This is one of several pictures taken from both “paths”. The image can be ordered as a poster (here). On the same website you can also read how this biblical passage is understood by many.

Good news and threatening news

The image of the broad and the narrow way is read in the Gospel of Matthew:

“Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. But how narrow is the gate, and how strait the way that leadeth unto life! But few there be that find it.”
Matthew 7:13-14

Up and down the country, this text is used to persuade people to make a decision of faith. Choose left or right, the wide or the narrow path. Believe or do not believe. And those who are already believers not infrequently interpret this image to mean that life with Christ is always a hair’s breadth away from disaster, that we are constantly exposed to temptations, and that life in this “godless world” is a really narrow path – almost something of a tightrope walk.

Being a believer is perceived as a difficult path and not infrequently I have seen it as a pious will to suffer. You have to constantly separate yourself from the world, from everything that goes on the “broad way”. These are the unbelievers, the lost society in which we stand. Black and white. Heaven or hell. Narrow path or wide path. I have often heard and read something like this.

As a rule, one interprets the text without context. This is problematic. It is not the text that is the problem, but the interpretation. Indeed, it becomes difficult to be saved according to this teaching. You have to make an effort, you have to persevere, you have to endure, in order to pass through the narrow gate and along this narrow path. In the end, however (according to the drawing), the heavenly Jerusalem awaits. It is a thoroughly kitschy image that has nothing whatsoever to do with the biblical context.

This picture is about a decision. The Bible text is simply used to move you toward that decision. Which decision this should be is arbitrarily interpreted into it. The short version of this view is: decide for Jesus or be lost forever. Who notices that Jesus said nothing about deciding for or against Him?

On the linked website it is mentioned: “God leads every human being at least once or even several times in life to the place of decision”. This is, of course, nonsense. Such a teaching of decision is nowhere found back in the Bible. This teaching says: everything depends on you. You must make up your mind, otherwise God cannot save you. But there is nothing of all this in the text!

Where do such thoughts come from, if not from the text? A statement like this thrives exclusively in the environment of a proclamation of heaven and hell. In fact, two paths are shown here. But then one leaves the text of the Bible and projects one’s own thoughts into it, namely that one way leads to (eternal) perdition and the other way leads to an (eternal) blissful future with God. This is not only good news, but also a distinct message of threat. It is carrot and stick, heaven and hell, eternal salvation and eternal damnation.

The human being in the center

Of course, such a view has serious consequences. Whoever threatens and entices at the same time and presses for your decision, first of all fails to recognize the truly freeing grace of God in Christ Jesus. You forget that everything is accomplished and say straight out that something is still missing: your yes word is missing. Because man must choose – choose between two paths. Man must choose where he wants to spend eternity. Only when man chooses can God act. Frighteningly deep this thought is anchored in many people. The Bible says nothing about this, but some texts are misused for this purpose – like this one.

The teaching says: Between you and God’s salvation is your decision. God would have accomplished everything, but it is your decision that makes this effective. Without your cooperation, God is powerless to save you. Yet it is just the opposite: what is impossible with men is possible with God (Mt 19:25-26). This narrow-or-wide-path idea is a profoundly anthropocentric doctrine that misses the gospel. Man is central, no longer God’s grace in Christ Jesus. This teaching reinterprets the biblical concepts and turns the good news into the opposite. Faith becomes an achievement, a work, a payment for salvation. (See also the post, “Is Faith an Achievement I Must Make?”).

The fact that such an account is nevertheless believed has to do, on the one hand, with the fact that reference is made to the Bible (the shorthand is: “It says so, after all!”), but on the other hand also with the fact that human effort has the appearance of effectiveness. It is a religious seduction that you fall for. Threatening messages appear effective. Appealing to one’s own decision seems reasonable. Legality, however, has its origin here.

Legalism says: you have to do, you have to achieve, you have to decide. However, the gospel of God’s grace (after the cross and resurrection!) says that He (not I!) made everything. Faith recognizes that God is the doer. “For in grace are ye saved, through faith; and this is not of yourselves, but God’s nearness; not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship …” (Eph 2:8-10, cf. Phil 2:13).

The doctrine of the narrow and broad way is a perfidious distortion of Jesus’ words. This view that man must choose a fictitious eternity was unknown in Judaism, it was unknown to Jesus’ audience, and Jesus himself did not say it that way.

Of course, Moses, the prophets, and even Jesus and the apostles referred to choices, but they referred to this life, not to an endless eternity. Such aberrations are only possible because the text is not read in context. The previously described image of the wide and the narrow path is a devastating interpretation. However, this only becomes apparent when one takes a closer look at the text.

Why is it now in context?

It is about the law

This is the extended context:

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in the heavens give good things to those who ask Him! Now, whatever you would have men do to you, do likewise to them! For this is the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate; For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter through it. But how narrow is the gate and how narrow the way that leads to life! But few are the ones who find it.”
Mt 7:11-14

Now what is the narrow gate and what is the narrow way? It is the Law and the Prophets, it is Torah and Neviim. If we read the context a little more closely, it is about the statement: “How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Everything now, whatever you wanted men to do to you, you also do to them likewise!” This is the summary of the Law and the Prophets. Jesus does not speak of faith, does not speak of a decision for Jesus, for accepting Him. No, one should accept the law and the prophets and act accordingly. Few, however, are the ones who take this path. That is the immediate context in context.

