Enter through the
narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to
destruction, and there who are many who enter through it. But the gate is
narrow and the way is difficult that leads to life, and there are few who find
it. – Matthew 7:13-14 (NET)
These words are drawn
from Jesus’ famous “Sermon On the Mount”. Though there can be little
doubt that Jesus spoke these words on more than one occasion and in various
places, the setting in which Matthew sets them forth, as Matthew goes to great
lengths to make the point that Jesus is a new Moses, has Jesus sitting on a
mountain and teaching His disciples (5:1)---offering a different set of commandments
from a different mountain (the implicit reference to Moses and Sinai). At
this point, the record of Matthew shows that Jesus has only called to Himself
four of His chosen twelve, but that “large crowds followed Him” (4:25).
Additionally, we find that the crowds, which seem to be referred to as His
disciples, would be “amazed by His teaching, because He taught them like One
Who had authority” (7:28b-29a).
It is important for
us to remember that the words of our text are presented in the context of a
continuous series of thoughts that make up chapter five through seven of
Matthew. Now, there is a reason that it is generally referred to as a
“sermon,” and that is because it presents a series of ideas that press towards
a conclusion. We find that conclusion as the seventh chapter comes to a
close, when Jesus says, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them
is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the flood
came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it
had been founded on rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does
not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain
fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed;
it was utterly destroyed!” (7:24-27)
Jesus’ entire
discourse built to that point, as in His teaching, as He farmed the fallow
grounds of the Galilee (from whence revolutions in Israel sprang) to form His
new and revolutionary group (though a different sort of revolution) He began to
set Himself apart from those that had come before Him. There had been
numerous people before the time of Jesus (including numerous messianic
claimants) that had drawn crowds to themselves, with John the Baptist being one
of those that had drawn significant audiences (without any messianic claims,
though it is possible that there were those who looked to John as a messianic
figure as he proposed a new exodus movement as symbolized by his baptizing in
the Jordan); but inevitably, they pointed to the prophets or to Moses or to
some person of renown in order to lend them credibility and legitimacy.
Jesus, on the contrary, seems only to point to Himself and His words, providing
His own credibility. This was unique. Obviously, with such poignant
words, undoubtedly offered over and over, we can surmise that Jesus intended
His teachings to be taken seriously and to be accurately understood and applied
by His hearers.
When we hear a
sermon, or a speech of any kind for that matter, we do not expect the speaker
to flit about from topic to topic, offering up disconnected thoughts that have
nothing to do with what comes before or after; but rather, to present, with
minor digressions useful for making or elaborating points, a unified system of
thoughts and ideas. However, for some reason, when we come to these words
of Jesus concerning wide and narrow gates and ways, and the destruction and
life attendant upon those ways, we have a strange tendency to disconnect it
from its larger context. Doing that, we put these words into Jesus’ mouth
as some type of amorphous and ambiguous statement, lacking in substance, that
is just sitting there waiting for us to fill it with the content of our
subjective musings concerning what it is that constitutes sin. How
ridiculous, presumptuous, and short-sighted. Rather than look for what it
is that Jesus is communicating, we project on to Jesus’ statement nothing more
than our own opinions about what actions should be described as “wide gate”
actions that lead to destruction, and “narrow gate” actions that lead to life.
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