These are all indications of careful planning and thought. So as we study it we must not ignore the fact that the sermon is extremely carefully constructed and well thought out.

We have said ‘threefold or fourfold’ because on the whole ‘do not give what is holy to dogs --’ fits best as the closing caption to what has gone before (see later), nevertheless as it also appears to act as an antecedent to ‘ask and it will be given to you --’ it would seem that it performed a twofold function. Possibly both uses were intended, with the fourth comparison also opening and bringing into contrast the final words.

Having then briefly laid down the basis for our approach, we will now commence with a summary analysis of the three chapters, after which we will then study each of the sections one at a time.

Analysis of 5.1-7.29.

• a Opening summary concerning the circumstances and the hearers (5.1).
• INTRODUCTORY WORDS.
• b The ways in which God has blessed Jesus’ disciples, His implications from this concerning the attitudes now continually required of them, and the guarantee of the present and eternal results which will follow (5.3-9).
• c The persecution of the true prophets and the anticipated persecution of the followers of Jesus because of their prophetic status, and their subsequent blessedness because of it (5.10-12).
• d The effect that His disciples are to have on the world as salt and light (5.13-16).
• THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS.
• e The importance of recognising that Jesus is not replacing the Law of God but is establishing and reinterpreting it so as to lift it out of the straitjacket in which men have placed it, in order to lead His people to a true righteousness exceeding that of the Scribes and Pharisees (5.17-20).
• f Five expansions and fuller explanations of the Law, each following the pattern ‘you have heard that it was said --- but I say to you --’, stressing the inner meaning of each Law. They are not describing rules to be obeyed, so much as a way of life to be followed, and exhorting His disciples to be true sons of their Father (5.17-43).
• f Three (or four) warnings against hypocritical ostentation in religious behaviour following the pattern commencing, ‘when you --- do not -- but when you --’, the middle one of which includes the pattern prayer in which they are to seek the coming of His Kingly Rule and set their eyes on Tomorrow’s bread (6.1-18).
• f Three caveats against self-seeking behaviour, accompanied by encouragements to do the opposite, each of which culminates in assurances of the Father’s resultant blessing, the middle one of which includes the need to seek the Kingly Rule of God and not to seek earthly bread and clothing (6.19-7.6).

  (There is in fact an argument for combining these last two under the heading ‘do not- -- but ---. They are both in fact dealing specifically with the contrast between what they must not do, and what they must be).

• e The importance of recognising all the good things that He has for them and of seeking their heavenly Father earnestly for them because He delights to give them. They are to seek righteousness and the things of righteousness (6.33). It should be recognised that here He is talking of spiritual things and spiritual enlightenment, not of obtaining material possessions, something excluded by what has been said previously (7.7-12).
• CLOSING APPLICATION.
• d His disciples are to choose the narrow and afflicted way rather than the wide and broad way (7.13-14).
• c Warnings against the dangers of false prophets who will be known by their fruits (7.15-23).
• b The attitude which His disciples are to have towards His words, and the eternal results which will follow, as revealed in the parable of the two housebuilders (7.24-27).
• a Closing summary concerning the circumstances and the hearers (7.28-29).

It will be noted that ‘a’ is an opening summary, followed in the parallel by a closing summary. That in ‘b’ Jesus commences with encouragement and in the parallel He closes with encouragement and warning. In ‘c’ He speaks of those who are true prophets being blessed, and in the parallel of the fate that awaits false prophets. In ‘d’ He calls for their true behaviour to have an impact in the world, and in the parallel He stresses the path that that true behaviour must follow. In ‘e’ He calls for His disciples to seek true righteousness, and in the parallel to seek the good things of God, (which very much includes true righteousness). Centrally in ‘f’ are His various exhortations followed by His instructions on what to be rather than on what to do.

It is surely not accidental that the section dealing with the reorientation and ‘expansion’ of the Law (5.21-48) is in five divisions. Five is the number of covenant and we may see this as the renewal of the ‘requirement’ sections of the new covenant, based on the old covenant, although now written in the heart, a new covenant which is being made with the beginnings of the new Israel (Jeremiah 31.31-34; Ezekiel 36.26-27; Hebrews 8.8-13). It is the law to be written in the heart by the Spirit. But it is a renewal and revivifying of the Law, not its replacement.

It will be noted that the passage deals with personal relationships, rather than simply with basic deeds. The old law spoke of murder, adultery and divorce, false testimony in court, seeking vengeance, and a restricted form of love; but Jesus has in mind both murder and hatred; adultery and lust; false accusations and lack of truth as a whole; a restriction on the idea of demanding personal justice from others to its fullest extent, which will result rather in compassion and generosity towards others; and the need not only to love one’s neighbour, but also to love one’s enemies, and indeed to love all men everywhere. His words epitomise what lies at the very heart of direct relationships between people, and describe what needs to be done about it. It will be noted that stealing and coveting are not brought in here. They speak more of an attitude towards ‘things’. In chapter 5 Jesus is considering relationships and attitudes towards persons, and ‘things’ will be dealt with in what follows.

