¹ Judge not, that you be not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. ³ Why do you see the speck that is in your brother s eye, but do not notice the log that is in you own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when there is a log in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. ⁶ Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.

Matthew 7:1-6

Jesus has just gone to great lengths to help His listeners see more clearly the good character of their heavenly Father. He had told them that He is a Father who is present, who sees them “in secret” even when no one else is paying attention, and is ready to reward them for care and comfort. He told them not to be anxious because their heavenly Father knows them, knows their needs, is directly active in His creation, and therefore in their lives. By trusting in God to be their true heavenly Father, they were free to devote themselves to seeking His kingdom, to living according to His good, perfect will.

Jesus now turns to the subject of judgment. Now what makes this passage at first seem difficult to understand is the meaning of the word “judgment.” Judgment has mainly two meanings. When we use the word judgment, we can mean discerning, weighing, or seeking to know the truth about something. Or judgment can be used in the sense of passing sentence on or deciding payment, reward, or condemnation. In fact, the Greek word used here for judgment has the double meaning of discernment and condemnation.

To understand which of these meanings Jesus has in mind here, it will help to look at the section as a whole. It does not seem that Jesus is telling them not to judge in terms of discerning. It takes discerning to see and remove obstacles to vision. And in order to avoid tossing our pearls before swine, we need to be able to distinguish what our pearls are and who are the swine of whom we need to be careful. He opposes the idea of using our powers of discernment only on others and not on ourselves as well. It would seem from verse 5, “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” that the ultimate purpose of discernment here is restoration, healing, or sanctification. The benefit of discerning the speck in your brother’s eye is the same as that of discerning the log in your own–so that both can be removed and you can both see more clearly. The problem develops when we think that we can see what is needed to be removed from others’ lives without examining our own.

If the point of discerning then is to move towards greater wholeness, then the real problem seems to be when we want to use discerning as a way to “lord it over” others or control others, rather than out of trust in God’s work and hope for transformation. Jesus just finished urging His listeners to seek the kingdom of God first and foremost. The prayer he taught earlier makes the same point. We are to pray for God’s good and perfect will to be done here on earth as it is in heaven.

In other words, to be seeking His kingdom is to hope that what is happening now in our lives and in our world is not the last word. We are those who are poor in spirit, who know that we cannot give ourselves life or our identities. We are longing for God to forgive, heal, and transform us. We hope that we will not be left where we are now. It is in understanding this context of hope in God that we can understand this passage. We are not to judge others in the way of passing final judgment on them or condemning them. We do not allow our discernment to be the “last word” on them any more than we want others to declare the “last word” on us. Our hope is that God can heal and transform even those who have hurt us. We can recognize that the truth is, only God knows the heart of each person, and only He knows what the true last word is.

Our discernment then comes out of this hope and trust in God’s presence and activity. How sad to be able to see and attempt to remove the speck in another’s eye, but to be content to leave a log in our own! We are to be discerning for the sake of participating in God’s work of healing in ourselves and in others.

Jesus goes on to warn His listeners with two images, similar to each other. In both there is a great discontinuity between what is being given and the possible receiver of the gift. The gifts are very precious, “what is holy” and “pearls”. The possible recipients are “dogs” and “swine”. But what is the connection between this warning and the previous section? Is Jesus just throwing in a random statement that has nothing to do with what He just said, beyond that it does involve discernment?

Jesus wants His listeners to pay close attention to what they are offering others, and to consider whether others are ready to receive the offering. Is He then helping His listeners further in how to go about being able to take the speck out of another’s eye? Before we can help another person, we need to consider where they are right now, and whether what we want to share with them, they are ready to receive. I don’t think Jesus is using the images of dogs and pigs to be derogatory towards anyone, but to highlight the inappropriateness of the gifts. A dog cannot benefit from what is holy and a pig is not in any way helped by the offer of pearls. To be truly helpful to another is to provide them with something that they can hear and understand in the circumstances in which they currently find themselves. The wisdom you have may truly be wonderful, but if they don’t yet have ears to hear, it will be useless.

