Salt and Light (v 13-16)
You are the salt of the earth. This, also, is a description of the children of the Kingdom. Where Jesus is received, there the people will be a salt. Without salt, the food will be stale and eventually rotten; the salt will keep it from decaying. The disciples have the same function in this world. There is an exhortation in this fact. If the salt loses its taste, it is thrown out on the street, the obvious garbage dump in the Middle East. Jesus here probably means that this is an absurd assumption. The salt cannot stop being salt. It should be just as absurd for a Christian to lose his spiritual saltiness. This is not about obvious apostasy, but a process which makes the disciple so much like the world, that no one notices anymore that he is not like everybody else. Then he is useless and will be thrown away on the day of accountability.
The image of the light of the world says pretty much the same thing. Again, it is a fact: the disciples are the light of the world. One cannot hide a city set on a hill. From the hills at Capernaum one could see it before one’s eyes. On the other side of the lake, between 20 and 30 kilometers away, the Greek cities Hippos and Gadara were set, with their temples and colonnades, right on the horizon. At sunrise they stood out as silhouettes, toward the evening they shone like gold in the evening light. This is the way God has made his church in the world. The disciple cannot hide himself and his faith. That would be like lighting the oil lamp then putting the wooden box (the bushel which was used for measuring flour) over it. Then it dies out. Instead, one puts it in the candle holder, in the tall lamp stand, where one could put the oil lamp or hang it up by a chain. Then it “gives light to all in the house”. Jesus assumes that there is only one room in the house, as was common among his poor countrymen.
The light, which Jesus is talking about, is not human talent or goodness. It is a reflection of God’s goodness. Jesus himself is the light of the world (John 8:12). The ones who belong to him will be “light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8). This is the light which cannot be hidden. Then it will die out. But where it shines, there people will see that good works are done. And even more: they see where they come from and praise God because of them.
Jesus and the Law (v. 17-20)
The expression “the Law and the Prophets” referred to the whole Old Testament in colloquial speech. Jesus now says that no one should think that he came to abolish something that is written in the Scripture. It retains its validity, even the smallest of letters. (Jesus mentions ‘iota’, which is the smallest of the Greek letters, and also mentions the ‘lines’ which was characteristic for them).
This may seem like a contradiction. After all, it is clear that Jesus did “abolish” the sabbath commandment and taught people the same. He did not follow all the regulations regarding clean and unclean. And here in the sermon on the Mount, he immediately gives an exposition of the law, which changes what Moses had taught and makes it more strict. The explanation to this is in Jesus’ own words: He did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. To “fulfill” here means to complete and to express that which is the real meaning and purpose of the law. All of the Old Testament was a model and a prediction, which pointed forward. Everything, even the law, had a deeper meaning, which would be clear when Messiah came. When Messiah completes everything, he also gives the right interpretation of the content of the law. At the same time, he gives another foundation for salvation than the law. It is through faith in Messiah that one becomes a child of God. But the law’s demands will remain. Jesus does not open the way to God by reducing the demands, so that they may be met with a little bit of good intention. On the contrary, he sharpens them. The new thing, which came with him, is not a modernized law, adapted to our ability. It is a new way to God, through faith in Christ. Therefore, Jesus can say that it is not enough with the most strict righteousness, which was known at that time: the one of the scribes and the pharisees. In all its severity it was still a bungled piece of work. It transformed God’s requirements to a collection of paragraphs, which certainly were difficult, but still possible to fulfill. But God’s requirements are larger than that. This is what Jesus is showing a string of examples.
You are the salt of the earth. This, also, is a description of the children of the Kingdom. Where Jesus is received, there the people will be a salt. Without salt, the food will be stale and eventually rotten; the salt will keep it from decaying. The disciples have the same function in this world. There is an exhortation in this fact. If the salt loses its taste, it is thrown out on the street, the obvious garbage dump in the Middle East. Jesus here probably means that this is an absurd assumption. The salt cannot stop being salt. It should be just as absurd for a Christian to lose his spiritual saltiness. This is not about obvious apostasy, but a process which makes the disciple so much like the world, that no one notices anymore that he is not like everybody else. Then he is useless and will be thrown away on the day of accountability.
The image of the light of the world says pretty much the same thing. Again, it is a fact: the disciples are the light of the world. One cannot hide a city set on a hill. From the hills at Capernaum one could see it before one’s eyes. On the other side of the lake, between 20 and 30 kilometers away, the Greek cities Hippos and Gadara were set, with their temples and colonnades, right on the horizon. At sunrise they stood out as silhouettes, toward the evening they shone like gold in the evening light. This is the way God has made his church in the world. The disciple cannot hide himself and his faith. That would be like lighting the oil lamp then putting the wooden box (the bushel which was used for measuring flour) over it. Then it dies out. Instead, one puts it in the candle holder, in the tall lamp stand, where one could put the oil lamp or hang it up by a chain. Then it “gives light to all in the house”. Jesus assumes that there is only one room in the house, as was common among his poor countrymen.
The light, which Jesus is talking about, is not human talent or goodness. It is a reflection of God’s goodness. Jesus himself is the light of the world (John 8:12). The ones who belong to him will be “light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8). This is the light which cannot be hidden. Then it will die out. But where it shines, there people will see that good works are done. And even more: they see where they come from and praise God because of them.
Jesus and the Law (v. 17-20)
The expression “the Law and the Prophets” referred to the whole Old Testament in colloquial speech. Jesus now says that no one should think that he came to abolish something that is written in the Scripture. It retains its validity, even the smallest of letters. (Jesus mentions ‘iota’, which is the smallest of the Greek letters, and also mentions the ‘lines’ which was characteristic for them).
This may seem like a contradiction. After all, it is clear that Jesus did “abolish” the sabbath commandment and taught people the same. He did not follow all the regulations regarding clean and unclean. And here in the sermon on the Mount, he immediately gives an exposition of the law, which changes what Moses had taught and makes it more strict. The explanation to this is in Jesus’ own words: He did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. To “fulfill” here means to complete and to express that which is the real meaning and purpose of the law. All of the Old Testament was a model and a prediction, which pointed forward. Everything, even the law, had a deeper meaning, which would be clear when Messiah came. When Messiah completes everything, he also gives the right interpretation of the content of the law. At the same time, he gives another foundation for salvation than the law. It is through faith in Messiah that one becomes a child of God. But the law’s demands will remain. Jesus does not open the way to God by reducing the demands, so that they may be met with a little bit of good intention. On the contrary, he sharpens them. The new thing, which came with him, is not a modernized law, adapted to our ability. It is a new way to God, through faith in Christ. Therefore, Jesus can say that it is not enough with the most strict righteousness, which was known at that time: the one of the scribes and the pharisees. In all its severity it was still a bungled piece of work. It transformed God’s requirements to a collection of paragraphs, which certainly were difficult, but still possible to fulfill. But God’s requirements are larger than that. This is what Jesus is showing a string of examples.
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