These five new ‘commandments’ are then followed by the six warnings, (or seven), with their antitheses, (twice three indicating intensified completeness, or seven indicating divine perfection), which emphasise true worship and religious practise, followed by an emphasis on single-mindedness towards God, a right attitude of heart towards material things, and the avoidance of all greed (and therefore stealing and coveting) and censoriousness, along with all self-aggrandisement and hypocrisy. These warnings demand the humility and purity of heart revealed in the Beatitudes, without which they would fail of accomplishment (5.3-9).

It will be noted that on the whole the Sermon is composed, not so much of specific commandments, but of an attempt to cover every major aspect of life. That is also the basis of all the beatitudes. That is what Jesus does, for example, with the five things that ‘are said’ by men which He then ‘improves on’. He does not say that the originals were wrong in every case, only that they were treated in too pedantic and limited a fashion, or misapplied. He then goes to the root of them and brings out what His disciples’ attitude of heart should be with regard to the subjects that they dealt with, making them inescapable. And the same applies to the warnings which follow and their antitheses. In each case His emphasis is not so much on what must be done but on the attitudes that must be maintained. He does not replace the Law, He transfigures it.

Having recognised this we can now therefore look at His words in detail. But before doing so we should perhaps note the recurrent themes throughout which are central to the whole. Thus:

• He commences with the guarantee of the Kingly Rule of Heaven (God) for those who are truly His (5.3) and this idea continues throughout (5.3, 10, 19-20, 35; 6.10, 33; 7.21). As we shall see it lies at the very heart of His message from beginning to end. It is because they have responded to the Kingly Rule of Heaven in the first place that this is now required of them, and it because they are under the Kingly Rule of Heaven now that they can be expected to carry out what He teaches, and can look on God as ‘their Father in Heaven’. He is Father to those who are under His Kingly Rule.

  If it be asked whether this is speaking of the present Kingly Rule of Heaven over His disciples on earth, or the future everlasting Kingly Rule of Heaven, we can only reply that in most cases it refers to both. It refers to the Kingly Rule of Heaven in general, because there is only one Kingly Rule of Heaven. Some serve in it on earth (Jerusalem is ‘the city of the great King’ (5.35), and thus He already reigns on earth), others serve in it in Heaven. It is only occasionally that we have to differentiate. Some press into it now on earth (11.12), and repentant tax-gatherers and prostitutes enter it in front of the Pharisees’ very eyes even in the time of John (21.31), while all who are His will one day enjoy the fullness of the privilege above (8.11). It is not a place, so much as an attitude towards the King and a sphere of spiritual existence (elsewhere thought of to some extent in Ephesians in terms of ‘the heavenly places’).

• He also stresses their personal relationship with their heavenly Father throughout (5.9, 14, 45, 48; 6.1, 6, 8, 9, 14-15, 18, 26, 32; 7.11, 21). As those who live in accordance with the spirit of the beatitudes they are called ‘the sons of God’ and enjoy being under ‘the Kingly Rule of Heaven’ (5.3, 9), and He is therefore their ‘Father in Heaven’. And it is because of this, and this alone, that His teaching is practicable and liveable. But notice the gradual increase in Jesus emphasis on the idea. As the light of the world they are to reveal their Father to the world (5.16). This is then followed in 5.45, 48, by the instruction that they are to reveal themselves as true sons of their Father by demonstrating love to all men and by being perfect as He is perfect. And from that moment on it is as though a spring has burst forth, for their heavenly Father is constantly mentioned as they set their hearts on things above (6.1, 6, 8, 9, 14-15, 18, 26, 32), until eventually He brings them into the very inner sanctum of their Father (7.7-12), at which point the central portion of His teaching ceases, and He closes with exhortations to faithful response because men must do the will of ‘His’ Father (7.21).
• In both middle sections He contrasts how they should view themselves in contrast to the Gentiles (5.47; 6.7, 32). In each case the idea is not that of a simple contrast, but that of one which sees the Gentiles as the most extreme illustration that could be suggested (each time we could see it as signifying ‘even the Gentiles’). The Gentiles are not simply seen in contrast, they are considered to be the very last people on earth who could possibly have been considered to be an example to follow in religious behaviour. This was particularly relevant in Galilee where there were many Gentiles. Thus while He stresses that the disciples’ way of thinking must be changed from that prevalent in Israel, it is not by turning away from Israel to the example of the Gentiles. They are rather to be what in God’s eyes Israel was always intended to be, the true Israel fully delivered from ‘Egypt’ (see on 2.15). They are to be the new Israel, the true vine (John 15.1-6). Indeed their attitude and worship is not only to be unlike that of the worst of the Scribes and Pharisees, it is also to be totally unlike that of the Gentiles. We have here the similar idea to that found in John 4.22-24. Salvation is of the Jews, but only once their total attitude is transformed.
• Note that the basis of the behaviour required of them in 5.38-48, which would otherwise have been deemed unreasonable and impossible of accomplishment, is underpinned by the promises found in 6.7-8, 25-34, the one requiring the other. Without the idea behind the latter the former would be almost incomprehensible. It is because of their trust in their Father and the certainty of His provision that they can be expected to seek to be ‘perfect’ like Him and as generous as He is in the way that Jesus describes. Otherwise it would all be just a hopeless dream, for it demands total self-giving beyond what is reasonable. It would often require rich young rulers to give up their wealth (something that has many times actually been seen to happen among Christians throughout the ages who took these words seriously), and it would require all of them to think very carefully about their way of living.

