Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 7:14

"For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it." — Matthew 7:14 (ASV)

Narrow is the way—Literally, pressed, or hemmed in between walls or rocks, like the pathway in a mountain gorge.

Which leads to life—This is noteworthy as the first passage in our Lord’s recorded teaching in which the word “life” appears as summing up all the blessedness of the kingdom. The idea is developed as we advance; the life becomes “eternal,” and finally we are taught that eternal life consists in the true and perfect knowledge of God and Christ (John 17:2–3).

Few there are who find it—The sad contrast between the many and the few runs through all our Lord’s teaching. He comes to “save the world,” yet those whom He chooses out of the world are only a “little flock.” They are to preach the gospel, yet the result will be only discord and division.

The picture is a dark one, yet it represents all too faithfully the impression made—not just on a Calvinist or even a Christian, but on any ethical teacher—by the actual state of humanity around us. People are, for the most part, unconscious of the greatness of their lives and of the interests at stake in them.

If there is any wider hope, it is found in hints and suggestions of future possibilities (1 Peter 3:19; 1 Peter 4:6) and in the fact that the words used are emphatically present. This hope is also rooted in the belief that the short span of this life is not necessarily the whole of the discipline for a soul made for eternity, and that the new life—nascent, feeble, and stunted here—may be quickened into higher energies by some new process of education.