The Kingdom’s Message 

Jesus’ chief message had been a radical change in the way people thought, so they could touch and handle the Kingdom of God. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus began to describe the Kingdom, putting Yahweh at the center and as ultimate in everything.

Jesus was about to explain not the conditions for entering the Kingdom but what the Kingdom would be like for those who entered by faith and through repentance.

Jesus made three key points about the Kingdom in the sermon:

• Righteousness in the Kingdom goes deeper than external compliance.

  “ ... unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

• The Kingdom goal is to bring followers to a point of “perfection,” or complete devotion to Yahweh—not sinless perfection but allegiance perfection, or in a better word, wholeness. 

  “But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48 NLT).

• The Kingdom is entered based on listening, then believing, leading to obedient behaving.

“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of My Father in heaven will enter” (Matthew 7:21 NLT). 

We must insert two more issues here if we are to comprehend this passage. First, Jesus was not talking about right personal ethics or righteousness. He used plural pronouns throughout His sermon. Jesus was not telling a person what she or he should become; Jesus was describing the “group” of people to make up the Kingdom of Heaven. God's new people, whom He is Kingdom-net-catching, are not characterized as individuals but as a body of people. Kingdom life is not something one achieves alone or with one’s own family; Kingdom life is the outcome of a Jesus-community faithfulness. 

Second, the body of people Jesus is catching must make a choice. They must choose the narrow gate, the hard way, and make the wise choice (7:12-26). They must renounce the false righteousness of religion and embrace the surpassingly superior righteousness Jesus presented. Religious righteousness listens to and obeys rules, laws, and principles to make one look better or earn some kind of merit. In contrast, Kingdom righteousness listens to and obeys Jesus (7:24) and practices the Jesus-way to listen to His voice, bring honor to the Father, and experience a more intimate relationship with Him. 

Sermon on the Mount Outlined

Three Multiples of Three

Multiple One: Blessed and Being a Blessing

• Nine Kingdom Blessings (3-12)

• The Blessing of Preservation (13)

• The Blessing of Guidance (14-16)

Multiple Two: Heart Righteousness

• Righteousness Surpassing Religion (17-20)

• Six Teachings Contrasting Outer Righteousness and Inner Heart-Change (21-48)

• Three Examples Contrasting External Spirituality and True Inner Spirituality (6:1-18)

Multiple Three: Major Internal Conflicts

• Six Examples Built by Teaching on Greed and Anxiety (6:19-34)

• Three Teachings on Judging the Motives of Others (7:1-12)

• Three Teachings on Assurance of Entering God's Kingdom (7:13-27)

Here in chapter five, we find what has been traditionally dubbed the Sermon on the Mount. In verse one, crowds come to an unnamed mountain, likely in Galilee and near Capernaum, and gather around Jesus and His 12 disciples where Jesus begins to teach them.

In the previous chapters, Jesus tells His disciples they would be made into fishers of men. Jesus' disciples, when they fished, would have used a round net. Around the edges of the net, rocks would have been tied to serve as weights, making the net sink evenly into the water. A rope would have been tied to the center of the net. The fishermen would throw the net, and the net would cover the surface of the water evenly, beginning to sink. After a bit, the fishermen would pull on the rope, and the rocks would close and tangle at the bottom, leaving no way to escape except through rips in the net. 

When Jesus called His disciples to be fishers of men, this was the image that would have come to their minds. Jesus' disciples would picture fishermen casting their nets upon the water, then waiting for the net to sink and capture. 

The net cast for catching men was “teaching,” “proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom,” and “healing disease and affliction” (4:23).

Matthew began this section of his Gospel by announcing, “He went throughout Galilee, teaching, proclaiming, and healing” (4:23). Matthew ended this section of his Gospel the same way (9:35), leaving no doubt concerning what he was writing about. He was describing how Jesus, in many different places, cast the net of teaching to form disciples of those who would listen and receive. 

