaching, p18. C. G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes, p398. W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxviii1890 , p228. Canon Duckworth, ibid. vol. xlii1892 , p303. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p189. J. S. Swan, Short Sermons, p48. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p81. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p75. C. J. Ridgeway, The Mountain of Blessedness, p47. J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p81. J. K. Popham, Sermons, p1. E. M. Goulburn, Three Counsels of the Divine Master, p144. J. Brett, The Blessed Life, p47. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p135. V:6-8.—T. Disney Barlow, Rays from the Sun of Righteousness, p148.

The Fifth Beatitude

Matthew 5:7

Of course wherever human misery Matthew 5:7

You will find, alike through the record of the Law and the promises of the Gospel, that there Matthew 5:8

I. There is such a thing, according to the Holy Scriptures, as heart purity; that is to say, there is such a thing as a state of the human heart, in which the Matthew 5:8

I. If we are to take part in the kingdom, there must be singleness of purpose. Purity of heart Matthew 5:8

"Hold off from sensuality," says Cicero, "for if you have given yourself up to it, you will find yourself unable to think of anything else." That is morality. "Blessed are the pure in heart," says Jesus Christ; "for they shall see God." That is religion.

—Matthew Arnold.

As I myself look at it, there is no fault nor folly of my life—and both have been many and great—that does not rise up against me, and take away my joy, and shorten my power of possession, of sight, of understanding. And every past effort of my life, every gleam of lightness or good in it, is with me now, to help me in my grasp of this heart, and its vision.

—Ruskin.

"Intuition," said Amiel, "is the recompense of inward purity."

The remark has often been made that the preeminent, the winning, the irresistible Christian virtues, were charity and chastity. Perhaps the chastity was an even more winning virtue than the charity; it offered to the Pagan world, at any rate, relief from a more oppressive, a more consuming, a more intolerable bondage. Chief among the beatitudes, shone, no doubt, this pair: 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; and of these two, the second blessing may have brought even the greater boon.... Perhaps there is no doctrine of Christianity which is exposed to more trial amongst us now, certainly there is none which will be exposed, so far as from present appearances one can Matthew 5:9

I. Christ is the Prince of Peace. He brings about peace among men, breaking down all middle walls of partition between classes and races and individuals, by making them first of all at peace with God—atonement among men by way of atonement with God. This is the only secure basis of peace. There are many kinds of false and superficial peace, which the Prince of Peace only comes to break up. "I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword." Peace can never be purchased in God's way by the sacrifice of truth. But peace in the truth we, like our Master, must be for ever pursuing.

II. Do we habitually remember how it offends our Lord to see divisions in the Christian Church, nations nominally Christian armed to the teeth against one another, class against class and individual against individual in fierce and relentless competition, jealousies among clergy and church workers, communicants who forget that the sacrament of union with Christ is the sacrament of union also with their fellow-men?

III. Christians are to be makers of Christ's peace. Something we can all do to reconcile individuals, families, classes, churches, nations. The question Matthew 5:9

"The Lord," said Dr. A. A. Bonar, "does not use me, like His servant, Dr. Chalmers, for great things, but my way of serving the Lord is walking three or four miles to quiet a family dispute."

Just before his death, Cobden and a friend were walking through St. Paul's Cathedral, when the latter observed that perhaps the name of Cobden one day might be ranked among those heroes. "I hope not" Cobden said, "I hope not. My spirit could not rest in peace among these men of war."

He was an happy reconciler of many differences in the families of his friends and kindred—which he never undertook faintly; for such undertakings have usually faint effects—and they had such faith in his judgment and impartiality, that he never advised them to anything in vain.

—Izaak Walton, Life of Dr. Donne.

Compare Sir Philip Warwick's account of Hampden's conduct in a Parliamentary debate. "We had catched at each other's locks, and sheathed our swords in each other's bowels, had not the sagacity and great; calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a short speech, prevented it, and led us to defer our angry debate until the next morning."

"This great gift also," says Augustine, "hadst Thou bestowed on Thy good servant, in whose womb Thou, did"st create me, O my God, my Mercy: wherever she could, she showed herself such a peacemaker between factious and quarrelsome people, that, although she listened to many a bitter word from both sides, such as swelling anger pours forth against an absent enemy in the presence of a friend who has to listen to sharp angry talk, she never would repeat to one what another said, unless it were something which might tend to reconcile them."

References.—V:9.—J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p109. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p139. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p92. W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Knowledge, p171. C. J. Vaughan, Characteristics of Christ's Teaching, p71. E. M. Goulburn, Three Counsels of the Divine Master, vol. i. p184. C. J. Ridgeway, The Mountain of Blessedness, p84. W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxix1891 , p108. H. Price Hughes, ibid. vol. xliv1893 , p381. G. Body, ibid. vol. liii1898 , p220. H. A. Thomas, ibid. vol. Matthew 5:10-11

When St. Francis de Sales was asked which of the beatitudes he preferred, he chose this one, giving it as his reason: "Because their life is hid with Christ in God, and they are conformed to His image and likeness—inasmuch as all through His earthly life He was persecuted for that very righteousness" sake which He came to fulfil".

References.—V:10.—C. J. Ridgeway, The Mountain of Blessedness, p95. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p171. J. Brett, The Blessed Life, p103. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p98. E. M. Goulburn, Three Counsels of the Divine Master, vol. i. p199. V:10-12.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p161. W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxix1891 , p166. J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p120. C. J. Vaughan, Characteristics of Christ's Teaching, p88. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p239.

Matthew 5:11

When immortal Bunyan makes his picture of the persecuting passions bringing in their verdict of guilty, who pities Faithful? That is a rare and blessed lot, which some greatest men have not attained, to know ourselves guiltless before a condemning crowd—to be sure that what we are denounced for is solely the good in us. The pitiable lot is that of the man who could not call himself a martyr even though he were to persuade himself that the men who stoned him were but ugly passions incarnate—who knows that he is stoned, not for professing the Right, but for not being the man he professed to be.

—George Eliot in Middlemarch.

