God Has Already Blessed His True People By Producing In Them A Right Attitude of Heart, And An Indication Of The Blessings Both Present and Future That Will Result from It (5:3-9).
As we consider the Sermon on the Mount its demands are such that the question must necessarily arise, ‘What kind of people could possibly live in accordance with this teaching of Jesus?' And the answer will now be given. It is those whose hearts have been changed, those whom God has ‘blessed' and has thus prepared for it, those who have come under the Kingly Rule of Heaven.
It is important here to recognise the implication of the way in which the ‘beatitudes' are presented, for they are not to be seen as just pronouncements of general interest. Casual readers tend to look on them as casual truisms. And they think how nice they are in theory, how well they roll off the tongue, and how surprisingly true they sometimes are, especially when they happen to agree with their own position. They see them as a kind of proverb. But Jesus was not talking in generalities, and He was not citing proverbs. He was talking to specific people. He was not interested in nice theories, He wanted direct response.
We need to note here that following the custom of the time among the Jews Jesus often used alternative expressions so as not to overuse the name of God. Thus He speaks of the Kingly Rule ‘of Heaven' rather than the Kingly Rule ‘of God' (Mark and Luke render it as the Kingly Rule of God for the sake of their Gentile readers). For other uses of ‘Heaven' as a circumlocution for God see also Mark 10:21 with parallels; Matthew 12:25 with parallels; Matthew 13:32; Matthew 5:12; Matthew 6:20; Matthew 16:19; Matthew 18:18; Luke 6:23; Luke 10:20; Luke 12:33; Luke 15:7. He speaks of ‘the (our, your) Father' or the equivalent a number of times (17 times in the Synoptics excluding parallels, even more in John). He also speaks of Him as ‘the Lord of Heaven and earth' (Matthew 11:25 /Luke 10:21); the Power (Mark 14:62 with parallels; Matthew 26:64); the Wisdom (Matthew 11:19 /Luke 7:25); the Name (Matthew 6:9 /Luke 11:2); the Great King (Matthew 5:35); the Most High (Luke 6:35). It is not that He always avoids the use of God's name, it is simply that He did not want to be thought of as using it lightly. (There is a lesson for us all to learn here. We do use His name too lightly).
It was also His practise throughout His teaching to regularly use the passive verb in order to indicate the activity of God without the necessity of constantly mentioning His name. Thus here in Matthew 5:7 ‘they shall obtain mercy' is intended to signify ‘God will be merciful to them'. This is sometimes called ‘the divine passive'. And excluding parallel usage it occurs over ninety times in the Gospels. In other words to a quite remarkable extent it is one of Jesus' main characteristics, and we should always therefore, when considering His teaching, always be looking out for evidence of a similar idea.
Thus following these precedents ‘Blessed ones, the poor in Spirit' must be seen as drawing attention to the fact that such people are to be seen as like that because they have been blessed by God. They are not just to be seen as ‘happy' or ‘fortunate' in some general kind of way. They are to be seen as the specific subjects of God's positive blessing. They are to be seen as those on whom God has acted in His grace and compassion. He has brought them deliverance and righteousness in order to establish His new people (Isaiah 46:13). The Anointed Prophet of YHWH has endued them with God's blessing so that they might be oaks of righteousness (Isaiah 6:13). Thus what He means ‘Blessed ones, the poor in spirit' is ‘Blessed by God have been and are those who are seen to be truly the poor in spirit. For they are like that because God has positively blessed them, and worked it in them and on them, and that is why they have come to Me and are responding to My words, and the result is that the Kingly Rule of Heaven is theirs'.
He is here speaking of those who are ‘poor in spirit' in the right sense, those who are humble and contrite before God, and are so precisely because of the blessing and activity of God. It is God Who has blessed them by making them ‘poor in spirit', and therefore humble and contrite, and open to Him. (To put it in another way found in Matthew, it is the result of the drenching of the Holy Spirit referred to in Matthew 3:11 as active through Jesus. See on that verse and compare Luke 11:13; John 3:1-6; John 4:10-14).
And the same thing applies to the other beatitudes. In a similar way God has blessed them by bringing His true people to mourn over sin, to be ‘meek and lowly', (and therefore not those who are always trying to defend or uplift themselves and exert their rights), to hunger and thirst after righteousness, to be merciful, to be pure in heart and to be desirous of bringing men to peace with each other, and especially to peace with God. All has come to them as a result of the positive blessing of God.
