Lecture

When we turn to Matthew 5:3–12, it seems that Jesus has grouped His blessings, His kingdom blessings, into two groups of four with the repetition and extension of the eighth beatitude added into what we think of as His ninth. In this bridge video, we’re going to look at those first four, which seem to all tie together as reversals of fortune, we might say, for those who, by this world’s standard, seem to be very unfortunate—“the poor in spirit” (verse 3), “those who mourn” (verse 4), “the meek” (verse 5), and “those who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (verse 6)—perhaps the most important thing is to understand exactly who Jesus is talking about.

The “poor in spirit” is a notoriously ambiguous expression. It could sound like He is referring to those whose spirit, whose Christian spirit (whose Christian maturity, we might put it) is very poor. It was very immature, but that would certainly be no reason from anything else that Jesus ever taught for considering someone blessed. Much more probable is the fact that the poor in many parts of the Old Testament, particularly the Psalms, the Proverbs, and several of the prophets—including a passage that Jesus will quote repeatedly throughout His ministry (Isaiah 61:1) that includes a promise that the suffering servant makes “to preach good news to the poor”—use the Hebrew word, which does involve a level, a dimension of socioeconomic deprivation. These are not rich people who just happened to be godly, but neither are they poor people indiscriminately. They are those who, because they are Israelites and because they are part of the covenant, know that God, rather than anything of this world, must be their only hope. Those kinds of people, now, as they direct their allegiance to Jesus, have…present tense. This is part of the already of the “already, not yet” kingdom. Theirs is the “kingdom of heaven”: God’s reign of justice in the Lord’s Prayer “on earth as it is in heaven.” God’s reign, which is perfectly experienced in heaven, is now breaking into earth and blessing these people so that they can flourish.

“Blessed are those who mourn.” What makes people mourn, lament, cry, be sorrowful? Certainly personal sin is a key dimension, but all of the effects of the fall in all of their cosmic dimensions, the corruption of humanity, and the fact that the created order is out of sync with God’s original purposes must surely be involved as well here. It’s important to go back to Isaiah 61 again to a not as well-known part of the passage: “The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted [another expression very synonymous for those who mourn], to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.” And then finally at the end of verse 2, “to comfort all who mourn.” Notice that Jesus now switches to the future tense. Yes, people who mourn in all of these ways in Christ can have a comfort now, a kind of comfort that only God can provide, but full and complete comfort will come only in the future when God establishes His kingdom through Christ in all its fullness.

“Blessed are the meek”—the third beatitude (Matthew 5:5)—that’s a word that doesn’t have good press in the twenty-first century. It sounds like someone who is a doormat or a wallflower just being walked over, trampled upon, or pushed around. The term in the Greek can also mean those who are humble. Humility was not considered a virtue in the Greco-Roman world of Jesus’ day. It was in Judaism, but not elsewhere. But the term is not just a subjective attitude. It can refer to an objective status: Those who are humbled by others, or, as we might put it today, those who are humiliated (from the same root) by others. And again, if we go back to those poor, in the Old Testament oftentimes the reasons for their socioeconomic deprivation were because they were oppressed in some way by the unjust power brokers of their world. These people, Jesus says, will inherit the earth. They don’t have it yet though. Again, there will be a partial inheritance in this world. And it’s interesting that this part of the beatitude echoes Psalm 37:11, where the humble Israelite will inherit the land of Israel. But now Jesus extends that to the whole earth. It supports what some have called inclusion theology, which is a way of saying, yes, Israel can get the land in the latter days, but so can gentiles. And both of them in Christ can then have the entire world. Again, we go back to Isaiah 61 and read still further all the way up to verse 7. And we see, “Instead of your shame [the servant is speaking to Israel] you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.”

Okay. And then the fourth beatitude in verse 6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” By now we see the pattern. It has to be both personally, as well as socially and worldwide. The same Greek word translates in English both to righteousness and to justice. And it helps to read the beatitude of it from both perspectives. These people will be filled—another future tense promise not entirely met in this life, but beginning to be met in Christ. It’s interesting that the desire for righteousness, as well as its satisfaction, is described in terms of a craving for food or for drink. And only Jesus, now in part and in the future fully, can fill that void, can fill the need for beatitudes all looking at reversals for those whose positions or status or character traits in this life and the standards of the non-Christian world, appear to make them unfortunate. And yet God did it; He declares them blessed.