References.—V:11.—J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p45. S. Martin, Rain Upon the Mown Grass, p295. F. D. Maurice, The Prayer Book and the Lord's Prayer, p331. V:11 , 12.—J. Guinness Rogers, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv1893 , p339. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p106. V:12.—C. E. Jefferson, The Character of Jesus, p243.

Salt Without Savour

Matthew 5:13

I. Each of the three leading words of this short sentence, "Ye are the salt of the earth," appears to have a significance of its own.

1. Ye, "you living men and women". This was one meaning of the Incarnation, that the unseen God should be revealed by and through the "man Christ Jesus ". Christ Himself must be chiefly known—not through His words or even His personal example—but through the men and women who are the living embodiments of His spirit.

2. Ye are the salt. When our Lord calls His disciples—"those who profess and call themselves Christians"—the salt of the earth, He is implicitly warning us against a vulgar error—the error of estimating, or trying to estimate, the real influence of any movement by the simple process of counting heads. The fact is that, from some points of view, it is not so much the quantity of Christians that matters, as the quality, and the failure in the latter respect is often far more grievous than in the former. There was once a city which might have been saved by "ten righteous" if only they could have been found.

3. "Ye are the salt of the earth;" of the earth—not of heaven. True it Matthew 5:13-15

To the personal influence of Christians our Lord commits His cause; in personal influence His Church was founded, and by this it was to stand.

—R. W. Church.

References.—V:13.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p178. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p113. H. Scott Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lviii1900 , p185. D. Fraser, Metaphors in the Gospels, p1. A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermon, p54. Stopford A. Brooke, Short Sermons, p22. V:13 , 14.—F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii. p76. R. H. McKim, The Gospel in the Christian Year, p289. C. J. Vaughan, Characteristics of Christ's Teaching, p104. V:13-16.—R. W. Church, The Gifts of Civilization, p81. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p181. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p263. W. Boyd Carpenter, The Great Charter of Christ, p133. A. Melville, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xl1891 , p360. A. Clayton, ibid. vol. lxx1906 , p49. V:13-37.—C. Gore, Church Times, vol. xxxiii1895 , p337.

Christ's Conception of the Christian Life

Matthew 5:14

"I am the Light of the world." That is the assumption which Jesus Christ makes for Himself. "Ye are the light of the world." That is the high assumption which He makes similarly on the part of His disciples. And taken together they declare that there is not only power in His own character adequate to dispel the darkness, but the power of that character reproduced in His disciples is also capable of the same result.

I. In the parable of the lamp and the lampstand there is a great deal of simple, practical instruction as to light shining—whence it proceeds, how it is maintained, and what is to be its nature and outcome.

1. Of course it assumes that in any life the lamp has been kindled by Jesus Christ It assumes, too, that the light is received not for the benefit of the lamp, but for the benefit of those among whom the lamp is placed; that the light is given in order to be diffused. Christ is in us in order that He may be seen through us, in all the activities of our lives and influence of our character.

2. And to such as are already kindled the injunction Matthew 5:14-15

The whole majesty of humanity raised to its fullness, and every gift and power necessary for a given purpose, at a given moment, centred in one Matthew 5:16

Christ doth not say that others hearing your good works, your good story, or your pathetical expressions; but that others seeing your good works may glorify your Father.

—Jonathan Edwards.

"Let your light shine before men," wrote Margaret Gordon to Carlyle, "and think them not unworthy the trouble."

God appoints to every one of His creatures a separate mission, and if they discharge it honourably, if they quit themselves like men, and faithfully follow the light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenching influence, there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in its appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service constant and holy.

—Ruskin, Frondes Agrestes, p71.

Tolstoy, in his Confession, speaks of the faith and practice of orthodox believers in his own circle, men whose religious position was respectable, and whose manner of life in no way differed from the ambitious, vicious conduct of unbelievers like himself. "No arguments were able to convince me of the sincerity of such Matthew 5:16

The main point nowadays is to be pious in the open air.

—Rothe.

"I cannot," said John Wesley's father to him, "allow austerity or fasting, considered by themselves, to be proper acts of holiness, nor am I for a solitary life. God made us for a social life. We are to let our light shine before men, and that not barely through the chinks of a bushel, for fear the wind should blow it out; the design of lighting it was, that it might give light to all who went into the house of God." "It has struck me often lately," writes Mr. Coventry Patmore in a letter, "that Kempis, whom you are daily reading now, cannot be read with safety without remembering that he wrote his book expressly for the use of monks. There is much that is quite unfit for and untrue of people who live in the ordinary relations of life. I don"t think I like the book quite as much as I did. There is a hot-house, egotistical air about much of its piety. Other persons are so ordinarily the appointed means of learning the love of God, and to stifle human affections must be very often to render the love of God impossible."

References.—V:16.—G. F. Holden, Church Times, vol. lviii1907 , p810. B. Reynolds, ibid. vol. li1904 , p112; see also Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxv1904 , p54. H. Ward Beecher, Sermons (2Series), p244. Henry Wace, Some Central Points of Our Lord's Ministry, p213. E. Fowle, Plain Preaching to Poor People, Sermon (1Series). J. W. Diggle, Sermons for Daily Life, p79. E. Talbot, Sermons Preached in Leeds Parish Church, 1889-1895 , p86. W. Lefroy, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxvi1904 , p27. J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional, p212. W. M. Punshon, Christian Consistency, Sermons, p737.

The Presuppositions of Christianity—The Old Testament

Matthew 5:17

Our Christianity is unique, a thing by itself; but it has not come into existence without any ties with the past. It is original; it is not eclectic; but it has one great root from which it has sprung and of which it claims to be the perfect flower. That is the revelation of God to Israel, recorded in the sacred books of that people, the collection of which we call the Old Testament. To a full and proper understanding of Christianity, a man must know the Old Testament; he must in a measure be familiar with the religion of the Jews. His own faith has blossomed out of that, and owes much to it. It is the presuppositions of Christianity in the Old Testament that we shall look at here. To the rest, Christianity, at any rate in its primitive and purest form, owes nothing directly. Its debts are directly, and in the first instance only, to the Old Testament faith.

