A Tale of Two Cities: An Introduction to the Sermon on the Mount

One of the greatest testimonies to the incredible nature of Scripture is how widely it’s been distributed throughout the centuries, the Bible has consistently been the best selling book of all time.1 Within the pages of the greatest book of all time, you would be hard-pressed to find a more popular speech, than the Sermon on the Mount. Due to how popular it is though it also has proved to be much easier to misinterpret, in fact the misapplication of the Sermon on the Mount has produced more sects, cults, and denominational splits than any other section of Scripture. 

A historical example could be found in the massive split during the Reformation days between two groups: the magisterial reformers and the radical reformation (anabaptists). The Magisterial Reformers were composed largely of Lutherans, Reformed and Anglicans, while the radical reformation produced groups like the Mennonites, the Rationalists, the Amish, the Hutterites, the Spiritualists, etc. 

The main division came from the Anabaptists and their disagreements with the Reformers on how the Christian ought to view and understand the role of the Civil Magistrate. Many of these groups believed that to become a Christian one had to opt out of civil society. They emphasized a total separation of heavenly things to earthly and governmental matters, as an example to justify their beliefs they would use Jesus statement about oaths in Matthew 5:34 to suggest that they could not swear loyalty to their city or nation or they would postulate that the Christian ought to be a committed pacifist because Jesus said to turn the other cheek in Matthew 5:39. That being said, the best tool to avoid misinterpretation is to remember that if there ever seems to be any apparent contradiction within a text, the contradiction lies within the interpreter and his interpretation not the text of Scripture, as Jesus reminds us “the Scripture cannot be broken” (Jn. 10:35). This requires a fundamental commitment to humility and submission to the authority of the text. A second tool is to always try to understand the broader narrative happening within the book, the surrounding chapters and such 2, which leads us to ask, what is this big idea behind the Sermon on the Mount?

The thesis statement of the text is the following:

 Jesus is teaching his disciples the stark differences between the Kingdom of righteousness and the kingdom of sin. 

In chapters 5-7, there are two worlds, two ways, two cities, two kingdoms, there’s a clear contrast going on here. The first city is the city of man taken over by the dark forces of the serpent, full of sickness, sin, and death. In this dark kingdom men and women influenced by the serpent spew out of their mouths vitriolic slander, malice, lies, murder, anger, lust, revenge, and hatred. In the first century, much of Israel and its leadership was being influenced by this darkness, like its fathers of old. 

There’s a bloodthirstiness for revenge that breaks down to the individual, like the revenge that consumed Cain when he killed his own brother Abel, or the sinful attitude that gave Simeon and Levi the self-justification to kill an entire town to avenge their sisters honor. Likewise this vengeful spirit was consuming that generation, specifically the Jewish leadership. But how so? In the Sermon on the Mount we see how these leaders were taking just laws and turning them into self-gratifying laws to achieve personal vengeance upon others, even in the Talmud you see an indication that the Pharisees were using the “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” law originally given to judges, and personally applying it to citizens, thus justifying murder, robbery, and other attempts to get even.

By contrast to this vindictive dark kingdom, there is the Kingdom of God with Jesus Christ as its head. Everything is diametrically different. In this kingdom there’s true righteousness, with true light. It’s full of salt and flavor, exuding the Father’s holy will. Underneath the ethic that Jesus is presenting in these chapters, there’s an increasing awareness that this is an inauguration speech of sorts, by none other than the true Israel, the last Adam, the restorer of Eden, the New Creation gardener. If you recall in the Exodus narrative, Yahweh gives Moses at Mt. Sinai the ten commandments, the Book of the Covenant, followed by instructions for building the Tabernacle, here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is demonstrating the meaning behind the Sinaitic experience through a double fulfillment paradigm. Christ is the greater Moses in that he teaches the law perfectly, but also He is Yahweh himself authoritatively stating, “but I say to you” revealing the intention of what his own finger wrote centuries before. 

