"As I Have Loved You"

"But I Say Unto You"

Chapter Two
Various Views of the Sermon on the Mount

Perhaps it might be well to list the major approaches to understanding the Sermon on the Mount before we look at the passage. It might help some people that are having problems with their presently held system of theology to realize there are other opt ions besides Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology.

1. The SOCIAL GOSPEL view: Jesus is teaching us how to live so we can "earn the mercy and grace of God and become Christians." The beatitudes are set forth as the way to earn salvation. This is salvation by works and a contradiction of the gospel of salvation by grace. This view totally denies the cross and the need of a blood sacrifice to cleanse guilty sinners. We reject it as a total denial of the Gospel.

2. The LIBERAL view: Jesus is contrasting the true "Christian view of a loving God" with the "tribal concept of the Old Testament God of vengeance." The "eye for an eye" type of law is "sub-human" and not worthy of any enlightened person. It is pure paganism. This view deliberately rejects the authority and inspiration of both the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Any view that pits the Old Testament against the New Testament in a way that even suggests that the same God is not moving toward the same goal in both cases has not understood either testament. This view does more than deny the Gospel. It consciously attacks and seeks to destroy the Gospel.

3. The HISTORIC DISPENSATIONAL view:¹This view states that the Sermon on the Mount is not given to the Church but is purely Jewish. It is the "Law of the Kingdom" (millennial reign of Christ in the future). The laws in the Sermon on the Mount are the "legal" rules for the future kingdom age, or millennium. The Jews rejected this earthly kingdom when Christ offered it to them and it was "postponed" until after the Second Coming of Christ. At that time all of these "legal" laws will be in force. However, until that time we must never apply "kingdom truth" to the Church today. A Christian may draw some beautiful and helpful "applications" from the Sermon on the Mount since all of Scripture is written TO us even though all of it is not FOR us. The Epistles of Paul, which first make known the doctrine of the Church, are the believer's rule of life during the Church age. The following quotation from the Scofield Reference Bible is typical of this view:

Having announced the kingdom of heaven as "at hand," the King, in Mt 5-7, declares the principles of the Kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount has a twofold application: (1) Literally to the kingdom. In this sense it gives the divine constitution for th e righteous government of the earth. Whenever the kingdom of heaven is established on earth it will be according to that constitution .......... the Sermon on the Mount in its primary application gives neither the privilege nor the duty of the Church. These are found in the epistles ² ..........(2) But there is a beautiful moral application to the Christian.......... These principles fundamentally reappear in the teaching of the Epistles.³

As stated earlier, we reject this approach to the Sermon on the Mount. This view creates a tension between law (Israel) and grace (Church) in God's eternal purposes that makes it impossible to see the Church as the true "Israel of God" to whom the covenant promises to Abraham were really made.

4. The view of Classical Covenant Theology:⁴ This view agrees that the Sermon on the Mount contains the "rules of the kingdom," but insists that the kingdom is here and now and not in the future. Covenant Theology insists that Christ was not in any way contrasting Himself, His teaching, or His authority with Moses. He was only contradicting the wrong interpretations and additions to Moses. Christ was merely giving us the true spiritual meaning of Moses as contrasted with the Rabbinical distortions .

We agree that this view is partially true, but it is not nearly all of the truth. It simply does not go far enough. It never touches the heart of the issue. Like Dispensationalism, this view interprets the new in light of the old and cannot allow man y statements in the New Testament Scriptures, especially those passages that contrast law and grace, to be taken literally. This view confuses the unity of the covenants with the true unity of the Scriptures. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in the following quotation, has given an accurate criticism of this view although at times he seems to accept this view himself:

Another view, which is perhaps a little more serious for us, is that which regards the Sermon on the Mount as nothing but an elaboration or an exposition of the mosaic law. Our Lord, it is maintained, realized that the Pharisees and Scribes and other teachers of the people were misrepresenting the law, as given by God to the people through Moses; what He does, therefore, in the Sermon on the Mount is to elaborate and expound the mosaic law, giving it a higher spiritual content. This is a more serious view, obviously; and I feel it is totally inadequate if for no other reason than that it, also, fails to take account of the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes immediately take us into a realm that is beyond the law of Moses completely. The Sermon on the Mount does expound and explain the law at certain points--but it goes beyond it.⁵

The one thing concerning the Sermon on the Mount about which Covenant Theology is adamant is that Christ may never in any way contrast Himself with Moses. Christ may interpret Moses but He dare not add anything new to Moses. In no sense whatever can Christ be a "new Lawgiver" in Covenant Theology. At most He may give the true spiritual teaching of the law, but He cannot either add to it or raise it to a higher level with new demands. We wholeheartedly endorse what Lloyd-Jones said concerning this view. Christ was indeed showing the spirituality of the law as opposed to the Pharisees' carnalizing the law, but, as Lloyd-Jones said, Christ also "goes beyond" the Law of Moses and adds new and higher laws.

