Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
We have here the opening of our LORD'S Sermon, and, a most blessed sermon it is. Let the Reader observe how JESUS opens it in pronouncing blessings. JESUS himself is the great comprehensive blessing of all blessings, and the blessedness of his people. It is worthy remark that the Old Testament ended, yea in the very last word of it, with the LORD'S threatenings of a Curse. Malachi 4:6. The first word of CHRIST'S Gospel is Blessing. CHRIST himself is the WORD, the Uncreated Word, and the Blessing. John 1:1. How truly delightful is it to look at the Old Testament through the New, and to view the Law by the Gospel.
If the Reader looks attentively to this opening of our LORD'S sermon, be will find no less than eight distinct characters JESUS speaks of as blessed; namely, poor in spirit; they that mourn; the meek; they who hunger and thirst after righteousness; the merciful; the pure in heart; the peace-makers; and the persecuted (and falsely reviled) for righteousness' sake. Now the question instantly ariseth; where are these characters to be found? Not in themselves it must be immediately confessed; for when the LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that would understand and seek after God, we are told from the Word of God, that the result of that enquiry was, that there was none that did good, no not one. Psalms 14:1-3; Romans 3:10, etc. Hence therefore when the Lord came himself from heaven, and came, as he himself saith, to seek and save that which was lost, could JESUS mean, in coming, not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, that his should find such characters as he hath here declared to be blessed. Oh! how plain, how very plain is it, that the persons here spoken of are the redeemed given by the FATHER, made blessed in the righteousness of the SON, and regenerated and sanctified by the HOLY GHOST. Reader! If we read the precious words of JESUS in this true gospel sense, we shall, under divine teaching; discover that all such as are here spoken of, are blessed in JESUS indeed. The first feature of character the Lord takes notice of them is, that they are poor in spirit, not poor in pocket; for outward circumstances, either in poverty or riches, have nothing to do with inward grace. Many that are poor in worldly things, are rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom. And many it is to be feared, by what we behold in the world, are poor in this life, and will be poor to all eternity in the life to come, But the poor in spirit, means poor in soul concerns. They know, through the Lord's teaching, their spiritual poverty, their lost, their undone estate before GOD. They are conscious they owe ten thousand talents, and have nothing to pay. Ruined in Adam, they view their lost estate, and are convinced that there can be no salvation but in CHRIST. Such JESUS declares to be blessed, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They were chosen in CHRIST, and are thus training for the everlasting enjoyment of CHRIST, to all eternity.
The Lord next describes them (for they are all one and the same persons, all that he hath here declared to be blessed:) as mourners. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. And this mark of grace follows the former. The eye of the soul is no sooner opened to see his state of poverty and wretchedness before Cod, but the heart melts at the view of it. Sin; in-dwelling, in-bred sin, opens a constant spring of sorrow. Like Paul they cry out, Oh! wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? And never, until JESUS is opened to their view, in all the glories of his person, blood, and righteousness: yea, until by the HOLY GHOST, CHRIST is brought personally home, and applied to the heart, and formed in the heart the hope of glory, can any comfort be found. And even to the close of life, the conscious sense of the remains of in-dwelling corruption, tends, under grace, to keep open an unceasing spring of our repentance towards Cod, while the soul is supported in the assured interest in CHRIST; by which, Christ. is more and more endeared to the heart, to be more in love with him, and more out of love with themselves, until grace is finished in everlasting glory. It is such holy mourners, the Lord Jesus said, shall be comforted. All the persons of the GODHEAD do now comfort them: the word of GOD is their comfort: ordinances are their comfort: the promises are their comfort: all the discoveries of pardoning love, grace, mercy, refreshments, manifestations of divine love, providences; all and every tendency of the Lord towards them are full of comfort: and, at length, when they come to drop the body in the grave, they will be indeed comforted, for they will be introduced unto the general assembly of the first-born, and dwell forever in the joy of their Lord, Isaiah 61:1; James 2:5
