The Law fulfilled: the Beatitudes and the six antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount fills Matthew 5-7 and is the first of five long discourses in Matthew's Gospel. Matthew's identity, date and sources are debated (see the class on Matthew 1), and the debate matters here because Luke has a shorter parallel, the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49), and other sayings found in Matthew 5-7 appear scattered through Luke. Scholars explain this in different ways. Many hold that Matthew gathered sayings from a shared source and from his own tradition into one great discourse. Others hold that Jesus taught similar material on several occasions. In either case, Matthew presents the sermon as a coherent statement of what life in the kingdom looks like.

The setting is Galilee. Chapter 4 ended with large crowds following Jesus from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan. In chapter 5 he goes up a mountain, sits down, as Jewish teachers did, and his disciples come to him. The crowds are in the background (they are mentioned again at 7:28) but the first listeners are the disciples. A mountain suggests Sinai, where Moses received the Law, and many readers take this as a deliberate echo, though Matthew does not say so. The Beatitudes are addressed to those already following him; the demands that follow are made on those who have heard the call of chapter 4.

The audience of Matthew's Gospel was probably Jewish Christians who lived in a world where the Law of Moses, as interpreted by scribes and Pharisees, set the standard of righteousness. The question of how Jesus related to the Law was pressing. Did he abolish it, loosen it or keep it? Chapter 5 answers by saying he came to fulfil it and then by showing what its true demand is. Roman rule, the temple establishment, and the differing Jewish parties of the day (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and others) formed the backdrop. Jesus does not name them in this chapter, apart from the scribes and Pharisees at verse 20.

The Sermon on the Mount is teaching, instruction on how to live of the kind found in Israel's wisdom writings. It is not law in the sense of a legal code, and it is not a collection of random sayings. It is built carefully. The Beatitudes open it, the central body (5:17-7:12) explains the relation of the kingdom's righteousness to the Law and the Prophets, and the closing warnings (7:13-27) call for a decision. Matthew 5:17 and 7:12 both name 'the Law and the Prophets', which frames the main body.

Jesus speaks in a Jewish style that uses strong exaggeration to make a point. Cutting off a hand or plucking out an eye (5:29-30) is a way of saying that sin is so serious that nothing should be allowed to lead a person into it. It is not an instruction to injure oneself. Readers need to hold literal commands and vivid overstatement together by asking what the first hearers would have understood. For example, The commands not to resist an evil person and to give to the one who asks (5:39, 42) are examples of attitude and practice, and they have to be set beside other passages in which Jesus and Paul speak of justice, of the authorities and of responsibility for others.

The six contrasts follow the formula 'You have heard that it was said... but I tell you'. They do not set Jesus against Moses. Each quoted command is from the Law or from its common teaching, and Jesus goes behind the act to the heart. The chapter's hinge is verse 17, and all that follows should be read in its light. A final principle: the sermon describes the character of kingdom people, but it is addressed to disciples who have been called (4:18-22). It is not a ladder for earning entry.

Verses 1–2

Jesus goes up the mountain, sits and teaches. In the ancient world a teacher sat to teach formally. His disciples come to him. The Gospel has already said that the teaching is for all who follow, since crowds are there as well, and at the end they are astonished (7:28-29).

Verses 3–12

The Beatitudes are a series of blessings that begin with 'Blessed' (Greek makarios). The word does not mean a passing emotion. It describes a person whom God has favoured, and who is to be envied for what he has been given.

• The first and the eighth blessings share the same promise, 'for theirs is the kingdom of heaven', which wraps the list. The poor in spirit are those who know their need of God; Luke's parallel has a blessing on 'you who are poor' (Luke 6:20), and the two fit together, since the Old Testament poor were those who depended on God (Psalm 34:6; Isaiah 61:1). The mourners will be comforted, the meek will inherit the earth (echoing Psalm 37:11), those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, the merciful will receive mercy, the pure in heart will see God, the peacemakers will be called sons of God, and the persecuted for righteousness' sake have the kingdom. The promises are future and present at once: the kingdom is theirs, and the full comfort and the sight of God still lie ahead.
• The last Beatitude shifts to the second person and ties the disciples to the prophets who suffered before them.

