What Kind of Document Is This? (1 of 2)

The Sermon on the Mount as Kingdom Constitution, Coronation Speech, and Manifesto of the New Creation

“When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. After he sat down his disciples came to him. Then he began to teach them by saying:”

— Matthew 5:1–2 (NET)

He Sat Down

The detail is easy to miss. Matthew 5:1 says that when Jesus saw the crowds, “he went up on a mountainside and sat down.” In the ancient world, a teacher who sat down to teach was signaling formal authority. The sitting posture was the posture of the official, the judge, the one with the right to declare. Synagogue teachers sat to deliver authoritative instruction. Judges sat to pronounce verdicts. Kings sat on thrones. Jesus sat down, and then He opened His mouth, and the Sermon on the Mount began.

Matthew also tells us where He sat: on a mountainside. Every Jewish listener in that crowd would have heard the echo of Sinai. Moses had gone up the mountain and received the Law from God. Now Jesus went up the mountain and delivered the Law — not received from another, not prefaced with “Thus says the LORD,” but delivered on His own authority: “You have heard it said... but I tell you.” The One who gave the Law to Moses on Sinai sat down on a Galilean hillside and fulfilled and deepened that same Law by speaking from the same divine authority in a human voice.

The Audience

Matthew’s description of the audience is precise and important. Verse 1 says Jesus’ disciples came to Him. Verse 2 says He began to teach them. At the end of the Sermon, in Matthew 7:28, the crowds are described as amazed. Both groups were present. But the Sermon was delivered to the disciples.

This is not a small distinction. The Sermon on the Mount is not primarily a set of standards Jesus is holding up before the general public and saying “this is what God requires.” It is a description of the people who belong to the King’s Kingdom and what they look like from the inside out. The crowds heard it and were amazed. The disciples heard it and were given their constitution.

The Beatitudes, which open the Sermon, are not entry requirements. They are not conditions you must meet before you can enter the Kingdom. They are descriptions of the kind of people who are already in it — or more precisely, descriptions of the Spirit’s work in the person who has been born again. The poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, the hungry — these are not virtues you manufacture. They are conditions the Spirit produces. The Beatitudes describe what the new birth looks like in a human life.

Three Ways of Reading the Sermon

Scholars and theologians have read the Sermon on the Mount in three primary ways, and understanding each of them helps the disciple know what he is actually receiving.

Reading One: The Sermon as Impossible Standard

Some read the Sermon primarily as a revelation of how far short every human being falls of God’s moral standard. On this reading, Jesus is raising the bar impossibly high — not to give you a ladder to climb, but to show you that you need a Savior. You cannot keep the Sermon on the Mount. No one can. That is the point. You are driven to grace.

This reading is not wrong. The Sermon does reveal the standard of righteousness that the Kingdom requires, and the standard is impossibly high for the unregenerate person. Jesus Himself says: “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) The Pharisees were the most rigorous law-keepers in Israel. To surpass them is not a low bar.

Reading Two: The Sermon as Future Ethic

Some read the Sermon as describing how people will live in the Millennium or in the new creation — a future ethic for a future age when Jesus reigns on earth. On this reading, the Sermon is aspirational and prophetic rather than immediately applicable. You read it, you long for it, you wait for the age when it becomes realizable.

This reading has a grain of truth: the Sermon does point forward to the fullness of the Kingdom. But it is not primarily a future document. Jesus says “Blessed are” — present tense. He says “You are the salt of the earth” — present tense, present indicative. He is describing something that is already true of His disciples, not something that will be true when conditions improve.

Reading Three: The Sermon as Constitution of the New Creation

The third reading — and the one this volume adopts — is that the Sermon on the Mount is the constitutional declaration of the Kingdom of God as it exists now, lived by people who have been born again by the Spirit and are being transformed into the image of Christ.