Here we watch Jesus cast the teaching net over the sea of Israel and then draw in His catch. It is one thing to be healed; it is quite another to give the allegiance of your heart to the King to obey His voice. 

Chapter five presents the teaching of Jesus. “He went up a mountain,” like Moses went up a mountain, to announce the fulfillment of the prophecy that a prophet like Moses would come (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). He sat down as a rabbi would have sat down, taking a teaching posture. He cast the teaching net as he would cast the “proclaiming-the-kingdom” net and the “healing” net (1-2).

Jesus Begins to Teach (1-2)

Multiple One: Blessed and Being a Blessing

Nine Kingdom Blessings (3-12)

Blessed simply means happy or fortunate. Those who enter Kingdom-life will not only act a certain way as a consequence, but they will be “happy.”

• Happy are the dependent, for they will operate in Kingdom authority (3).

• Happy are those who lament their sin and lack of response, for they will experience comfort (4).

• Happy are those who don't act superior, for the earth will prosper under their care (5).

• Happy are those with a spiritual appetite for Yahweh above all else, for they will live satisfying lives (6).

• Happy are those who express mercy, for they will be shown mercy (7).

• Happy are those who have one sacred focus in life, for they will experience God's abiding presence (8).

• Happy are those who are instruments of reconciliation, for they will be dubbed those who reflect who God really is (9).

• Happy are those who are persecuted, for they will experience great reward in heavenly places as the Kingdom of Heaven will become more real than they ever imagined (10-12).

Jesus is looking for something here in these Beatitudes; He is looking for those who, with Him, will listen to the Father. He is casting His Kingdom net, looking for those who would be humble of heart, have their appetites changed to hunger for the Father, and allow their lives to be purified with allegiance as they experience woeful times of rejection. 

The Blessing of Preservation (13)

To demonstrate the difference between humble “Kingdom-happy” people and stagnant religious people, Jesus used two metaphors: salt and light. 

Salt was the necessary ingredient for preserving and keeping decay and corruption from forming in societies unconstrained in their ways. If salt loses its preserving power, it is no longer of any use. One can't use salt to salt, any more than one could use olive oil to make olive oil more oily. Suppose that the ones Jesus seeks to form into listeners and obeyers are no longer listeners and obeyers; in that case, they become no longer good for anything but being trampled and persecuted for being annoying. 

The Blessing of Guidance (14-16)

Light is a shining force illuminating the path of life, preserving society from having no sense of direction. The “Kingdom-happy” are to be a great light on a hill shining out to the world. While the light is to be an inner experience in those it enters, the world will see the light through the works of those so inwardly illumined. They light up the world not in lectures but in good deeds, which show off Yahweh, not human achievement.

Multiple Two: Heart Righteousness

Righteousness Surpassing Religion (17-20)

Jesus then made the most important point about His Kingdom: it is not a Kingdom of external obedience to a set of rules and traditions, as the Pharisees supposed. The Kingdom of Heaven was internal (Luke 17:21) and so revolutionary that it was able to produce a righteousness superior to that of following and teaching the Law (20).

Jesus made it clear that He had not come to abolish the Law of Moses, nor the writings of the prophets. Jesus had come to accomplish what the Law of Moses and the writings of the prophets had purposed Yahweh to accomplish all along (By the Law of Moses, we mean the first five books of the Bible, and the writings of the Prophets are the remainder of the Old Testament) (17).

Jesus had come to make sure every promise, down to the smallest letter and stroke of the Hebrew letter, would be fulfilled, completed, and realized before the disappearance of the heavens and earth as we know them (18). To ignore any command or to treat it as insignificant would cause those who did such things to be Kingdom-irrelevant.

Jesus was not saying these laws were to be externally kept, but the laws, even the smallest ones, were to be treated as sacred, and followers were to watch carefully their fulfillment in the Kingdom of Heaven through Christ (19). As followers focused on Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law and put their faith in Him to change their hearts and lives to be like Jesus, the magic of transformation would begin to take place.

