Men of our day have much to say concerning Christ and the Old Testament. It is quite common to hear, or to read, that men of this enlightened twentieth century wish to follow the religion of Jesus. They, because of their superior intellect and greater insight into spiritual matters, so they say, do not wish to have anything to do with the Old Testament. There are those who claim even to see a difference between the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the God of the New. They look at Christ’s statements in the Sermon on the Mount and then begin to talk about the horrid conception of God that they claim is found in the Old Testament, they call Him a tribal God and proceed to thank their god that they have been removed from a thought of God that is so unrefined and barbarous as to desire a blood sacrifice. They flee from a God who would punish a people by death for such minor offenses as complaining against Moses or hiding away their loot in a tent. Yet they are incapable of comprehending the fact that Jesus Christ associated Himself with the God of the Old Testament and with the Old Testament itself in such a way as to render the Book and the person of God and Christ absolutely inseparable.

The truths taught in the Sermon on the Mount are the righteous foundation of all God’s dealings with men. He demands absolute perfection. …This statement concerning the Sermon on the Mount naturally raises certain problems that must be considered….what the attitude of the Bible Christian must be toward this great ethical statement of our Lord Jesus.

The Sermon on the Mount brought all this to an end. Christ effectively blocked every detour and brought men back to the standards of God’s holiness. …He(Christ sic) demonstrated that defilement lay in the heart. Now He uttered the words that brought these men under God’s light and also under the gaze of the people: "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say unto you,"—and this is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking, "For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 5:19-20).

They (His listeners) knew their hearts well enough to wince at the words… the climax was reached when He named them, and in naming them destroyed the standards which they had so carefully erected. They had taken the law and whittled it down throughout the centuries. In place of the simple commandments that cannot be misunderstood, they had substituted a complex commentary that enabled them to disobey the law as God gave it and yet salve their own consciences.