I. I would even emphasize the statement in that form as my first point. It is not to Judaism as it existed in Christ's time that any debt is due. It is to the religion which is enshrined in the Old Testament And the distinction is vital. There is a serious difference between Judaism as Christ found it, and the religion which He recognized as the truth in the much misunderstood sacred books of His people. There was there the revelation which God had given of Himself, and there was alongside of it the Matthew 5:17

I. Jesus Christ here gives us the secret of every great ministry. We shall never be great preachers if we only discourse upon the topics of the day. He has a poor text who has only the latest anecdote of an evening newspaper. That is not preaching to the times, that is making a livelihood out of lies. He preaches to the times who preaches from eternity. Jesus Christ did not displace the law and the Prophets, He will talk with both of them upon a mountain by and by; they three—Law, Prophet, Redeemer—will meet and reveal the unity of things. The secret of a great ministry is that it founds itself upon the original, the primordial, the initial; its great speech is ab initio, coming up with dews of heaven's first and only morning upon it. That is preaching.

II. If we follow Jesus therefore we shall hear wonderful speaking.

1. Take, for example, His doctrine respecting worship. That doctrine was taught to one hearer Jesus Christ never kept anything for great assemblies. We keep our little essays for the principal meeting. Ah me! what wonder we are buried so cheaply and so instantaneously forgotten! Jesus revealed the great doctrine of true spiritual worship to one hearer, and she was a woman. The women said all the most beautiful things that are to be found in Scripture, and the things were the more beautiful that the women knew nothing about their beauty. They were words wrung out of agony. Agony is always eloquent. Jesus Christ did not rebuke people for worshipping in special localities. When did He contract history or reduce it by subtraction to some meaner expressiveness? When did He fail to open the bud and show the full flower? If He had destroyed the local notion of prayer He would have created an immense prejudice; He accepted it, enlarged it, glorified it by fulfilment and completion.

2. We might illustrate this text from the more concrete point of what is known as beneficence or good-doing. The Jew thought he had advanced to the very final step in the march of civilization when he gave something to the inoffensive stranger, to the harmless widow and orphan; but Jesus says, If thine enemy hunger, feed him; love thine enemy: go to the positive aspect of thy poor beneficence. Whilst we were yet sinners Christ died for us; not whilst we were becoming sinners, but when we had reached the very depth of our apostasy, and when we had depleted ourselves of all nervous power and all moral restorativeness, when we had lost all self-helpfulness; while we were yet sinners, the blood dripped on us, the red blood of the infinite Redemption. I am not come to destroy your little beneficences and maxims of caretaking respecting the stranger and the fatherless and the widow, but I am come to raise you to that Godlikeness which is kind to the unthankful and to the evil, to that Divinity of love which sheds its showers upon the atheist and the blasphemer.

3. We might illustrate the text by Jesus Christ's estimate of righteousness. He found a good deal of respectability in His day; there were many persons who were reading pious sentences and observing more or less reputable traditions; He looked abroad upon the whole mass, and having estimated all that was being done by Scribe and Pharisee and Sadducee, He said, Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and of the Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

4. Jesus Christ said, You must enlarge your conceptions of the world; of course it was right that you begin with this little place which you call your own land. If there was anything in the world which Jesus Christ was not it was a patriot. A patriot was a very small but frequently a somewhat necessary person. Jesus Christ was not a patriot. Jesus Christ was a philanthropist, a Matthew 5:17

I. It is evident that our Lord's critics had been denouncing Him as an intellectual and social anarchist, and one can imagine their evidence.

It is also evident that Jesus keenly resented this charge, and one can understand His reasons. When He was called a revolutionary there was enough truth in the criticism to make it dangerous. He did appear on first sight not to improve but to reverse the past, not to attack abuses but to uproot institutions, and if this had been so it would have been a serious reflection, both upon the wisdom and the work of Jesus. Destruction is not the principle of growth in any province of God's universe.

Had the opponents of Jesus been able to take a fairer view of His work, they would have found that He was the opposite of what their fears painted. Under His spirit the God of Abraham and Jacob became our Heavenly Father, to be worshipped the world over wherever there was an honest heart.

II. Fulfilment is the guiding principle of all successful progress and ought to control every department of action. When, for instance, we attempt the regeneration of society, repression may be needful as a temporary measure; but repression is a policy of despair. It coerces, but it does not control, it terrifies, but it does not satisfy. We ought to go to the root of the matter and find out the causes which create the vices of the people.

1. The same principle holds in the elimination of sin from an individual life. To sin is to miss the mark; the arrow went astray, and struck the wrong place. Every vice is the inversion of a virtue, it is degenerate goodness. Moralists of the second order would advise a man to put his sins under lock and key: Jesus teaches men to expel them. He would transform temptations to sin and make them incentives to holiness; He would have us concern ourselves not with the destruction of the evil but with the cultivation of the good.

2. With this principle of fulfilment we ought also to approach the erroneous ideas which affect the popular mind and are rivals of the truth. It is wiser to give a man what he is seeking after than to denounce its imperfect substitute. It Matthew 5:17

Compare the closing sentences of Max Nordau's Degeneration: "The criterion by which true moderns may be recognized and distinguished from impostors calling themselves moderns may be this: Whoever preaches absence of discipline is an enemy of progress; and whoever worships his "I" is an enemy to society. Society has for its first premise, neighbourly love and capacity for self-sacrifice; and progress is the effect of an even more rigorous subjugation of the beast in Matthew 5:17

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruellest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of Man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be for ever inflicting on Him. He also—He above all—is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended.

—Amiel.

There is still something of self-seeking in the refined disinterestedness which will not justify itself, that it may feel itself superior to opinion.

—Amiel.

References.—V:17.—J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p36. W. Boyd Carpenter, The Great Charter of Christ, p151. J. M. Wilson, The Anglican Pulpit of Today, p356. A. Jessopp, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlvii1895 , p218. Reuen Thomas, ibid. vol. lx1901 , p404. H. E. J. Bevan, ibid. vol. lxiii1903 , p325. V:17-20.—J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p203. W. M. Sinclair, Simplicity in Christ, p287. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p125. V:17-26.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p199. V:17-48.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. liii. No3031. V:18.—Ibid. vol. xxviii. No1660. V:19.—H. P. Liddon, Clerical Life and Work, p355. "Plain Sermons" by contributors to the Tracts for the Times, vol. ix. p64.

