THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

INTRODUCTION .

As we shall see in considering the meaning of 7.24-27 and ”these words of mine” in particular, the whole of the Sermon on the Mount may be taken to be concerned with judgement. Anyone who keeps

the sayings will survive the judgement. Anyone who does not is heading for destruction.

However, by the severity of the threats he attaches to disobedience in some cases, Matthew seems to indicate that he does not regard the Sermon on the Mount as all on one level of importance. This thesis is, in any case, restricted -to the consideration of those passages where judgement is

unequivocally indicated. ‘

"Eschatology”, "eschatological” will be used strictly in the sense of the end things or pertaining to the end things and only to relieve the tedium of repeating the phrase "end things” or the word "final” when referring to judgement.

From here on the passages in Matthew relevant to my theme will be considered seriatim, except that 18.23ff. will be taken with 6.14,15.

Matthew writes of two levels of judgement; temporal and eternal. Judgement is here used in the sense of final judgement, a separation between good and evil with eternal consequences, but lesser judgements cannot

altogether fail to be considered, e.g. when they shade into one another as in 5.21-25.

E. Schweizer pointedly enquires about this saying: "... where would there be enough courts to carry out all these trials?"^ that is, if all who were angry with their brother and all who used the term Raka were haled before them. As we shall see below when 5.22 is more fully discussed

the apparently abrupt transition or great gulf between the first two human judgements, and the judgement of hell, divine judgement is not as abrupt or wide as some might suppose. The inadequacy of human courts does not in any case render the teaching invalid or ridiculous. Hyperbole is quite acceptable in other contexts, e.g. the swallowing of a camel

(23.14), hump, hair and hooves. Besides, Jesus did not claim that all offenders were, or would be, judged but that they were liable to

it. Matthew’s Jesus does not therefore necessarily picture a long waiting list of offenders and overloaded courts. By no means all offenders have ever been brought to human justice, but all are to be gathered for

judgement by the Son of man 25.31f. On current Jewish practice, David Daube observes: ’’mere insulting words were not enough to justify

(legal) proceedings’’.1 If this is a correct summary of rabbinic attitudes, then at least the utterance of the word "raka" would not be intended by Matthew to lead literally to the case being heard by the Council. So it is probable that we ought to take the first two judgements parabolically. Even if we were to take them literally we might arrive at something like this: ”He who adopts a wrong attitude in his inter-personal relationships (anger, Raka) is liable to human judgement; he who pronounces on the state of the soul of another before God ("damned fool" ) is liable to divine judgement." The first is a sort of foretaste or forewarning of the other, cf.. 1 Cor. 5.5 where Paul exhorts the deliverance of an offender to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus". As Windisch observes: "law for Jesus is

2 a parable for morality. He teaches morality not jurisprudence ..."

1 David Daube, The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism, (Jordan Lectures 1962), London, 1956, p.26O.

2 Hans Windisch, The Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount, Philadelphia, 193.7., p.94.

Take the next two verses, 5.25,26, as another example. Of them A. Tholuck (the thoroughness of whose work on the Sermon has not been

surpassed) wrote:

’’Expositors separate into two classes. The first regards it as a prudential maxim ... The second acknowledges that in respect of their primary signification the words apply to the connection in which a man stands to human justice in like manner as the punishments mentioned at v.22, but suppose that, just as there, so here also, the relation to the divine judgement is implied under these forms.”1

Even if we hold that Matthew was being merely prudential here we cannot evade the application to final judgement of the same theme literally in 6.14 and parabolically in 18.24-35. It would therefore be strange if Matthew could have written merely prudentially at this point when he must have had the other references in mind.

Before considering the Sermon we should perhaps consider the preaching of John the Baptist (3.7-12), the first obvious mention of judgement in Matthew. One criterion of judgement is repentance with appropriate fruits. These fruits are not specified as they are in Lk. 3.10-14. This is

probably deliberate on the part of Matthew and Bonnard indicates the reason when he writes:

"ici encore le bon fruit ne repr^sente pas des pratiques particulibres agre'ees par Dieu mais un comportement global de I’homme sincerement repentant comme au v. 8.”2

A turning of the total personality towards God and His righteousness is most likely what Matthew has in mind here. This is connected with the warning not to trust in human descent, i.e. from Abraham (cf. John 1.13, ’’born, not of blood ... but of God”). Nor should they trust, it is implied, in the mere outward sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, circumcision, but rather in that for which circumcision stood, a new beginning. Those who have misplaced confidence in bodily descent need to be reminded of the

1 A. Tholuck, Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Edinburgh,

1834, Vol. 1, p.262. .

