The way of ‘Quiet Generosity’: Matthew 6.1-4

In these verses Jesus again shares what is a universal Divine principle. Here also there is no suggestion that his teaching applies to his followers only and to no-one else. We can all easily imagine a situation where a non-Christian living life along these lines receives God’s blessings in this life as promised, without being conscious of their true source. This is the powerful Divine life-principle of ‘what you sow you reap’ at work. What we can’t easily imagine is that when this person dies the God who blessed them for their consistent generosity then turns around and shuffles them off to hell because they failed to get the ‘believe in Jesus’ part correct. Yet if you hold an exclusivist approach to salvation this is what you are forced to conclude, no matter how unfair and churlish it sounds. Surely the God of the Bible is not this petty!

The Way of Forgiveness: Matthew 6.9-14

In the process of teaching his disciples the wording of what we call the ‘Lord’s Prayer’, the most loved and quoted of all prayer guides, Jesus does not mention anything to do with himself. Nor does he include any clause or prayer that requires the person praying to pray in his name or to refer to or ‘believe in him’. The focus is totally on a person’s relationship to the Father and to others.

Here the conditions for having one’s sins forgiven have nothing to do with accepting Christ, but everything to do with being willing to ‘forgive those who sin against us’.

We are reminded again that there was full forgiveness of sin before the death of Christ on the cross, as was also clearly taught in the Old Testament. This must surely alert us to the fact that there has to be something wrong with the evangelical view which sees the fundamental basis for the forgiveness of sin suddenly changing from the cross onwards.

The way of the ‘seeking heart’ and narrow gate: Matthew 7.7-14

In this most important and often misunderstood teaching, we find the way to God opening wide to those who ask, seek and knock. Once again Jesus does not say that the seeker must of necessity seek via himself in order to receive the good gifts of the Father. Unlike exclusivist theology, Jesus does not seem at all offended that a person can come into a genuine saving relationship with God the Father in a way that does not require conscious seeking of, and commitment to, God the Son.

What is most important is that in verse 12 Jesus, as he does on other occasions, deliberately puts a magnifying glass over the most central and foundational of all Divine commands, "In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the [entire] Law and Prophets." The Jews referred to this commandment as either the ‘Great Commandment’ or the ‘Royal Law’ (see James 2.8). We know it as the ‘The Golden Rule’.

In the very next words that come out of his mouth, Jesus talks about "the narrow gate - the narrow road, that leads to life". This immediately raises an all important question. Just what is this ‘narrow gate’ - this ‘narrow road’ that leads us into life?

The context of the passage makes it absolutely clear. The narrow way/road that leads to life is not Jesus Christ. It is the greatest of all commandments, the Golden Rule! "In everything,” declares Jesus, “do to others what you would have them do to you." It is this immensely costly life-style which separates the ‘sheep’ from the ‘goats’, a life-style so intrinsically inimical to self-interest that those who walk this way are few.

The ‘Narrow Way’ is not Christ! This will come as a huge shock to evangelicals. It certainly did to me! I used this ‘narrow gate’ passage frequently in evangelistic sermons, loudly proclaiming what all evangelicals have been brought up to believe, namely that the ‘narrow way’ is Jesus Christ. But clearly this is not what Jesus is saying. To emphasise the fact even more, in his very next words Jesus immediately launches into a discussion about ‘good and bad fruit’.