The fact that this is so comes out in the story of the rich young man who came to Jesus. For when Jesus said how hard it was for a rich man to enter under the Kingly Rule of Heaven (Matthew 19:23), and His disciples accordingly asked who then could be saved, He replied that while it was impossible with men it was possible with God (Matthew 19:26). In other words it is those whom God blesses by making them poor in spirit etc. who can be saved whether they are rich or poor, because it will be the result of God's miraculous working on their lives. Thus He is making clear that what in the end distinguishes men is whether God has been active in their lives. His words about how hard riches made it for people to enter into the Kingly Rule of Heaven simply really meant that therefore a change of heart was likely to happen to more of the ‘poor' because they did not have so many distractions to prevent them from listening and responding. But His later words then indicated that God could bring about such a change even in those who were more wealthy. And once having been so blessed by God, the benefits described in the beatitudes would follow, and they too would become the kind of people described in the beatitudes. This indeed would be the test of whether they really were the ‘blessed of God'.
Two things stand out about these people whom God has blessed. The first is that they have begun to live like God's ‘holy ones' (saints) in the Old Testament. They are the poor in spirit and humble Matthew 5:3; compare Psalms 70:5; Isaiah 11:4), and the sin-convicted (Matthew 5:4, compare Psalms 34:18; Psalms 51:17; Isaiah 57:1; Isaiah 66:2). They are the lowly in heart (Matthew 5:5, compare Psalms 138:6; Proverbs 3:34), and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6, compare Psalms 42:2; Psalms 63:1; Isaiah 41:17-20; Isaiah 55:1-2). They are the merciful (Matthew 5:7, compare Psalms 18:25; Proverbs 11:17), and the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8, compare Psalms 24:4), and the ones who make peace (Matthew 5:9, see Psalms 34:14; Psalms 37:37; Isaiah 32:17 and contrast Isaiah 59:8; Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11). It is these about whom He is speaking, and they are like this precisely because God has worked on them (in other words because Jesus has drenched them with the Spirit - Matthew 3:11). They have repented and received His forgiveness, and have done so because God has stepped in and blessed them.
It will further be noted that in each case those who are represented as having been blessed by God in this way have been given this attitude of heart as something that they are to continue to maintain in the light of the eternal future, that is, in the light of what is to come, again based on the Old Testament promises. For those promises have now appeared on the horizon as a result of the presence of Jesus among them. In Him their eyes are to be fixed on things above (compare Colossians 3:1-3). Thus they are to look to the Kingly Rule of Heaven as already theirs (Matthew 5:3; compare Isaiah 11:4; Isaiah 57:15), to God's present comforting and the enjoying one day of God's eternal comfort in the new Jerusalem (Matthew 5:4; Matthew 11:28-30; Isaiah 52:9; Isaiah 66:13), to the inheriting of the earth and of the new earth (Matthew 5:5; Matthew 19:29-30 with Mark 10:30-31; Luke 18:30; and see Psalms 37:9; Psalms 37:11; Psalms 37:18; Psalms 37:22; Psalms 37:24; Psalms 37:29; Isaiah 65:17-25), to being filled to the full with righteousness as they spend eternity with the righteous and with the Righteous One (Matthew 5:6; Psalms 17:15; Isaiah 24:16; Isaiah 32:17; Isaiah 51:5; Isaiah 61:3; Isaiah 61:10; Daniel 9:24; Hosea 2:19; Malachi 4:2), to the obtaining of everlasting mercy (Matthew 5:7; Psalms 100:5; Psalms 103:17; Isaiah 54:8), to the hope of seeing God as He really is (Matthew 5:8; Revelation 22:4; Psalms 17:15; Psalms 42:2), and to being called, with tenderness, ‘the sons of God' (Matthew 5:9; Hosea 1:10). These hopes, Jesus assures them, will be enjoyed, both in the present and the future, by those whose hearts have been made right by God, and the result of these hopes will be that their hearts, and minds, and wills, will continue to be filled with these right attitudes towards God and man (2 Corinthians 4:17-18; Colossians 3:1-3).