Verses 13–16

Disciples are the 'salt of the earth' and the 'light of the world'. Salt preserves, flavours and was used in sacrifice. Light in a lamp is made to be seen. The image of a city on a hill recalls Isaiah's picture of Zion drawing the nations (Isaiah 2:2-3; 60:3). Good works are to be seen so that people give glory to the Father.

Verses 17–20

Jesus says he has not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them. The Greek verb pleroo means to fill up or complete. He then says that not the smallest letter or stroke will pass from the Law until everything is accomplished. In context 'fulfil' covers more than prediction. Jesus brings the Law to its intended end by teaching its full meaning and, as the rest of the Gospel shows, by accomplishing what it points to. Anyone who annuls the least command and teaches others to do so will be least in the kingdom. Then comes the stress point: the righteousness of the disciples must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. This is not about the number of rules kept. It is about a righteousness of the heart that the six contrasts will illustrate.

Verses 21–48

Each contrast quotes a command, then gives Jesus' authoritative 'But I tell you'. On murder (Exodus 20:13) he extends the command to anger and contempt and urges quick reconciliation. On adultery (Exodus 20:14) he extends it to lust, and in vivid language says that sin is worth any sacrifice to avoid. On divorce he cites the provision of a certificate (Deuteronomy 24:1) and restricts divorce. The exception clause (porneia, usually translated sexual immorality) is read in different ways. On oaths (Numbers 30; Leviticus 19:12) he calls for plain honesty so that 'Yes' and 'No' are enough. On retaliation he cites 'an eye for an eye' (Exodus 21:24), which was a limit on revenge, and calls for generosity toward the one who wrongs. On love, he cites the command to love one's neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) and the popular addition that one may hate an enemy. The Old Testament does not state that addition, but it was a common conclusion. Jesus commands love and prayer for enemies, because the Father gives sun and rain to both the evil and the good. The chapter ends with the call to be 'perfect' (teleios), which means whole, complete, and without division of heart, as the heavenly Father is.

The chapter's main teaching is that the Law is not set aside by the kingdom but brought to its goal. The Old Testament Law was God's gift to Israel and expressed his character. Jesus shows that its true demand goes to the heart, and that anger and lust break the commands against murder and adultery as surely as the acts do. This is the teaching Paul develops when he says that love fulfils the Law (Romans 13:8-10) and that the Law cannot give the life it describes (Galatians 3:21). The Bible's teaching on sin is the background. If the standard is the heart, then all have fallen short, and the Sermon points toward the need for grace that other parts of the New Testament state openly.

The Beatitudes teach that the kingdom belongs to those who have nothing in themselves. God's favour goes to the poor, the grieving, the humble and the persecuted, reversing ordinary measures of success. The Old Testament prophets said the same of the poor of Israel (Isaiah 61:1-3; Zephaniah 2:3). The chapter also teaches the Fatherhood of God. The disciples are to be like their Father, who gives to the just and the unjust, and the call to love enemies is based on God's own character.

The ethic is one of mission as well. The disciples are salt and light, and the point of their conduct is that others see it and glorify the Father. The kingdom is not hidden.

The clearest connection is Jesus' own claim. He says he has come to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (5:17), and he says 'But I tell you' over commands given at Sinai. No Old Testament prophet speaks in this way. The prophets speak in the name of the LORD; Jesus speaks in his own. In the context of a Jewish audience that treated the Law as God's word, that is a claim to an authority at least equal to God's own. The crowds will notice in 7:29 that he teaches with authority and not as their scribes.

There is also an echo of Moses. A teacher goes up a mountain and gives God's will to God's people. Matthew does not state the parallel, but his Gospel has already presented Jesus as the child rescued from a tyrant and as the one who passes through the water and the wilderness. At the same time, the difference is plain. Moses received the Law; Jesus speaks as its author and interpreter.

The Beatitudes also describe the life of Jesus himself. He was poor, he mourned (John 11:35), he was meek (Matthew 11:29), he showed mercy and made peace, and he was persecuted for righteousness. The perfection he demands of others is the perfection that he lived and that Paul says is counted to those who are in him (Philippians 3:9). The chapter therefore sets out what the kingdom is like and who its King is, and it is the second that makes the first possible.