The Dispensational view insists that the Sermon on the Mount is all Jewish and is not for this present age. Covenant Theology teaches that absolutely nothing in the Sermon on the Mount (or the rest of the New Testament Scriptures) is really new in the area of ethics and morals. According to Covenant Theology, Jesus was not giving either new or more spiritual rules for conduct simply because the highest possible spiritual rules had already been given once and for all time at Mount Sinai on the Tablets of Stone. The Law of Moses, correctly understood, is just as spiritual as anything that Christ ever taught! No teaching in any New Testament passage will ever be higher spiritually or more important to our understanding of holiness and moral duty than a correct interpretation of the "Ten Words" written on stone!

A.W. Pink is representative of this view:
Christ is not here [Mt 5:28-42] pitting Himself against the Mosaic law, nor is He inculcating a superior spirituality. Instead He continues the same course as He had followed in the context, namely to define that righteousness demanded of His followers, which was more excellent than the one taught and practiced by the Scribes and Pharisees; and this He does by exposing their error and expounding the spirituality of the moral law.
..........our Lord's design in these verses has been misapprehended, the prevailing but erroneous idea being held that they set forth the vastly superior moral standard of the New Covenant over that which was obtained under Judaism....⁶

Pink is forced to make the above statements simply because his view does not see Christ as a true new Lawgiver but only as a "rubber stamp" of Moses. Under the guise of protecting Moses and the "moral law," this view demeans Christ and misses the higher moral law of Christ. Covenant Theology insists that when Christ and His Apostles talk about a New Covenant (I Cor 11:25; Heb 8:6-13) they don't mean there actually is a literal New Covenant with any new or different laws; they really mean a new administration of the same covenant and same moral laws that Israel was already under. This is why Covenant Theology can claim that the Old Covenant written on the tablets of stone is higher and more important than even the Sermon on the Mount. Here is a typical example, from R.L. Dabney, of what we mean:

The whole Decalogue is found written out in full in two places in the Bible.....It is the doctrine of the Catechism ⁷ that these "Ten Words" were intended to be a summary of man's whole duty. Why, it may be asked, is so much made of them? Why not mak e equal account of some verses taken from Proverbs, or the Sermon on the Mount? ⁸

Dabney frankly admits that the Law of Moses is more important to him than Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Dabney may not have intended his exaltation of Moses to minimize both the authority of Christ and the New Testament epistles. However, this is exactly what his statement does. Once you accept the idea that the Ten Commandments are the highest moral law ever given, it must effect your attitude to the authority of the New Testament Scriptures in the area of ethics and morals.

Dabney's view, clearly expressed in the statement quoted above, produces a mentality of "two tier" ethics and the Decalogue will always be the highest tier. The Tablets of Stone are "God's unchanging law," and the rest of the Scripture, including the Sermon on the Mount, is subservient to this rock of granite. God's laws will always carry more weight in the conscience of a believer than the mere "Scriptural advice" in the Epistle of Paul. Paul's "admonitions" to husbands and wives in Ephesians is good Scriptural advice that we are urged to obey in order to have a happy marriage. However, the LAW of God is a different matter altogether. We dare not, under pain of death, break any of God's commandments. It is impossible to treat Paul's imperative commandments as having equal authority with the Law of Moses as long as our mind and conscience are controlled by Covenant Theology's system of two tier ethics.

We repeat, Dabney may not have intend to blunt the force and effectiveness of the New Testament Epistles in the Christian's conscience. But that is the sure result whenever the Ten Commandments are exalted above the rest of the Bible and looked upon as God's unchanging Law and the Book of Ephesians is Paul's inspired directives. The Ten Commandments cannot be viewed as the highest moral standard in the Bible without everything else, including the Sermon on the Mount, becoming lesser. In Dabney's vie w, neither Christ nor any of His Apostles can change or in any way add to the ethics and morality of the "highest standard" already written in Tables of Stone.

It is a fact beyond dispute that in both preaching and practice there are "the commandments of God" (the Tables of Stone) and the "exhortations of Paul," and we all know which ones are the greatest and most important. Sinai is the highest mountain in a ll of Scripture according to Covenant Theology. Such a view cannot escape the mentality of "mortal sins" (breaking God's law) and "venial sins" (failing to practice one of the principles given by the Apostle Paul).

It seems to us that Dispensationalism cannot let Moses INTO the New Testament in any sense, and Covenant Theology cannot get Moses OUT OF the New Testament in any sense. One system has Christ contradicting Moses and the other system has Christ merely " rubber stamping" Moses. Perhaps both systems are half right and half wrong. Maybe both have some truth and we, by taking an either/or approach, are losing a part of God's truth.

