Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Narrow Gate
Matthew 7:13-14
13 “Enter in by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter in by it. · WEB
The sermon's first of four closing contrasts — two gates, two roads, two crowds, and two destinations.
"Enter in by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter in by it" Matthew 7:13.
The sermon ends with four pairs — two gates, two trees, two claims, two houses — and every one of them is a division into exactly two with nothing in between. That is the shape of the ending, and it is why the last section of the Sermon on the Mount is the most uncomfortable part of it.
The first contrast is a decision presented as a doorway. What makes the wide gate attractive is not stated as pleasure or wickedness but as many — the road is broad enough for a crowd and it has one. A person choosing by consensus is being told here that the count is not evidence.
"How narrow is the gate and the way is restricted that leads to life! There are few who find it" Matthew 7:14.
The narrow gate is a squeeze rather than a barrier, and everything the preceding chapters have described is what makes it so: an anger that must be dealt with, a look that must be refused, an enemy who must be prayed for, a treasure that must be relocated, a beam that must come out. Entering is not made difficult by an arbitrary gatekeeper; it is difficult because of what has to be left on the other side.
The word rendered restricted is the same root used elsewhere of affliction and pressure, which fits the road as this Gospel goes on to describe it — a cross taken up Matthew 16:24, persecution promised Matthew 5:11.
And few who find it deserves care. The sermon is not calculating final numbers; the parallel saying elsewhere is an answer to precisely that question, and the reply refuses the arithmetic and returns a command: strive to enter in by the narrow door Luke 13:23–24. The point of the contrast is not statistics about other people but the pressure it puts on the hearer to check which road they are on, since the broad one requires no decision at all — it is simply where a person ends up who never chose.
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