What did Jesus teach?

What the Bible says

The Gospels sum up Jesus' message in one sentence. Mark records the first words he spoke in Galilee after John was arrested.

“The time is fulfilled,” He said, “and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gospel!”

Mark 1:15

The kingdom of God is not a place on a map. It is the announcement that God is beginning to rule as king among his people, and that the long-awaited promises of the Old Testament are being fulfilled. That is why it is called "good news." Two responses are asked for: repentance, a turning around, and faith, trusting this news.

The God Jesus taught about is not a distant ruler but a Father. When the disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he said:

So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Matt 6:9-10

It says "our" Father, not "my": seeking the kingdom is a shared task. Jesus also taught that those who are forgiven must forgive others (Matt 6:14-15).

How people should live is set out most fully in Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount, and it begins in an unexpected way. It does not bless the powerful: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 5:3). Jesus says he has not come "to abolish them, but to fulfill them," meaning the Law and the Prophets (Matt 5:17). Then he asks for the inner meaning of the commandments and not only their outward form. The command against murder reaches to anger against a brother, and the phrase "But I tell you" keeps returning (Matt 5:22). The hardest saying is this one.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Matt 5:44

When a lawyer asked which commandment was the greatest, Jesus gathered everything into two.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matt 22:37-40

It must not stay in words: everyone who "hears these words of Mine and acts on them" is like a wise man who built his house on the rock (Matt 7:24).

But when we read the Gospels we find that people were astonished at more than the content. The manner was different.

The people were astonished at His teaching, because He taught as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.

Mark 1:22

And at the centre of his teaching stood himself.

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Mark 2:17

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matt 11:28

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

John 14:6

Other teachers said, "Walk this path." Jesus said, "Come to me."

The church's witness

From the beginning the church did not separate Jesus' teaching from Jesus himself. On the "authority" of Mark 1:22, Bede writes:

The Scribes themselves taught the people what was written in Moses and the Prophets; but Jesus as the God and Lord of Moses, himself, by the freedom of His own will, either added those things which appeared wanting in the Law, or altered things as He preached to the people

Bede

Many later theologians prefer to say, with Matthew 5:17, that Jesus did not change the Law but disclosed its true meaning and fulfilled it. All see the same thing, though: only the Lord of the Law could handle the Law this way.

On repentance and faith, Matthew Henry writes on Mark 1:15: "By repentance we give glory to our Creator whom we have offended; by faith we give glory to our Redeemer who came to save us from our sins" Matthew Henry.

On the command to love, Augustine explains how far "neighbour" reaches. The parable of the man left half dead teaches, he says, that "our neighbour is every one who may happen at any time to stand in need of our offices of mercy" Augustine. That is where the command to love even enemies leads.

On Matthew 22:37-40, Matthew Henry ends almost as a prayer: "By these two commandments let our hearts be formed as by a mould" Matthew Henry.

In the original languages

The word Jesus used most often is basileia (βασιλεία), "kingdom." It leans less toward territory than toward "the reign of a king." So "the kingdom of God is near" does not mean that a place is near; it means that God the King is coming to rule. Matthew's "kingdom of heaven" points to the same reality.

The "authority" of Mark 1:22 is exousia (ἐξουσία). It means less raw power than the right to speak and to command: Jesus spoke as one who had that right.

"Repentance" is metanoia (μετάνοια), literally "a change of mind." It is more than regret: it is a change in the direction of one's life.

Common objections

"Jesus was a great moral teacher, nothing more. Keep his ethics and drop the claims about himself." This objection is not trivial. The Sermon on the Mount has moved many people with no faith. But the claims are hard to remove from the teaching. Jesus spoke above the Law with "But I tell you," forgave sins, and called people to follow him. C. S. Lewis argued on this basis that such claims rule out the verdict that Jesus was only a good teacher C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. Critics reply that the later church may have shaped his sayings; many scholars answer that sayings in which Jesus points to himself run through even the earliest layers of the Gospels.

"The Sermon on the Mount asks for the impossible." In one sense it does. If anger against a brother is already under judgment, who can stand blameless? Christians have answered this in different ways. Some hold that the demands expose our weakness and drive us to grace. Others hold that they describe the life of the kingdom's people, lived in the Spirit's power. Churches also differ on how literally to take what he says about oaths and violence. All agree, though, that he did not mean to condemn those who struggle. The same voice said, "Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened" (Matt 11:28).

"Jesus taught only love. Judgment and hell were added by the church." Love is the heart of his teaching; that much is right. But the Jesus of the Gospels also speaks of judgment often and seriously, and Matthew 5:22 itself mentions "the fire of hell." Speaking of judgment is no contradiction in one who loves: it says that evil is truly evil and that people truly matter. Christians differ about the nature of hell, which cannot be settled here, but that judgment belongs to Jesus' teaching is clear.

Going further

Jesus' teaching cannot be separated from who he is. Before giving a list of new rules he asked for one thing: believe the news that the kingdom is near, and come to him. Ethics is the shape of the life that follows that invitation.

You might ask yourself: Which saying in the Sermon on the Mount troubles me most? Have I stopped at admiring Jesus as a teacher? What could "the kingdom of God is near" mean for my day today?

To read further, see Who is Jesus? and What is the gospel?.