Why did God make salvation such a narrow path?

This is followed by an exhortation such as He who is from above alone could give and with it the first half of the seventh chapter closes. "Enter ye in through the narrow gate: for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction, and many there are that enter through it; because narrow is the gate and straitened is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there are that find it." It is the well-known Gospel text, though not always correctly applied. The gate (door) and the way is Christ Himself. "I am the door of the sheep; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved" (John 10). "I am the way ... no man cometh unto the Father but by me" (John 14). And why then is the gate narrow? Not because certain conditions and hard terms are to be fulfilled, but because man does not want to give up his own righteousness and clinging still to his miserable, filthy rags, he refuses God's way and God's door of salvation, which is Christ and Christ alone. Ah, the devices of Satan ever multiplying to keep men away from entering in through the narrow gate! The broad way that leads to destruction was never so thronged in the history of Christendom with such masses of professing, self-righteous, moral, educated, but Christ and the blood rejecting "Christians" as in these days, and still the word is true of the narrow gate and the straitened way that "few there are that find it."

The gate is "strait," because here is indeed an absolute condition: "no man cometh unto the Father but by Me." Self-righteousness must come down; Christ must be the absolute and complete Saviour, which He alone can be: too strict conditions for multitudes to submit to. The crowds do not yet "come to Him that they may have life" (John 5:40). Yet grace itself can make no other terms, and we shall find, as we pass on here but a little way, that these are in fact the terms which exclude many of those who even call Him Lord, but who have never known Him.

What is the Strait Gate? There could have been no way of escape for sinners from the wrath to come, had not Jesus died upon the cross. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." It is the cross of Christ that speaks to us of sin put away, redemption accomplished, and of the sinner's only way to God. Christ crucified, then, is the "strait gate." Jesus lifted up on the cross is the door of access. "I am the door," said He: "by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." The cross of Christ, therefore, becomes the point of separation between the saved and lost. Not to enter into God's presence through this gate is still to tarry in the place of death and judgment; but to enter into the Father's presence through the atoning work of His dear Son is present peace and eternal salvation. The gospel thus presents to us a door of escape, and it is still wide open; it welcomes all guilty sinners that "enter in" by faith, thus sheltering them for ever from the wrath of God, and shutting them into the peace-speaking presence of the Father of mercies, and God of all comfort.

It is here that election does come in; not to limit the provision, nor to restrict in any wise the grace that bids and welcomes all, but to secure the blessing of those who otherwise would refuse and forfeit it as the rest do. The grace to all is not narrowed by the "grace upon grace" to many. The universal offer means and is based on a universal provision, and a provision of exactly the same character for all alike, in which God testifies that He has "no pleasure in the death of him that dies," but "will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." It may be asked, as it has been asked, Of what avail is a provision for all which saves not one additional to the elect number? The answer which Scripture would give is, "What if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith [or faithfulness] of God without effect? God forbid." The salvation of men is from God; the damnation of men is from themselves. This all the pleadings, warnings, offers of God affirm. And grace refused is still grace, and to be proclaimed to His praise.

"For this [is] good and acceptable before our Saviour God, Who desireth that all men should be saved and come unto full knowledge (or, acknowledgment) of the truth" (vers. 3, 4). The spirit of the gospel the apostle would have to permeate the conduct as well as the heart of the saint. Activity in goodness becomes those who know our Saviour God, Whose own heart goes out in compassion toward all men, not alone surely in present mercies without number, but also that they might be saved. This however cannot be unless they come to the knowledge of the truth. Hence the gospel is sent out to all the creation. Here human weakness, if it be not worse, betrays itself. Those who believe in the large grace of God too often leave no room for His positive and living links of love with the elect, once children of wrath even as others. Those who are sure of the special nearness of God's family as often overlook what is patent here and elsewhere all over scripture — that love which Christ made known personally and proved triumphantly in His cross whereby it is free to flow out in testimony to all the world.

"Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him" (John 13:31). Now that His character as Judge of sin is vindicated in the expiatory death of His own Son, His love can freely go out to men on the express ground that they are ungodly, enemies, and powerless (Rom. 5:6-10). He is both able and willing to save the vilest, but not without acknowledgment of truth. Therefore He commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel; also the saints, while walking as members of the one body of Christ, are called to walk in love toward all, and to testify the love that can save any by the faith of Christ. If men are lost, it is through their own will opposing the truth; it is not God's will, Who, desiring their salvation, gave His Son, and has now sent His own Spirit from heaven that the glad tidings might be thus declared to them in the power of God our Saviour.

'Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.' These words of the Lord are bitter for the flesh, but they express in the clearest manner the seriousness of the situation. The decision to be taken has eternal consequences. This is why we must not look for a conflict between these verses and Matthew 11:30: 'For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.' The natural, unregenerate man is without strength; he is ungodly, a sinner and an enemy of God (according to Romans 5:6-10). For such a one to follow Christ is an indescribable hardship. This is why he needs the love, grace and mercy of God to draw him. In contrast, it is easy for the born again man to follow his Master. He has received a new nature from God, and this has the sole desire to do His will, although the old nature remains and continues to resist the new one.

Yet "vain man will be wise, though he be born a wild ass's colt"; and alas, the ignorant will rather look up to his leaders, than rejoice in the God of sunshine and free air, whose best gift is brought down to ignorance itself. Thus "strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life." God's breadth, to man, is practical narrowness." Open to all, man's lofty eyes overlook it. Its simplicity is its reproach; its lowliness, to pride exclusion: "few there be that find it."

In verses 13 and 14 the Lord evidently looked beyond His disciples to the crowd. Before them there were the alternatives of the broad way and the narrow way, of destruction and life. We cannot say that the grace of God is narrow, for it has come forth for all men; it is the way of self-judgment and repentance which is so narrow. Few find that way, and but few proclaim it. The majority of the preachers prefer to prophesy smoother things.

(5) This section closes with a solemn exhortation to "enter in through the strait gate," as the only way leading to life, and alas, found by few. The many would then (and still will) enter by another and wide gate, and throng a broad way, but a way leading to destruction and not to life. The words are figurative, of course, and the Lord does not further explain them here in any direct way. He leaves them as He does many other things, to awaken thought. There have, in fact, been very different thoughts about them: not, as to what they refer, in the mention of a gate and of a way, for the Lord speaks plainly of the way to life and the way to destruction; and these things are plain enough; but the gate, the way, are not themselves explained. We have but the description, — a "strait" gate and a "narrow" way, with few travelers, set in opposition to a "wide" gate, and a "broad" way, and many crowding them. We are left to ask what is this straitness, and what does it imply? Hard terms and difficult to comply with, with an uncertainty, on this account, of perseverance to the end? Surely not; although many have so taken it. The Lord once uses the first of these expressions in the Gospel of Luke, where He is answering one of those questions with which we so often perplex ourselves: "then said one unto Him, Lord, are there few that be saved?" which the Lord answers with a home-thrust at the questioner himself, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate," to which He adds also that "many would seek to enter in and would not be able" (Luke 13:24). But He bases this upon something else than the straitness of the gate: the difficulty, or rather, the impossibility of entrance is only found "when once the Master of the house is risen up and has shut to the door;" it was a shut gate that was to be dreaded, not a strait one. Thus the exhortation: be urgent to enter in while there is time.

Here in Matthew, there is no exhortation to strive, but simply to enter in there, and by no other gate. "Few there be that find it:" the mass go by a different road. It is not here the door being shut, but men mistaking which it is: the broad way of destruction being taken for God's narrow way of life.

This makes the picture of that broad way exceedingly solemn. Many have, no doubt, the thought of its representing the way of vice and open irreligion as opposed to the way of holiness; but closer consideration will convince us that it is not so. For no one expects, however careless he may be about it, the way of sin to lead heavenward. Whereas the Lord plainly intimates this to be what the writer of Proverbs speaks of ― "a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death" (Prov. 14:12). The question is of finding the way of life. Hence the solemn warning to beware of false prophets which follows thereupon, men who would lead those listening to them upon the broad way of death.

Some persons seem constantly occupied with religious questions. Their enquiry is not, "Am I saved?" but, "Are others saved?" Sometimes we find a fond parent solicitous about the future state of a dying child, a kind master anxious about his afflicted servant's spiritual condition, and others manifesting concern for the ignorant and poor around them, without laying to heart what their own state before God really is. It was so in the days of our Lord. "One said unto Him, Lord, are there few that be saved?" to which Jesus replied, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate." Thus He sought to lead him away from the consideration of others, to ponder the all-important question of his own soul's salvation; and exposed the folly of appearing concerned for others, while he himself was in the broad road to destruction. So weighty, so essential, is the point, and so fatal would a mistake be, that He commands them to "strive (or agonize) to enter in at the strait gate."

We do well to observe, that the instruction here is not that they were to do a great many things, or even one thing, to make themselves fit for God; or that they were to wander through a long, tedious labyrinth to find blessing and safety. No; it is simply a "gate" that is presented to them as the alone way of escape; and their security and blessing depended on their entering in at the gate. The condition of all outside is most perilous; but there is a way of escape; and judgment and condemnation must overtake those who do not accept the only way of deliverance by entering in at the strait gate.