This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 4, 1987.
About this sermon
Christ teaches from a heavenly mount as well as a Galilean hillside, and 5:17 already puts the cross at the center of all that follows. The cross binds the two greatest commandments, love of God and love of neighbor, into one. Christian ethics never stands apart from the crucifixion.
Sermon transcript
This is Matthew 22, verse 34 and following. But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him and saying, Master, Which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ?
Whose son is he? They said unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit down on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David then called him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word. Neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.” And then Matthew five seventeen.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. Let us pray together. Lord, in our pride, we would think more of ourselves than we ought, and certainly more of our words than your word. But Father, through Christ and the ministry of your Spirit in our hearts, You have taught us the value of your word, for surely by your word all of our words are judged. We invite you, therefore, our God, our King, our Governor, to judge us, our words and works, through your mercy. for the sake of Christ our Savior. Amen.
Jesus teaches. Jesus teaches his own. He teaches his own from a mount in Galilee. And he continues to teach his own today from heaven. His instruction, his commands, they are the same then as now. No ordinary teacher, not just one more prophet come from God. Not even a new and better Moses. Jesus is the teacher without equal.
That one who in his person, not simply in his message. That one who, in his person, affects an alteration of history. Never has there been teaching like this. This one, then, in his person, affects a transition for the ages. time and history, life and reality will never be the same again.
His coming, according to that angel prior to his birth, that angel who spoke to Joseph in a dream, his coming according to that angel means the forgiveness of his people’s sins. According to John the Baptist, Jesus’ contemporary, the coming of this one Jesus means the apocalyptic harvest, the clearing of the threshing floor, the gathering of the wheat, the burning of the chaff with supernatural fire.
See what John says in Matthew 3 verse 12. And according to Matthew, the gospel writer, that coming of Jesus means the realization of God’s purposes and the Old Testament intent and promise. Truly, as Matthew comments with regard to the coming of the Christ, there is the fulfillment beyond the wildest imagination of any Hebrew of the land. The fulfillment of that passage, Isaiah 714, the Virgin shall conceive, bring forth the child, you shall call the child’s name Immanuel, God with us. And later in the fourth chapter of Matthew’s gospel, the gospel writer will reflect upon the coming of Christ in his preaching ministry along the lines of Isaiah chapter 9. God’s light in Christ is broken out upon those who sit beneath the shadow of death.
Then there is the testimony of Jesus himself According to him, his coming means, in chapter 3, verse 15, the fulfillment of all righteousness. And then, as you run through the series of the Beatitudes, Matthew 5, verses 3 and following, his coming means the arrival of end-time blessings.
Jesus, therefore, is that one who in his appearance alone alters history. He is history’s end, he is its goal. And such alteration, such transformation, his own fully expected, his appearance in their minds was to bring about justice for those who have waited. Justice, equity for the poor, and judgment upon the oppressor. Glory for the righteous, shame for the proud. God prevails in the end. evil is dispelled conclusively. The Lord in his Christ rewards his own and punishes his enemies.
But now, as we have seen, that one who alters history, the Lord’s Messiah, has come no longer to the people wait. He has appeared, but instead of bringing that separation of the sheep from the goats, instead of bringing about that separation of the righteous from the wicked conclusively, instead of ushering in that day in which the suffering of the righteous has ended, this Messiah introduces a fullness of righteousness that stands before the face of wickedness and takes the blows. He introduces his blessing into the midst of whatever suffering the righteous in his name are called upon to endure. but his own, had hardly envisioned the continuation of the times in which persecution and reviling would even be a possibility.
Nor did they envision an environment in which there would have to be a reminder to do good Note the last three, the attitudes. A reminder to be merciful, to be pure of heart, to be a peacemaker. There would be no need for a reminder concerning these things, for, you see, such a reminder would be superfluous. What need is there to be reminded to do good in a place where evil is impossible? For the coming of the Messiah means the end of all things and the introduction of the state of perfection.
