“Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (Matthew 5:1–12, ESV)
Familiarity with the phraseology of Jesus is apt to blind us to the force of his language. Blessed represents a Hebrew or Aramaic phrase which is of the nature of an exclamation or an interjection—‘O the blessedness, the happiness of those who …!’, ‘How fortunate are they who …!’ Jesus is not offering rewards; he is stating facts. Sometimes the fact is in the present, sometimes it is an event in the future, more probably in this gospel in the life after death. But even though its manifestation be postponed to another stage of existence, it is nevertheless a fact, and Jesus sees and states it. His language is that of one who witnesses a great triumph or a striking success, and offers felicitations. We have presented to us features of character, conduct, or experience on which Jesus congratulates men because of the results which accrue to them. Each ‘blessing’ is therefore accompanied by the reason for which it is pronounced, and sometimes, though not always, the whole statement appears to be a paradox.
So the first ‘blessing’ contrasts men who feel poor in spirit with the Realm which they are to receive. No doubt there is an eschatological element in the thought of the evangelist—whether this was present to the mind of Jesus himself is another matter—and he thinks of the Realm of heaven as the bliss which is not to be secured in this age. Such an interpretation of Jesus and of his language is characteristic of this gospel, but we may suspect that Jesus went deeper and saw the sharp contrast between beggary and kingship. The picture is that of a man who is conscious of having nothing and of being nothing, who has achieved to the full what Jesus meant by ‘self-denial.’ This is just the man who will win the highest position—kingship—in the sight of God.
In the blessing on the mourners the paradox is obvious. No human friend would enter the house of bereavement with congratulations, yet this is exactly what the words of Jesus suggest. There is an experience that can only be attained through loss—the experience of being consoled. This is not a mere deadening of grief; it is rather the passage from an overwhelming sense of sorrow to an overwhelming sense of divine sympathy and love. This can only be attained through that almost universal experience, the loss of a loved friend; and in its revelation of the love of God it forms the only road to a happiness and a joy which more than counterbalance the weight of pain. There can be no full appreciation of such joy except by those who have known its opposite, and it is immeasurably better to have suffered and been consoled than never to have known distress at all. In life, as in music, the most perfect form of peace is that which is brought by the resolved discord. For the comfort of God is not the use of conventional formulae of consolation; it is the perfect sympathy of one who has sounded the uttermost depths of pain. There is a mystery in sorrow, but God shares the sorrow, and we may be sure that He holds the key to the mystery.
In the third ‘blessing,’ which does not appear in Luke, we have a certain resemblance to the first, the phrasing being apparently based on Psalm 37:11. The difference between the poor and the humble in Hebrew and Aramaic is very slight, and the two words are often confused. But there is no confusion here, for a different result of the two qualities is stated, in that while those who feel poor in spirit will find that the Realm of heaven is theirs, those counted as the humble are to inherit the earth. The poor in spirit are those who are conscious of their own insignificance, the humble are those whose insignificance is assumed by those about them. To inherit is to take possession of, especially to expel or survive a previous possessor. Now, to the ordinary mind, it is the aggressive, the self-confident, the self-asserting, the self-advertising, who win their way in the world and gain the earth for themselves. The humble man is in all respects the exact opposite of this, and it is he who, as Jesus sees, will ultimately inherit the earth. The capacity for submissive endurance will in the long run prevail over dominant aggressiveness. Once more Jesus has expressed a deep truth in an apparent paradox.
In the fourth ‘blessing,’ again, this evangelist refers to a spiritual attitude, while Luke deals with an earthly condition. Hunger and thirst provide a metaphor which is more telling to the Oriental than it is to us. Conditions of life are harder and water is scarcer in the life of the peasant class to which Jesus and his disciples belonged than to any modern Europeans. The context suggests that goodness implies some special virtue, and that Jesus is insisting on fairness and justice, though probably not in the forensic sense in which the term is often used. To be fair is one of the most difficult of achievements, and only those who have a real passion for justice, who feel that their very souls will perish without it, have any real chance of attaining it. But, given that passion, they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, again, is a saying which goes deep into the spiritual life. Mercy is one of those concepts which the New Testament inherited from the Old. Such sayings as Go and learn the meaning of this word, I care for mercy not for sacrifice (Matthew 9:13) shew that it was with Jesus a favourite element in the higher ethic. This goes back to Hosea, and it is to the Hebrew word, coming into the language of Jesus through Aramaic, that we must turn for an interpretation. The merciful man is he who is distinguished by the quality of hesed (Aramaic hisda), one of the most difficult words to translate, so rich is its content of meaning. Even ‘love,’ though it is nearer than any other English word, hardly fills its content, for ‘love’ does not necessarily imply the intellectual factor which is involved in the Hebrew word. Hesed is the perfection of that mystical relation of one personality to another which is the highest of all possible grades of friendship. It means a sympathetic appreciation of other persons, the power, not merely to concentrate blindly on them, but to feel deliberately with them, to see life from their point of view. It may be the attitude of the superior to the inferior or of the inferior to the superior or of equals to one another. It is used of God’s treatment of man and of man’s treatment of God, and if we render the word by ‘love,’ we must remember that it implies that highest form of love which includes not merely emotion but also intelligent sympathy. There is no paradox in this ‘blessing.’ That the loving soul should be loved is almost a truism; the hearts of God and man alike are open to him whose heart is open to them.
