Sinai and the Sermon on the Mount

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By Dr. Jim Sibley
CMJ USA

Any number of artists have created works in which there is a hidden face. Perhaps the scene looks like a mountain or a lake with overhanging tree branches, but hidden in the details is a face that is not immediately noticeable. Regardless of how carefully the face may be hidden, once you see it, you can never “un-see” it. In Deuteronomy 18:15ff, God promised to send a prophet-like-Moses who would carry God’s own message and bear his own authority. Most Christians are not familiar with the prophecy and thus never consider that Jesus functioned as this Prophet in his earthly life. However, once you see this Moses-like Prophet in the Gospels, his words and actions take on a new depth of meaning. 

Matthew records what has been called “The Sermon on the Mount,” in Matthew 5:1–8:1. Regarding th is account , Frederic Godet, writing in 1899, pronounced that “the mount where Jesus speaks is as the Sinai of the new covenant.” ¹ In his actions , as well as in the content and form of his message , Jesus wa s acting and teaching as the Prophet-like-Moses.    

After an examin ation of Jewish literature outside of the Bible , Dale Allison concluded: “The image of Moses sitting on Sinai . . . was firmly established in the imagination of pre-Christian Jews.” ² He also points out that even as the opening words of Matthew 5 are similar to the biblical texts “about Moses and Sinai, the same is true of [Matt hew ] 8:1, ” which concludes the Sermon on the Mount . ³ From first to last , in delivering this sermon, Jesus has modeled His teaching to reflect His identity as the Prophet-like-Moses , delivering a new Torah.   

This observation also leads us to consider t he structure of the Sermon on the Mount . It is organized in such a manner that there is a parallelism between the first and last elements, the second and the next-to-last, and so forth. This is called a chiasm. Not only is the Sermon on the Mount itself a chiasm, but so also is the section of the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon . What adds to this interest is that Psalm 90, the Psalm of Moses, is also written as a chiasm. Even in the structure of his teaching, Jesus is alluding to his authority as the prophesied Prophet of Deuteronomy 18.  

In this sermon, Jesus addresse d topics that are also addressed in the context of the prophecy of the Prophet - like - Moses. First, Jesus warn ed against false prophets, who would come with deceit and whose prophecies would not produce the promised fruit. ⁴ In Deuteronomy , just before the prophecy of the coming Prophet, God warn ed against false prophets who would speak “presumptuously,” and whose prophecies would fail.   

^{1 Frederic Godet, Introduction to the New Testament: The Collection of the Four Gospels and the Gospel of St. Matthew (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1899), 131.}

^{2 Dale C. Allison, Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 179.}

^{3 Allison, 179–80.}

^{4 See Matt 7:15–20. See also 11:19c.}