The teaching of Jesus - Chambers, Oswald
Our lord did not come to this earth to teach men to be holy: he came to make men holy, and his teaching is applicable only on the basis of experimental redemption.
The teaching of Jesus is not first; what is first is that he came to give us a totally new heredity, and the sermon on the mount describes the way that heredity will work out.
A good way to find out how much stodge there is in our spiritual life is to read the sermon on the mount and see how obtuse we are to the greater part of what Jesus Christ taught.
There is a calm deliberation about the injunctions in the sermon on the mount; we are not asked to obey them until the holy spirit brings them to our remembrance, when he does, the question is, will i exercise the disposition given me in regeneration and react in my actual life in accordance with the mind of Christ?
Weighing the pros and cons for and against a statement of Jesus christs means that for the time being i refuse to obey him. We are never justified in taking any line of action other than that indicated by the teaching of jesus and made possible for us by the grace of god.
Our lords teaching does not mean anything to a man until it does, and then it means everything. Make your mind sure of what our lord taught, and then insist and re-insist on it to the best of your ability.
Distortions of belief come because principles are put in the place of jesus christ. I must have a personal relationship to him first, and then let the holy spirit apply his teaching. Nothing must switch the disciples loyalty to his lord by loyalty to principles deduced from his teaching.
There are no infallible principles, only an infallible person.
All my devotion is an insult to god unless every bit of my practical life squares with jesus christs demands. Beware of being negligent in some lesser thing while being good in some spiritual thing, e. G. , you may be good in a prayer meeting while not good in the matter of cleaning your boots. It is a real peril, and springs from selecting some one thing our lord taught as our standard instead of god himself.
Matthew 5:48 is the standard for the christian: ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect (rv). Size yourself up with a good sense of humourme, perfect! That is what jesus christ has undertaken to do. The religion of jesus is morality transfigured by spirituality; we have to be moral right down to the depths of our motives.
It cannot be too often emphasised that our lord never asks us to do other than all that good upright men do, but he does ask that we do just those same things from an entirely different motive (see Matthew 5:20). We should make less excuses for the weaknesses of a christian than for any other man. A christian has gods honour at stake. When a man is regenerated and bears the name of christ the spirit of god will see to it that he is scruti- nised by the world, and the more we are able to meet that scrutiny the healthier will we be as christians. Civilised organisations were never more deadly opposed to the teaching of jesus than in the present age. Whenever an organisation begins to be conscious of itself, its spiritual power goes because it is living for its own propaganda. Movements which were started by the spirit of god have crystallised into something god has had to blight because the golden rule for spiritual work has been departed from (see john 12:24).
I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil (mat- thew 5:17). Our lord was not anti anything; he put into existing institutions a ruling principle which if obeyed would reconstruct them. If you have never been brought close enough to jesus to realise that he teaches things that grossly offend you as a natural man, i question whether you have ever seen him.
Immediately you get out of touch with god, you are in a hell of chaos. That is always in the background of the teaching of jesus (cf. Matthew 5:2126). That is why the teaching of jesus produces such consterna- tion in the natural man. Whenever a truth comes home to me my first reaction is to fling it back on you, but the spirit of god brings it straight home, thou art the man. We always want to lash others when we are sick with our own disobedience.
The scrutiny we give other people should be for ourselves. You will never be able to cast out the mote in your brothers eye unless you have had a beam removed, or to be removed, from your own eye (see matthew 7:34). It is perilously possible to do one of two things bind burdens on people you have no intention of helping them lift, or placidly to explain away the full purport of our lords teaching (see luke 11:46).
Divorced from supernatural new birth the teaching of Jesus has no application to me, it only results in despair. Our lords teaching about the maimed life and the mature life has not been sufficiently recognised. You can never be mature unless you have been fanatical (see Matthew 5:2930, 48). Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain (Matthew 5:41). If you are a saint the lord will tax your walking capacity to the limit.
It is a slow business teaching a community living below the christian level, i have to act according to the christian ethic while not ignoring the fact that i am dealing with a community which lives away below it. The fact that i live with a degenerate crowd does not alter my duty, i have to behave as a disciple of Jesus.