Now so often we want to share our “pearls” with others because we feel the responsibility of making them “see the light.” It is hard to slow down, and give someone only the next step. Shouldn’t we share all that we know? Isn’t it up to us to make God’s work happen on earth? No, the truth is that any judging we do, any discerning is a participation in the judging and discerning that Jesus does. He is the One who knows us, who has come to unite Himself to us for our healing and transformation. We do not know “the last word” on anyone, but He does.

Our relationships are to be lived out in the context of seeking God’s kingdom. When we desire what our heavenly Father desires–wholeness, peace, true justice, life–then we are free from the need to dismiss people, or to put them into categories that we won’t let them ever move out from. We can leave them in His hands, and ask Him to enable us to see them, and ourselves through His eyes. Does He dismiss us, or put us in a box so that there is no hope for us, no possibility to leave what damages us behind? No, God shows us in Jesus, in becoming one with us, that His intention for His creation, for us, is to make all things new–to transform us to be His true children.

Trusting in Jesus to give us His word about us and about others, we are freed to hope in His transforming work, in His ability to make us able to share in His life.

⁷ Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Of if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! ¹² So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

Matthew 7:7-12

At first glance, it is difficult both to see how this section follows on the section before it and to see the connection between verses 7-11 and verse 12. Jesus speaks at length here of the wonderful, giving character of the Father, and then makes a concluding statement in verse 12, So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. How does this last sentence relate to what He has just said about trusting in the giving character of our heavenly Father? And how does the teaching on prayer relate to the previous section on judging?

In order to try to answer these questions, it would be helpful to look back. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has been giving His listeners a greater vision of the wonderful character and purposes of their heavenly Father. God the Father is the One who sees in secret, who is ready to give them the treasure of heaven, who will satisfy their longings for righteousness and mercy. This God intends for His people a true righteousness, one that exceeds mere morality. Jesus has sought to feed their trust in the purposes and activity of this One who created them, and who is their heavenly Father.

At the end of chapter 6, Jesus tells His readers to put God and His kingdom first in their priorities, and everything else will follow from that. This is the context for the section previous to the one we are looking at the section on judging. Jesus began that section of teaching by commanding His listeners, Judge not, that you be not judged. He warns them that when they attempt to speak a word of judgment, when they attempt to announce a word against another, they will receive judgment in the same measure. When we looked at this section, we noted that Jesus is warning against judging others and yet encouraging His listeners to be discerning at the same time. We are not to judge in the sense of giving the last word on someone else. But we are to participate in Jesus work in our lives and in the lives of others by trusting that He has the last word –the last word on them and even on us as well.

What we found in our study of the previous section is that our relationships with others are to be lived out in the context of seeking first God s kingdom and righteousness. We can t really see others, or ourselves, clearly if we attempt to see them outside of the context of the good character and purposes of our heavenly Father. We are tempted to judge others, to notice the speck in their eye, because we lose sight of the real presence and work of the triune God. We may feel it is up to us to make a decision about another.

So now, in today’s section, Jesus encourages His listeners to seek out their heavenly Father with repeated assurances that He is the Father who is ready to be found and to give. He goes on to compare our heavenly Father s supreme ability and willingness to give to His children with what we, as earthly parents, are willing to do for our children. We can see that the previous section on discerning and judgment is hemmed in on either side by Jesus admonition to His listeners to seek from their Father in heaven with assurance of His generosity. First Jesus tells them to seek God s kingdom and righteousness and that all these things shall be yours as well. Here, we have the theme again of receiving from a giving God.

In the context of the whole sermon, it is clear that Jesus is encouraging His listeners to ask (and to seek and to knock) for God s good rule to be done, for His reign to be active in their lives. He has already taught them to pray Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . He has helped them to see how good and life-giving this kingly rule of His Father is. And it is interesting to me that most of this section is about the goodness of God towards His people. As in the earlier sections of this sermon, Jesus is concerned to feed the faith of His listeners in the God He has come to reveal. As T.F. Torrance says, He presents God to us as “ One who hears and answers prayer and who gives us the freedom to come personally before him with our petitions.” (The Mediation of Christ, p.12)

Jesus concludes this section with the command, So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. By using the word so , Jesus indicates a connection between seeking out the giving God and how we are to treat one another. This verse, known popularly as The Golden Rule, is most often quoted as if it stands alone, as if it had no context. But here we see that the context is crucial to Jesus the command is a conclusion to His teaching on the giving character of God and to His command that they seek and ask from this God since He will surely give to them His kingdom.

