The next paragraph in the Sermon, as it appears in Mt 7°°—Lk 6%, quite surely belongs as a whole to the historical discourse.* Since it is the duty of all men to attain righteousness, it becomes a matter of the utmost importance that men shall choose true teachers who will teach them what true righteousness is, and how it is to be attained. The false teachers} against whom He warns them are all those morally blind and unworthy indi- viduals who assume to guide men into the Kingdom of God. Outstanding representatives of this class were those scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day whom He described in the severe language of Mt 23; doubtless He had them in mind—blind guides (Mt 154) and hypocrites, unfit for the task which they performed of teaching the people religion.t If this was the explicit and primary reference of Jesus’ saying in v., there is no reason why it should not implicitly refer to other incompetent and bad teachers such as appeared in the early years of Christianity. Any one who assumes to teach religion and morals without himself living the upright life comes within that class against which Jesus here ‘gives warning. And whether they are bad or good, false or true teachers, can be known by their ‘ fruits,’ 7.e. by their character and their service. If they manifest the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ as St. Paul describes it in Gal 58, they will be trustworthy teachers and guides. §
That Jesus has in mind the practical manifesta- tion of righteousness in thought and conduct is proved by the verse which immediately follows this paragraph, Mt 774, in which He says that only those persons shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven who do God’s will. Jesus neither here nor else- where put the emphasis upon creed apart from character, which the Church has done from the 2nd cent. until our own. His aim was to make individual men and a human brotherhood, not
* For v.15 there is no parallel in Luke, but there is no reason to question its authenticity, and it is not foreign to this con- nexion. For v.19 also there is no parallel in Luke ; it may bea verbal reproduction of Mt 310, perhaps imported into this con- text in transmission because of the similarity of the figure and the theme, cf. Mt 1513, Jn 152.6 (g0 Feine, Wendt, and others). Again, v.20 is a repetition of v.16a, perhaps therefore a subse- quent expansion, resumptive of the main thought after the interpolation of v.1% And, finally, Lk 645 is clearly extraneous to the Sermon, having perhaps its historical setting at Mt 1294f (so Feine against Wendt). The original portion of this para- graph may thus have been Mt 715-18=Lk 64f, The two reports have the same idea in the same figure, but are peculiarly variant in manner of expression ; it is not likely that they started from a common Greek translation. ‘ :
+ The term ‘prophet’ in both OT and NT denotes primarily the teacher of religious truth and duty, and has no other import in this passage. : :
+ So Tholuck, Achelis, Feine, Ibbeken, B. Weiss. The figure of wolves and sheep was a common one among’ a pastoral people (cf. Is 116 65%, Mt 1016, Jn 1012, Ac 2029), but only here in the Bible is found the idea of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, as in sop’s Fables. : ; :
§ There was never any justification for the Roman Catholic view, adopted by Calvin and sometimes promulgated even by Luther, that the x«prof in these verses signified primarily, indeed exclusively, sound doctrines. It is, of course, true that those who teach false doctrines cannot be safe guides, but the Bible rightly interpreted is the criterion of sound doctrines, not the pronouncements of any ecclesiastical organization past, present, or future. :
eee SS tn eet
SERMON ON THE MOUNT 43
a system of theology. Love, mercy, and peace, purity, trust, and helpfulness, were the tests of goodness which Jesus established (Mt 5%7}2 2531-46), Inasmuch as He came for the express purpose of making God’s will known, and in His words, deeds, and character did make God’s will manifest to men, He can only mean that men must do and be what He has thus taught them. Luke’s form of the saying 6% is therefore equivalent to Matthew’s, although so differently worded.* As was seen in considering the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Thy will be done’ (Mt 6”), the will of God is the one thing to be accomplished ; for this Jesus lived (Jn 6%), and for this He would have us live (Mt 12°° 21°81), His statement that only such shall ‘enter the Kingdom of Heaven’ seems to be an intentional echo and return to the words of Mt 5”. _ The following two verses, Mt 7”: 5, stand here in all probability as aresult of compilation. Luke gives them in another connexion, which appears original (1875) ; and since they refer to the Last Judgment, they belong, with Jesus’ other eschato- logical teaching, to the closing months of His ministry. One needs only to consider carefully the time, circumstances, audience, and purpose of the Sermon to see that these verses present an idea, and sound a note, which do not belong to this occasion and discourse.t+ Nevertheless, they contain authentic teaching of Jesus, and teaching of profound meaning. The thought is analogous to that of Mt 7* in affirming that nothing shall admit to the Kingdom but the actual attainment of right- eousness (cf. Lk 10), The profession of Chris- tianity, the preaching of Christianity, even the production of some good results for the Christian cause, shall not in themselves alone secure salva- tion, for the criterion of judgment in the great Judgment Day shall be a genuine realization of God’s will in and through one’s self. And Luke adds (137-*°), what is germane to this connexion, that ‘there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last’ (cf. Mt 84 19%) ; 7.e. some who, like the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, had had a great reputation for piety, and had been looked upon as models of righteousness, shall be shown to have been selfish, vain, and hypocritical, unworthy to enter the Kingdom of God; while other obscure and once despised persons shall find a welcome there (cf. Lk 189-44).+