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, November 19, 1989.

But if one died for all, they were all dead. Having died for all, the thing which lives should not henceforth live under themselves, but under him which died for them and rose again. Therefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no longer.”

Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Good things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to which God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you, in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sinned for us. who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Then turning over to Matthew 7, which is 1 through 5. Matthew 7, 1 through 5.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. And with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again. Why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? But how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the moat out of thine eye, and behold, a beam is in thine own eye. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother’s eye.

Help us, Lord, that we might turn to your word quickly, earnestly, and in that word, Lord, may we find that truth that does not disappoint. May we find our Father there, the wonderful record of your mighty deeds, of your powerful strong, corrective, and blessed words. May we, Lord, as we turn, be inspired all the more to live for you. We pray this through Christ. Amen. This is our third and final message on Matthew 7, verses 1-5.

So far, we have concentrated on what we might call the ethical meaning of Jesus’ words. And in focusing upon his words here, these words that have in fact generated a great deal of discussion in the history of the Church, we have endeavored to establish what our Savior means by them, and what he doesn’t mean.

We have said that he doesn’t mean, he cannot mean, by these words, judge not lest ye be judged, that we take leave of our critical senses. That we take leave of our ability to distinguish between right and wrong, or even between the righteous and the wicked. And most especially we have concluded that our Savior could not mean by these words to outlaw the proper, the right, disciplinary function of the Church.

He cannot mean that this responsibility is to be laid aside, forgotten. In fact, it is the responsibility of the church, we are told in many places in scripture, by Jesus himself, to judge the righteous judgment. Jesus says, John 7 verse 24, we are not to judge according to appearances. We are to judge, he says. the righteous judgment. So we know what Jesus doesn’t mean. But this is what we have concluded that he does mean.

With these words he is prompting us to always lead with love. always lead with love and with the deepest humility. That means that we are to assume, given his illustration here, you know the illustration of the speck and the beam, we are to assume as we approach others that we have the beam in our eye, while our brother, our neighbor, has the speck in his. We approach him with the deepest humility. We lead with love.

Put in different words, mercy must always moderate. And that not only in light of mercy already granted us by God, but in hopes of that mercy that shall be confirmed to us when we shall appear before our judge. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. What Jesus means, therefore, is that we must never give in to that destructive, that cruelly competitive, malicious, often vengeful spirit that isn’t satisfied unless it asserts its superiority, gains the advantage, or gets even.

Now, I’ve taken pains these past three weeks to make these points clear. You have the drift. You got these things down. Well, maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. But let me say this. Even if you have these things down, you have a grip upon them, following them along this ethical line. they won’t do you much good. If you have grabbed hold merely of these words along an ethical or a moral track, along the line purely of your behavior and how you are to treat others. These words will not do you a whole lot of good. Now don’t misunderstand me.

In this wicked world, ethics are fine things, relatively speaking. For example, in this world it is better to be ethical than unethical. And it is much better to be impressed with and attempt to follow a system of ethics derived from the teachings of Jesus than to be impressed with or attempt to follow a system of ethics derived from the thought of, say, Pete Rose or Ben Woods or Don Corleone. I understand the Godfather was on this last week. But it is precisely at this point, and particularly with a passage like this one from Matthew 7, that we are quite likely to lose hold of Jesus. In fact, ethics and morality can very easily displace him at this point.

Did you know that Jesus isn’t interested in ethics? Did you know that Jesus is not interested in morals? Now if you’re shocked by that statement, I’m glad, because it’s intended to shock you. You see, ethics and morals considered along the lines that we have been surveying ethics and morals are generally what people are interested in if they don’t really know Jesus. The Pharisees didn’t know Jesus. They were very interested in ethics and morals. The medieval Roman church didn’t know Jesus. They were supremely interested in ethics and morals.

The 18th century enlightened Protestant church didn’t know Jesus, but it was interested above all else in ethics and morals. In fact, it was that enlightened Protestant church, through its high priest, Immanuel Kant, K-A-N-T, that transformed both European and American Protestant religion into ethics and morals.

And whether you want to acknowledge it or not, whether you want to admit it, you are a child of that transformation. I do not care whether you were born and raised in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I don’t care whether you’re Reformed and have been all of your life. I don’t care whether you are sophisticated or unsophisticated. I don’t care whether you’re conservative or liberal, a scholar or a layman. You have been affected to the very roots of your being by that transformation. You lead with ethics and morality.

Now take stock of what is in the balance because of this transformation that has been affected by that 18th century enlightened Protestantism. We together are in a state presently whereby we have had compromised for us our vital connection with the transcendent domain of our Heavenly Father’s reign. Do you understand what has happened because of that transformation in the 18th century?

We now live in a closed universe, and you can’t get out. You can’t get out. Whatever point of reference you’re going to come up with within that universe is from within it completely and exclusively. Religion is redefined. Religion now becomes essentially ethics and morals. From Immanuel Kant to John Dewey, religion is above all else principally practical. It is first of all above all else concerned with behavior and practice, now as if it were the blood running through our veins. This preoccupation with morality and ethics has landed us in the lap of a pragmatism a view of life that is overlaid with a conviction with respect to practical action and personal behavior.