Six Teachings Contrasting Outer Righteousness and Inner Heart-Change (21-48)

The rest of this chapter represents the most difficult part of Jesus' teaching. Here is one of the few places Jesus revealed His exegesis of the Old Testament. Exegesis broadly refers to the rules or principles used to interpret a text. Jesus was telling us what God meant in certain parts of Old Testament scripture. 

Jesus amazed His audience with His interpretation here. He provided a stark contrast in saying, “You have heard that it was said,” with, “but I say to you….” In essence, Jesus invalidated the religious leaders' interpretations, and further, announced His interpretation to be the correct one.

You can imagine the angry reaction! “We well-studied religious leaders are wrong, and you backwater, of-no-account Rabbi claim to be right?!” 

Few in our day have any problem with Jesus from Matthew 6 on, where He teaches about spiritual practices, prayer, devotion, giving, the golden rule, and obedience, along with anxiety and judgment.

The problem is in verses 17-48 where Jesus challenges the purpose of the Law. 

The Pharisees and Scribes read scripture and said the Law was to be observed and obeyed. Jesus looked at the Law and said it was supposed to point us to Yahweh and what He sought in our inner hearts. Those who misinterpreted the Law failed to see into the heart of God. They did not know the Law as a guardian (Galatians 3:24), keeping God's people from an addictive life. If Israel had been lost to addiction and formed by sensuality, they might have been lost to extinction, as cultures before them. 

Those who sought to listen to and hear the voice of Yahweh would pick up on the heart of the Law as the prophets did, as people like King David did, and especially as Jesus did. 

Micah revealed this heart when he cried out, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8) 

Here in Matthew 5:21-48, Jesus took six laws, primarily Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and interpreted them for us. Jesus defined Yahweh's heart behind the Law. 

• Teaching on Anger (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17)

• Teaching on Lust (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18)

• Teaching on Divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1-4)

• Teaching on Oaths (Leviticus 19:12)

• Teaching on Retaliation (Leviticus 19:18)

• Teaching on Loving One’s Enemy (Leviticus 24:17-23)

Behind every law is a Yahweh-size interpretation. Jesus did not delete Yahweh's Law; He gave us its interpretation. Every law reveals Yahweh's heart and the kind of fidelity He seeks to form in all who follow Him. Jesus used these six laws as examples so we could use them to make sense of the rest of the Old Testament. He only needed these examples to teach us how to interpret the rest. Those before Jesus sought to obey the Law; Jesus wanted them to search for Him through these laws and discover His heart.

Jesus then launched into six contrasting teachings where He demonstrated the true inner change Yahweh had been seeking all along, as opposed to the outer keeping of the Law by religious leaders.

1. Teaching on Anger (21-26)

   The Law forbade the taking of physical life; Jesus, however, was looking for those who would not even contemplate injuring another in any way. Expressing anger is merely a way of taking a position of superiority over another person. In the Kingdom, Jesus wanted name-calling to be considered the same as murder. Especially heinous to Jesus was name-calling such as “fool” or “cursed” or “demonized.” Such activity left the angry person in danger of serious judgment (21-22).

   Jesus gave a remedy for anger in the Kingdom. Those angered would leave their act of worship (offering at the altar) and go pursue the sister or brother harmed by their anger, their insult, or their curse. They would be reconciled with everyone they had harmed or who was seeking their harm before they came to worship God (23-24).

   In the Kingdom, even legal accusations were to be handled differently. Those being accused were to go to their accuser and work out terms beyond the courtroom. Those who had harmed others would not win those cases and would end up paying in the end; they were to intercept the accuser and offer an acceptable settlement (25-26). 

