Third, we should study the Sermon on the Mount because it indicates the way to blessing for Christians, not in accordance with the world's standards, but in accordance with these principles does the Christian find happiness. For it is the poor (not the haughty), the meek (not the proud), the merciful (not the cruel), the peacemakers (not the agitators) who are called blessed by God.
Now I believe that you will have entirely missed the point of what I have been saying here if you have not realized that all of my arguments against the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of these three chapters in Matthew have also been designed to answer the question, “Why should we study it?" For, of course, that is what we are concerned with in this first introductory study. Why should we study the Sermon on the Mount? There are at least four reasons.
No, the world of the Sermon on the Mount is a real and sinful world, a world of tax collectors, unjust officials, hypocrites, thieves, the weak, the poor, and false prophets. And it is a statement of how those who were to be born again by faith in Christ are to live—in spite of them.
The chapter itself closes with a most un-Mosaic statement, devastating to all attempts to exalt human righteousness as a means of salvation: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (5:48). This is not legalism. It is not the Old Testament law restated. It is a condemnation of all attempts to please God by legalism in order that the way might be cleared for a man to come to God by faith in Jesus Christ and to receive a new life capable of that which he requires.
Today I should like to begin a study of the Sermon on the Mount, which is found in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew's Gospel. Before we begin, however, I think we need to recognize that in dealing with the Sermon on the Mount we are dealing with the need for a new life—a new birth—rather than with a legalistic system of morality. And this is true, not only of the Sermon on the Mount, but of the New Testament generally.
