|
Whereas
the contrast in the previous paragraph was between saying' and `doing',
the contrast now is between `hearing' and `doing'. On the one
hand, Jesus says, there is the person who "hears these words of
mine and does them" (24), and on the other the person who "hears
these words of mine and does not do them" (26). He then illustrates
the contrast between his obedient and disobedient hearers by his
well-known parable of the two builders, the wise man who `dug deep'
(Lk.6:48) and constructed his house on rock, and the fool who could not
be bothered with foundations and was content to build on sand. As
both got on with their building, a casual observer would not have
noticed any difference between them. For the difference was in the
foundations, and foundations are not seen. Only when a storm
broke, and battered both houses with great ferocity - rain on the roof,
river on foundation, wind on walls' - was the fundamental and fatal
difference revealed. For the house on the rock withstood the gale,
while the house on the sand collapsed in irreparable ruin.
In the same way professing Christians (both the genuine and spurious)
often look alike. You cannot easily tell which is which.
Both appear to be building Christian lives. For Jesus is not
contrasting professing Christians with non-Christians who make no
profession. On the contrary, what is common to both spiritual house-builders
is that they "hear these words of mine". So both are
members of the visible Christian community. Both read the Bible,
go to church, listen to sermons and buy Christian literature. The
reason you often cannot tell the difference between them is that the
deep foundations of their lives are hidden from view. The real
question is not whether they "hear" Christ's teaching (nor
even whether they respect or believe it), but whether they "do"
what they hear. Only a storm will reveal the truth. Sometimes a storm of
crisis or calamity betrays what manner of person we are, for `true piety
is not fully distinguished from its counterfeit till it comes to the
trial'. If not, the storm of the day of judgement will certainly
do so.
The truth on which Jesus is insisting in these final two paragraphs of
the Sermon is that neither an intellectual knowledge of him nor a verbal
profession, though both are essential in themselves, can
ever be a substitute for obedience. The question is not whether
we "say" nice, polite, orthodox, enthusiastic things to or
about Jesus; nor whether we "hear" his words, listening,
studying, pondering and memorizing until our minds are stuffed with his
teaching; but whether we "do" what we say and "do"
what we know, in other words whether the lordship of Jesus which we
profess is one of our life's major realities. This is not, of
course, to teach that the way of salvation, or the way to "enter
the kingdom of heaven" (21), is by good works of obedience, for the
whole New Testament offers salvation only by the sheer grace of God
through faith.
What Jesus is stressing, however, is that those who truly hear the
gospel and profess faith will always obey him, expressing their faith in
their works. The apostles of Jesus never forgot this teaching.
It is prominent in their letters. The first letter of John, for
example, is full of the perils of a verbal profession: `If we say we
have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie... He who
says "I know him" but disobeys his commandments is a liar.' (1
Jn.1:6;2:4). The letter of James, on the other hand, is full of the
perils of an intellectual knowledge. An arid orthodoxy cannot
save, he writes, but only a faith which issues in good works; so we have
to be `doers of the word, and not hearers only' (Jas.1:22-25;2:14-20).
In applying this teaching to ourselves, we need to consider that the
Bible is a dangerous book to read, and that the church is a dangerous
society to join. For in reading the bible we hear the words of
Christ, and in joining the church we say we believe in Christ. As
a result, we belong to the company described by Jesus as both hearing
his teaching and calling him Lord. Our membership therefore lays
upon us the serious responsibility of ensuring that what we know and
what we say is translated into what we do.
|