Well, the weight of Jesus’ teaching is shattering for those he calls his own. The immediate question his disciples have is this. What then of the law and process? Was not the point of Old Testament teaching that the Messiah would usher in that perfect state of affairs and bring to an end all of the unpleasantness, all of the unfortunate aspects of life and reality all suffering, sighing, death and dying, gone, forgotten, put aside, no longer experienced. But Jesus now speaks, he being the one sent, the one who comes to affect the transformation of the ages, the transition of the ages. Jesus speaks as if things will continue and he will call upon his own to live in the light of his coming, he making a difference in them. His disciples, you see, want to know, if what Jesus has said here at the opening of the Sermon on the Mount is true, what about our convictions concerning the law and the prophets, it sounds to us as if you want to destroy the law and the prophets.
So Jesus says in verse 17, not at all. I came not to destroy, but to fulfill. And so it is that the one who comes, fills the law and the prophets full of himself. And in this way it becomes apparent that he is what they have been saying all along. What was Moses saying? What was David saying? Jesus. What was Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel? What were they saying? Jesus. He is the meaning, the significance, the content of the law and the prophets. But in taking stock of what he has said here to his own, our reaction may well be, ah yes, but how much of him? Is it to be merely his moral teaching or is it to include his redemptive work? And that is the issue now. Because, you see, on a bare reading, it is possible for you to look at Jesus’ comments with regard to the Law and Prophets and conclude that he has nothing else in view here but morality, how I behave. And there’s absolutely nothing redemptive here at all. There’s no cross in these words. There’s no blood, and there’s no cleansing. But, taking these words at their full, is there a place for the cross even here? No, even more.
Is not the cross at the center of Jesus’ estimation of his relationship to the law and the prophets? Well. We have taken stock of a couple of passages in light of. Our suggestion that the cross is, in fact, at the center of what Jesus says concerning the law and the profit. We have turned to the seventh chapter of Matthew.
We have looked at the golden rule, verse twelve, and we have concluded with regard to that golden rule that even here you cannot subtract from this verse one with the cross. And if you do, you miss the point and you don’t understand what Jesus is saying. Doing unto others what you want them to do to you is permeated with the cross and with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are no works, righteousness, doctrines here to be found.
Rather, this text, Matthew 7, 12, testifies to that person besides ourselves who ends in our power because of me. That one who is placed within our power, within our hand, because of his need, he comes to us in his need, and now the question is, how will I respond? Will I make myself the servant for the sake of that one who is in need, doing unto him as I would have done unto me, or will I turn my back upon him?
The point being, of course, that Christ does nothing less in dying upon the cross, what he has enjoined here in Matthew 7 verse 12. And this, says Jesus, is the law and the promise. There is another passage in which Jesus has something to say. about the law and the prophets together. That passage is Matthew 22. We’ve read it this morning.
And the habit of mind has been to see here no less than in 7.12, a cross-less Christianity. In other words, the whole intent of Jesus is merely to make us better people. The objective is morality. It’s not salvation. It’s not It is simply betterment. The objective is not, then, saving people who cannot save themselves. It is making people who can, in fact, save themselves a bit better.
Hencemore, here, as formally, Jesus summarizes the law and the time he faces an unsympathetic audience. The Pharisees that in counter-distinction to the disciples, whom he was speaking in the Sermon on the Mount. The language is delivered. Notice verse thirty four, but when the Pharisees heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they gathered themselves together. Does that last phrase sound familiar? Does it sound like something you’ve read before? Does it sound like a psalm? Does it sound like Psalm 2?
The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointing. Here, as Matthew frames the passage, he places the Pharisees in the place of those who have set themselves against the Lord. And now the lawyer steps forward to prosecute the case of the opponents of the Lord and his anointed. His objective to discredit Jesus by placing him at odds with the great interpreters of the law of that day.
Jesus, however, answers with such brilliance that he proves himself more than a match for the Pharisees best. That brilliance is not located in the Old Testament text, he quotes, because the Pharisees and the lawyer knew those texts well, but in the way in which Jesus combines the text. In fact, the point is the way in which he connects them.
You see, he says, After having quoted from the Shema, from Deuteronomy 6.4, he says, the second is like unto the first. Note verse 39. The second is like unto the first. The second commandment is like unto the first.