2 Pierre Bonnard, ZL’Evangile selon St. Matthieu, Neuchatel, 1963, ad loc.

immense power of God, power to raise up children,to Abraham from stones.

The Baptist’s declaration must have deeply shocked entrenched prejudice. The importance of Abraham to an Israelite can hardly be exaggerated. He was the quintessence of substitutionary merit.

Edersheim observes: .. .

"Abraham was represented (by the rabbis) as sitting at

the gate of Gehenna to deliver any Israelite who otherwise . might have been consigned to its terrors ... The ships on

the sea were preserved through the merit of Abraham; the rain descended on account of it. For his sake alone had Moses been allowed to ascend into heaven to receive the law; for his sake the sin of the golden calf had been forgiven; ... Daniel had been heard for the sake of Abraham."•*• '

The warning of John was in the stark prophetic line: "...every one shall die for his own sin" (Jer. 31.30) "the soul that sins shall • die" (Ezek. 18.4). Merit cannot be borrowed from one's ancestors.

Matthew perhaps hints later that it cannot be borrowed from anyone 25.9). Those who preferred the rabbinic tradition above exposed their deafness to the prophets. Mistaken confidence in bodily acts and descent become then criteria of judgement. We may note that Matthew directs the attack at the Pharisees and Sadducees; Mark has no parallel; Luke says John addressed the crowds. Matthew has seen fit to attack pride in ritual and in race and materialism for which Pharisees and Sadducees were infamous.

Do John the Baptist’s axe, fan and fire refer to final judgement? It is doubtful whether this can really be answered. Bonnard writes:

"avec Jean-Baptiste et l'arrivee imminente du Christ, le jugement s’accomplit 2 ’

deja contre les fils d’Israel." 3

With this McArthur agrees. The word "now" (3,10) and the present 3 r

tenses, "the axe is laid, /CfXTat, the tree is hewn down, €J<KPTT7£T<X.v j-1__ 1 A. Edersheim, LTJM, Vol. 1, p.271.

2 Op. cit., ad loc.

3 H. K. McArthur, Understanding the Sermon on the Mount, New York,

indicate imminent judgement. On the other hand the last three verbs in John’s proclamation are future (’’will cleanse ...

will gather ... , will burn ... MT (3.12)) and

indicate some delay. To say that John anticipated judgement starting immediately does not necessarily mean that he believed it would shortly be finalized. However, the fact that it had not started by the time he was imprisoned by Herod wrung from his heart the question ’’are you he who is .to come or shall we look for another?" (11.3). Herod and Herodias were obvious candidates for judgement, but so far nothing had happened

to them. John may have viewed judgement in the terms of ancient Israel , 1 i.o. bodily destruction as a punishment was also God s final judgement. The axe should probably also have fallen, in his view, on those who had simply failed to produce good fruit. So, taken with the analogy of chaff, the keynote is struck on sin by omission. Chaff is not particularly

harmful, just light and worthless.

The harvest symbolism is taken up in chapter 13 where the final judgement is clearly and explicitly in view (13.42).

John saw Jesus as Judge and envisaged this judgement as near at hacd (3.2). Jesus was at hand, so the verb . Of (KL-V in Mark (Mk. 1.15, par. Mt. 4.17), the same word as in the mouth of John

1 This is implicit in the meaning of the word Sheol, grave, pit, place of departed spirits. It is also implicit in many places such as Ps. 55.15 where: "let death come upon them" is equivalent to "let them go down to Sheol alive" and in v.23 where the Psalmist affirms: "men of blood and treachery

shall not live out half their days". The implication is that this life is all the real life that anyone is going to get, for life in Sheol is dim and shadowy. Pss. 88.10; 115.17 indicate that the dead cannot praise God; Ps. 6.5 that in death there is no remembrance of God and "in Sheol who can give thee praise?", expects

the answer "noone". In view of these typical attitudes to death and Sheol, the death penalty, given as a

sentence as for murder (Num. 35.16-19,21,30), or adultery (Lev. 20.10) is intended to represent final judgement. (For a fuller treatment of this matter, see below p.87f,) .

