Matthew 5:1-12

All right, welcome back to the listeners commentary on the gospel of Matthew and this recording we're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 12. And this is really the first part of the first large teaching block in the gospel of Matthew. It's the well known Sermon on the Mount and in our last recording we gave sort of an introduction in an overview of the entire Sermon on the Mount and here we begin with what is traditionally called the Beatitudes and in order to understand the Beatitudes well as well as the entire Sermon on the Mount we need to remember the setting and the context that leads into this as Matthew has arranged his gospel and so we can't just lift the Sermon on the Mount out of its narrative context and so that's really important for us to pay attention to. And so what we have in the first handful of chapters of Matthew's gospel is really like his introduction. From one one through 417 Matthew is setting the stage for where his gospel is going to go. And so those chapters introduced us to who Jesus is. He's the royal son of God. He has the correct royal lineage. His conception was of the Holy Spirit at his baptism, he himself was anointed with the Holy Spirit and then like Israel he goes through the water at his baptism into the wilderness and whereas Israel failed in the wilderness, he himself was faithful to God in the wilderness and so in so many ways he fulfills the themes and the story and the promises of the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament. And then Matthew kind of shifts midway through chapter 4 into the introduction to Jesus' ministry and he calls his first disciples, he's preaching, he's teaching, he's healing, his fame has spread and where chapter 4 ends is by noting that great crowds are gathering around him from all over the region, even from Gentile lands they're coming. And so now at this point in Matthew chapter 5 with the beginning of the sermon on the mount we have to picture that scene, great crowds all around him, that's where Matthew takes us as the sermon on the mount begins and what Jesus does then is in view of those great crowds with his first disciples, he presents his vision for life in the kingdom of God. So this showed them and it shows us today what it looks like to follow Jesus. So Matthew chapter 5, verse 1 begins like this, now when Jesus saw the crowds he went up on a mountain. So there we have it, we're connected to all those crowds at the end of chapter 4. Jesus sees all these crowds from all over the place, from all different stations of life, he sees them and he goes up onto a mountain and we talked about the traditional location of that in the introductory session to the sermon on the mount and put some information about that into the study hub, but Jesus goes up onto this mountain probably just outside of Capernaum and after he sat down his disciples came to him. So you have all these crowds and you also have kind of closer to him the disciples and so this message is for his disciples, what does it look like to follow him in the kingdom of God and for the crowds who are trying to figure out who Jesus is and whether they want to follow him or not, the crowds and the disciples, that's the audience for the sermon on the mount. And verse 2 picks up and says he opened his mouth and he began to teach them saying and he begins the sermon on the mount with what is traditionally called the biattitudes and the biattitudes have become so familiar in some ways that we can actually miss how radical they really are and not only that, but the biattitudes it seems to me have been in some ways mistot and almost turned into the very opposite of what they actually are and that is a problem as well. And what I mean by that is this that it seems like a lot of the teaching on the biattitudes has turned them into virtues to pursue that is you need to be poor in spirit and usually that's taught with you need to be humble and see your own sin and recognize what you've done wrong and then you can enter the kingdom of heaven or when it talks about mourning, oh you need to mourn in repentance and sorrow and grief over your sin and then you'll be comforted. And you hear what we're doing, we're turning them into virtues to pursue but that's not really what they are or how they function. They are blessings to be experienced, not virtues to be pursued. And we need to hear them that way remember Jesus has this whole mixed bag of an audience in front of them people from Gentiles cities, people from outlying towns, people who are faithful to Yahweh, people who are Jewish but they're not faithful at all to Yahweh and so he's got this whole crowd in front of them and what he's actually doing is inviting them into his kingdom and pronouncing that in his kingdom regardless of what their life experience has been and where they've come from they can experience the blessings of the kingdom. And so the key word in the Beatitude is that word blessed, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are merciful and so on. It's that word blessed and the Greek word behind that is Makarias and this is not the word that's used in the Bible when someone prays and asks God to bless so and