It is because of who God is and because we can depend on Him to be the heavenly Father Jesus reveals Him to be that we can be freed to treat others the way we hope to be treated. There is no need for us to have the last word or condemn others since we are not dependent upon them for the good things we need nor do we have to provide them the ultimate things they need (and only God can give!). We don’t need to fear their judgement of us either, since they don’t have the final word about us. I wonder if part of why we are at times so quick to judge others is because we feel threatened by them, or we feel that they are letting us down. Are we asking something from them that only God can give us? Do we feel we’re expected to do something for another that really only God can do? It is hard sometimes to initiate with grace towards others, isn t it? We want them to make the first good move, or we want a guarantee that our treating them graciously will lead to something good for us. It’s hard to be loving and gracious if, in our relationships, there really are “strings attached.”

But when we first receive from our heavenly Father, we can then freely act in grace towards another because we are not keying off of, or being dependent upon, them and their response to give us our identity or our life. In other words, we can keep the Golden rule when we live as if we have a good and giving God who is over us and over our neighbors. We do not have to be God to or for others and they don’t have to be God over or for us. So we can treat others in a way that we would want them to treat us (whether they do or not!). In entrusting ourselves to God who knows the truth and who is gracious and giving, we are freed from both giving a last word to, and receiving a last word ( especially a condemning one) from others. When all our strings are attached to God, we can love each other with no strings attached.

¹³ Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. ¹⁵ Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will know them by their fruits.

Matthew 7:13-20

With this section and the following, we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. In these two sections Jesus warns His listeners against following other teachings besides what He Himself has been teaching them. He uses a variety of images to help them—2 different ways, trees and fruit, and building a house on a good foundation.

Jesus is warning His listeners to be on their guard against false teaching. He is clearly comparing His own teaching with other teachings they have encountered or will encounter. Actually this is not the first time in this sermon that Jesus has compared what He teaches with teaching they have already heard. He begins several sections comparing “you have heard that it was said…” with “but I say…” He warned against being like the Pharisees or the Gentiles in their practice of piety.

Jesus is helping His listeners to compare His teaching with any other that they may encounter. But in the context of the Sermon, it seems that the false prophets Jesus is primarily warning them about are the Pharisees. Toward the beginning of the Sermon, Jesus tells His listeners that He has not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets (which they may have been tempted to believe on hearing Him) but to fulfill them. It is in this section that He first uses the idea of entering the kingdom of heaven. In 5:20 he says, “’For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and the scribes you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’” He then gives 6 comparisons of what they have heard said with what He now says to them. Clearly He is comparing what the Pharisees have taught and practiced of righteousness and what is the righteousness that exceeds them. In the next section, when He speaks of the various aspects of piety, He refers to the Pharisees as hypocrites and tells His listeners not to be like them.

Because of this emphasis that we have already seen in the Sermon, it makes sense that the most immediate teaching Jesus is warning His listeners about is the teaching of the scribes and the Pharisees. With this in mind, let’s look at what Jesus says here. First, he admonishes His listeners to “’Enter by the narrow gate’” and then draws a comparison between two ways, each with a gate one must go through to enter them. The broad and easy way, with the wide gate is a teaching that many are entering (the Greek verb here is present tense). It is the more known or seemingly self-evident path, so it appears popular, well-traveled and easier. However, though the going sounds pleasant, its end is destruction. So it is deceptive—it may appear broad, but it narrows down to death! The narrow gate puts you on a way that is hard, not as obvious, for those who are finding it are few. But though it is difficult and narrower, this way broadens out to its endpoint, which is life.

