And this is the authority which struck even on the unsusceptible hearts of the listening crowds.

II.  Still further, let me ask you to consider how, in this same great Sermon, He claims the authority of One who is unique in His relation to the Father.

You will find that in it there occurs very frequently the expression, ‘your Father which is in Heaven’; or sometimes with the variation,’thy Father which is in Heaven,’ or, ’which seeth in secret.’  But you will also find that whilst our Lord speaks about ’My Father which is in Heaven,’ He never says ‘our Father’; excepting in the exception which proves the rule when He is putting into the lips of His disciples the great formula of prayer which we call the ’Lord’s Prayer’; and there speaking as through their consciousness, and teaching them their lesson, He says ‘Our Father,’ not as if He Himself were praying, but as if He were telling them how to pray.  But when He speaks out of His own consciousness He speaks of ‘My Father’ and ’your Father,’ never of ‘our Father.’

And that corresponds with other phenomena in Scripture in our Lord’s own language where you find that always He draws this broad distinction.  He never associates Himself with us in His Sonship.  He ever asserts that He is the Son of God.  Even when He wishes to speak with the utmost tenderness, He bids the weeping Mary hear the message, ’I go unto My Father and your Father.’  This doctrine is thought by many to be one of those which they get rid of by professing the Christianity of the Sermon on the Mount.  But it is there as plainly as in other parts of Scripture.  If we accept all which it teaches, we cannot escape from the belief that He is the only begotten and well-beloved Son of the Father; and also that through Him and in Him we, too, may receive the adoption of sons.

Dear friends, I press this upon you as no mere piece of hard theological doctrine, but as containing in it the very essentials of all spiritual life for each of us, that all our spiritual life must come by participation in Christ, and that we enter into an altogether new and blessed relation to God when, laying our humble and penitent hands on the head of that dear Sacrifice that died on the Cross for as, we through Him cease to be children of wrath and become heirs of God.  ’To as many as received Him, to them gave He authority to become the children of God, even to them that believe in His name,’ but His Sonship stands unique and unapproachable, though it is the foundation from which flows all the sonship of the whole family in heaven and in earth.  Moses and the prophets, teachers and guides, Apostles and Helpers, they are all but the servants of the family; this is the Son through whom we receive the adoption of sons.

III.  We have in this great discourse the authority of One who is absolute Lord and Master over men.

’Not every one that saith unto me, Lord!  Lord! shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.  Many will say to Me in that day, Lord!  Lord! have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?’ ’Whoso heareth these sayings of Mine, and doeth them, I will liken him to a wise man, which built his house upon a rock.’