in Mt. 3.2, Cranfield, answering Fuller, points out: ”... of the thirty-five times it occurs in the New Testament (apart from the times it refers to the kingdom) it is used twenty-four times in a spatial

• 2 sense ... It is unwise to brush aside the majority of occurrences.”

The proclamation, the Judge is at the gate, paves the way for a

criterion of judgement in addition to that of repentance, namely, reaction to Jesus’ person.

It is notable that the Sadducees are included with the Pharisees as the chief butts of John's denunciations.

Kilpatrick notes that, comparing Matthew with Mark, there is 3

”a decreasing interest in Herod and Herodians”. Herod the Great cannot be replaced in Chapter 2, nor Herod Antipas in 14.1-12, but Matthew substitutes ”... of the Sadducees” (16.6) for Mk. 3.15 ”... of Herod” .• and Mk. 3.6, ”... of the Herodians” is not reproduced by Matthew. To this evidence Kilpatrick adds: "We should expect to find similar treatment of the Sadducees in view of their loss of importance after A.D.70. But the name occurs seven times in Matthew, as often as in the whole of the

4 rest of the New Testament together.”

He al£o points out a difference.between Matthew and Mark in their records of the same question by the Sadducees, the question about the resurrection: (Mt. 22.23-31, Mk. 12.18-27).

- x

” In Mark the Sadducees.are introduced as follows: K&v Zpypyrhic .

pt this means the Sadducees are the party in Judaism which denies a resurrection. Mt. 22.23 reads: 71^0 </_*> fto

from this modification we need infer only that there were Sadducees 1 This is John's prelude to the theme of judgement in 3.7-12. 2 C.E.3. Cranfield, The Gospel according to St Mark, Cambridge,

1963, p.67,63. '

3 Op. cit., p.120f. 4 Ibid.

who denied the resurrection, not that they did so as a party. This suggests that, in Matthew, Sadducees was a more inclusive term than in Mark and in history, that it embraces all non-Christian, non­ Pharisaic Jews, corresponding to the Rabbinic use of Minim, with the Christian Jews excluded. That such Jews existed at the time is clear from Jewish sources , . ,

The Minim are designated as heretics and apostates, traditores, Epicureans, deniers of the Tora, those who have separated themselves

from the ways of the community, those who confess not the resurrection of the dead, those who have sinned and made the people to sin ...” Kilpatrick infers that Sadducees denote non-Pharisaic Jews, all Jews who were not Pharisees. This inference is hard to refute, though it needs to be qualified.

When Matthew makes John direct his fulmination against these two groups he is perhaps setting a keynote of his Gospel in two ways: to mark the theme of judgement with one of its criteria, unrepentance, and

to show that while many of his warnings were addressed to Pharisees and scribes only, some, as in IS.1,6,11,12 were addressed to all Jews.

Kilpatrick’s view seems cogent provided its application is limited to the Jews who opposed Jesus and assuming that at any rate in the 3hort run Jews could be favourable to Jesus without becoming Christians.

Kilpatrick has evidently overlooked the fact that not all the Jews were hostile (he says that when Matthew refers to the Sadducees he does not

2

do so in at all a friendly attitude). It may be assumed that Matthew gave at least limited approval to the crowd who shouted: '’Hosanna to the Son of David^...” (21.9). At any rate they acknowledged Jesus as a prophet (21.11) as others had done before this (16.14). While the

1 Ibid..

Palm Sunday crowd may have been largely Galilean in complexion, most of them must have been Jews, for Gentiles could hardly be excited about David’s son. The same assumption may be made about the people cited by the disciples at Caesarea Philippi (16.14), for again Gentiles could hardly be expected to refer to Elijah, Jeremiah or the prophets.

