Jun 23, 2013

The Sermon on the Mount, Mosaic Law, and Christian Ethics


The interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and its implications for the Mosaic Law and Christian ethics is much debated. Alan Johnson has a pretty good discussion of the issues in a festschrift for Samuel J. Schultz. He offers the following six points by way of conclusion and summary.

1. The ethic of Jesus develops legitimately out of the Mosaic tradition and is not in essential disagreement with it—there is continuity with the old.

2. Jesus’ ethic fulfills or surpasses the Mosaic ethical tradition and thereby radically transcends the old—there is discontinuity with Moses and the Prophets. Something new has come with Christ.

3. The two basic assumptions of the Reformers (Luther and Calvin) are exegetically indefensible—i.e., (1) God’s Law cannot be modified, and therefore the Law of Moses cannot be modified—there is no I progress in moral revelation; and (2) Jesus was not a new lawgiver.

4. Anabaptist literalism, while rightly stressing discontinuity, yet without regard to a more precise hermeneutic, has produced an unwarranted absolutism that has restricted and at times misdirected Christian ethical action.

5. A proper grasp of both the aspect of continuity with the old and an appreciation for discontinuity with Moses and the Prophets will provide a more adequate foundation for Christian theological ethics.

6. The final authority for Christian ethics is not the Torah or even the Prophets but Jesus and the Holy Spirit.


Alan F. Johnson, “Jesus and Moses: Rabbinic Backgrounds and Exegetical Concerns in Matthew 5 as Crucial to the Theological Foundations of Christian Ethics,” in The Living and Active Word of God: Essays in Honor of Samuel J. Schultz, ed. Morris Inch and Ronald Youngblood (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 106–7.

2 comments:

KRG said...

Thanks for sharing, Charles. Is this particular article/chapter available online?

Charles Savelle said...

I am not aware of this being available online. The entire festschrift is available and is partially viewable at Google Books. But the first pages of this particular chapter are unavailable, although the section that I am referring to is viewable. I hope that makes sense.