902. False Assumptions: The Sermon on the Mount Was a New Christian Teaching?

It's easy to get confused between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant if we're under the assumption that when Jesus was speaking to His disciples, it means He was also speaking directly to us today.

Jesus was born under the law for the purpose of redeeming the Jewish people from that law, which was incapable of providing them with life and righteousness. The New Covenant did not begin in Matthew 1:1 or at the birth of Jesus ... but would be ratified after His death (Hebrews 9). The "sermon" in Matthew 5-7 was Jesus attempting to methodically show His disciples that if they were to continue to make attempts at attaining righteousness through that law of works, they would fall short of the perfection it demanded ... because it would mean keeping every jot and title of the 613 commandments and statutes. They would need a greater righteousness.

Therefore, what Jesus spoke with His words in these passages is of critical importance ... but it was not a new Christian teaching for all future believers in Christ with a new set of rules that would be even more difficult to follow than the impossible law. They would need a better way to get to God—and Jesus would be that way.



   
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