so. We're not using that word that's a different Greek word. This word Makarias actually refers to an existing state of affairs, a state of being happy or being well off or experiencing good fortune. As one scholar says he writes the special feature of Makarias in the New Testament is that it refers overwhelmingly to the distinctive religious joy which accrues to a person from his share in the salvation of the kingdom of God. Did you catch that? It is a distinctive religious joy that comes not because of any particular thing in you but because simply that you have experienced the salvation that God offers in his kingdom. And so the Beatitudes are not, this is really important, they're not exhortations, they're not saying if you do fill in the blank, if you do poor in spirit, if you do mourning, if you do mercy, you will receive such and such and be blessed. That's not the way they function. What they do is they simply pronounce that these people are already blessed, that these people can experience God's blessing in his kingdom. That being blessed is the state of affairs for these kind of people in Jesus' kingdom. In other words, disciples are not being called to be poor in spirit or to mourn or to be meek or any of the other things that are listed in the Beatitudes. Yes, there are places where some of those things are described as virtues in virtue lists in the New Testament letters but that's not really what's going on here. Rather, each Beatitude describes a state of being that calls to mind various kinds of people in the audience, in the crowd and announces that in the kingdom that Jesus is launching, they can and they will experience the very presence and blessing and joy that God has for his people. Not only that, the Beatitudes frequently echo or sometimes even "promises" from the Old Testament. Promises about when God brings His kingdom, how He's going to set things right and He's going to bring about a great reversal in which those who are viewed as at the bottom actually somehow come out on top. We have to be sure that as we read the Beatitudes, we hear them this way. This is the way Jesus meant for us to understand them. They pronounce God's blessing on people who from the world's perspective, maybe even from their own feeling and estimation, they in no way look blessed and yet in Jesus' kingdom they can and be blessed. And the fact is, is every culture has some sort of vision like this, some vision of who's really well-awed, who really has life by the tail, who you look at like, "Man, that's the life," right? Every culture has a vision of who's really blessed. Not on the flip side, every culture at least implicitly has a picture of who's not blessed, like that's not really the kind of life anyone would dream of or want. We don't look at someone whose life is just hard, right? Difficult, marked by heartache. We don't look at that kind of life, and it'd be that like, "Man, that's the life." Or we don't look at someone who is painfully aware of the injustice in the world and frequently burn with longing for things to be different than what an easy life, that is such a good life, right? We just don't do that. Even like the picture of a nice guy, right, like, "Wow, he's a nice guy, but you know what to say about nice guys, nice guys finish last." Every culture has a picture of who really is well-awed, who's blessed, and at least implicitly, who's not, like what kind of life you don't want. And that's where Jesus' be attitudes come in. Jesus' be attitudes in the work of Bible scholar Mark Moore flipped the scale of honor. The point is that the scale of honors flipped upside down. Who's really well off? Who really is experiencing God's favor? Who really is truly and deeply blessed in God's kingdom? That's what the Beatitudes announce. They announce that these different kinds of people and a whole lot more can be blessed if they enter into God's kingdom. Now before we look at the details of the Beatitudes, just one quick note on form. The Beatitudes are stated this way. Here's their form. Blessed is and then for or because blessed is and so they state who is blessed and then they give in the second half the reason why they're blessed. So blessed is who and then why because here's why. So that's really important as we pay attention. They're not blessed because of who they are. They're blessed because of what they receive in God's kingdom. All right, let's jump in and then and look at the detail. So Jesus opens his mouth and he begins the sermon on the mount by saying verse three, "Blessed are the poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." So notice again the form. Who is blessed? Well in this Beatitude it's the poor in spirit. Question is what does that mean? In Luke's version of the sermon which we noted there's some significant differences between them and Luke's version, he simply has poor. Blessed are the poor but here in this version it's blessed are the poor in spirit. And so then the question is well what is meant by in spirit? It's possible that this has the sense of spiritually poor. I'm more of thought about it and the more of research, I'm just not totally certain that the phrase in spirit ever actually carries the sense of