For it should be noted in this regard that when the New Testament speaks of ‘rewards' it is mainly this which it has in mind. It is not speaking of some kind of great reward that will make us richer and more important than others and lift us above everyone else so that we can sit on thrones looking down on them, making us unbearable. (How dreadfully inconsistent that would be among people whose greatest desire should be to serve and to accept service from Him because that is a central feature of Heaven - Matthew 20:28; Matthew 23:11; Luke 12:37; Luke 22:27. The desire to be above everyone else will not be found in Heaven). It is speaking of the reward of the bringing to the full of what has already been planted in the initial seed. It is speaking of our righteousness being made full. In other words, what the child of God is and enjoys as a result of becoming a child of God now, he will be and enjoy much more abundantly as a result of his fuller continual response to God in the future, and even more abundantly in the eternal Kingdom. Thus those who do not respond fully will lose out in some degree. They will inevitably to some extent ‘lose their reward'. For example, they will be called by God ‘the least in the Kingly Rule of God' (Matthew 5:19), they will receive less praise from God (1 Corinthians 4:5).
Jesus seems to have opened His messages by proclaiming how God had blessed His own a number of times. Thus for example in the parallel sermon in Luke 6 He opens with four ‘blessed are you -' statements followed by four ‘woe to you -' ones. But the sermons and audiences are sufficiently different to suggest two separate messages, even though they indicate a similar approach.
For if we contrast the two the beatitudes in Matthew are contemplative, and more ‘spiritually' oriented, they present a full-orbed picture of the spirituality of ‘the new righteous', while those in Luke are more confrontational and more practically oriented, recognising not only the presence of those who have responded to God's call, who had been mainly the poor and afflicted, but also the presence of the sceptical and self-assured, who were mainly like that because of their wealth and status. In Luke's case the blessings and woes made a division between the righteous and the unrighteous.
It would in fact have been difficult to adapt all the beatitudes in Matthew to the emphasis found in Jesus' words in Luke, in ways that Jesus would have wanted to, for the latter deal much more specifically with physical realities, the realities of the poverty, hunger, tears and persecution which had brought many of His disciples close to God, and which was in direct contrast with the self-satisfaction, self-congratulation, self-sufficiency, and self-exaltation of the wealthy and religiously arrogant who had little room for God, mainly because of their wealth or perceived status. He was not excluding all the rich. The purpose of His ‘woes' (or we may translate the word as ‘alas') is precisely in order to try to reach their hearts.
In Matthew He is speaking only to the disciples, and is speaking for their consideration and encouragement in a beautiful overall description of what it is to be a follower of His. In Luke, while speaking to such, He is also confronting His opponents, and those whose riches and reputation kept them afar off. So the two situations are clearly very different.
It is true that Matthew does in fact contrast blessing with woes, for the seven blessings here contrast with the seven woes in chapter 23. But the fact that he keeps them so far apart (although paralleling them in the overall chiasmus discovered by an analysis of the Gospel - see introduction) stresses the chasm between them. They represent two different emphases at two different times. It is not so in Luke.
However what the dual use of the ideas by Matthew and Luke, even though used from very different angles, does demonstrate, is how Jesus called on similar material time after time, while changing it to some extent in order to suit the occasion and the audience. Here, however, in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew and Jesus are concentrating on God's blessing of those who have come to believe. Here in these opening words then we have one more proof that this message is aimed at believers.
We must now consider the words themselves.
Analysis (5:3-9).
a “Blessed ones, the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
b “Blessed ones, those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
c “Blessed ones, the lowly, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).
d “Blessed ones, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).
c “Blessed ones, the merciful, for they will obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
b “Blessed ones, the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).
a “Blessed ones, the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9).
Note that in ‘a' the ‘blessed ones' (by God) are the lowly and gentle who recognise their own spiritual inadequacy without God, and it is to them that the Kingly Rule of Heaven belongs, both in the present and in the future, while in the parallel the ‘blessed ones' are the peacemakers who will be called ‘sons of God', because they will be made like Him and will share their Father's presence (2 Corinthians 6:18; 1 John 3:1-2; Romans 8:15; Revelation 22:3-5). In ‘b' are described those who mourn over sin and over the needs of God's people, and in the parallel those who are pure in heart, because they have mourned over sin. Repentance has enabled God to make them pure. On the one hand therefore they will be strengthened and encouraged, and on the other they will see God. In ‘c' those who bow under the forces that come against them and have thus learned compassion are paralleled with the merciful. They have learned mercy through their experiences as watered by the Holy Spirit. They will therefore enjoy God's present provision on earth and finally inherit the new earth, for they are those who will obtain mercy. And central are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They are conscious of their lack of righteousness, and the lack of righteousness in the world, and they long for all to be put right through God acting powerfully in ‘righteousness' and deliverance (compare Luke 18:6-7; Isaiah 46:13; Isaiah 51:5). Through Jesus they can be assured that God's righteousness will triumph, and that they themselves will be filled with righteousness in both this world and the next.
