The Sermon on the Mount: A Practical Exposition. Gore Charles
means be satisfactorily dealt with in the space now at our disposal.
We know that the critics of the Gospel narratives are in our time occupied with nothing so much as with the difficult problem of the relation which the Gospels bear to one another. This problem presents itself in connexion with our present subject.
The Sermon on the Mount as given in St. Matthew corresponds, though with many differences, to what you find scattered over a great number of different chapters in St. Luke—vi. 20–49, xi. 1–4, 9–13, 33–36, xii. 22–31, 58–59, xiii. 24–27, xiv. 34–35, xvi. 13, 17–18.8 Now what are we to say about the relation of these two accounts of the same teaching? There is a good deal that is most characteristic in St. Matthew’s sermon which has nothing corresponding to it in the other evangelist, e.g. the spiritual treatment of the Commandments and of the typical religious duties of prayer, almsgiving and fasting; but where they are on the same ground they are often so closely similar that it is plain they are drawing from the same source. Whether this source was oral or written is a question we need not now discuss; but what are we to say of the different treatment of the same material?
It is throughout the method of St. Matthew to collect or group similar incidents or sayings. Thus he gives us a group of miracles (ch. viii–ix), a group of seven parables (ch. xiii), a long denunciation of the Pharisees which is represented in two different passages of St. Luke’s Gospel (ch. xxiii), and a great group of discourses about “the end” of which the same thing may be said (ch. xxiv). Judging from his general method, then, we should conclude that in the Sermon on the Mount we have grouped together sayings which probably were uttered in fact, as St. Luke represents, on different occasions. For it is St. Luke’s intention throughout to present events “in order,” and the sayings of Christ each in its proper context.
But it must not be forgotten that a teacher who, like our Lord, teaches by way of “sentences” or proverbs, is sure to repeat the same truth in different forms and from different points of view. Those who have examined Francis Bacon’s note-books and published works tell us how those weighty sentences of his were written down again and again and reappear continually in slightly different shapes. So we may suppose it probable that our Lord frequently repeated similar utterances.
Thus if St. Luke truly represents that our Lord on a certain occasion consoled His disciples by short and emphatic benedictions pronounced on the actual poverty in which they lived and the actual persecutions which they endured—“Blessed are ye poor, blessed are ye that hunger now, blessed are ye that weep now, blessed are ye when men hate you”—it does not by any means follow that He did not on another occasion pronounce, as recorded by St. Matthew, similar benedictions, more numerous, more general, and more spiritual, beginning with one not now on certain actually poor men, but on the “poor in spirit” in general. Thus on another occasion9 He repeated the saying, “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God,” in the more spiritual form, “How hard it is for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God.” Again, it does not follow that because He gave the pattern prayer in a shorter form, as recorded by St. Luke, He should not also have given it in the longer form, as recorded by St. Matthew.
The collection of our Lord’s discourses which characterizes the first Gospel is—there is every reason to believe—the work of the apostle St. Matthew. If so, we need to remember that it was the work not only of a first-rate witness, but also of one whose memory, naturally retentive, was quickened by a special gift of the divine Spirit bestowed on the apostles “to bring to their remembrance all that Christ had said unto them.”10
CHAPTER II
THE BEATITUDES IN GENERAL
“And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain: and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him: and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.”
OUR Lord went up into the mountain to get away from the multitudes. Thither He was followed by His chosen disciples, and it is to them that the Sermon is uttered. It was spoken to the Church, not to the world; but as ‘the multitudes’ appear also to have listened11 to it, we may say that it was spoken into the ear of the Church and overheard by the world.
1. It begins with the familiar “Beatitudes.” They are a description of the character of the citizen of the new kingdom; that is, the character of the man who, enjoying the freedom of the kingdom of God, has entered into the inheritance of true blessedness. Observe, we have a description of a certain character, not of certain acts. Christ requires us not to do such and such things, but to be such and such people. And the character which we find here described is beyond all question nothing else than our Lord’s own character put into words, the human character of our Lord corresponding always in flawless perfection with the teaching which He gave. Here are two reasons why our Lord’s teaching is capable of universal and individual application: (1) because it is not made up of detailed commandments, but is the description of a character which, in its principles, can be apprehended and embodied in all possible circumstances: (2) because it is not only a description in words but a description set side by side with a living example.
And we cannot remind ourselves too early that this is the character by which we shall be finally judged. It is “by this man,” as St. Paul says, “God will judge the world.” And St. John says “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”12 The estimate of our worth in God’s sight depends simply on this, How like are we, or rather, how like are we becoming to the character of Christ? But of this we shall have opportunity of speaking later on.
2. The beatitudes describe the blessed life—in other words, the citizen of the new kingdom is one who can say with Mary “all generations shall call me blessed.”
The idea of a blessed life had been common. We cannot begin to think about life without seeing that there are certain conditions which a man’s life must have if we are to be able to congratulate him on being alive. What sort of life is worth living? That is a question thinking men have asked from old days. Gautama and Confucius, Plato and Aristotle asked it. What sort of life possesses the characteristics which make it blessed—what sort of life can you congratulate a man, thoroughly and heartily, upon living?
Now observe a contrast in the answers given. To Gautama, the Buddha, the existence not merely of selfishness, but of the self, is a fundamental evil, delusion, and source of misery; and the true blessedness of painless peace is only to be attained by the emptying out of all desire, the extinction of all clinging to existence, and so at last by the extinction of life or personality itself. Thus though the Buddha’s moral teaching has many beautiful resemblances to that of our Lord, it has this fundamental difference, that Buddha regarded personal existence as a delusion and an evil to be got rid of, but Christ as a supreme truth and good to be at last realized in the vision of God and the fruition of eternal life. “I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly.”
Again, Aristotle asked the question, What is the blessed life? and he came to the conclusion that the life truly worth living