Matthew 7:13-14 Enter Through the Narrow Gate

Matthew 7:13-14

ENTER THROUGH THE NARROW GATE:

For wide is the gate and broad is the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it;

For narrow is the gate and restricted is the way leading to life, and few are those finding it. (Matthew 7:13-14, Author’s translation)

Introduction

Although Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount message was primarily directed toward His disciples (Matthew 5:1-2), there were “multitudes” there as well present who Jesus also kept in mind as He spoke. Taking note of the unsaved in His audience, Jesus exhorts them to start their journey with Him in the proper place and manner. Thus, Jesus commanded them with these words.

The imperative is to “ENTER.” The object of that entrance is a “GATE.” And the intended relation of that entrance to the gate is “THROUGH” it.

Jesus’s command was to enter through the narrow gate.

This and this alone is the main and governing clause of this passage. This is the desire of Jesus: that the lost enter through the narrow gate. The two clauses following this one are subordinate clauses describing the REASONS to enter through the narrow gate rather than the broad one. If we are to understand this passage, it is necessary we recognize this main clause for what it is saying and what it is not saying.


What Jesus is Actually Saying

Notice: The command is not to travel, journey, trek on, walk down, or endure through a road, or anything of this sort. The command simply is to “enter.” And this entrance is to be through a gate, not through a path... – “Enter through the narrow gate.”

Many people believe and teach that this passage is actually commanding the lost to relentlessly march down a difficult and cumbersome road of obedience and faithfulness; one that waiting for them at its end and completion is an award: the meriting and the winning of eternal life. They do this despite the clear governing command of the passage.

But it absolutely CAN’T be talking about that, grammatically and contextually.

Jesus is desiring for those whom He is addressing to pass through a portal: “Enter through the narrow gate.” This, and this alone, is the imperative, the command of this passage. The command isn’t “Travel down the hard road of obedience” or “Be engaged in laborious commandment keeping” or anything similar. Jesus is exhorting His audience to find and enter the narrow gate. The rest of this passage is concerned with the reasons why to enter through this gate and none other. We cannot emphasize this enough! This passage has been made to bear the weight of works-salvation theology without so much as a critical thought toward its wording and grammar wherein its legitimate interpretation lies.

What we have here is a narrow, constrained, in other words EXCLUSIVE entryway. It leads directly into life. Jesus commands those whom He is addressing to simply enter through it.

It is not talking about a long, arduous and laborious road, that if successfully traversed wins one life. It is a door connecting two areas that once passed through brings one immediately into life.


How the Lost Enter the Gate for Life

What is the life that Jesus is talking about? It sounds like this passage is talking about kingdom age life, also known as eternal life. Does it not? And as a matter of fact, that is what it is talking about: Entrance into the kingdom age... See Matthew 7:21 – “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” This passage is talking about obtaining eternal life.

The will of the Father with regard to kingdom entrance – God’s instruction for obtaining the life of the age to come – is to find and enter the right gate.

This idea is certainly starting to sound familiar, is it not? For in John 14:6 we read:

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Now this should start making sense. Jesus is the door between death and life. One must pass through Him for salvation. Does He not actually say this in John 10? Yes, He does: “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved” (John 10:9).

Jesus is the portal. He is the gate and He is the door. He is the EXCLUSIVE way to life. There is no “salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

But how is one to enter through this door that leads to life and the Father? Answer? What we have been saying all along: faith alone in Christ alone… believing in Jesus… trusting in Jesus alone according to His promise. This alone is the manner in which one must enter the door into life. There are no other means which enter into life.

Let us examine one of His promises that concerns this means of entry into life. Jesus swears that the very moment someone, anyone, believes in Him, “he has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life” (John 5:24). By believing in Jesus one enters the door, passes from death into life, now possesses eternal life, and shall never come into final judgment. All the bases are covered – past, present, and future. This person is saved!

To summarize: The narrow gate = Jesus. Entering this gate = believing in Jesus. The result of entering this gate = eternal life. The command is “enter through the narrow gate” which essentially means “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).


Do Not Enter through the Broad Gate

Jesus commands: “Enter through the narrow gate!”… But why?

“Because wide is the gate and broad is the way leading to destruction, and many are those entering through it.”

Jewish speakers and writers were fond of using something that has been termed “Hebrew Poetic Parallelism.” It is found throughout the Bible. One of the categories of this parallelism is called “Synonymous Parallelism,” which we find in this clause and in the following one. Synonymous parallelism involves the repetition in the second part of what has already been expressed in the first, while simply varying the words. “It is intended to achieve a result reminiscent of binocular vision, the superimposition of two syntactical images in order to endow them with solidity and depth” (David Toshida Tsumura, Journal of Biblical Literature, 128, no. 1 (2009): 167-181).

Here we have two sets of synonyms:

Wide / Broad
Gate / Way

Taken together, we have a set of synonymous expressions:

A wide gate
A broad way

These are synonymous with each other. They refer to a portal with which one may enter through. This way is distinguished from the narrow gate.