The sixth ‘blessing’ is concerned with the pure in heart. Here, again, the language of Jesus has a history behind it. The conception of purity is originally ceremonial, and implies freedom from anything which might be obnoxious to the deity who is being approached. In the higher forms of religion, to which Judaism, at any rate in its later stages, belongs, this is transferred from purely material cleanliness to a moral freedom from contamination. This is implied in the definition of the persons concerned as the pure in heart, a phrase which probably goes back to Psalm 24:3 f. The ground on which the ‘congratulation’ of Jesus rests is that this attitude and character of mind enables men to see God. This is obviously an essential element in the supreme ideal to which religion can aspire. For in the nature of religion the great aim must be the establishment and maintenance of right relations between the worshipper and the object or objects of his worship. In the highest forms of human faith this will imply that direct and immediate knowledge of God which may be called seeing Him. Here, again, there is no paradox. Purity of heart means a concentration of the whole personality on God, the exclusion of everything else, a spiritual state which in English literature is typified by Tennyson’s Galahad. It appears later as the generous Eye. It is as though there were only one window to the soul, serving alike for vision and for illumination. If that through which man looks on God and the world be clouded or defiled, if the outlook be stained or fogged, then the entering rays will suffer the same deterioration. It is only as the spiritual window is kept clean that a distinct vision of God can be won.
The seventh ‘blessing’ is interesting especially because those whom Jesus congratulates are to be ranked sons of God. The Semitic idiom lying behind this phrase implies more than the kind of relationship which is involved in the universal Fatherhood of God. It rather expresses identity in nature and character. The Hebrew language is poor in adjectives (there is not a single adjective, for instance, in the 23rd Psalm) and has to meet the need in other ways. So the phrase ‘son’ followed by another noun is often equivalent to a predicative adjective. Sons of God, then, are those who manifest the God-life, do as God does, perform God’s task in the world. This task is the creation of peace, which means in Semitic phraseology the promotion of general prosperity. Jesus, however, may have used the term in that more restricted sense which it has to the modern ear, for the absence of war was the primary condition of all kinds of prosperity in the ancient world. This, then, is the only ‘congratulation’ offered to men on the ground of their direct activity among their fellows; the rest deal with character and with attitudes of soul. This is concerned with the dealings of a man with his fellows, and suggests that the aim of God and of the God-like man is the maintenance of right relations between men. The ideal of God for human society is a spiritual condition in which jealousy, rivalry, and hostility have disappeared, and a universal harmony prevails. He who is most worthy of congratulation for his true success in this difficult and complicated world of men and women is he who most perfectly succeeds in producing and upholding this harmony.
Formally there are two more ‘blessings,’ though it has been generally recognized that for practical purposes they are one and the same, the first being a general statement of the truth, and the second its particular application to the disciples of Jesus. The latter alone is represented in the Lucan form. Again the element of paradox is strongly marked; those who are persecuted—‘hunted down’—are to experience a complete reversal of position and to rise to the very Realm of heaven—the Kingship of God. The reader’s mind goes back at once to the first of the world’s great religious persecutions, the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to root out the Jewish faith and the Jewish sense of nationality. In those days too many of the faithful had been forlorn, oppressed, ill-treated … wanderers in the desert and among the hills, in caves and gullies (Hebrews 11:37 f.). And Jesus sees that it is just these hunted fugitives who will be—who are—the real lords and owners in the Realm of heaven.
The particular application of this law to the disciples differs verbally in the two gospels, and Matthew’s is undeniably the less vigorous and picturesque of the two. It is possible that the evangelists had different versions of the same Aramaic original before them, or even that there were differences in detail between the fundamental texts. But there is no difference in the principle involved. In order to compensate for and counterbalance the sufferings they will have to endure in this life, there will be awaiting them a rich harvest in the next. And the evidence for this fact (this is the only instance in which Jesus offers evidence) is that the prophets, who more certainly than any others deserved and obtained a reward in heaven, received exactly the same treatment that may befall the disciples.