True Religion

Matthew 5:20

These words of our Lord are a challenge, an impeachment and an indictment of high treason against those in authority in the Church. No man who uttered such words, under such conditions, could escape retaliation. Had our Lord contented Himself with His wonderful works, He might have walked across Calvary unscathed. But one who could say such things as this, under such circumstances, must come to the Cross. Those who were so challenged were certain to encompass His death. For I want you just to notice who the challenge was made against. It was made against the great religious teachers of the day, the scribes and Pharisees. They were the oracles of the kingdom, and in no case could they enter into the kingdom whose oracles they held. You know how the case stood, how religion had become formal, mechanical. You cannot turn out righteousness from any machine. Directly religion becomes a system, it loses its power. Systematized religion degenerates always, sooner or later, into formalism. It was so then, and has ever been so since.

I. The Scribes were the men who knew all about Holy Scripture. They read it, they learned it, they knew every word of it. And yet, though they knew all about it, they did not know it.

II. And the Sadducees, who were they? They were the Higher Critics of the day. How did the Lord admonish them? He said, You are only haggling over the letter, you are literalists. You do not know the Scriptures, and you do not know the power of God.

III. Then you know about the Pharisees and their punctiliousness, how they were the religionists. They did exactly what they were told in the letter and not the spirit. According to the Pharisees, you might touch the dead body of an ass, but not of a high priest, because that would defile you. And you must not go and eat with unwashed hands. What did our Lord do? He and His disciples deliberately went and sat down to dinner with unwashed hands—deliberately, as an object lesson.

IV. I want you to note that our Lord stands amongst us Today, and says to us, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven". Is our religion formal? When we worship Christ with ceremony, let it be with understanding too—with the head and with the heart. He loved me, and washed me, and gave Himself for me, and the object of life is to be like Him. If this righteousness is in us, we are right. Take care that your faith does not make you formalists at heart. It must make you like your dear Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

—A. H. Stanton, Unpublished Sermon.

Things No Man Could Say

Matthew 5:20

Things which no man would say or would be allowed to say and retain any reputation for sanity or truthfulness. There are things which we cannot say, as certainly as there are things which we ought not to say.

Yet we are now face to face with a Man who used all the vocabulary of God, a Man who never hesitated to use the language which God alone, according to our interpretation, has permitted Himself to use.

I. Begin where you like, the evidence is forthcoming and is unique.

1. Let us hear Him in one of His simplest speeches; simplest, that Matthew 5:20

People have often tried to find a type of life that might serve as a basement type.... The type must be one discontented with society as it is.

—Walter Pater.

References.—V:20.—F. E. Paget, Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Unbelief, p100. H. S. Lunn, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxviii1890 , p382. H. Hensley Henson, ibid. vol. lxv1904 , p136. R. W. Hiley, A Year's Sermons, vol. ii. p28. H. Varley, Spiritual Light and Life, p129. J. B. Mozley, Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford, p25. Henry Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii. p50. A. G. Mortimer, One Hundred Miniature Sermons, vol. ii. p36. V:21.—F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv1898 , p232. Hugh Black, ibid. vol. lxiv1903 , p7.

Matthew 5:21-22

One of the commonest and most deep-seated, and perhaps not the least pernicious fallacy in our estimate of relative "goodness," lies in our disposition to rank negative above positive virtue—abstinence from wrong above active duty and distinguished service. There is surely a higher and completer decalogue than the purely prohibitory one of Sinai, taught us by One who surpassed and superseded Moses. "Thou shalt" appeals to nobler natures and befits a more advanced civilization than "Thou shalt not". The early Israelites, just emerging from the double degradation of semi-barbarism and of slavery, and soiled with the brutal passions and the slimy sins belonging to both conditions, had first to be taught the difficult lessons of self-denial and forbearance. On Christians is laid the loftier obligation of active and laborious achievement. It is much for the fierce appetites and feeble wills of savages to abstain from the grosser indulgences of the temper and the flesh—not to steal, not to kill, not to lust, not to lie. But the civilization of a cultured and awakened age can rest content in no such formal or meagre conception of moral duties. It cannot acquiesce in mere self-regarding excellence. It feels that there is something at once loftier, more generous, and more imperative than the asceticism which aims simply at the elaboration and development of the spiritual possibilities of a man's own nature—and that to serve others, even in miry byways, in menial capacities, in damaging and revolting conditions, is a worthier and more Christian vocation than coddling one's individual soul. Faire son devoir Matthew 5:22

You are to distinguish, of course, controversy from rebuke. The assertion of truth is to be always gentle: the chastisement of wilful falsehood may be—very much the contrary indeed. Christ's Sermon on the Mount is full of polemic theology, but very gentle: "Ye have heard that it hath been said—but I say unto you"; "and if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? "and the like.

—Ruskin; see also Mornings in Florence, § 112.

High cultivation may help to self-command, but it multiplies the chances of irritative contact. In mansion, in hovel, the strain of life is perpetually felt—between the married, between parent and children, between relatives of every degree, between employers and employed. They debate, they dispute, they wrangle, they explode—their nerves are relieved, and they are ready to begin over again. Quit the home and quarrelling is less obvious, but it goes on all about one. What proportion of the letters delivered any morning would be found to be written in displeasure, in petulance, in wrath? The post-bag shrieks insults or bursts with suppressed malice.

—George Gissing.

References.—V:22.—E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p141. W. Leighton Grane, Hard Sayings of Jesus Christ, p151.

Memory At the Altar

Matthew 5:23

There are a hundred things we may and ought to do at the altar. We should bow at the altar with reverence of spirit. We should confess at the altar with penitence of soul. We should sing at the altar with glad thanksgiving. We should make our vows at the altar with earnest purpose. But whatever else we do we must there remember. We must yoke memory to worship else worship will be vain.