At this point it’s important to remember the covenantal setting of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is giving moral instruction to his disciples, but there’s more. He is subtly revealing the architecture of a new temple, a new sanctuary-tabernacle, formed by living stones that are building the temple of God throughout the cosmos. This covenantal setting is evident at the end of chapter 7 in the Sermon (Matt. 7:24-27), where Jesus tells a parable about different houses. The temple-house that is built on the rock, which is Christ himself, he says will survive the impending doom. That house contrasted with the physical temple that was standing at the time, in which not one stone was left unturned (Matt. 24:2).

Jesus’ sermon has a very clear intention, to tell those who wish to be his disciples that in his kingdom there is a different way of life, there is a different culture (Matt. 18:1-4). In this new creation inaugurated by the last Adam, it is to be filled with a righteousness that surpassed the fake-righteousness of the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20). This new creation would joyfully obey the King’s statutes and not add or take away a jot or tittle from it (Matt. 5:17-20). In many ways the Pharisees were keeping the law like little boys, immaturely ignoring the weightier matters of it (Matt. 23:23). Jesus is here to teach his disciples how to maturely keep the Law of God, as adults in the kingdom of heaven. 

Ultimately, the Sermon on the Mount is a tale of old, a tale of two cities: the city of man and the city of God. As St. Augustine so poignantly contrasted the two cities long ago, the city of man is temporal and based on self-love, man’s desire is the highest end. The city of God is eternal and rooted in eternity, rooted in love for God which leads us to love our fellow man well.

The Kingdom of God trains its soldiers to not be passive to sinful behaviors of retaliation, vengeance, lust, hatred, but the way we fight these injustices and sinful patterns as disciples looks radically different from the world's tactics. The Christian is not to engage in the unending cycle of vengeance and counter-strike, repaying slap for slap, insult for insult, evil for evil, but the way of the kingdom comes by joyfully responding to evil with good, retaliation with peacemaking, hatred with joy, fear with love. In this way, the Christian inherits the earth. The Christian finds satisfaction. The Christian is comforted. The Christian becomes a son of God. The Christian sees God (Matt. 5:1-8).

Every Christian must be engaged in building this Edenic temple, it’s not optional. To engage your marriage, your family, your church, your society, and your culture is not optional. This is the essence of heavenizing the earth. What part of earth is supposed to be restricted from this process? When Jesus tells the Christian to be salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16), these are examples of transformative elements to nature. Thus, Christians cannot sit on the sidelines of culture, or politics, or education. We are called to be Christians filled with the Spirit, who bring kingdom transformation into every area of life and thought.

A great example of this transformative spirit was found in the life and death of Charlie Kirk, which sent shockwaves throughout the world. Charlie Kirk engaged the culture of abortion, transgenderism, homosexuality, communism, with the light of the Kingdom, and he did it with a loving boldness. The evil and wickedness of his murder was made manifest to the world, because a man was shot for exchanging ideas. 

And then a greater shock was seen when Erika Kirk, his widowed wife, just a few days after his murder, stood before millions of people in person and online, and did what is humanly impossible: she forgave her husband's killer. Talk about salt and light. And please don’t confuse her actions, this was not a moment of weakness. This was not her being passive or a doormat. She acted. She waged war on the enemy. She agreed with her Lord’s prayer to heavenize earth. She maturely obeyed the law of God. She was fighting evil and wickedness with peace and forgiveness. Erika Kirk beautifully demonstrated the Sermon on the Mount and the Christian ethic, by fulfilling the law in a surprising and redemptive way, the way Jesus wants every follower to engage with wickedness. Jesus commenced a new humanity, and gave them a blueprint for a new temple, the blueprint (Matt. 5-7) restores Edenic harmony, peace, and justice throughout the world, as it was in Genesis 1 and 2.

We face great evil, we have much work to do, but we have been given not a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7), we have been promised the presence of the Holy Spirit to accomplish the temple building project (Matt. 28: 20), and above all we have a Savior who was murdered unjustly. But the grave could not hold him, evil could not stand him, the devil could steal him away, for He has risen! We have the victory that has overcome the world, our faith in the Savior of the world, Jesus of Nazareth (1 Jn. 5:4).

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1The Guiness World Record states that there’s an estimate of 5-7 billion copies of the Bible that’s been sold, https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction.

2 I wrote a small article on rules for Bible interpretation that might be helpful, you can find it here.