Before we explore further the implications of this section let’s look at the rest of the passage. Jesus now warns His listeners against false prophets. It would make sense that these are the teachers of the broad way that leads to destruction. They appear to be sheep, belonging to the flock, but are actually “’ravenous wolves’”. This image supports the idea that Jesus is thinking primarily of the Jewish teachers that His audience is very familiar with. His description of the false prophets and their treatment of the sheep reminds me of Ezekiel 34, where God speaks against the shepherds of Israel, “You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.’” He goes on in this chapter to say that He will replace these false shepherds with Himself, He will be the true shepherd of the sheep.

How are His listeners to know who these false prophets are? Jesus says, twice, that they will be known by their fruits. He explains that the fruits of a plant give an accurate picture of the true nature and health of that plant. Fruit can’t lie, either in reference to plants or, as it turns out, to the true direction, truth, and health of a person’s life, teaching, and work.

It must have been shocking for those listening to Jesus to hear the way of the Pharisees described as broad, wide, and easy. After all, they were the ones who were scrupulously following the laws of God, were they not? But then, Jesus’ whole sermon up to this point has already been earthshaking. This is a continuation of what He has already been teaching on God’s rule and the nature of true righteousness, which He has come to fulfill and complete in Himself. The Pharisees had come to trust in their own observance of the law as a way to make themselves righteous, acceptable to God. They believed that they could achieve a righteousness on their own. But their righteousness was not a right relationship with the God of the Torah, with their heavenly Father. They did not seek the reward of their heavenly Father who sees in secret. They followed an outward conformity to the Law and believed it was enough, not recognizing that God’s will is that we are pure like Jesus from the inside out. And this scrupulous observance of the Law led them to believe themselves in good standing before God, led them to view themselves rich in spirit compared to others, even led them to judge others in such a way as to pass the final word on them.

But Jesus warns that this way is the easy, broad way that only leads to death. To see the truth of this more fully, lets go back to the passage already cited in chapter 5. Jesus has already stated that He has come to be the One who truly fulfills the ways of God, to be the One true righteousness, because righteousness goes beyond mere right standing before God, to being truly set right and in right relationship with God. God’s intentions for us are to be made right all the way down to our hearts, to be transformed and so able to have a right relationship with our heavenly Father. Jesus fulfills God’s intentions for us in Himself. By becoming one with our sinful flesh, He gives the righteous human response to His Father, trusting in his Father’s faithfulness, a response we are truly unable to give ourselves. His righteousness of trusting, holy love for his Father is the righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes and we can only have that righteousness of loving and faith-full relationship by receiving it from Him.

This is why it is blessed to be poor in spirit, to be hungering for righteousness, to be mourning. In our acknowledgment of our spiritual poverty we recognize our true state before God. We are those who lack the ability to truly give ourselves the life that comes from being in communion with our creator God. So, we recognize our need to receive what He is so willing to give us in Jesus. And we remain in that place of poverty in our own spirits, continuing to depend on Jesus to share His right relationship with the Father, to make us who we were created to be—children of our heavenly Father.

The way is hard. We want a set of principles, rule, practices that we can follow that will earn us some righteous standing before God, either so we can get Him to give us what we want or so we can keep Him off our backs. Many of the Pharisees had reduced the Torah of a totally trusting relationship with God fulfilled in Jesus to mere legal requirements with its rewards for conforming and penalties for disregarding them. They made their covenantal relation of love with God into a mere contractual relationship when they earned merits by “obedience” and calculated de-merits for disobedience. And we are tempted to do the same over and over again. We either hope that our efforts at righteousness make the difference with God, or we fear that He is really waiting for us to get ourselves righteous and we see that we cannot succeed and yet go on trying.

Jesus is warning against teaching a religion without relationship with Him, the teaching many of the Pharisees had fallen into and teaching that can still be found today. We hear that God is counting on us to do His work, or we are led to believe that to be truly righteous we should be fulfilling certain roles for the church and in the world. We are tempted to believe that God is not fully satisfied with us and that the gap between who we are now and who we should be is a breach He is waiting for us to close. This teaching of the Pharisees can sound so right. We are tempted to think we can get righteous on our own—if we just follow these steps, enter this program, pray with these formulas.