I. We must remember our relations with our fellows. That is a secret of blessing at the altar. It is an enrichment of our worship that we remember our happy relations with our fellows.

It is essential to our worship that we remember our unhappy social conditions at the altar. Our brother may have a legitimate grievance against us. We have wronged him. And we are called to remember that unwelcome fact at the holy altar. Leave your gift before the altar, go and be reconciled to your brother, then, with clean hands and a pure heart come and offer your gift. Do not forget the gift and the altar when you have righted yourself with your brother. No social service, however obligatory and beautiful, must lead us to neglect the gift and the altar. Our Lord, Who was the servant of all, was supremely the servant of Jehovah.

There must always be a right relationship between our service of humanity and our sacrifice to God.

When I give God His rights I shall hasten to give man his rights. Philanthropy and worship must blend if both are to be effective. It is indeed a short-sighted policy which would abolish the altar and its worship for the service of humanity. Look at the very meaning of the word worship: it means worthship.

II. Passing from the immediate reference of the text, and still holding to its principle, we must remember the general circumstances of our life. Life's painful circumstances are seen in their true proportions if remembered at the altar.

III. We must remember our sins. This is not a popular doctrine, nor is it a popular practice. Yet it is a deep necessity of the soul that when we bring our gift to the altar we remember our transgressions. Public worship offers us an immense opportunity for the exercise of memory upon our sins. As Benjamin Jowett of Balliol has said, "The advantage of public worship is that it is also private". The privacy of public worship is its opportunity and its charm. If memory be thus exercised, it shall lead us to a great evangelical victory. We shall pass from the vision of our sin to the vision of the blood of Jesus, God's Matthew 5:28

But this is not the rule by which we are to judge our past actions, but to guard our future ones. He who has thoughts of lust or passion is not innocent in the sight of God, and is liable to be carried on to perform the act on which he suffers himself to dwell. And in looking forward, he will do well to remember this caution of Christ's, but in looking backward, in thinking of others, in endeavouring to estimate the actual amount of guilt or trespass; if he begins by placing thought upon the level of action, he will end by placing action on the level of thought. It would be a monstrous state of mind in which we regarded mere imagination of evil as the same thing with action; hatred as the same with murder; thoughts of impurity as the same with adultery. It is not so that we have learned Christ... However important it may be to remember that the all-seeing eye of God tries the reins, it is no less important to remember also that morality consists in definite acts capable of being seen and judged of by our fellow-creatures.

—Jowett.

She was unaware that the distance between us and dreadful crimes is much greater often than it appears to be The man who looks on a woman with adulterous desire has already committed adultery in his heart if he be restrained only by force or fear of detection; but if the restraint, although he may not be conscious of it, is self-imposed, he is not guilty. Nay, even the dread of consequences is a motive of sufficient respectability to make a large difference between the sinfulness of mere lust and that of its fulfilment.

—From Miriam's Schooling, by Mark Rutherford.

References.—V:28.—C. S. Macfarland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxx1906 , p21.

Matthew 5:29

No man ever took his besetting sin, it may be lust, or pride, or love of rank and position, and, as it were, cut it out by voluntarily placing himself where to gratify it was impossible, without sensibly receiving a new strength of character.

—Jowett.

References.—V:29 , 30.—E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p165. J. B. Mozley, Sermons Parochial and Occasional, p1.

Matthew 5:30

Offence in Scripture does not mean sin itself so much as something suggestive of it; something which puts sin in our way, and places us in imminent danger of giving way to it In all such cases our Lord enjoins a decided line upon man.... After all it is not the temptations which meet men, but the temptations which they go to meet, which they purposely find out, and use all kinds of art and management and subtlety to put themselves in the way of, which do the great mischief in moral and spiritual things.

—Mozley.

Matthew 5:39

Is not the public air which European nations breathe at this moment, as it has been for several years back, charged with thunder? Despots are plotting, ships are building, man's ingenuity is bent, as it never was bent before, on the invention and improvement of instruments of death; Europe is bristling with five millions of bayonets; and this is the condition of the world for which the Son of God died eighteen hundred and sixty-two years ago! There is no mystery of Providence so inscrutable as this; yet, is not the very sense of its mournfulness a proof that the spirit of Christianity is living in the minds of men? For, of a verity, military glory is becoming in our best thoughts a bloody rag, and conquest the first in the catalogue of mighty crimes.... There cannot be a doubt that when the political crimes of kings and governments, the sores that fester in the heart of society, and all "the burden of the unintelligible world," weigh heaviest on the mind, we have to thank Christianity for it. That pure light makes visible the darkness. The Sermon on the Mount makes the morality of nations ghastly. The Divine love makes human hate stand out in dark relief. This sadness, in the essence of it nobler than any joy, is the heritage of the Christian.... If the Christian is less happy than the Pagan, and at times I think he is Matthew 5:38-39

Our Lord is here dealing with one interesting prescription of the old law. It had definitely allowed revenge up to a certain point, but no further. It might go to the point of exact reciprocity.

I. Here we must remark that the law of the old covenant was in itself a limitation of human instinct. The savage instinct of revenge is to rush blindly in, and do as much harm to an enemy as can be done. The savage satisfies himself to the full; he kills the man that has done him wrong and his wife and family. Now nothing is more striking in the old covenant than that it checks barbarous habits and puts them under restraint. The point which needs emphasizing is that the old law worked by way of gradual limitation, not of sudden abolition. God dealt with men gradually. Their savage passions are restrained under the Old Testament as a preparation for the time when they were to be brought under the perfect discipline of the Son of man. So now, when the fullness of the time is come, our Lord lays on this passion of revenge a harder and deeper prescription, and says in fact to each of His disciples: A wrong aimed at thee as an individual Matthew 5:39

Macaulay admits this placable and forgiving spirit was a redeeming feature of Lord Bacon's character. "He bore with meekness his high civil honours, and the far higher honours gained by his intellect. He was very seldom, if ever, provoked into treating any person with malignity and insolence. No man more readily held up the left cheek to those who had smitten the right. No man was more expert at the soft answer which turneth away wrath."