spiritually. So it could be that but in the Old Testament the poor are often the lowly and the downcast. So it's possible that the poor in spirit simply means to be destitute in their inner being. That's possible. In Isaiah 57, 15 God says that even though he is high and exalted he lives with the crushed and lowly in spirit and that's sort of a parallel parallel phrase here, lowly in spirit. And this actually seems to capture the kind of person Jesus has in mind. Those who are at the bottom of the heap, they are lowly in spirit. They have nothing to offer. They are down and out. That's the idea. Now that's who's blessed. Why are they blessed? Well they're blessed in the second half of the Biannitude because there's the kingdom of heaven. In other words, the kingdom of heaven is open and available to them. They can enter into it. And the fact is just factually speaking, it typically was those who were spiritually poor or who were destitute in their inner being who were like lowly and crushed in spirit. Those kind of people, those people who had nothing to offer, those are the kind of people who flocked to Jesus kingdom, both during his earthly ministry and even after the fact it was one of the criticisms of the early church was they certainly can't be true from the perspective of the wealthy elite and the power brokers of the Greek, Greco-Roman world. They would criticize the early Christians saying clearly what you're teaching can't be true because look who's coming into it. It's the poor and the lowly and the weak and the unimportant, right? And what Jesus is saying is here is guess what? That's right. That's who the kingdom of God is for. The door is open for those kind of people. That's the first Biannitude. Biannitude number two says, "Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted." So who's blessed in this case? Well, the mourning. That is, those whose life is hard and difficult, who are full of sorrow and grief. They have endured a lot of light, a loss, and so they weep and they mourn. And why are people like that? Like, again, you look at that and you're like, "That doesn't look like a blessed life. Why are those people blessed?" Well, not because they're mourning, but the second half because they will be comforted because when they enter into God's kingdom, they will experience His presence and His strength and His comfort partially in the here and now and fully in the age to come. These first two Biannitudes, the poor and spirit and the mourning, probably reflect the promise in Isaiah 61, 1 and 2 might be the passage of sort of the backdrop to this. And there in Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, it says that when Messiah comes, it means good news for the poor and the crushed and it means comfort for those who mourn. That's the idea here. So for those who are crushed, just beat down, downtrodden, who are mourning and for whom life is difficult. And when Messiah comes, there's good news for them. And Jesus is announcing that news in Biannitudes 1 and 2. Verse 5 then states, "The third Biannitude," and it says this, "Blessed are the gentle for they will inherit the earth." So who is blessed in this case? Well, it's the gentle, at least the gentle in this translation. And the word is often translated that way. This particular word is often translated gentle, but the range of meaning for this word also includes the idea of lowly and meek. In fact, this Biannitude derives directly from Psalm 37. In Psalm 37, this idea of the lowly and meek inheriting the earth shows up several times, but most clearly and directly in Psalm 37 11. And there it refers not just to the gentle per se, but to the lowly, to the meek, those who are under the thumb of the wicked. While the wicked get ahead, they feel like they can never get ahead. And they're told in Psalm 37 to wait on the Lord and to trust Him. And that someday the wicked will be no more. And if they trust in the Lord, the meek and the lowly, well, they will inherit the earth. And that's who Jesus has in mind here. And as audiences, a full of these kinds of people, he looks out at this crowd of people, there's tons of people who are like this. They are oppressed. They are under the thumb of wealthy landowners. They are under the thumb of various kinds of oppressors or people who just are holding them down, right? And it just feels like they can never get ahead. And the wicked get richer and they are trying to be faithful and they don't get anywhere. And Jesus says, "Blessed are you." Why? Well, not because you're lowly and and me, but because you're going to inherit the earth just to Psalm 37 promised. That's why you're blessed. When God's kingdom comes in full, you will not just have a little share of the earth. You're going to inherit the whole earth. And so someday you really will get ahead. Verse 6 then states the next be attitude and says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied." So who's blessed in this case? Well, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now, what does that refer to? Well, it could mean that they hunger and thirst to become righteous. That is possible. But the word righteousness also means justice. It refers to putting things