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Many
people - including adherents of other religions and of none - tell us
that they are prepared to accept the Sermon on the Mount as containing
self-evident truth. They know that it includes such sayings as
`Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,' `Love your
enemies,' `No one can serve two masters,' `Judge not, that you be not
judged' and `Whatever you wish that men should do to you, do so to
them.' Beautiful! Here, they say, is the Jesus of Nazareth the
moral teacher at his simplest and best. Here is the core of his message
before it became encrusted with the worthless additions of his
interpreters. Here is the `original Jesus', with plain ethics and
no dogmas, an unsophisticated prophet of righteousness, claiming to be
no more than a human teacher, and telling us to do good and to love one
another. `The Jesus of dogma I do not understand,' a Hindu professor
once said to Stanley Jones, `but the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount
and the cross I love and am drawn to.' Similarly, a Muslim Sufi teacher
told him that `when he read the Sermon on the Mount he could not keep
back his tears'. (Stanley Jones, `Christ at the round table', p.38,60).
But this popular explanation of the Sermon cannot stand up to serious
examination. It is mistaken on two counts - first in its view of the
teacher and secondly in its presentation of his teaching. For when
we look more closely at both, something very different emerges. We
considered in the last chapter the distinctiveness of his teaching, his
sketch of the Christian counter-culture and his summons to radical
discipleship. It remains for us now to consider the uniqueness of the
teacher himself.
What we shall find is that it is impossible to drive a wedge
between the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount and the Jesus of the rest
of the New Testament. Instead, the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount
is the same supernatural, dogmatic, divine Jesus who is to be found
everywhere else. So the main question of the Sermon forces upon us is
not so much `What do you make of this teaching?' as `Who on earth is
this teacher?' This is certainly the reaction of those who heard the
Sermon preached.
”And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at
his teaching, (29) for he taught them as one who had authority, and not
as their scribes.”
What struck the first hearers of the Sermon (*the crowds*, as well as
*his disciples*, 5:1) was the preacher's extraordinary authority. He did
not hum and haw, or hesitate. He was neither tentative nor apologetic.
Nor again, on the other hand, was he ever bombastic or flamboyant.
Instead, with quiet and unassuming assurance he laid down the law for
the citizens of God's kingdom. And *the crowds were astonished*, even -
for the Greek verb is a strong one - `dumbfounded'. `After nineteen
hundred years,' comments A.M.Hunter, `we are astonished too.'
It should be profitable, then, to try to analyse this `authority' of
Jesus, as displayed in the Sermon. On what was it grounded? What was his
own self-awareness which led him to speak in this way? What clues does
the Sermon itself give of how he understood his identity and his
mission? We do not have far to seek in order to find answers to these
questions.
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Next:
Matthew 7:28-29. 1). Jesus' authority as the teacher.
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