There came one time, when I was in Pall Mall, an ambassador with a company of Irishmen and rude fellows; the meeting was over before they came, and I was gone up into chamber, where I heard one of them say, "He would kill all the Quakers". I went down to him, and was moved in the power of the Lord to speak to him. I told him, "The law said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but thou threatenest to kill all the Quakers, though they have done thee no hurt. But," said I, "here is gospel for thee: here is my hair, here is my cheek, and here is my shoulder," turning it to him. This came so over him that he and his companions stood as men amazed, and said, if that was our principle, and if we were as we said, they never saw the like in their lives. I told them what I was in words I was the same in life. Then the ambassador, who had stood without, came in; for he said that Irish colonel was such a desperate man that he durst not come in with him, for fear he should do us some mischief; but truth came over him, and he carried himself lovingly towards us; as also did the ambassador; for the Lord's power was over them all.

—Fox's Journal.

References.—V:39.—W. Garrett Horder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix1896 , p117. J. H. F. Peile, Ecclesia Discern, p222. James Moffatt, The Second Things of Life, p21. V:39-41.—Lyman Abbott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix1896 , p131.

The Second Mile

Matthew 5:41

I. That for which the second mile stands—the overplus of goodness, unselfishness, and service—is seen throughout the whole Gospel. It characterizes, for instance, Christ's ample interpretation of the old commandment. "Thou shalt not kill" becomes in His lips "Be not angry". The law forbade adultery—He proscribed evil thought. The law condemned false witness—Christ said, "Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay". In other words, in His interpretation of the old code Christ taught men to go the second mile—not merely to desist from open sin, but to manifest that specific grace of which the particular sin is the moral antithesis. The same principle is seen also in the record of the measure in which God deals out His blessing to His people. He not only bestows pardon but abundant pardon. He gives not only grace but abounding grace. He promises not only victory in life's conflicts but makes men "more than conquerors".

II. Applied to life's compulsions, of which every one of us is conscious—those things of which we can never rid ourselves and from which we can never altogether escape—the doctrine of the second mile enjoins the doing of ordinary toil and the fulfilment of ordinary obligation in the spirit of Christian service It demands that we shall not only be honest in our business dealings but generous also, measuring duty not by financial consideration but in the spirit of Christian service. It means that we look beyond second causes and gladly acknowledge God's will in all life's restrictions and burdens.

III. But the glory of the second mile is only to be seen in all its fullness as exemplified in Christ Himself. His life, His teaching, His miracles of healing, His gentleness, the purity of the example, which He left us, may be looked upon as the first mile to which the need of men compelled Him. But love constrained Him still further, and the second mile led Him to Calvary! And still day by day does He manifest that same love in His response to our constraints. For if we invite Him for one mile, and compel Him by faith and prayer with that compulsion to which He always so readily yields, to come into fellowship with us, He always goes further and gives "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask". And if we invite Him for the first mile of life, we need have no fear but that He will come with us twain, even through death and beyond. It is Christ who has made the second mile beautiful, and beckons us on to share its glory.

—J. Stuart Holden, The Pre-Eminent Lord, p119.

References.—V:41.—Rocliffe Mackintosh, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxxiv1908 , p189. V:43.—W. M. Sinclair, The New Law, p20. V:43 , 44.—H. Hensley Henson, Christ and the Nation, p265. Lyman Abbott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xlix1896 , p169. V:43-48.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p214. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p311. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p200. G. Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons, p217. V:44.—J. R. Cohu, The Sermon on the Mount, p142. W. G. Rutherford, The Key of Knowledge, p51. V:45.—Henry Van Dyke, Sermons to Young Men, p193. R. F. Horton, Christian World Pulpit, vol11896 , p209. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No1414. V:46 , 47.—R. W. Dale, The Evangelical Revival, p60.

Love Your Enemies

Matthew 5:44

It is one of the signs of the Divine originality of Christ that, in the midst of a condition of society which throughout the world was based on national selfishness and racial hatred, He ordered the citizens of His kingdom to act on the very opposite principle of treating every human being as a friend.

"In the time of our Lord, and in the last decrepitude of the morality of nations, the selfishness of human intercourse was much greater than the present age can easily understand. Selfishness, therefore, was not a mere abuse or corruption arising out of the infirmity of human nature, but a theory and almost a part of moral philosophy. It was in the midst of all this recognized and authorized sentiment to the contrary that Christ stood up and said, "Love your enemies "."

We may perhaps have been thrown much together with people whose tastes and opinions were quite different from our own. Each fault that we may have committed has probably been watched by keen observers, who, if they are of the world and not of Christ, will score one against us accordingly. It would probably amaze us beyond measure did we know what is said of us, in our absence, by those of our acquaintances who have occasion to mention our names. We cannot live entirely here amongst people possessed by the Spirit of Christ. We are far more likely to meet with enemies, in the general sense of the word, than with friends.

"I say unto you, Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you." A hard task to us in our natural state. Unaided we cannot think kindly of the offender. Our lips would more easily form themselves into a curse than a blessing.

I. The Holy Spirit of God alone can help us to this calm, tranquil, undisturbed feeling of Christian benevolence which our Lord commands. That is why our Lord commands it with such confidence. He knows that in God's strength we can get this temper. But He here is urging it for our own sakes.

It is because such boilings of our blood prevent us from being what we should. They are of the devil, not of God. Christ gives us the reason: "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven".

II. It is no use having right opinions about religion, unless we get the Holy Spirit to enable us to put them into practice. Think how far more deeply men are every moment offending than even our most cruel enemy has injured us. How easily might God take away the unthankful and the evil from sharing His blessings at all! Yet He allows them to rejoice—filling their hearts with food and gladness, and giving them every opportunity of returning to Him before it is too late. If God can do that, to Whom all sin is so utterly abhorrent, why cannot we overlook these miserable little offences which can only affect the things of this life? Oh, pray more earnestly than ever before for this conquering glorious grace of the Holy Spirit in this thing; that we may reach this happy, unruffled, hopeful temper; not that we may grow indifferent to error and wrongdoing, but that, while doing what we can to bring the counsels of the evil to nought, we may remember all the time that the slanderer, the injurious, or the insolent, are all the time our brethren, misguided children of the same great Father, bought by the same precious Blood, needing the same pardon as ourselves.

