Sermon on the Mount

by Scot McKnight

  But Dr. Nagai’s story is the focus here. It is a story of a man who knew what it meant to live a single-minded, devoted-to-the-Lord life in which his job was transformed into a gift to God and to the church community around the Urakami Cathedral. Here are some of his words about how he treated patients who suffered from the nuclear fallout and from death, while he himself was withering away due to radiation poisoning:

  Those words in the Sermon on the Mount “blessed are those who weep” should be taken literally by doctors. A real doctor suffers with each patient. If the patient is frightened of dying, so is the doctor…. Each patient becomes your brother, your sister, your mother, for whom you drop everything else…. I’ve come to understand that medicine is a vocation, a personal call from God—which means that examining a patient, taking an x-ray or giving an injection is part of the kingdom of God. When I realized that, I found myself praying for each patient I treated.

  At the risk of his own health and before medical science comprehended the danger of radiation, Dr. Nagai knew that his patients were more important than his own life. Thus, he entered into a life of service, compassion, and suffering. Dr. Nagai’s life was shaped by loving the neighbor whom God set before him. He said, “Our lives are of great worth if we accept with good grace the situation Providence places us in and go on loving lovingly.”

  Dr. Nagai learned in the months before the A-bomb altered the course of human history that his body was suffering from radiation-induced leukemia. That evening when he returned home filled with a heavy heart and knowing he had but three years to live, he told Midori of his condition. His biographer fills in the details of what happened:

  Then, quietly rising from the table, she lit the candles on their family altar. She knelt there in the austere seiza fashion, her head bowed before the crucifix her family had guarded through 250 years of persecution. He followed her and knelt likewise behind her, now noticing that her shoulders were shaking. She remained there in prayer until the emotional turbulence had subsided.

  Then Midori said to Dr. Nagai:

  We said before we married … that if our lives are spent for the glory of God, then life and death are beautiful. You have given everything you had for work that was very, very important. It was for his glory.

  Nagai’s response? “He was fighting to hold back tears, not for himself, but tears of gratitude. He sensed he was in the presence of holiness.”

  This is a beautiful story of Dr. and Midori Nagai’s surrendering of themselves to God in the face of Jesus Christ, and the Lord’s sacrificial call on their lives was embraced in the shadow of the cross of Jesus Christ. Dr. Nagai lived only a few more years, but his story is the story of a man whose entire life was a Christian song for Nagasaki.

  Grace

  The genius of the Protestant Reformation was its focus on the necessity of grace, or better yet, the pervasiveness of grace in the Christian life. Jesus doesn’t here say anything like what many theologians would have preferred him to say; that is, he doesn’t say, “Enter the narrow gate by recognizing that you are hopeless and helpless and in need of grace.” Instead, he flat-out summons people to enter the gate. Yet the best understanding of the gate is that it is Jesus, and that leads us to this important conclusion: union with Jesus Christ is the origin and source of all spiritual blessings and all discipleship.

  Jesus isn’t here calling someone merely to a better moral life. Rather, his own presence looms in the entire Sermon as the one through whom God speaks, through whom God redeems, and through whom God reigns. So the “enter” demand is a summons to Jesus first and foremost. In other words, discipleship begins at the personal level of a relationship to Jesus as the King and Lord who saves and rules. Connection to Jesus unleashes the grace of God’s bounty. Midori and Dr. Nagai entered into that very grace at the deepest level when they endured joyously their own sufferings in the light of the cross of Jesus’ grace.

  Notes

  1. KNT: “nice and wide” and “plenty of room.”

  2. KNT: “tight squeeze.”

  3. The gate precedes the path in these sayings; it is not entirely clear whether we are to think of that concretely—first a gate and then the path—or to see gate and path as more or less synonymous.

  4. Luz, Matthew 1–7, 372; Turner, Matthew, 215.

  5. Allison, Sermon on the Mount, 164; Guelich, Sermon on the Mount, 389–90.

  6. Some debate if the gate is at the entrance to the path or at the end of the path; word order favors the former. See Quarles, Sermon on the Mount, 311–15.

  7. I don’t understand why the NIV has “narrow” in 7:13a and “small” in 7:14 for the same Greek term (stenē). Both should be “narrow,” as in the KNT.

  8. The Greek word behind the NIV’s “narrow” is tethlimmenē, a perfect passive participle of the word group thlibō, thlipsis, often translated as “persecution.” For the best discussion, Davies and Allison, Matthew, 1:700.

  9. Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 176.

  10. J. Hick et al., Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World (Counterpoints; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996).

  11. France, Matthew, 287.

  12. McKnight, One.Life, 109–19, 183–92.

  13. See P. Glynn, A Song for Nagasaki: The Story of Takashi Nagai, Scientist, Convert, and Survivor of the Atomic Bomb (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1988). I refer to and quote from pp. 148, 233–34, 238.

  Chapter 22

  Matthew 7:15–23

  LISTEN to the Story

  15“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

  21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’1 will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ”

  Listening to the text in the Story: Deuteronomy 28; Psalm 1; Pick your prophet; Matthew 16:27; 25:31–46; 1 Corinthians 3:10–16; 2 Corinthians 5:6–10; Revelation 20–22.