right. In fact, that's one of the most common ways it's used in the Hebrew scriptures. And in light of the first three be attitudes and in light of the themes of the Old Testament text that lie behind those be attitudes and in light of the original setting of this crowd of people in a difficult situation where most of the population is, you know, subsistence level living, right? And they're working for wealthy landowners and they can't get ahead and you have the Roman military controlling the situation and life is hard, right? In view of that original setting, as well as everything else lying behind this be attitude, it seems to me that the idea of justice is probably what Jesus is getting at. Here is a person who has starved to see things made right, to see all the wrongs of the world set right. That's who we're talking about. That's who's blessed here. If you're like that and you look at the world and you just see all the hurt and all the difficulty and all the injustice and you long to see that made right. And the Jesus kingdom, people like that, well, guess what? They're blessed. Why? Because someday they will be satisfied. Someday, God is going to bring about a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells and which all the wrongs of the world have been set right and in which the world now finally works the way it's supposed to. That's the way Peter puts it in 2nd Peter chapter 3, this new heavens and new earth. And so they're blessed because they're looking for that and in Jesus kingdom they're going to experience that someday. Verse 7 then says, "Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy." So who's blessed? The merciful. And typically it seems like for us, at least it seems to me that the first thing we think of when we hear the word mercy is forgiveness. And while forgiveness is one expression of mercy, it's not the only expression of mercy or even really the main expression of mercy in the Bible. Mercy is fundamentally the act of helping, helping to alleviate suffering, helping to meet a need, or in some other way coming to that persons and Hey, that's the way Mercy is frequently used in both the Old and the New Testament. Mercy sees someone's suffering and someone's misery and is roused to help. That's the idea. You see that, for example, in blind Bartimaus, calling out to Jesus, where he says, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. He's asking Jesus to help, to do something about his wrong situation, his blindness, or you see it with the lame man at the gate beautiful in the book of Acts, where he's asking for alms, the word alms, it's actually a form of the word mercy, help my poverty-stricken situation. That's the idea of mercy. So the merciful is a person who takes pity on, who shows compassion and then moves to meet the needs of another person. And I think it's fair to say that merciful people are appreciated when we need them, but their life is rarely invoked because they're constantly giving, they're constantly serving, they're constantly helping. But in Jesus' kingdom, he says, they're blessed. Merciful people are blessed. Why? Because they're gonna receive mercy too. They will experience compassion. They will experience people's care, people's willingness to help. They will experience getting their spiritual needs met, forgiveness and life from God, but they'll also experience other needs being met too. And so it's this idea of being merciful, leads to mercy, people being merciful back to you. So blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. The next one, in verse eight, is blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And so who's blessed? Well, the pure in heart. And this echoes really a number of places out of the Old Testament, but I think of Psalm 24, Psalm 24 celebrates God as king, and then asks a series of questions, and then provides an answer. Here's what Psalm 24 verses three through five says. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who may stand in his holy place, that is who may draw near to God himself into his presence to worship him? Well, the answer is one who has clean hands in a pure heart, there's our phrase, who has not lift up his soul to deceit and who has not sworn deceitfully, he will receive a blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. That's the pure in heart. This one who, what they want more than anything else is to be faithful and loyal to God, their heart is pure, they're being loyal to him, they want to see God. And what's the blessing? Well, they get their heart's desire. They're gonna get to see God what they want more than anything else. Blessed are they in the kingdom of God. Blessed verse nine are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God, or the children of God. And the peacemakers here are those who are blessed, and one little technical note, this word peacemaker is only found here in the Bible. And it's important for us to remember that the biblical concept of peace is much fuller and richer than what the English word often conveys. The English word tends to focus on the absence of conflict, and while that's part of the biblical word, it's more the presence of harmony and the presence of wholeness. Peacemakers