Matthew 5:44

There is a class of men who see a great many things to be said against their own side, and a great deal for its adversaries. They fulfil the precept, "Love your enemies," but we could almost wish we were among them, that we might have some chance of impartiality and a small portion of their favour.

—Dr. John Ker.

In George Fox's Journal for1652he describes a riot, in the course of which a rude mason gave him a severe blow on the back of the hand, bruising the flesh and benumbing the arm, "that I could not draw it unto me again. But I looked at it in the love of God (for I was in the love of God to them all, that had persecuted me)."

Matthew 5:44

There are cases, I grant you—cases of impenitent wickedness—where the higher law is suspended, finds no chance to act—where relief from the bond is itself mercy and justice. But the higher law is always there. You know the formula—" It was said by them of old time—But I say unto you". And then follows the new law of a new society. And so in marriage. If love has the smallest room to work—if forgiveness can find the narrowest foothold—love and forgiveness are imposed on—demanded of—the Christian! here as everywhere else. Love and forgiveness—not penalty and hate!

—Mrs. H. Ward in The Marriage of William Ashe.

I preached in Charles Square to the largest congregation I have ever seen there. Many of the baser people would fain have interrupted, but they found, after a time, it was lost labour. One, who was more serious, was (as she afterwards confessed) exceedingly angry at them. But she was quickly rebuked by a stone which hit on her forehead and struck her down to the ground. In that moment her anger was at an end, and love filled her heart.

—Wesley's Journal (9 May, 1742).

The Just and the Unjust

Matthew 5:45

Why does God cause His sun to rise on the evil as well as the good? why does He send the rain on the unjust as well as on the just? God, because He is God, never acts without reason. There is a meaning and purpose in this matter, as indeed there is a meaning and purpose in all God's dealings, and in all God's works; and what you and I want to pray for, is the clear eye and the attentive mind and the enlightened heart to understand these things.

Now there seem to be three reasons at any rate why God causes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends the rain on the just and unjust.

I. He Wants us to Believe in His Fatherhood, in its widest meaning. God wants us to realize that He is the Father of all men, whether they be good or whether they be bad, and because God is the Father of all men He must, nay, He loves to show His abundant works of love to all men, so instead of the indifference of Nature, we have before us the great beneficence of God. We see God in the light of a loving Father, making ample, making equal provision for all His children, bad and good. Now God the Father is doing nothing unjust in all this. When He does this He is doing, when you come to think of it, He is doing exactly what a good earthly father would do. Picture to yourself a father who has many children. Some of them may be dearer and closer to him than the others. There may be one son who may love him better than his brothers and sisters, and that one son of his may have won his father's heart more than all the rest of the family put together. But that father does not confine his attention to the best beloved of the family. No, he exercises his fatherly care over all his children, all of them; he clothes all of them, he feeds all and educates all of them, he tries to set all out in life, he toils for all of them. Why? Because he is the father of them all, and so with God the Father. We are all His children, the worst as well as the best of men. He never forgets us, He never disowns us, He tries to win us wanderers back, by giving us fresh signs of His love and goodwill.

II. The World is not a Place of Judgment, but it is a Place of Probation.—The good and the evil—we know it—the good and the evil are working and living in this world Today, side by side, and Jesus Christ Himself recognized this fact, in that most instructive parable of the tares and the wheat. In that parable He bade us not to judge anybody, but to let the good and the bad remain together unseparated until the harvest—that means as long as this world lasts. The good and the bad are to remain undistinguished.

III. God Wants to Teach us the Length and Breadth of His Forgiving Love.—The gifts and blessings of Nature give us some faint idea of His love. Only a faint idea God bestows all the loveliness of the world upon such sinners as we are. Then, though we wander from God, though we forget God, still the sun shines, still refreshing rain comes. And all this He does, He continues to do, for this reason, to bid us to look up and see that Father, with Whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. We love change, but God never changes. He always is our Father. He always loves us. In spite of ourselves, in spite of our selfishness, in spite of our sins, God Who hates sin with a hatred of which He alone is capable, God still continues to bless us and give us all we need. He still loves to give good unto men, What a forgiving love that must be!

Matthew 5:45

The sun does not wait for prayers and incantations in order to be induced to rise, but shines out forthwith and is hailed by all; so do not you wait for applause and praise to be induced to do good, but do it of your own accord, and you will be as much loved as the sun.

—Epictetus.

Matthew 5:45

"But," adds Bacon, after quoting this verse in his essay upon Goodness, "he doth not raise wealth, nor shine Honour and Vertues, upon Men equally. Common benefits are to be communicate with all; but peculiar Benefits, with choice."

Matthew 5:46

It would be a great step in advance for most of us to love anybody, and the publicans of the time of Jesus must have been a much more Christian set than most Christians of the present day; but that we should love those who do not love us is a height never scaled now except by a few of the elect in whom Christ still survives.

—Mark Rutherford's Deliverance.

If any of the Indians in Georgia were sick (which indeed exceedingly rarely happened, till they learned gluttony and drunkenness from the Christians), those that were near him gave him whatever he wanted. O, who will convert the English into honest Heathens!

—Wesley's Journal (8 Feb, 1753).

The Distinctiveness of the Christian Life

Matthew 5:47

The drift of this passage is the distinctiveness of the Christian life. Christ has an ideal of His own to offer to the world; His type of goodness is original, is unique, and the lives of those who follow Him are to furnish the proof of it.

The illustration in the text may seem a trivial one; but it is not so. Manners make the man always.

Half the battle of human advancement is gained when men have learned to give to one another not less than they receive from one another. The social equilibrium is maintained on these terms, and the individual life is preserved in well-being and peace.