But it is a teaching that devours us, and leads not to the life of God but away from it. Because in depending on ourselves, either in hope or in fear, we close our hands to receiving from the God who is giving us His kingdom in Jesus. How foolish we are when we think that God is impressed with what we are doing “for” Him, but we don’t live in thankful gratefulness and trust in Him as the giving, good Father that He is. We do not glorify God with good works that don’t come from receiving our very lives and identities continually from Him.

The fruit of religious observances like the Pharisees is a hypocritical life, one where we do things so that others will be impressed and praise us. Good works that do not come out of a dependence on God point to ourselves, and we become focused on mere external obedience rather than giving God room to transform us from the inside out. The good works of the Pharisees are not such that others see and glorify the heavenly Father (5:16), but that others see and glorify the Pharisees.

The hard and narrow way is Jesus Himself and only Him. We place ourselves and our trust in Him alone and in His righteousness—all our strings attached to Him. We often struggle with looking for an easier way, one where we are not so fully dependent on the triune God, but God’s intentions will not stop at a partial righteousness. His intention is for our perfection in Him. C.S. Lewis once said, “When he said, ‘Be perfect,’ He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad …” (Mere Christianity, bk 4, ch. 8)

“²¹ Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in you name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.’ ²⁴ Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; ²⁵ and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; ²⁷ and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.” ²⁸ And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, ²⁹ for he taught then as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.

Matthew 7:21-29

With these 2 short sections we come to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. As I indicated in the previous study, this section of verses is closely connected to the previous one.  Jesus is continuing to talk about the kingdom of heaven, and continuing to correct his listeners’ understanding of what it takes to enter this kingdom.  Actually, if we step back a moment and consider the sermon as a whole, we see that this is what Jesus has been teaching about the whole time.  What is the realm of God’s rule like?  Who are those who are close to God and entering His kingdom and who are not?  From the beginning, Jesus has been surprising His listeners with His answers to these questions.  Jesus starts this teaching with the astonishing proclamation, “’Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’”

Somewhere along the line, the kingdom of heaven had become something that one earns by external obedience to the law. One’s relationship with God had come to be viewed primarily as a contract.  If we conform to the demands of the law, then God will let us in, will reward us with a place in His kingdom.  Clearly Jesus is challenging this view of righteousness.  He has told his listeners that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees.  How can they do so if righteousness is external obedience to the law?  The scribes and Pharisees were apparently devoted to following the law scrupulously.  Well, as we have seen, the righteousness that Jesus desires from His listeners is no fulfilling obligations of a contract, but rather one of trusting in God’s making us pure and having a right relationship with Him.  This relationship of faith to receive from God what He gives is what Jesus came to make possible in us, and so for us to continue to attempt to create our own righteousness by being “religious” is to follow false teachers down the path to destruction, for that path is to continue to trust in ourselves and what we can do for God and contribute to his Kingdom.

Hearing that truly recognizes His word is a hearing that leads to lives that are a response to Who he is. All our actions, all doing, all obedience, then stems from a faith or trust in Who he is. Any obedience, or any actions that don’t arise out of this trust then have no recognizable connection with Jesus as Lord. Doing things for Jesus or to get into His Kingdom that do not arise out of personal trust in him do not honor Jesus as the Lord that He is. Jesus finds no reflection of Himself in actions that are not moved by faith or trust in Him. He has no recognition of who they are in relationship to Him, because their actions don’t bear witness to a true recognition of Who He really is and what He has come to do, namely be gracious to us, doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Only total trust, fervent faith in Him, honors Him as Lord.

Going back to the beginning of the Sermon, we are to live as if poverty in spirit is a blessed attitude because in it we recognize our complete and utter inability to make ourselves right and whole, and our need to be continually filled by Jesus, continually receiving from Him as our Lord.  We are to agree with Jesus that to be truly righteous requires the transformation of our minds and hearts by Him, not merely our offering to Him some external actions. Building on His words calls for living out of a trust and hope in Him to complete His work in us and in the world.   The only kind of obedience to his Lordship he’s looking for is an obedience that flows from faith in him to be our Lord. These words of this entire sermon then are meant to lead us to trust fully and completely in him as our Lord and to living lives that exude that living trust in His gracious and powerful Lordship to make all things right. Only in that way will He Himself be the rock of our lives, our true Lord.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Amen