Can the word “way” be used, which can also mean path and road, as a synonym for gate or door? Absolutely. We talk that way all the time. Pulling up to a new friend’s house for a get together, he meets you in the front yard and says, “The way to the party is through that gate.” It is not uncommon to actually call the “way” between one room and another a “doorway.” Often we refer to portals from one place to another as “gateways.” Doors and gates are “ways” leading from one area into another. “Way” is a legitimate synonymous word for a portal, for a door and a gate.

This is not talking about a gate that leads to a path that leads to destruction. “Gate” and “way” are synonymous in this expression. They are both referring to the same thing using poetic parallelism. And to confirm that Jesus is talking about one thing and not two, Jesus says, “and many are those entering through IT.” Jesus uses the singular, neuter pronoun, “it,” not the plural, “them.” He is making reference to a single idea – the entering into an inclusive, and deadly, gateway – by describing it using Hebrew Synonymous Parallelism. Jesus is talking about a singular portal, described in two ways, which enters into destruction.

What can we say about this doorway? It is wide and broad. It is inclusive.

This is the way of worldliness. This is the domain of the doctrines of men. Every false gospel, every human made religion, every abhorrent philosophy, all humanistic worldviews are included in this “gate.” Yet these views all share something in common: they include the idea of self-justification by deeds, they entail a works-salvation mindset. This is the way that seems right unto a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12).

And here is the thing, according to the context. Many false prophets have come out into the world and are pointing to this gate. All works-salvation preachers lead their congregations to this portal. All self-justifying false prophets steer their flocks to this doorway. That is why in the following verses of this passage that Jesus actually warns of false prophets (Matthew 7:15-23). They are those who do not do the will of the Father with regards to kingdom entrance, nor do they allow those who are trying to get into the kingdom to actually get there (Matthew 23:13). False prophets block the way to the narrow gate and highlight the broad one.

Jesus’s forceful implication: Do NOT enter in through the wide gate and the broad way! It is sure destruction. This way teaches that anything BUT faith alone in Jesus Christ alone (sola fide, solus Christus) will enter into life. This way excludes and bars people from the kingdom of God. This is the way of anything goes. It is not the way of by grace through faith (sola gratia).


Enter through the Narrow Gate

Jesus teaches that the lost must find the narrow gate and enter it! Why?

“Because narrow is the gate and restricted is the way leading to life, and few are those finding it.”

We get messed up here because some translations use the word “hard” or “difficult” for the way leading to life. But the Greek word used here is “thlibo,” meaning, “press together, compress, make narrow, become restricted” (according to the standard Greek Lexicon, BDAG) and creates a fitting synonym for “narrow.”

The standard Greek lexicon for this word doesn’t even have an entry for it meaning “hard” or “difficult.” There is no evidence in existence (in the papyri or Koine Greek works of the time) that employs this word with these meanings. Not one time is this word used with these senses. Nor is it used with those meanings in the other 9 instances of this word in the Bible.

“Hard” or “difficult” is not a translation but an interpretation disguised as a translation. Most translations use “compressed” or “constricted” in this passage. Jesus used synonymous parallelism in the previous clause, and for symmetry, He used it also in this clause. “Restricted” is probably the best translation of this word. It is synonymous with “narrow.”

Here again we are met with 2 sets of synonyms:

Narrow / Restricted
Gate / Way

And here again we have a set of synonymous expressions:

A narrow gate
A restricted way

All of the false prophets are steering people to the wide gate of destruction, they are not preaching this narrow gate. This is the sad state in which we live in this country and in the world. It is difficult for people to find the narrow gate. This is why Jesus commands in another place, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24).

With so many people saying the same exact thing in different ways, pointing people to their own good works, obedience, and faithfulness, and not to the good work, obedience, and faithfulness of Jesus Christ, it is no wonder that Jesus says to strive to find and enter that narrow gate. In a world inundated with works salvation theology, the narrow gate can be hard to find.

Many people are living religious lives in this world, claiming Jesus to be their Lord. They impose upon themselves the law and commandments, thinking this is the way which will lead to paradise. They think by this that they will one day stand before God justified. But we know that it is a foregone conclusion that anyone who tries to justify themselves in any way will be told to depart: “I never knew you! Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” … At least we should’ve known… for the Scriptures are clear: “By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight” (Romans 3:20).

Jesus doesn’t know these people. They have not done the will of the Father. They have not entered in through the Narrow Gate, they haven’t found the Door. They do not possess eternal life (John 17:3).

They are actually conmen: “He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1). They are the blind leading the blind, who both fall into the pit.


Conclusion

Men, women, and children: Jesus is the Narrow Gate, entrance through Him is by believing His testimony of John 3:16, and the result is eternal life. It is a free gift of grace. Find and enter the correct gate before it’s too late!