We may therefore conclude that Sadducees were for the reasons cogently advanced by Kilpatrick all the non-Pharisaic Jews, but we must add the qualification, "who were hostile to Jesus.”

How far are the sayings in the Sermon about judgement concerned with final judgement?

McArthur'1 sees only some 40% of the Sermon on the Mount as

eschatological. There would seem to be a good ground for saying that ’ it all concerns end things on the basis of the parable of the two

builders and its preface: "... whoever hears these sayings of mine ..." (7.24). The word "these", tovtcus, is peculiar to Matthew, so he

seems to be indicating the whole of the Sermon. There are good grounds for the claim that the parable is one of final judgement as we shall see when we come to it. If these grounds are valid then it must follow that the entire Sermon provides a hunting ground for criteria of

judgement. Yet, as it is proposed to deal only with those sayings which deal with final judgement explicitly, I reproduce only the relevant parts of McArthur’s findings.

Explicit . Eschatology Possible Eschatology Noj Eschatology 5.-13b Salt

5. 19t20 The old law 5. 21-26 Murder

5. 27-30 Adultery 5. 31-32 Divorce

6. 15 Warning attached to Lord’s prayer

7. 13-14 The narrow gate

6. 22-23 The sound eye 7.' 1-2 Judging 7. 3-5 Beam and mote 7. 6 Profaning the holy 7. 15-20 False prophets (partly)

7. 21-23 ’’Lord-, Lord” 7. 24-27 The two Houses

Much of this scheme is challengable. A desperate fate awaits savourless salt. If ”it is cast out” (5.13b) is not a periphrasis for the action of God, and men are the agents both of casting out and treading under,it is strange that sentence is not rephrased making men the subject of both clauses, ’’men cast it out and tread it underfoot”. This would be more natural.

_ Adultery was punishable by death and the Jew made no distinction between bodily death under the law and final judgement. So if divorce leads to adultery one might well suppose that this section is at least in the column ’’possible eschatology”.

1 The word eschatology has been so abused that I would favour its replacement by ’’discourse on final things”. In view of an article by M. L’Abbe' Jean Carmignac, "Les Dangers de L’Eschatologie” (jins , Vol. 17

(’70-’71) pp. 365-390), I have usually used the word ’’final” for eschatological” in this thesis. This avoids problems connected with the word eschatology such as ’’realized eschatology”, However, as observed on p. 42, I have occasionally used it as defined there

7.1,2 on the basis of the passive tenses ought to be in the 1 :

explicit category. Strack-Billerbeck give numerous parallels from Jewish literature confirming that the passive refers to God’s judgement, though in many of them there is no clear distinction between present and future judgement. Perhaps both are meant in the - - ... saying attributed to Rabbi Jochanan ben Nappeha (3rd C.):

’’There are six things the fruit of which man eats in this world, while the principal remains for him in the world to come, viz ... and judging one’s neighbour in the scale of merit (i.e. giving him the benefit of the doubt).*’

3

Tholuck, as always, investigates the matter most thoroughly.

He writes that owing to Luke’s third person plural •S'uXT OV V (€.j>8)

which certainly .relates to men it might be supposed that despite the preceding passives the judgement is that of men. Notwithstanding the . third person plural (see v.16) along with the second person singular is used impersonally and this impersonal may when relating to God be also expressed in the plural as shown by Lk. 12.20.

6.22 might well be placed in the explicit category owing to the association between darkness and final judgement (22.23; 25.30) and, if the Cross is taken as an expression of God’s judgement, 27.4'6 ( see pp. 352ff., below). Windisch lays down

’’Pericopes and logia in which the nearness of the judgement and the eschatological rule of God are

not expressly articulated do not need to be . •

referred by exegesis to the eschatological

situation.”4 .

His chief positive argument for this statement is the affinity between ' some passages in the Sermon and the motifs of Wisdom literature. This is so but, as McArthur observes: "... they have been put into an -

„5 eschatological-framework which transforms them.

j . . _ -

1 S track, Herman. L,,' and Billerbeck, Paul; Kommentar zum Neuen

• Testament aus Talmud und Midrasph, (6 VoLs. )‘Munchen,. 1926, 15443,etc