The narrow gate and the narrow way are the Law and the Prophets.

Back to the base

The bigger context is the so-called mountain speech, in which Jesus mentions the comparison of the two ways. The discourse runs from Matthew 5:1 to chapter 7:29. Jesus is talking here about the “Kingdom of Heaven” and how this works. Immediately before the Sermon on the Mount, we read that Jesus began His ministry with the following words:

“Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand!
Mt 4,17

Then in the Sermon on the Mount He says:

“Only do not think that I came to dissolve the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to dissolve, but to fulfill!”
Mt 5,17

Law and prophets are fundamental in Jesus’ proclamation, because He leads Israel back to this ancient core – but differently than the religious leaders of the people thought. “Back to basics!” is the motto – back to the roots! Back to the Law and the Prophets. For these will come true.

It has nothing to do with today’s community. This only arises much later. Nothing is yet known of a church of all nations in the Gospels. Jesus was born a Jew, and came to save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). The Sermon on the Mount is also related to this. He Himself later said, “I was merely sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel!” (Mt 15,24). We have to accept such statements if we want to understand the text in context.

The mountain speech, in which Jesus speaks to the Jews, is a thoroughly Jewish affair. Jesus was to confirm the promises to the fathers (of Israel) (Rom 15:8).

The way of life

That Jesus speaks of two ways has a purpose. He wants people to find the path that leads to life. The statement directly recalls the words of Moses, which were well known to the people:

“I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today: Life and death I have set before you, the blessing and the curse! So choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and cleaving to him! For this is your life and the duration of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give them.”
Deut 30:19-20

“And I gave them my ordinances, and my judgments I let them know, by which, if a man do them, he liveth.”
Ezek 20,11

Moses said: For this is your life and the duration of your days, that you dwell in the land. It is about the current life, not about a woolly hereafter.

And Jesus says:

“And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Him to the test and asked, “Teacher, what must I do to be granted eonian life?” But he said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it? Then he answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with all your ability and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Deut. 19:18) To this He replied, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.””
Lk 10:25-28

To live is the goal. To share in the “aeonian” life, the life of the age to come, is the desire (Mark 10:30). The way to life, according to Jesus, is to obey the law – if interpreted correctly. Paul, who still had a lot to say about the law, confirms this view, which is omnipresent in both the Old Testament and the Gospels: “For Moses describes the righteousness that is of the law: the man who has done these things will live by them.” (Rom 10:5). Mind you, this is not how it is today according to the Gospel of Grace, but it is undoubtedly how it is described in the Tenach and the Gospels.

Israel, not the congregation, is at the center here

The teaching of the broad way and the narrow way is in a context for Israel, to whom the law applied. History speaks of this in clear terms. It has nothing to do with the nations (the non-Jewish peoples). The law did not apply to them either (Acts 14:16). The nation-believers were not an issue for a long time. Or, in other words, it has nothing to do with the church and the congregation today.

The problem: This text is taken out of context and interpreted arbitrarily. This does not help. It is not only the wrong interpretation that is depressing, but rather what is triggered by it: Pressure and hardship in the lives of believers. It is a false gospel, with “some grace and some law,” with “something from the gospels and something from Paul,” something from “before the cross” and something from “after the cross.” It is a mixture, a mixed gospel, when this text is interpreted quite arbitrarily without the context and applied in a curious way without further thought.

Paul does not mince his words. He had to deal with such misjudgments more often. The apostle elsewhere places such mixed messages directly under the judgment of God:

“I am amazed that you are so quickly changing from the gospel that called you into Christ’s grace to a different gospel, which would not be another true gospel if there were not some who want to trouble you and pervert the gospel of Christ. But if we or a messenger from heaven preaches to you something different from what we have preached to you as the gospel: Let him be put under ban! As we had emphasized before, so I say again now, if anyone preaches anything different to you as the gospel apart from what you have received from us: let him be put under ban!”
Gal 1:6-9

Doesn’t that apply to us now?

So far we have looked at two things:

1. How do you often interpret this text?
2. What is in context?

There is a strong contrast between the two. That’s uncomfortable when you first hear it. It may shake familiar images. For others, however, this means liberation, because grace is quite different from what is described in these verses. People have misused this text from Matthew 7:13-14. Letting go of this interpretation, however, again makes room for the story itself.

If we read the text in context, when we compare it with the later Gospel of grace, we notice that a development took place. Not everything in the New Testament (or: in the whole Bible) speaks of the same thing, of the same time, of the same people. Not everywhere that says “Jesus” on it is “today’s church” in it. The development is gradual. Israel has a place and a future. The congregation from all nations, today’s church, came almost as a surprise (they were “mysteries”) and significantly later.

The development can be traced in the New Testament as in the whole Bible. Jesus, in his own words (and according to the apostles), was traveling exclusively for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This describes the situation in the Gospels. Today’s church from all nations is only made possible by the calling of Paul.

Today, one would rather have to say: grace, that is the actual broad way. But we no longer read such things in the Sermon on the Mount.