  Some of us don’t want to preach this text because we don’t like it; some of us don’t want to preach this text because it aggravates every fiber in our theology; and some of us don’t want to preach this text because it may drive some financially supporting or opinion-shaping people away. You can avoid these texts if you wish, but anyone who has spent much time with judgment texts in the Bible knows that the Bible teaches that our final destiny is determined by works. We may be saved by faith, but we are judged by works. Every judgment scene in the Bible is a judgment by works. I urge you to read the sampling of texts in the “Listening to the text in the Story” above.

  Far too many think because they have “prayed to receive Christ,” they are safe and secure. I don’t want to dispute the all-sufficiency of Christ or the importance of faith and God’s grace, but far too many today are trusting in a onetime decision but show no marks of discipleship. Yes, some emphasize works so much one has to think they are saved by what they do. We are saved by Christ, but Christ saves us into discipleship. Sometimes we need to sound like salvation is by faith so much that works are out of the picture, and other times we need to sound like works are so much in focus that we may sound like faith isn’t the point … and if we follow these biblical themes we will find the proper biblical balance.

  The rhetoric of Jesus here emphasizes works; I will do the same. His rhetoric is designed to put the fear of God in us about our moral condition; I will attempt to do the same. Jesus reveals here an Ethic from Bel
ow that expects behaviors shaped by an Ethic from Beyond. Some want to take the steam from his words with an Ethic from Below. What complicates this text is that Jesus focuses on deceivers and the deceived. Deceit finds its way into every religion, including Christianity. In fact, deceit was at work from the very beginning. Two sorts of deceit are found in our verses: some leaders deceive the people of God (7:15–20), while some deceive themselves (7:21–23). Jesus aims his words at the deceitful and deceived. They need to hear these words; because we don’t know if we are in their camp, we need to hear these words.

  EXPLAIN the Story

  It is not entirely clear to me that 7:15–23 follows sharply from 7:13–14. Perhaps the broad-path folks of 7:13–14 are followers of the false prophets, or perhaps the false prophets prevent some from the narrow gate. What is clear is this: the Sermon reveals God’s will as taught by Jesus; its invitation in 7:13–27 summons people to follow him.

  There are two parts to this section:2 the deceiver (7:15–20) and the deceived (7:21–23). The deceiver unit aims at the “false prophets” by warning them in 7:15a, by describing them (7:15b), and then by offering a method of detection (7:16a) that is explained in two illustrative analogies (7:16b–19) and summarized into a crisp statement (7:20). The deceived unit begins with a warning about the deceived—that is, about who will and who will not enter the kingdom (7:21); this warning is then restated with a concrete hypothetical illustration of how the deceived may make their claims (7:22), which is followed by Jesus’ own final evaluation (7:23).

  The Deceiver (7:15–20)

  In this text Jesus warns his followers about the false prophet: “Watch out for false prophets” (7:15a).3 The verb translated “watch out” (prosechō) is also aimed at the hypocrites (6:1), the opponents of Jesus (10:17), the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees (16:6, 11, 12)—and we need to keep in mind as well 24:11, 24. There are four major leaders in Israel: the king who represents God over the people, the prophet through whom God speaks to his people, the priest through whom the people speak to God, and the sage, who observes realities of life for the people. The following graph illustrates the location of each between God and God’s people.

  The implication of this chart for understanding is that a false prophet is one who stands between God and God’s people falsely and deceitfully. We should restrict this warning to those who (1) make a claim to be speaking for God, but who (2) are not truly appointed by God and (3) fail to follow Jesus. While heresy4 may be involved, the fundamental orientation in this text is that they live disobediently. Jesus’ description of the false prophet could be the costume of a theater: outwardly they look like God’s people (Matt 10:16; John 10:1–30), but their designs are ravenous (see Ezek 22:27–28; Acts 20:29; Did. 16.3).

  Much scholarly effort has been spent in seeking to identify “false prophets.” Here are the options: Pharisees, Essenes, anti-Roman Zealots, Judean sign prophets from the 60s, Simon Magus, the Jewish Messiah Bar Kokhba, Gnostics, Paul and his circle of churches, Hellenistic antinomians, Christian enthusiasts, and law-observant Christians.5 If we could know the specific audience Jesus had in mind with confidence, this list would not exist; since we can’t, it is wiser to speak in general terms rather than in specific terms. Whoever they are, they claim to be followers of Jesus—calling him “Lord, Lord” in 7:21 and doing great deeds in his name (7:22). They are, then, “Christian” false prophets, who are to be contrasted with Christian true prophets (5:11–12; 10:41; 23:34).