We note next that there are seven beatitudes given here, seven indicating a picture of ‘divine perfection' (for what some see as an eighth see on Matthew 5:10-12). They can be compared with the ninefold fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22 (a threefold three). But we must stress again that the point of Jesus' words here is not of general attitudes regardless of context. He is not speaking here in vague generalities. These are not just proverbial sayings applying to the world in general. This is not ‘Wisdom teaching' as such. Jesus is not sitting in front of people in general and providing them with interesting proverbs to mull over. He is speaking to a dedicated group of disciples of whom special things are expected, and describing what God has worked in them. This is a call to action, a call to live in a certain way as a result of God's inner activity and blessing, as His following words make clear (it is very similar in some ways to the exhortations in Deuteronomy 20:5-8, where the purpose was to encourage the hearts of the warriors, not to encourage desertion). It is a call to live out what God has worked in them. Then having described those whom God has blessed, and how He has blessed them, He will go on to describe what He now requires of them. But He does want them to recognise that they are not like this because of their own efforts. Their ‘salvation' has been all God's work (and from one point of view will continue to be so, for He will continue to work in them to will and to do of His good pleasure - Philippians 2:13). It is because God has ‘blessed' them. But the consequence is that they must now work it out with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).
So although often taken to be so, we must repeat that these are not generalisations about people as a whole, as though He were simply saying, ‘it is better in general to be poor than rich, it is better in general to be merciful rather than unmerciful, it is better in general to be pure in heart than not to be so, whether you believe in God or not', and so on. Nor is He saying that people who come under these general descriptions, such as ‘the poor' and ‘the mournful' and ‘the merciful' will be blessed under any and all circumstances (although it may in general be true in some cases). Indeed it would have been the height of foolishness to say that those are blessed, or necessarily will be blessed, who are living in unremitting abject poverty, or in constant mourning through bereavement, or are permanently submitting to being downtrodden with no hope of release, or who are spiritually hungry but never finding satisfaction. It would be self-evidently wrong. That was not what Jesus coming was about at all. He was not encouraging the downtrodden among society to put up with their misery by somehow convincing themselves that they were somehow blessed. For the truth is that none were less blessed than they are, unless through it they come to know God (except perhaps the very rich, who are often miserable in their riches).
Nor would it be in accordance with Scripture to say that all such will automatically enjoy the Kingly Rule of God, or that all such would experience comforting, encouragement and strengthening, or would ‘inherit the earth' by enjoying the blessings of this life (Psalms 73:1), or would be filled with the satisfaction of true righteousness, or would obtain mercy, or would see God. Experience testifies otherwise, and that in fact many such people simply die in their misery without hope of anything beyond, and many more live in despair. We must thus not see Jesus as a purveyor of benevolent platitudes, even wise platitudes, as indeed His subsequent teaching makes clear. Nor, we repeat, must we see Him simply as a great Wisdom teacher, even though He could be seen as greater than the greatest of them all (Matthew 12:42). The way He preaches proves that He was rather an Active Mover of men. He wanted people's active response to His words, and was not satisfied unless He had it (Matthew 7:13-27).
So what Jesus is declaring here is to be seen as directed to specific people of a particular kind, initially in the context of Galilee. That is, to those who had heard through His voice and the voice of John, the voice of God. (Subsequently they are directed to all who have heard His initial word and have responded). It is they who have been blessed by God. They have repented and come under the Kingly Rule of Heaven. They have been transformed by the working of the Spirit in their inner man. They have become what is described here, men and women who are ready and eager to hear His word. And now they are to learn what is required of them.
But we should further note that He does not then give them a list of instructions and rules, or a manual of discipline. Instead he indicates the attitudes that they already enjoy as a result of God having been at work in them, and explains that these are the attitudes that they must now take up and expand on. For as we shall see, the whole of Chapter s 5-7 will deal mainly with the outworking of these attitudes of heart. As a result of having experienced the working of God within them (His blessing) they will be, and must be, humble in spirit, mournful over sin, accepting of the vicissitudes of life, hungry after righteousness, merciful, pure in heart and concerned to bring men to a state of being at peace with God, for that is the kind of people that God has now made them to be. For they are a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).