And that is why it is so easy for us when we come to a passage like this in Matthew 7, to get off the track. to read it along the lines of a single tract. But be assured, that single solitary tract leaves us like ears removed from the world of Jesus Christ. That single solitary tract leaves us no closer to him than a clever rabbi of the first century might have been if he expressed similar thoughts. In fact, to take this single solitary tract of ethics and morality is only to increase the distance between us and Jesus.

Jay Gresham Machen put it like this When you have a religion that is made up of ethics and morals You are no longer talking about a variation of Christianity You’re talking about an entirely different religion If you want ethics, read Aristotle. If you want morality, read the Talmud, the Jewish commentary on the law. If you want salvation, then read Jesus. If you want redemption, then read Jesus.

Do you think that here in Matthew 7 when he says, Judge not lest ye be judged, he is somehow taking a vacation from his program, somehow he is taking a reprieve from his mission, that mission which has as its foundation His call as the Savior of His people. Do you imagine that these words can be properly understood if we lay aside for a minute His death and His resurrection? His saving work and the saving significance of His person? Not at all. There is a religion expressed as if these things could be laid aside. The cross is insignificant. The resurrection never happened. It’s not important. All you need is morality. All you need is that.

The cross and the resurrection, the saving significance of Jesus Christ is the foundation of anything that he has to say about morality, about behavior, about your conduct. The indicatives of redemption precede all imperatives with respect to our behavior and our morality.

And that is why it is imperative that every pulpit that would contend that it stands for the gospel clearly articulate, week by week, the saving work of Jesus Christ, the significance of that death and resurrection. To preach Christ, that is the calling. From beginning to end, then, our Lord’s consciousness is captivated by the significance of his own cross and his coming resurrection. Even here in Matthew 7, that cross is apparent and the resurrection is certain.

Jesus did not intend by his words to supply us with moral advice for our own good. Advice intended to improve our moral character or improve the world’s collective disposition. Even here, Jesus is actively proclaiming the kingdom of heaven. Its salvation message is here in Matthew 7 as much as it is in Matthew 20 when Jesus tells us that he has come to give his life in ransom to men.

What is the supreme task? of interpreting scripture now, in our time for the people of God, it is making sure that that message concerning Jesus Christ is readily seen from every text. It is placing Jesus before the people as their only hope. It is telling them that all is lost without Him. It is extolling for them His glory, portraying Him in all of His beauty, that He might be compelling all the more to you. That you may see Him more clearly, that you may be inspired more readily by Him, that you might love Him more dearly. But how easily we’re born. how easily we’re bored by Jesus.

Give me something practical, we cry out. Give me something eminently practical. Some things will tell me how to get from point A to point B. Give me the steps. Write it down for me. Hand me a manual. Please. Work it all out for me. Make it programmable so I can run it on the computer. Do anything. Get it in front of me.

But don’t bore me with these things, these thoughts, these ideas, these convictions with respect to the glory and the grandeur of Jesus Christ. Don’t bore me again and again with the details, the historical details of Christ’s work for me. I know all that. It used to do things for me. It doesn’t do anything for me anymore. Let’s get on with the business of living, please. Let’s get it on.

My friends, we’re talking about two completely different kinds of religion here. Two completely different kinds of religion. The majority of Christians today want one form of Christianity. Jesus has another to offer. And by and large, the church doesn’t want anything to do They really would rather have Aristotle. They really would rather have the Talmud. Or it’s modern day corollary of the onus. Well, the message of salvation.

His words even here rise out of his own person and the significance of his ministry for others, for sinners. Those to whom he ministers presently in the passage, his own disciples. Therefore when he tells us, his disciples, his church, not to judge inappropriately, he himself commends himself as his people’s only hope for he has not failed to keep perfectly the specific command in places upon them now where are you going to get the strength not to judge unrighteousness? where? where are you going to find it? in another system from somebody what he expects of us is found in him as its foundation and can be expressed by us only if we are in living, vital connection with him This is more than mere morals and bare ethics.

Here is life. Life that comes forth only because of union with Christ. But to contend that union with Christ is at the foundation of these words assumes that Christ is alive. And to say that he is alive is to say that he has been raised from the dead there is no powerful life apart from the risen Christ you cannot keep these words you cannot even begin to obey apart from you and with him but there is one final thought Not only has Jesus Christ been raised so that we might live in him and like him, but he has also suffered and died.

His death, to be sure, is exemplary, leaving us moral example, to be sure. It is, however, much more. For here in this world, Jesus Christ, one who had neither speck nor beam in his eyes, In this one, there is found that benevolent and merciful and gracious attitude towards others. In that he takes all our things and all our specs to himself that we might be enabled to see clearly through him.

The kindness of this one who knew no sin, had no sin, 2 Corinthians 5.21 indeed moves us to imitate him, however it is most particularly effectual to save us.

Since through his actions, clearing the specks and burying the beans, he has ended the affair on a cross where he was made to be sin that we through him might become the righteousness of God no mere morality no fair ethical system, redemption, salvation, the only adequate foundation out of which any morality or ethical practice can arise. Save us, Father, from morality. Save us from ethics. Lord, just save us in and through Christ.

And we know that the life that pleases you follows as does the night, the day. We pray, our Father, that you will give us strength by this work of redemption in which we delight and may our hearts thrill increasingly because of Christ whom you’ve given to us.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.