  Jesus offers a method of detection: fruit inspection reveals the true character (7:16a, 20). Fruit inspection, which is taught in other terms by Jeremiah (Jer 23:9–15), no doubt supplements prediction fulfillment (Deut 18:21–22) and orthodoxy (13:1–6). “Fruit” is explained in two illustrative analogies: first, grapes don’t grow on thornbushes, and figs don’t emerge from thistles. Second, good trees produce good fruit; bad trees produce bad fruit; good trees don’t produce bad fruit; bad trees don’t produce good fruit. The character of fruit reveals the character of the tree. Good trees are tended for their fruit; bad trees are cut down and burned (surely a metaphor for final judgment; cf. Matt 3:10; 5:22; 13:42; 25:41). There is no infallible method to detect deceitful leaders, and that is why we have further tests: 1 Corinthians 12:1–3; 1 John 4:2; Didache 11.5, 10.

  So what does “fruit” mean? It is not hard for a Christian theologian to wonder if Jesus is teaching the priority of regeneration. Does he mean that good fruit comes from a grace-created regenerate tree, or is his focus more on fruit inspection that leads to judgment of character? I’m inclined to think he means the second option: there is less ground here to find grace, though it might be present, than to see in this analogy a warning that bad fruit means the person is bad (i.e., a false prophet).

  So, again, what is the fruit? In context, there is only one conclusion: it refers to doing God’s will 6 (cf. 7:17–20, which translates the Greek word for “doing,” poieō, with the word “bears” five times; 7:21 uses “does” while 7:23 uses “evildoers,” and then 7:24–27 is about putting into practice, and this language again translates the Greek word poieō). The implication is clear too: if the disciples hear someone making a claim to speak for God, they are to observe that person’s life to see if that person is doing God’s will. If so, they may be speaking for God; if not, they are false prophets.

  What should the follower of Jesus do about the false teachers? Jesus is silent, and it makes us think of the parable of the weeds and wheat (13:36–43). We might have expected Jesus to say they should be removed from leadership or to urge his followers to run from them, but his focus is elsewhere. Jesus teaches his followers to observe their fruits so they can discern true from false. In our next passage Jesus says they will be finally judged. By implication the followers are to heed their own fruit observations and turn from the false prophets.

  The Deceived (7:21–23)

  Jesus is shadowboxing with enemies of the gospel in a hypothetical end-time judgment scene. The false prophets either petition Jesus or confess him as “Lord, Lord.”7 They support themselves by appealing to their prophecies, exorcisms, and miracle working. But Jesus counters that they don’t do God’s will and are evildoers. These people, in other words, deceive themselves into thinking they are kingdom people because of the gifts they have performed.

  It is not uncommon for someone other than God’s people to do mighty works (see Exod 7–8; Matt 24:23–28; 2 Thess 2:9–10; Rev 13:13–15). What is required to enter the kingdom is doing God’s will (7:21). Followers of Jesus follow Jesus and his teachings; those who don’t follow Jesus are not followers. The will of God is far more often works of compassion, as in Matthew 25:31–46 or James 1:25–27, than charismatic displays of might.

  The deceived place before Jesus on the judgment day8 what they have done—notice the triple emphasis: they have prophesied “in your name,” and exorcised “in your name,” and done miracles “in your name.” These folks are affiliated with Jesus and claim to have done special acts through the power of Jesus, but they are denounced for two major missing elements. First, Jesus doesn’t know them (25:12) and never has, which theologically indicates the absence of covenanted intimacy (Gen 18:19; Amos 3:2). Second, they are “evildoers” instead of doers of the Father’s will. That Matthew 24:12 connects lawlessness (same term as here) with love growing cold suggests that these false prophets have no mercy or care for those in need. Because Jesus reduces God’s will to loving God and loving others, it is not a stretch to see in the deceived in our text a colossal failure at the basics: the Jesus Creed or the Golden Rule.

  LIVE the Story

  To whom does this text speak? Mark Allan Powell, as I have already mentioned, observed after years of teaching and preaching that pastors identify with characters in the text that ordinary laypersons don’t.9 Pastors reading the gospel texts about Jesus identify with Jesus and see themselves as Jesus to their congregations. The layperson identifies with the other characters of the text and begin to wonder
if they are in or out. Put together for 7:15–23, this means the pastor will tend to see herself or himself as Jesus pointing out the hypocrisies of others while the layperson will wonder if he or she is doing God’s will. While there are good reasons for the pastor to fashion himself or herself as an undershepherd for Jesus, there are better reasons for the pastor first to sit under the word of Jesus and to ask if she or he might be the false prophet.

  The Preacher, the Pastor, the Priest, the Teacher

  Mark Powell’s theory will nearly always find a breakthrough. Why? There’s probably not a pastor or a priest or a preacher preparing this text for a sermon who doesn’t sense the eyes of this text staring at him or her. If we read 7:15–20 in light of 7:21–23, or the other way around, we see the connection: the false prophet is nearly synonymous with the prophet who prophesies in the name of Jesus, the exorcist who drives out demons in the name of Jesus, and the miracle worker who does mighty things in the name of Jesus. In other words, the false prophet is the gifted leader who does not do the will of God in the ordinary elements of life. The false prophet is the preacher, the teacher, the pastor, or the priest who has converted the splendor of a gospel calling into a job done well but whose moral life is indistinguishable from the common person of this world. The false prophet here is the leader who exercises the gifts of the Spirit with a flourish but who flounders at the personal level of following Jesus.