The broad and narrow gates

Is the following an accurate picture of what Christ was saying about the broad and narrow way?

Like all scriptural passages, we must read them in light of what goes on before and behind any given verse - i.e. in their context - to get a full understanding of their meaning. And not only the immediate context but the context of the entire book or letter as well as the Bible as a whole. Though the Bible has many human contributors it has one author - God himself - with a unified message.

Many things may appear at odds within the Bible but when you dig deep, you find they are pointed to the same God "...with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." Jas 1:17 ESV

Before I took a course in hermeneutics (i.e. principles of biblical interpretation) many passages in scripture were unclear or confusing. The broad and narrow gate passage is an example of a passage that always puzzled me. It seemed to be a random teaching with no connection whatsoever with the surrounding verses. How did it fit in with the rest of this passage or the sermon on the mount as a whole?

Is there a common thread that runs throughout Matt chapter 7 (or the entire sermon on the mount in Matt 5-7 - or all scripture for that matter)?  If so, what is it?

This well heard of sermon is about others and how we relate to and treat them, whether the "other" is God himself, our neighbors or anyone else, even our enemies. The entire sermon has to do with applying the greatest commandment and the 2nd which is like it for "... this is (sums up) the Law and the Prophets..." (vs 7:12) i.e. the main overall teaching of the OT - as well as the NT.

The golden rule mentioned in Matt 7:12 isn't randomly sandwiched between other teachings of Christ with no apparent relationship to the surrounding verses i.e. completely out of place and standing on its own. It is actually the unifying thread throughout the whole sermon as well as the rest of Bible.

We have heard the narrow and broad gate has to do with our eternal destination, who and how many go where eternally. But the context is about the golden rule not directly about our eternal destination.

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." - Matthew 7:12‭-‬14 ESV

In light of this context how should we interpret the "golden rule" in vs 12 in relationship to the verses immediately surrounding it? Or maybe we should ask, how do we understand the broad and narrow gate in light of vs 12 i.e. the golden rule. I offer the following interpretation for consideration.

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this (the command to love your neighbor as you love yourself) is the Law and the Prophets. “Enter by the narrow gate (of treating others as you want them to treat you). For the gate - of loving yourself more than others - is wide (most go through it) and the way - of loving yourself more than others - is easy (its much easier to be selfish than selfless. But selfishness...) that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life (i.e. life and flourishing now, not necessarily eternal life) and those who find it are few (i.e. very few people connect with God and His infinite love well enough that they are empowered to live sacrificially i.e. live for God and others first instead of just for themselves). Sacrificial living is hard ("faith is hard work"). Very few live this way. Matthew 7:12‭-‬14 ESV

The narrow way Christ is referring to is living by the golden rule and the broad gate simply means that most don't i.e. don't  live sacrificially. In fact very few do. It is truly the narrow way to live.

To not live according to the golden rule does in fact lead to great harm and destruction here on earth… our own harm as well as that of others. It is in fact the reason for ¹all human conflict on this planet. 

This ultimately leads to our eternal destruction but in this context living by the golden rule is primarily about the here and now, not eternity i.e. how we treat others today.

The sermon on the mount deals with the direction of our hearts. Christ knows well - and assumes - that we cannot live by this sermon without being empowered by God and his love. We can't and won't love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength unless we know we are loved this same way by God 1st. To live the narrow way requires we love God with everything we are and have. But none do until they grasp how God infinitely loves them 1st. Few grasp this love because few believe and trust in it. It truly is the narrow gate.

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¹due to rebellious distrust of God we have cut ourselves off from the very source of life and love i.e. God Himself.

Religion. Coming up short

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." - John 14:6

Many other religions and non-followers of Jesus acknowledge Christ in some way. They may even greatly respect and admire Him and much - though not all - of what he taught and did.

However, the claim he made above as the only way to God (and other similar claims), if fully understood, may require them to reevaluate their view of Christ and reconsider who He claimed to be and is.

If we take a close look at Christ and all he taught, we will discover we must either fully embrace all he did and said or we must reject all he did and said i.e. if only one thing he did or said was suspicious or outright wrong, should (can) we trust the rest of what he did and said? I think we could say this about anyone.  Especially when they make strong claims like Christ did. 

On the flip side, if Christ taught great things, did great deeds and set a great example, maybe we should pay more attention to the things He said that we disagree with, such as the verse above. Maybe everything he did and said is right, not just the things we prefer or like. 

