What Kind of Ethics in Jesus’ Famous Sermon? (by John Frye)

The Sermon: What Kind of Ethics?

Scot McKnight names a few scholars in his Acknowledgements and thanks them “for some pushback on the introduction” to his SGBC on the Sermon on the Mount (xi). This caught my eye and made me want to pay more attention to the introduction. Many of us are so eager to get into “the meat” of a new commentary that we skip the introduction. Don’t do that with this book.

Scot’s introduction urges us not to “colonize” the Sermon on the Mount in ways that dilute the uncomfortable ruggedness of Jesus’ words. Scot writes, “The Sermon on the Mount is the greatest moral document of all time” (3). Scot provides a summary of some major ethical theories (virtue ethics, categorical imperatives, utilitarian ethics) because the SoM contains a sharp ethical vision. Jesus’ teachings do not fit well into any known ethical framework and Scot points out the reasons why (see below).

What about Jesus and Paul? A few Christian maneuvers to make Jesus’ Sermon sync with the rest of the New Testament, particularly Paul, are: 1) The Sermon is Moses on steroids. The Sermon is the Mother of all Law. We are so smitten as sinners by the Sermon that we flee to Paul and grace to find relief. The Sermon puts us in a fierce headlock until we cry “Sola fide!”

2) The Sermon is all about private morality and is not intended to shape the public square. It’s pure insider information. Martin Luther notwithstanding, I can’t imagine this view ever entered Jesus’ mind.

3) The Sermon is for the spiritual elite; for the Navy SEALS of Christian living, not for us ordinary civilians. How can anyone read the beatitudes and even think this?

4) The Sermon presupposes the gospel and individual salvation so that it goes to work only after we’re saved. The Sermon is a supercharged engine but has no gasoline. The Apostle Paul would fill it up later with high octane grace. Yet, here’s the saw blade rub, Jesus never had Paul in mind when he taught the Sermon throughout Galilee. The Sermon from the get-go is firing powerfully on all 16 cylinders (it’s a Bugatti) and driving hard to its appointed task.

For Scot, there are four angles informing Jesus’ ethics (i.e., the Sermon): 1) Ethics from Above directly from God, like the Torah given to Moses by God. Jesus, daringly, sees himself as the new Moses above the old Moses and Jesus, too, gives us direct, new commandments. 2) Ethics from Beyond (the Prophets) whose eschatological vision is designed to shape God’s people’s present behaviors. “The future takes effect now,” Jesus teaches. 3) Ethics from Below in the form of Wisdom informs the Sermon. Human observation, serious reflection, and then skillful formulation of truth guide kingdom behaviors.  4) This last angle is the context of the messianic community living in the power of the Spirit. Jesus actually envisions a new kind of humanity, a kingdom-of-God society. Jesus sees people living the eternal kingdom way now in a fallen, sin-wrecked world that is in desperate need of hope and redemption.