Phillip A. Ross

Rock Mountain Creed: Jesus' Sermon on the Mount Phillip A. Ross

Human morality is an essential element of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. What Jesus says about human morality is that it issues from the reality of our simultaneous individual and social character. Humanity was created to be a kind of reflection of God's character, both as individuals and socially or corporately. And this is why Jesus focused on right worship, which issues out of the positional relationship with Jesus Christ held by the born-again, and the moral relationships between and among Christ's people. These are the topics that Jesus addressed in this Sermon. Yet, there is an additional issue or problem presented by the Sermon on the Mount. In order to understand what Jesus was talking about requires, in contemporary parlance, an understanding of both the context and the subtext of Jesus' words. In order to understand what Jesus was talking about, we must share to a convincing degree Jesus' perspective. We must have some understanding of where He was coming from in order to understand what He means by His words. In order to understand Jesus we must stand under Him. We must account ourselves to be His people, both individually and corporately. We must find and establish our identity as individuals in Jesus Christ and as a people in His church. To fail in this regard is to stand outside of Jesus Christ, not under Him. To fail in this regard is to not have access to Jesus' context, subtext and/or perspective, which will preclude people from seeing God's kingdom or even God Himself, as Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:3, 5). This book unveils perspective and morality that Jesus taught in His sermon on the Mount.