Robinson, T. H. (n.d.). The Gospel of Matthew (J. Moffatt, Ed.; pp. 27–33). Harper and Brothers Publishers. (Public Domain)
Ver. 11, 12.—These two verses are merely an expansion of the thought in ver. 10. Under the reign of unrighteousness, righteousness must necessarily suffer. The different forms of persecution by word and by deed are then more particularly specified.† (Ὀνειδίζειν, is persecution by word, διώκειν by act. Luke 6:22 has added ἀφορίζειν, to separate, to exclude from ecclesiastical and political communion. At the head of them all is put slander [πονηρὸν ῤῆμα εἰπεῖν ψευδόμενος], such as the charges of murder and licentious habits brought against the first Christians. Luke has given the thought somewhat modified: τὸ ὄνομα ὡς πονηρὸν ἐκβάλλειν = ἀφορίζειν, only a stronger expression.) But our Lord adds, as the peculiar feature of the persecution, which is endured because of the truth, that it is ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ, for my sake. By this weighty expression, the doctrine of Christian patience (closely allied to self-denial, which also is to be exercised only for the Lord’s sake), first attains its true significancy. (See note on Matth. 10:39.) Since Jesus is himself the truth and the righteousness, and that, too, manifested in a living person, pure suffering for what is good requires faith in him to be exercised by the members of the kingdom of God. Where selfishness prevails, there cannot be such suffering as bestows happiness. But where such suffering is incurred for the faith’s sake, and is borne in faith, it perfects the inward life, and awakens the desire for eternity. This latter point is very prominent in ver. 12, since we are there called upon even to rejoice in opposition to sufferings. (Ἀγαλλιάω, exult = גִּיל. It is a stronger term than χαίρειν, rejoice. Luke 6:23 uses σκιρτᾷν, leap.) This joy, with respect to ourselves, does not exclude sorrow in reference to the persecutors. In the former respect, the suffering is only a testimony to the believer that he is God’s. In the “woe” (6:26) Luke presents the other aspect. The exciting of human applause presupposes a worldly spirit. Where that is given, it is to be feared that the applauded one belongs to the community of the wicked, and of the false teachers (ψευδοπροφῆται), just as the persecuted one is thereby numbered with the company of persecuted prophets. (The reference to the prophets gives greater prominence to that aspect of the discourse, which shews it to have been addressed to the actual disciples, ver. 1.) The mention of the μισθός, reward, ver. 12, appears remarkable, as it seems to reconduct to a legal point of view. In the kingdom of God, the motive for actions is not the reward in itself. The term was, perhaps, chosen with immediate reference to the position of the disciples, as Christ’s earlier discourses do often still bear a legal coloring; but there is, too, a reward for pure love—a reward which is pure in proportion as the love itself is; for the reward of love consists in being appreciated, and in moving in its own atmosphere.
† According to John 16:4, the Saviour did not first speak to his disciples of the persecutions that awaited them. It is not improbable, therefore, that the mention of them in this place is among the parts taken from later discourses. Yet they are found mentioned as early as Luke 6:22.
Olshausen, H., Ebrard, J. H. A., & Wiesinger, A. (1857–1859). Biblical Commentary on the New Testament by Dr. Hermann Olshausen (A. C. Kendrick & D. Fosdick Jr., Trans.; Vol. 1, pp. 299–300). Sheldon, Blakeman, & Co. (Public Domain)
CHAPTER FIVE
Contents: Sermon on the mount. Beatitudes. Believer as salt and light. Christ’s relation to the law. Divorce.
Characters: God, Jesus.
Conclusion: The relationship of a child of God will be manifested in the world by his shining and burning as a light for Christ, by his quiet and savory influence in society, and by his conformity to the Word of God in all things.
Key Word: Sermon on the Mount, vv. 1, 2.
Strong Verses: 3–16, 18, 28, 32, 39, 44, 48.
Striking Facts: v. 3. Some teach that the teachings of the sermon on the mount are applicable only to the future earthly kingdom of Christ, not the present age, and as such are postponed until Christ’s second coming. However we think of the “kingdom of the heavens” as the church age, during which Christ, through regeneration, is peopling the heavens, and these principles seem to have clearer application to the present age than to that time when righteousness shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
Brooks, K. (2009). Summarized Bible: Complete Summary of the New Testament (p. 8). Logos Bible Software. (Public Domain)
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