I. Law and Personal Duty.—The regrettable thing is when with this, the legal standard for society, there is confounded the moral standard for the individual. Israel had never learned to distinguish between personal duty and civic obligation. The standard of mere equity is a noble enough standard in its way, and even when most unpleasing may extort an admiration of a kind. It is not the Christian standard.

II. Retaliation and Non-Resistance.—The non-resistance of injury. "I say unto you, Resist not evil," etc. And here, let us remember, that it is the individual life that is referred to. Christ speaks to the private life, leaving societies and nations free, as they are inherently bound, to maintain right in the world by the final argument if need be. The temper that will not take offence invariably ends by disarming violence. The supreme example, of course, is the Son of man. In His life meekness is a notable trait throughout.

III. The Christian and His Enemy.—Your persecutor is to be loved. No one anywhere is to be hated, and nothing is to be hated but hate.

That is a high pitch of virtue to rise to. But, you observe, we are offered here a ladder of self-discipline by which to rise to it. First comes the injunction, "Bless them that curse you". Then, next, he is to do his enemy good. For, as we all know, nothing is so treacherous as feeling. He is to pray for his enemy. The most real and irrefragable thing in the whole universe is surely the Divine Heart which is the radiant, life-giving core of it. And what does that Heart do but just this: bless its enemies, and load them daily with benefits and yearn over them evermore.

—A. Martin, Christian World Pulpit, vol. LXXII:1907 , p88.

The Ministry and the Masses

Matthew 5:47

The relation of working men to the churches is determined by many things, and one of them is worth special consideration. When I think of the impressions received in my artisan days, and compare them with later experience, I have to recognize in crowds of the workers a deep-rooted prejudice, not so much against the office of the ministry as against the men who hold it. That this prejudice is as a stone wall between them, no one who knows the former will seriously question.

The prejudice, not to use a stronger term, exists; and, until they can fight it down, ministers must reckon with it as best they can. Of one thing I am persuaded: it will yield to no assumption of orders; it is impervious to argument; and it is proof against appeals to respect the ministerial office for its own sake. Nothing can make an impression on this prejudice but an example which works out in self-sacrifice, character, and courage. If ministers are to be highly esteemed, it must be for their work's sake.

I. It is the first of these that goes to the quick of the problem. It is self-sacrifice. Religion must always find its dynamic through the heart. He who holds the heart in the service of religion is a giant as compared with a vastly abler man who but influences the mind. "All men are commanded by the soul." The Koran makes a distinct class of those who are by nature good, and whose goodness has an influence on others, and pronounces this class to be the aim of religion. The light of the saintly spirit which, as it has often been remarked, is a form of the heroic spirit, shines through the wrappings of education and dogma, and reveals to us the synthetic power and beauty of sacrifice. It is not reason or ability, it is not money or mechanism, nor these combined, that can effectually lift the race. Nothing, on our side of the question, can do this but good men. Man is God's means for acting upon men. Whether God could save the world apart from human agency we know not. This is certain, He has not so far willed to do so. God in Christ is the Supreme Sacrifice for the salvation of the world; and man's power with man is obedience to the same profound law.

It is one great weakness of our Protestant Churches that we produce so few saints who strike the imagination of the people. We somehow fail, all but entirely, to achieve the type of man and woman which is to the sacerdotal Churches what pageantry or sentiment is in politics. Who, for example, during the last quarter of a century has given nobler hostage to the imagination of the workers than the late Father Dolling? A man who offered his life on the altar of the unreached majority; who lived and moved amid human wreckage and moral hopelessness, probably unmatched on the face of the earth. Broken in health and consumed in little more than half his days; living daily, as we are told, with vagabonds at his table and outcasts sleeping at night under his roof, this man's life was an incarnation of the divinest of all motives—the redemption of the lowest in the Saviour's name.

And when he "underwent the ceremony of death" men who rarely speak of the Christian religion without a sneer, and newspapers that exist nearest the ground, bore willing testimony to a sacrifice that finds its way through the imagination to the heart as nothing else can. Father Damien, diseased and rotting among his lepers, and Father Dolling, toiling for the outcasts of London, are of the same spiritual kin. "No Matthew 5:48

"These words," says Julius Hare, "declare that the perfect renewal of God's image in man is not a presumptuous vision, not like a madman's attempt to clutch a handful of stars, but an object of righteous enterprise, which we may and ought to long for and strive after.... Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. This is the angel-trumpet which summons man to the warfare of duty. This, and nothing less than this, is the glorious price set before him. Do our hearts swell with pride at the thought that this is what we ought to be, what we might be? A single glance at the state of the world, at what we ourselves are, must quench that pride, and turn it into shame."

His whole life was but one noble, earnest effort to follow His Master's call; that call which sets no lower ideal before the Christian than one of absolute, moral beauty, the very Beauty of God Himself. "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." There is but one way to attain this height, either practically or intellectually; and that is, to aim ceaselessly at all that is highest, noblest, most beautiful; and of all men I have ever known, this dear brother pursued such an aim most earnestly.

—PÈre Gratry on Henri Perreyve.

References.—V:48.—A. Earle, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liv1898 , p132. J. E. Carpenter, ibid. vol. lx1901 , p202. F. W. Robertson, Sermons Preached at Brighton (3Series), p143. C. J. Vaughan, Characteristics of Christ's Teaching, p121. J. Martineau, Hours of Thought on Sacred Things, p72. Prebendary Shelford, Religion in Common Life, p1. J. T. Bramston, Sermons to Boys, p94. Bishop Creighton, University and Other Sermons, p110. W. J. Knox-Little, The Perfect Life, p1. S. Chadwick, Humanity and God, p1. VI.—C. Gore, Church Times, vol. xxxiii1895 , p429. VI:1.—F. E. Paget, Sermons on Duties of Daily Life, p251. E. Lyttelton, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, p209. J. Oswald Dykes, The Manifesto of the King, p333. H. C. Beeching, Faith, p21. VI:1-5.—A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture—St. Matthew I-VIII. p220. VI:1-9 , 10.—H. Scott Holland, Church Times, vol. liii1905 , p155. VI:1-18.—W. Boyd Carpenter, The Cheat Charter of Christ, p187.