The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

Thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5-7

Part 17

^7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road is easythat leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. 

I was recently reading a book in which the author said that only a minority of people will be eternally saved. He quoted the verses above as prooftext. This has nothing to do with who goes to heaven and who doesn’t. The fact that preachers so often make it about that is an example of imposing our preconceived theology on the text. (No judgement, I misused this verse often in the past.) The text says nothing about eternal life. The Kingdom of the Heavens is here, now, and yet to come on earth as it is in the heavens. Jesus is talking about this life now.

Two doors, two roads. One leads out. The other leads in. 

A good practice when digging into the biblical text is to look for motifs. Where else have we seen doors or gates?

After the fall, the humans were driven out of the garden. An angel swirling a flaming sword is posted to guard the gate, the door. Going out leads to the desert, struggle, conflict, empires, wars, killing. Going in past the angel with the flaming sword leads to the tree of life, to shalom, to peace and harmony.

There’s a door in the Ark that God shuts. Inside with the animals there is safety, life, and peace. Outside the door is death, chaos, destruction.

Lot is visited by two angels charged with getting him to safety. Inside the house we find angels, safety, and hospitality. Outside is night, violence, wicked rapists and murders.

The first passover promised safety for all those in the houses marked by blood. Outside, death reigned.  

Moses designed the Tabernacle according to God’s plan. God’s Spirit filled the Holiest of All. You went in towards God, out into the desert

Similarly here, the wide gate leads to a road going out, away from God, away from shalom, life. The narrow gate or door leads into the presence of God where there is life and wholeness. 

Angels guard the tomb, yank Lot into the house and out of danger, adorn the ark of the covenant, and stand sentinel at Eden’s gate.

See them in John’s gospel seated on each end of the bier like the cherubim on mercy seat on the ark of the covenant in the holiest of all.

Cringe at the ever-twirling flaming sword guarding Eden.

Give thanks for the heavenly messengers saving Lot’s life.

Inside is life – tree of life in the garden, safety in the house, shekinah glory in the Most Holy Place. 

Outside is desert, darkness, death, the tomb.

The narrow door and narrow path of Matthew 7 leads back into life.

But, the garden is guarded. We can’t get to the tree of life.

Jesus went through the fire, through the sword, through death, past the stone into age-abiding life for us. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is laying down his manifesto. He is revealing a new, upside-down, counterintuitive kingdom where the last are first, where love conquers hate, and dying destroys death. He is inviting us to be his apprentices.

The essential key to being an apprentice at anything is to be with the master. You have to be with the master chef to learn to be a great chef. You have to sit with your piano teacher to learn piano. You have to work with the master electrician if you’re going to be an electrician. The key to being Jesus’ apprentice is to be with Jesus.

Being an apprentice does not imply perfection. No one starts out as a violin virtuoso, a climate scientist, or a master plumber. Every beginner makes lots of mistakes. That’s okay. That’s how we learn.

With Jesus. Learning from Jesus, how to be like Jesus.

To be with Jesus, we must go back into Eden. That’s where God is. That’s where life is. To get there, we must through the narrow gate. We must get past the bouncer. We must go through the fire. The pathway to God’s presence lies in sacrifice and suffering. “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me.”

There, in intimate fellowship with Jesus, we are safe in the Ark, protected from death by the blood of the Lamb. We are invited into the Holiest of All, the secret place of the Most High, where we abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

“All who are interactive with the spirit of God are God’s children.” (Romans 8:14, Dallas Willard, trans.)

The narrow gate is not doctrinal correctness, sacraments, ordinances, church membership, any particular theological viewpoint, or how you vote on hot-button issues.

The narrow gate is heartfelt, genuine obedience to Christ. It is doing what he says. Like, turning the other cheek, laying down the sword, going the second mile, loving enemies, forgiving without limits, and forsaking the illusionary security that comes from wealth. It leads deeper into the divine heart.

The narrow gate is constricted, squeezed. On the narrow road we face oppression, resistance, and persecution. We go through the fire into the heart of infinite love.

The wide gate is simply doing whatever you want without regard to Jesus. It is joining the world in its pursuit of success, fame, prestige, wealth, control, influence, profit, force, and power.

It leads to destruction. The word means ruin, coming to one’s undoing, a ruined purpose, a life that missed the point. It does not imply either eternal conscious torture nor annihilation. 

A few years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, a coalition of false messiahs mislead many in Israel and convinced them to use violence to overthrow Rome’s oppression. The way of Jesus is the way of love. Jesus never rides the red horse. Never. 

The result of doing things their way rather than God’s way was ruin, the destruction of 70 AD when Titus and the Roman 10^th legion crushed Israel entirely.

The way of the Lord is hard. It involves death to self, laying down one’s life for others, choosing to die rather than kill, renouncing wealth, fame, and comfort. We can’t walk that road without the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

Fortunately, we have not been left orphaned. The Holy Spirit is God with us, in us, and upon us transforming us, molding us into the image of Christ, giving us courage, and enabling us to live like kingdom people.

Now comes the tough question: Do I really want to be Jesus’ disciple, or do I really want to follow my own path but be forgiven and wind up in heaven anyway?