are those who seek to bring about harmony, to bring shalom in their community, shalom in their neighborhoods, shalom in families. That's the idea to bring harmony and wholeness to human living and human relationships. And so peacemakers are those who work to bring about such a state of affairs. And so they are blessed in Jesus' kingdom. Why? What's the reason? Well, because they will be called the sons or the children of God. That is God himself is working to bring about shalom in the world and peacemakers. They're about God's business by trying to bring shalom and harmony to this world. And then in the last handful of verses, we get one final beatitude, plus sort of an amplification of it. And it's kind of a surprising one. Look at verse 10. It says, "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Again, this reminds us that we're not really dealing with virtues to be pursued per se, but with different kinds of people, all those people in the audience and the crowds, different kinds of people, and the situations or the state of affairs that they find themselves in. And so here, who's blessed? Well, those who are being persecuted. They're being persecuted specifically because they're trying to honor God and do what's right. And people like that, Jesus says, are blessed in the kingdom that Jesus is launching. It's not like you're supposed to try to get persecuted. It's that if you find yourself in that situation where you're trying to be faithful to God and you're trying to do what's right. And then people oppose you and even persecute you for doing it. Jesus says, well, in that situation, people like that, they're fortunate and they're genuinely well off in my kingdom. Why? Not because they are persecuted, but just like with the porn spirit kind of rounding things out, but because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. They, they are the kind of people that are welcome in the kingdom of God or that are marked by the kingdom of God. And then what Jesus does in verses 11 and 12 was he amplifies this idea a bit so that it focuses specifically on discipleship to him and the disciples sitting right before him in this crowd of people. And so he says in verse 11 and 12, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of need. That is because of Jesus. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. And so even those who because of their association with Jesus are mistreated or persecuted or spoken against even those kinds of people, they're still fortunate and well off. Such mistreatment often goes with the territory and it puts them in good company. They're in the company of the prophets who tried to serve God and do what was right in the past. And guess what? They were rewarded for their faithfulness and you will be as well. So rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. And thus experiencing this kind of mistreatment because of your faithfulness to Jesus, it can and should be a cause for rejoicing. All right, so that's the introduction. That's like the first opening to the sermon on the mount, the statement of Beatitudes, blessings. And as we kind of wrap this up and reflect on it, what these Beatitudes really provide is like a grand invitation. Picture the scene, Jesus is sitting on this hillside and he has this crowd of people all gathered around him. We don't know exactly how many but it's thousands of people and Matthew has told us they're from all around the region. You got all sorts of different kinds of people and Jesus knows it. He can see the faces, he knows these kinds of people and he speaks directly to them and what he's offering to them is a grand invitation. He's been pronouncing that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's being launched by Jesus. And if he looks at this crowd, he's inviting them to enter into it. All are welcome. Doesn't matter whether you come from, are you crushed in spirit and destitute and you have nothing to offer as life been hard and you're beat down and you just feel like you can never get ahead. The wicked keep getting ahead and you wonder why and where is God and all of that. You want to see the world made right or you're trying to do what's right and people are opposing you and you're persecuted wherever you're at, whatever life has been like, whatever has brought you to this point, whatever state of affairs you find yourself in, guess what? What Jesus is doing is he's opening up the door to his kingdom and he's saying come into my kingdom and you can be genuinely well off and blessed in my kingdom, both now and even more in the age to come when the kingdom comes fully. The kingdom of heaven can be yours. All right, thanks for tuning into this session on the listeners commentary on the gospel of Matthew. The listeners commentary is made possible by the generous support of all sorts of people just like you and we're able to give it away for free because a tons of people give $5, $10, $20 a month and allow us to share this with people all around the world. So thanks a ton for your support and if you want to join the team of supporters, all you have to do is swing over to listenerscommentary.com. 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