When I first entertained the above possibility in my mind, I decided to make sure that I avoided both of the major errors usually connected with studying the relationship of the Old and New Testaments. I put a stake on the left hand side and said, "If Christ ever contradicts Moses in the sense that Moses was wrong, then I have gone past this stake and I am denying the basic unity of the Scriptures." ⁹ I put another stake down on the right side and said, "If I wind up making Christ nothing but co-equal with Moses as a teacher of God's truth, or worse, if I subordinate Christ to Moses as Dabney does, then I am going past this stake and I am denying the supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ and the New Testament Scriptures." I was sure that Christ never contradicted Moses, but I also knew that our Lord was more than on an equal par with Moses. It was at that time that I reached the conclusions that led me to the position that is set forth in this book.

5. The PROMISE/FULFILLMENT, or New Covenant, view. This view starts with the New Testament Scriptures and allows them to mean exactly what they say. Christ is seen as asserting His unique and final authority as the New Lawgiver by giving a new and higher canon of conduct to the Church. He is most assuredly correcting the perversions of the Pharisees, but He is also clearly giving new and higher truth that Moses never taught. Christ sometimes applies the same truth that Moses taught but does so in a manner that Moses could never have done. At other times Christ is making new and more spiritual demands on His disciples because of their being "under grace." Neither Moses nor the law covenant could ever have made these demands or laws.

This fifth view sees both truth and error in Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology. It is based on an understanding of the nature and relationship of the two major covenants (the Old legal Covenant with Israel at Sinai and the New gracious Covenant t hat replaces it) in Scripture (Jer 31:33; Heb 8:6-13; Gal 4:21-31). This view sees Christ establishing a distinctly New Covenant in His blood and inaugurating a new age with the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. However, it also insists that this present "new age" in which we now live is the inauguration of the kingdom promised in the Old Testament Scriptures. We now live in the "times of the Messiah" envisioned by the Old Testament prophets.

It is now time to examine the Scriptures themselves and see if we can prove our statements. We will look carefully at the four texts in the Sermon on the Mount quoted at the beginning of chapter one and see exactly what Christ meant when He said "But I say unto you." We will consider the methods used to explain each of the four texts, and see that in all four cases the usual explanations will be only partially true. They will not cover all of the truth nor will they usually get to the heart of the issue. In some instances the explanations are essential to the maintaining of a specific theological system even though the arguments used often contradict other passages of Scripture.

1. I used the word "Historic" deliberately. When I use the word "Dispensational" in this paper, I am referring to the system as set forth in the first edition of the Scofield Reference Bible and taught by Dallas Theological Seminary. I am aware that m any people today will call themselves "Dispensational" who will reject some of the things taught by either, or both, of these sources. I use these two sources only as clear points of references so as avoid either caricature or misunderstanding. Each person must decide where he fits today. I think everyone will acknowledge that the above two sources give an accurate and clear view of Dispensationalism as understood and believed historically. Some men have recently modified their views to such a degree that it is questionable whether they have the right to apply the term "Dispensational" to themselves.

2. When words are written in either bold or all CAPITALS inside of a quotation from another author, it means that I am emphasizing something that the writer did not emphasize.

3. Scofield Reference Bible, first edition, p. 1000.

4. When I use the term "Covenant Theology" in this paper, I am referring to the system of theology set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith and taught at Westminster Theological Seminary. I use these two sources only as reference points. I am sure that everyone will agree that these two sources represent Covenant Theology as it has been understood historically. As with Dispensationalism, some men today are modifying their views to the extent that the basic foundation of the system is being denied. However, there has been no attempt whatever to change the Westminster Confession of Faith as the accepted standard nor has its "authority" been questioned by those who subscribe to it.

5. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub Co, p 14.

6. A.W. Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, Bible Truth Depot, p 110, 127, 129.

7. Quoting either the Catechism or the Confession of Faith is, for all practical purposes, equal to quoting a text of Scripture in a "Confessional" Church. This is one of the major differences between a Baptist and a Presbyterian. A Baptist may set out his convictions in a confession of faith, but he will never treat his statements in the same way as a Presbyterian. Any individual Baptist church may write its own confession of faith, but not so a Presbyterian. This is what is meant by "Confessional Church." The Presbyterian Church (singular) is a "Confessional Church" where every individual local church is legally bound by every word in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Baptist churches (plural) are not a "Confessional Church" (denomination) in the above sense. A local Baptist church may question and reject certain things in a historic creed like the Philadelphia Confession of Faith and still be part of an Association of Baptist churches. Some present day Baptists seem to be forgetting this fact and are using historic Baptist Creeds to "prove" debatable points of doctrine. When a Baptist refuses to discuss a point of theology with the Bible and says, "The Creeds have spoken," he ceases to be a Baptist.

8. R.L. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, Banner of Truth, p 354.

9. It is essential that we do not confuse the "unity of the Scriptures" with what Covenant Theology calls the "unity of the covenants." We firmly believe in the unity of the Scriptures. However, we believe that unity is built around neither dispensations or covenants. It is built around the promise and fulfillment of the Gospel in the person and work of our Lord Jesus Christ for His one elect people.