See, it’s when the rain falls, and the floods come, and the wind blows and
beats on the house that its owner discovers the true value of the foundation on which he has
built. Stack Western believers up alongside the apostles, the martyrs and the
heroes of the faith over the last two millennia, and it’s a fair bet most of us
have never seen more than a few dark clouds in the sky and the occasional bit
of spatter.
Which accounts for a fair bit.
Factors Within and Beyond Our Control
Now, I’m not really criticizing modern evangelicals, you understand. You don’t get to choose the era into which you
are born, the political climate in which you grow up, or the level of
social acceptance your faith receives. On the other hand, you DO get to choose
the level of intensity and frequency with which you share the gospel, and where
you choose to share it. You definitely get to choose how and to what extent you
contend for the faith when its foundational principles are attacked from within
Christendom, as they have been many times over in the last century. That much
at least is in our hands.
So while some of the comparative ease with which our generation has walked the Christian walk has been due to factors
beyond our control, a significant portion boils down to the choices we make in the service of Christ. Those who opt to hand out
tracts at a Pride parade or outside a mosque, for instance, may discover
quickly how offensive the gospel can be in certain quarters, and what the price
is for obedience to the Great Commission.
Typhoon-Like Levels of Hostility
But the Great Commission had not been given when the Lord told the parable of the house on the rock to the crowds. At the interpretive
level at least, then, the rain, floods and winds can hardly be said to represent
the world’s reaction to the offense of the Christian gospel, though we may
certainly see how, within only a three-year period, identifying as a follower
of Christ — merely accepting his gracious touch — could bring on typhoon-like levels of hostility from the religious establishment.
All the same, a man who put his trust in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ could
worship authentically despite having only just been
excommunicated.
That’s what you call a rock-solid house, even if it appears to have been built on only a handful of words from Christ.
The Fractured State of First Century Judaism
The house of first century Judaism, on the other hand, was built on a much flimsier foundation. It was constructed atop the Law of Moses, much like the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, but in this case it was the Law in name only. On closer inspection, the foundation reveals itself to have been all but pulverized. Where the Lord
reaffirms the Law in the Sermon, first century religious Jews
denied it in practice:
- Tasked with teaching a law designed by God to point outside itself to a life of sonship through faith, the Scribes and Pharisees instead birthed children of hell.
- Tasked with teaching a law designed by God to point to eternal blessing, the Sadducees denied the very notion of resurrection.
- Tasked with promoting truth designed for the blessing of “all the families of the earth”, the Essenes cut themselves off from the world entirely.
There was nothing wrong with the Law as a starting point, provided it was the Law as
interpreted by God himself, not by the shifting sands of human opinion. Who
could build a house on that foundation and expect it not to collapse in the
storm? “Great was the fall of it” indeed.
How Do You Read It?
The teachings of Christ as summed up in the Sermon provide an unimpeachable foundation for the building of one’s life or
any legitimate institution, but just as first-century perversions of Judaism
provided no security against the coming storm led by
Titus against Jerusalem in AD70, false or distorted interpretations of the Lord’s teaching in the Sermon will not adequately support a “house” of any sort.
Correctly understanding anything taught by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 5-7 requires considering it both in the context
of the Old Testament Law, Psalms and Prophets which were given by the same
Spirit, and in the context of the applications and further doctrine built on it
by the apostles and writers of the New Testament, again in the same Spirit. The
teaching in the Sermon is opposed to neither: it supports the latter and sums
up the former.
Thus any reconstruction of the words of Christ in these chapters that sets them against the rest of the Spirit’s revelation
throughout the word of God turns them into a foundation of sand,
notwithstanding their source. When considering the Sermon, “How do you read it?”
is as important a question for us today as it was for the lawyer who once
thought to put Jesus to the test.
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