There was only a request with regard to the greatest, remember. He could have ended after citing the first. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, heart, soul, and mind. And he goes on, and he speaks of a second, and by doing so he takes the second and exalts it to a place in which it is seen as indispensable to the first and as indispensable as the first. The crucial issue, therefore, is not so much the first commandment. You might think, how could one move beyond the power and force of that first commandment? You’re to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
But the crucial issue now becomes the second, the second commandment. And the question is, how exactly is that second commandment like the first? How is loving our neighbor as ourselves, like the first commandment concerning loving God? What is at the root of both?
Well, the thread by which the two are sewn together is an abandonment. An abandonment. an abandonment which we ordinarily associate exclusively with the first commandment, namely, holding back nothing in our devotion to God, giving our all, nothing less than this being the love in view. This abandonment rightly understood about our relationship to God, to be sure, as that first and great commandment hits us full face.
But you see, Jesus doesn’t stop there, he goes on. He now joins to the abandonment with which we rightly understand that first commandment, the abandonment with which we are to understand the second, which is like unto it. For Jesus has said that an abandonment similar must characterize our love for our neighbor. The genius of Jesus’ response is not simply the fact that he ashamed his detractors who have no such love for him, their neighbor, but that he has so exalted the neighbor to be the object of an all-consuming love, a consuming love that we ordinarily would reserve for God. But you see, nothing less than this is the pattern of the self-giving abandonment toward God and our neighbor, which is at the heart of the Old Testament in the entirety of its message, the Law and the Prophets. It is precisely this pattern that we observe in perfection in Christ as he gives himself in obedient love to God for the sake of others, for the sake of his own.
And where does he do this? But on the cross. The Son of Man is come not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. The first and second commandments spoken of here by Jesus preach Christ. Jesus hasn’t come to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill to fill them full of himself, and thus reveal their true significance that significance continues to allude all who fail to see at the center. At the center. Of the law and profits. on which Jesus, the sinless one, out of his love for sinners, surrenders himself, that they might be forgiven.
Where might you turn to understand your Old Testament? To the cross. Where might you turn to understand to the cross. Now, do I have to spell that out any further? Do you see what Christ is calling for here? Out of the sum and substance of the Law and Prophets, out of the content of His own cross, for all who would own Him, He is calling forth from you that same sort of sacrifice evidenced in Him that you might be conformed to His image. Do you have difficulty loving your husband? Where are you going to learn? May I suggest at the cross? Do you have difficulty loving other people in this church? Where might you turn? Where are you to look? At the cross.
The lesson in love is found in the cost. I know how it goes for us. We are taught just the reverse. First, you whip out one of your college psychology textbooks. Or you go and buy a stack of books to help you understand life a bit better. All the time thinking, well, this information will certainly end in a better understanding of God and His ways. But you see, what Jesus is saying to us, start with the cross and see everything else in its light.
That’s the right method. Even those passages that seem filled full of moralism. Those passages that seem to be the calling cards of liberals. Adding weight to their contention that really all Jesus came to do was present us with a crossless religion. A religion of self-betterment. Moral improvement. No, not even those passages can be devoid of the cross. Rather, the cross is at the center. And now, you see, into this world, which has been transformed by the coming of Christ, that world utterly transformed by His presence, the cross becomes the center of the life of all who are His own, and their life becomes one of prosperity. We too, like unto him, giving up ourselves for the sake of others in imitation of him.
Here, the weight, the power, the content of love. Truly, the law and the prophets. Truly, the law and the prophets. Let us pray. Father, Jesus is even gentle with us, we who are his own. But he might direct our attention back to those things that are central, indispensable. His cross. Where might we learn how to understand and read the law and the prophets? at the cross, where might we turn to understand how to love to the cross? So instruct us then, Lord, not counting our own lives dear, but giving our lives up for the sake of others, to the point that they may be preferred before us. The power to do this is found in Christ. who was not only crucified, but was raised from the dead, and in the power of that new life, gives his own life to those who call upon him in faith. We thank you, Lord,
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