A person worth trusting, admiring, and following fully is someone we can trust fully i.e. trust all they said and did, not just some of it.

Why does Christ say he is the way (not a way) to the Father (God), the truth (not a truth) about the Father, and is life Himself? Christ wasn't saying this only about what he did but who he was and is.

How do we understand this in light of all the different paths/religions out there?

Christ didn't make these claims because there is no value in all the various religions or traditions, but because these paths (⁴particularly adulterated versions of Christianity) never get us to the destination we seek. The problem isn't simply a philosophical or theological one but a very practical "rubber meets the road" one.

That doesn't mean the various religions don't also move us along in a good and helpful way. Much can be gleaned from them (contrary to the views of many within the "Christian" tradition). The problem is they never fully get us to where we ultimately hope, desire, and need to be. They come up short. Every one of them.

Why? Because they are based on attempts to reach the Creator through our efforts instead of being connected to God by and through Christ's efforts - whose efforts alone are good enough to please, restore, and unite us to the Father; the Creator, and Source of life and all things.

What is the ultimate destination that all paths seek? Some religions call it Nirvana (or moksha). Jesus called it eternal life (vs ongoing pain and eventual death and separation from our Creator, the source of life, love, and all things). It goes by different names in different religions. 

Whatever it is called, there is a universal sense expressed within all religions that something is incomplete, missing - "off" - that we all seek to find - i.e. we need to obtain something or arrive at a certain place - to be complete.

What do we seek? Wholeness, release (relief) from our state of pain, meaninglessness, insignificance - deliverance, restoration, reconciliation, rest, peace, completeness, paradise; in a word, home - a place where we feel completely safe, welcomed, and loved even when we are at our worst.

Jesus alone extends to us the offer of complete and perfect love, joy, and fullness that is found only in God. He alone offers us the way to enter a state of perfect belonging, of bliss in union with God and who He is in spite of our greatest weaknesses or worst moments - vs our best efforts, for they are never enough.

Christ described it the following way...

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.

God is love, joy, beauty, fullness, bliss, etc. To be fully united with Him is to have and partake of all these. God is the "home" we long for and seek that is missing. He is - as the loving community of Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit - the paradise we were created for, had, and lost. He is that place where we can be who we truly are (good, bad, ugly, and everywhere in between) and never be rejected but fully embraced and accepted even with all our short comings i.e. loved.

However we can not fully enter and participate in this until we are perfectly and fully aligned and connected to the Source of complete love, joy, and fullness; the very same blissful fullness that the Father and Son experience in, through, and by the Spirit.

How can we be aligned with the most perfectly loving being when we ourselves are not perfectly loving? 

This isn't simply a moral question or problem but a practical one. It is similar to asking how water and oil mix. They don't. For something to blend perfectly they must be the same. I think everyone would agree that we're not perfectly loving but very much about taking care of ourselves before we care about others.

This is not the way God is. God is other-oriented; an overflowing fountain of love within the loving community of Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. God always has been this way (long before we came along) and will be this way, with or without us.

And the Spirit of God - i.e. God himself - is not some mysterious undefinable apparition but the very Spirit/passion/breath of God who is endless overflowing love and life flowing back and forth between the Father and Son in, by, and through His Spirit of passion and love. 

This alignment and harmony with God is not something we can obtain by our efforts but is offered to us as a ¹gift. This is why Christ said the following...

John 4:7 
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

John 4:9-10
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

John 4:13-15
Everyone who drinks of this water (from the physical well) will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I  will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

The following are additional analogies Christ used to convey who he is and what he offers...

John 6:35

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

John 7:37-38

Rivers of Living Water

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

This overflow of love and life is the very essence of God as Spirit. God is love, life, and Spirit and He calls us to enter into and partake of this Union of perfect glory, love, joy, and celebration between the Father and Son in, by, and through the Spirit. A glory he has always had (and is) in perfect completeness and fullness from all eternity past. 

Christ offers and invites us to partake of Him by His Spirit in the same way He partakes of the Father... to become a part of this triune God of joy, bliss, and glory. But to do so - to fully partake of and experience this - we must be perfectly singular in our affections and focus on Him in the same way as the Father and Son i.e. in, by, and through the Spirit. Otherwise, we will never experience fullness of life we were created for and can only find in Him.

All this can only be done in and through Christ for he alone is and was perfectly focused, lived perfectly - walked (and completed) the perfect path to God and fully partook of God.

".. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son ²except the Father, and no one knows the Father ²except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him..." - Mat 11:27

And out of love for us, He offers to assign and credit to ³us His perfect life (the only life perfectly lived, approved, and accepted by the Father), so we might enter into the divine dance of love and life that is God as if we lived that perfect life ourselves. 

This is the only way we can experience what all religions seek (including and maybe ⁴especially adulterated performance-based "Christianity") but can never obtain or give us since they are based on our efforts, not on God's in and through Christ. 

Christ wasn't arrogantly boasting about Himself when he said He is the way, he was simply pointing out the reality of who and what truth life is and how it is found. 

And this is true only of Christ and no one else. He alone perfectly loved the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength and others as himself, even to the point of dying i.e. giving up His life for the Father's honor but also for ours. We haven't, and never will, nor has any religious leader loved in this way. This is why he alone is the way to the Father, the truth about the Father and life himself from the Father and was sent to us by the Father, who offered himself in sacrifice so we too could be fully reconciled to and united with the Father.

For a further discussion and what it means to be righteous click here

For a further discussion and what it means to be righteous click here

For a further discussion on why Christ is our only way to be in right standing with God click here

For a further discussion on our alienation from God and the solution, click here. 

For a further discussion on the difference between religion and Christ, click here. 

For a discussion on the meaning of the "broad and narrow way" click here. 

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¹Why a gift. Because we can not do or be enough on our own to enter this Union of bliss. What is needed to enter must be obtained for us and offered to us as a gift. It is now up to us to receive this gift.

²This is not saying we know nothing about the Father and Son but that we do not know them fully as they truly are or in the same way they know each other.

The good news is we don't have to in order to be united with God and fully accepted and embraced by him because Christ already did and does this and extends to us the benefits of this as a gift.

³because we cannot and never will live it. And this is our dilemma. We refuse to believe we are too broken to live it. We think we can somehow save ourselves - obtain salvation on our own, given enough time and effort, even if it takes us several attempts (e. g. reincarnation). If we are to ever obtain what other religions promise but cannot deliver, we must receive Christ and abandon our notion of self-deliverance. We must trust Him, not ourselves, and recognize we never can perfectly align ourselves with our Creator by our efforts. That he alone did for us what we can't and now offers perfection and wholeness to us as a gift - if we will receive it.

⁴I say it this way because of all the proposed alternate paths to God, adulterated versions of Christianity are the most destructive because they most appear to be what Jesus taught in how we are to unite and be aligned with God when in fact they are the exact opposite and only another religion that is a performance-based (vs Spirit, grace, love based) approach to God.

"And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed...

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world." John 17:5‭, ‬24

https://bible.com/bible/59/jhn.17.5-24.ESV

The Logos and Passion of God

Who are the Son and the Spirit of God?

The Son

In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word (Logos) was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

...And the Word became flesh (a flesh and blood human) and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:1‭-‬2‭, ‬14

How do we make sense of Christ being with God and also being God at the same time?

Logos in the mind of the Greeks meant the purpose or reason (logic) behind something. The declaration of someone. The explanation of what something is and does.

John borrowed this Greek word because it captured well who Christ was in relationship to the Father.

Christ is the full declaration and explanation of God i.e. the Word or Logos of and from God. Not merely words about God but the manifestation of the very mind and truth of who God is. To see and grasp this - the Logos - is to see and grasp God Himself. This is why Christ said, if you have seen me (truly grasp and fully understand me) you have seen the Father i.e. very God Himself.

The Spirit

The Spirit, on the other hand, is the expression of the passion (love, breath, or heavy breathing, if you will) of God for that which is most lovely, beautiful, and glorious i.e. God Himself as the Son. The fact that we are told God ¹is both Spirit and Love is a clue of how these attributes of God are inseparable and vitality connected. We could say they are different aspects of the very same being i.e. God Himself.

In summary

Christ is the very mind and truth of God.

The Spirit is the very heart, passion, and love of God for that which is most beautiful and glorious i.e. Himself.

Both are the perfect manifestation and expression of these different aspects of God, the light (knowledge) and heat (love/passion) of God if you will. So much so, that they are very God as the Son and the Spirit.

For a more in-depth discussion of the Son and Spirit click here

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¹it is important to note the bible doesn't merely say God has love or has Spirit, it says He is these; both of them at the same time.