2. Teaching on Lust (27-30)

   Jesus took on lust in the same way. The Law forbade the physical act of sleeping with someone who was not a spouse. Jesus got at the heart of the issue: the curing of lust. The lust here was the lust of looking at a person unmarried with the thought, “I would wish to sleep with her or him.” Jesus referred to such a thought as heart-adultery (27-28).

   Jesus’ remedy to lust in the Kingdom was rather simple: a destroying of the eye or hand or any part of our being that looked and thought to grab for anything driven by our lusts. Jesus made it clear in His remedy to lust that “happy” people would gladly maim the inward part of their person that was responsive to lust because the consequence of unbridled lust is a resurrected body (John 5:29) lost to the judgment of hellfire (29-30).

3. Teaching on Divorce (31-32)

   Jesus recognized Moses made provision for divorce but went on to say any divorce, except in the case of adultery, was strictly forbidden. Marriage, in God’s view, was for life. Even if someone did divorce their mate and their mate remarried, the new marriage was considered an act of sexual immorality. In the Kingdom, “happy” people marry for life.

4. Teachings on Oaths (33-37)

   Moses taught in Leviticus 19:12 and Deuteronomy 23:21 to fulfill all oaths and vows. Jesus claimed oaths and vows were unnecessary in the Kingdom of God where “happy” people naturally keep their word (33). It was the tradition of Jews to swear in different ways, depending on how serious they were about keeping their word. To take an oath revealed the deep wickedness of their heart, demonstrating their complete lack of intent to keep some of their words and commitments.

   To have varying degrees of commitment to certain promises also shows great levels of deceit. Jews held that if God's name was mentioned in a promise, then the oath was more binding. They would argue how much of God's name was invoked if the oath was sworn by Heaven or how much more or less if by the throne, the earth, or Jerusalem. Each of these had differing degrees of the Lord's name associated with them. Depending on how much they could prove the Lord's name was associated with what they swore by determined how binding their oath would be (34-35). Even swearing on their own heads was argued, for man was created in the image of God (36).

   In the end, Jesus promoted a Kingdom-life based on a simple yes and no, deeming all other forms of swearing foolish and unnecessary (37). Jesus’ point was that “Kingdom-happy” people keep their word.

5. Teaching on Retaliation (38-42)

   Jesus then took on Moses' Law regarding retaliation (Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21). Jesus quoted the “eye for an eye” and “tooth for tooth” teaching. This law was given, of course, to limit retaliation from straying further than the depth of the offense. The law did not demand retaliation, but it did limit it. An Old Testament person could forgive and not demand the right of retaliation. Jesus encouraged nonresistance: offering the other cheek instead of a brawl (38-39). He encouraged giving up possessions over battling it out in court. Jesus encouraged walking an extra mile when someone as oppressive as a Roman soldier asked one to carry his pack. Jesus encouraged people not to resent the beggar or the borrower but to treat both with honor. Jesus’ point was that “Kingdom-happy” people would not give people what they deserved but seek to love and honor them. 

6. Teaching on Enemies (43-47)

   Moses had taught love of enemies (Leviticus 19:18), but the Jews of Jesus’ day taught that they should hate their enemies. Jesus taught that people should extend the same love they had for their neighbors to their enemies and persecutors. They were to show their love first and primarily by praying for them (43-44).

   Jesus gave them the example of the Father who sends rain and sunshine equally to everyone, the righteous and the unrighteous. In essence, Jesus viewed God's love as extending to everyone. “Happy” people are children of God, and in acting like God, Jesus said they would treat neighbors and friends alike (45). Those who could only love those who loved them were not the “happy,” blessed people transformed by faith. Even the most notoriously unprincipled men, tax collectors, could love those who loved them back. The “happy” people would be different; they would not ignore greeting people they felt awkward around, even people separated from Yahweh; they could greet people who made them feel uncomfortable (46-47).

   Jesus taught that those who were “happy,” those receiving and experiencing God's Kingdom, would become complete as Yahweh became the center of their affection (48).