He is declaring that it is those who are like this, as a result of having responded to His words, who are therefore proved to have been truly blessed by God, which is the reason why they are now as they are; and that they are still truly blessed because God is still active in blessing them; and that they will continue to be so because God will continue to bless them both in this life and in the life to come. His point is that it is because they have been made like this as a result of the goodness and blessing of God that they are now there listening to Him as His disciples, and that it is something to which they must respond wholeheartedly. They are thus to be unique in the world so that through them the world may see God. This is what Jesus' ‘baptising them in Holy Spirit' (Matthew 3:11) and shining His light on them (Matthew 4:16) has accomplished.
And as we have already seen, the direct connection of these spiritual benefits as being indicators of their position before God is further evidenced by His reliance for these ideas on the Scriptures, where they have already been seen as applying in the past to those who have known the blessing of God. It is the connection of what He is saying with the Scriptures that itself indicates that His words are to be seen as applying only to the truly godly. For every one of the blessings that He describes were also used to describe the godly in the Old Testament. It is the poor in spirit and humble (Matthew 5:3; compare Psalms 70:5), and the sin-convicted (Matthew 5:4, compare Psalms 34:18; Psalms 51:17; Isaiah 57:1; Isaiah 66:2), and the lowly in heart (Matthew 5:5 compare Psalms 138:6; Proverbs 3:34), and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6 compare Psalms 42:2; Psalms 63:1; Isaiah 41:17-20; Isaiah 55:1-2), and the merciful (Matthew 5:7; compare Psalms 18:25; Proverbs 11:17), and the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8, compare Psalms 24:4), and the ones who make peace (Matthew 5:9, see Psalms 34:14; Psalms 37:37; Isaiah 32:17 and contrast Isaiah 59:8; Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11), about whom He is speaking, and they are like this precisely because God has worked on them (in other words because Jesus has drenched them with the Spirit - Matthew 3:11; Psalms 143:10). They have repented and received His forgiveness, and have done so because God has stepped in and blessed them.
They are therefore now truly blessed as they gather to hear His words, for they can have complete confidence in their futures, and in God's sovereign work within them. The Kingly Rule of Heaven is theirs (Matthew 5:3); and they can be sure that they will be encouraged and strengthened (‘comforted') in the future (Matthew 5:4; Isaiah 40:1; Isaiah 49:13; Isaiah 51:3; Isaiah 51:12-13 etc.); they will inherit all that is best on the earth, and in the end will inherit (and therefore as a gift for inheritance is a ‘gift' word) the new earth which is for ever (Matthew 5:5; Psalms 37:9; Psalms 37:11; Psalms 37:18; Psalms 37:22; Psalms 37:24; Psalms 37:29); they will find spiritual fullness both in the present and in the future (Matthew 5:6, compare Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 41:17-19; Isaiah 44:3; Isaiah 49:10; Isaiah 55:1); they will obtain mercy, both day by day and in that Day (Psalms 100:5; Psalms 103:17; Isaiah 54:8); they will ‘see God' now and will see Him even more really in the hereafter (Revelation 22:4; Psalms 17:15; Psalms 42:2); and they will be called sons of God (Hosea 1:10). In Christ they have all, and He will confirm it in them to the end in order that they might be found unreproveable in the Day of Jesus Christ, and all due to the faithfulness of God (1 Corinthians 1:8-9).
So when Jesus says ‘Blessed ones, they --' He does not simply mean ‘how fortunate they are'. He means that they have been actively and positively blessed by God. They are in God's hands. Their lives are hid with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3). God is at work in them to will and do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). They have been singularly favoured by God. And He now therefore has for them the purpose that they be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
It should also be noted that the first three beatitudes contain within them the essence of what the Spirit-filled Anointed Prophet of Isaiah 61:1-3 has brought. They are like this because He is at work among them. He would ‘bring good tidings to the poor', He would ‘comfort all who mourn', He would ‘bind up the broken hearted', He would ‘deliver the oppressed'. Thus in these beatitudes are pictured those who have been and are being successfully ministered to by the Anointed Prophet. They have received the good tidings from Jesus. They have been ‘comforted' by Jesus. Their hearts have been healed by Jesus. They have been delivered from oppression by Jesus. They have received from Him the oil of joy, and the robe of praise, being planted in righteousness. For as we have already seen, (see introduction), in this particular section of Matthew the ‘filling to the full' of Isaiah's promises is what is being emphasised (Matthew 3:3; Matthew 4:14-16; Matthew 8:17; Matthew 12:17). So He wants them to recognise that the King and Servant of the Lord of Isaiah's prophecies is here among them and that in their case they are already blessed because they have responded to Him (see Matthew 3:3; Matthew 4:15-16; Matthew 8:17; Matthew 12:14-16; Matthew 20:28).