In like manner, the whole of the features of character, which follow, if construed with an eye to the whole tenor of CHRIST'S gospel, plainly shew forth whom the Lord JESUS had in view. Blessed are the meek: not the meekness of suppressed anger induced by the tight constraints of philosophy; but the meekness induced by the fruits of the Spirit of Cod. Had CHRIST meant the mere moral virtue of meekness, such as it is called of the Stoic; who so much esteemed as the Romans and the Lacedemonians of old? But yet they perished in their heathenism and sins. The meekness the SON of God pronounced blessed, is the meekness inwrought in the soul, by the gracious influence of GOD the HOLY GHOST. It is learnt of JESUS. Matthew 11:29. It is wholly from Jesus. John 15:4-5. And it is his regenerated members of whom he saith, the LORD will beautify the meek with salvation. Psalms 149:4. This meekness of the LORD'S own creating in the soul is of great price. 1 Peter 4:3
So again, the blessedness pronounced on them who hunger and thirst after righteousness. It were a weakness of judgment indeed, to suppose, that the righteousness such souls most earnestly desire, is the righteousness of mere moral honesty and justice between man and man in life. These things the laws among men enforce, and the Scribes and Pharisees of our LORD'S days, prided themselves upon them. Surely no one who reads his Bible can for a moment, if he thinks rightly, suppose that the SON of God came upon earth to preach what even unenlightened heathens had always insisted upon. This would be indeed to run back to the law of Moses, instead of preaching the Gospel of Christ. But the righteousness the SON of GOD had in view, when declaring these souls blessed which hungered and thirsted for it, was his own complete righteousness, which alone can justify a poor sinner in the sight of GOD. So that in the hungering for it, the soul gave evident proofs that he had no righteousness of his own to appear in before God, and therefore earnestly longed to be clothed with CHRIST'S robe of righteousness, and garment of salvation. And graciously the Lord JESUS here declares all such shall not hunger in vain. He who excites the hunger in the soul, is He who also satisfieth it. And hence the promises and the performance. Psalms 132:9-16; Isaiah 61:10-11; Isaiah 61:10-11
I must not trespass in my Poor Man's Commentary, to explain to the full on gospel principles the whole of the characters which the LORD JESUS hath here drawn, but were it not for enlarging, I might otherwise show how beautiful a correspondence they all bear to each other. Blessed are the merciful. Not merely kindness to the bodies of men, no nor to the souls of men only. These are the fruits and effects of the mercifulness the LORD JESUS speaks of; and not the thing itself. But the mercifulness JESUS pronounceth blessed, is that mercy of soul inwrought by the regenerating influence of the HOLY GHOST, and from an union with CHRIST, the mercy of mercies. And from this source within, this union and communion with CHRIST, all the gracious acts will flow forth in mercy to others, and which the blessed souls themselves are receiving from their glorious merciful Head.
Blessed are the pure in heart; made so by regenerating grace; for by nature the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17:9. Hence the LORD promiseth his people to take away the heart of stone, and give them an heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:25-26. The people that are blessed are those whose hearts the Lord hath changed, who are indeed holy and pure in the cleansing and justifying purity and holiness of the LORD, their righteousness; but who feel conscious of the remains of indwelling corruption under which they groan. They see God in CHRIST in all the blessedness of salvation here in the life that now is, and they shall See him in the complete enjoyment of him in the life of glory that is to come.
The peace-makers are said to be blessed. But of whom doth CHRIST speak? Not simply peace-makers between man and man in the strifes of the world, for there is no peace saith my GOD to the wicked. Neither can it mean a man making his own peace with God, for that is impossible. CHRIST is the alone peace-maker, in making our peace in the blood of his cross. But the peace-makers here said to be blessed, shalt be called the children of GOD. They are proved to be so by adoption and grace. And that peace of GOD which ruleth in their hearts, will manifest itself in acts of peace among them which make peace.
And the blessedness to those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, and reviled falsely for CHRIST'S sake, very plainly refer not to the mere act of persecution or reviling, but when those acts of cruelty are shewn to the followers of the Lord Jesus on his account, and for their attachment to him. Then, and then only, is it said by the LORD to be blessed.
I have studied as much brevity as possible in my illustration of those characters, that I might not unnecessarily swell the pages of the Poor Man's Commentary. But I hope enough hath been said in proof that our LORD'S expressions are wholly to be considered on Gospel principles, and that the blessedness he pronounceth is the privilege of his redeemed in him.