So as we approach this section we must do so recognising that if we are to understand its contents, we must see them as spoken to those who are consciously in submission to the Kingly Rule of Heaven, and therefore:

• As those who have the privilege of recognising God as their heavenly Father Who watches over them in a unique way, and Whom they can approach in a unique way.
• As those who recognise that their righteousness must exceed the outward show of the Scribes and Pharisees.
• As those who recognise that they are also to differ in their whole approach from the mass of Gentiles.

In other words they are to see themselves as the new Israel who are replacing the old (21.43), the new ‘congregation’ (16.18; 18.17), His new firstborn (compare Exodus 4.22). Or perhaps we should rather alternatively say that they are to see themselves as bringing the old Israel to fruition, with the dead wood being cut out and replaced by new branches (John 15.1-6; Romans 11.17).

His words are thus spoken to an exclusive company who are to be different from both the old Israel and the Gentiles, although an exclusive company that anyone may join by repenting and coming under the Kingly Rule of Heaven. Of course He longed that all of Israel might participate in this new Israel, but He would soon learn to His anguish that they would not (11.20-24), and therefore restricted His preaching and that of the disciples to ‘the lost sheep’ among the house of Israel (10.6), telling His disciples not to waste their time on those who would not listen, but rather to shake from their feet the dust of those who did not see themselves as lost sheep, thus treating them as Gentiles (10.14).

A further thing to note at this point is the numerical patterns contained in this carefully produced sermon. It commences with a sevenfold pattern (5.3-9). That indicates that the divine hand is on ‘those who are blessed’ (by God).

This is then followed by seven threefold patterns, some of which include either twofold or threefold possibilities:

Seven Threefold Patterns.

• 1). In verses 10-16 ‘you’ (His disciples) are addressed, and are advised that firstly they are to be persecuted for His sake (10-12), secondly they are to be the salt of the earth (13), and thirdly they are to be the light of the world (14-16).
• 2). In verses 17-20 the ‘Law’ is firstly to last as long as the present creation does (18), secondly it is not to be relaxed (19a), but is alternatively to be done and taught (19b) (two alternatives), and thirdly their obedience to it must not be like that of the Scribes and Pharisees (20).
• 3). In verses 21-26 there is an overall threefold pattern which includes other threefold patterns. Thus we have firstly the warning concerning three different forms of prospective ‘murder’ together with their threefold connected judgments (22), secondly the need to be reconciled with one who has been offended, expressed in a threefold way as bringing his gift to the altar, leaving his gift before the altar, and offering his gift at the altar (23-24), and thirdly the warning of the threefold consequence that may follow for those who are not willing to be reconciled, being brought to the judge, handed over to the police, and put in prison (25-26).
• 4). In verses 27-32 we have the threefold activities related to adultery, firstly looking on a woman with lust in the heart (28), secondly cutting off if necessary the eye and hand (two alternatives) in order not to sin (29-30), and thirdly a warning against making an alternative attempt to commit adultery through unacceptable divorce (31-32).
• 5). In verses 33-37 we have firstly that they are not to swear by any of three things connected directly with God (34-35), secondly that they are not swear by their heads (with the two alternative possibilities of white or black hair) (36), and thirdly the need for them only to say one of two possibilities, ‘yes’ and ‘no’ (37).
• 6). In verses 38-42 we have three examples of generosity, firstly ‘do not resist someone with bad intentions’ (39-41), secondly ‘give to him who begs from you’ (42a), and thirdly ‘do not refuse him who would borrow from you’ (42b). The first example is then illustrated in a threefold way, by the striking on the right cheek (39), the suing for the coat (40), and the giving of assistance for one mile (41).
• 7). In verses 43-48 we have firstly the command to love their enemies, as their Father in Heaven does, secondly the two alternative examples of how it is not to be done, and thirdly the command to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect.

So the threefold patterns dominate in a sevenfold presentation.

Opening Summary (5.1-2).

5.1-2 ‘And seeing the crowds, he went up into the mountain, and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying,’

Jesus had seen many crowds, and had welcomed them, but at this point in time He considered that they were preventing Him from teaching His disciples more specifically. So He went up into the mountain to get away from the crowds. The description is deliberately separating this teaching off from that to the crowds.

The definite article on ‘the mountain’ may simply indicate ‘the mountain nearby’, or it may indicate a favourite mountain which He used regularly. Or it may even convey the idea of a place for special seekers after God, just as today after a time of prayer we might say that we have been ‘on the mountain top’. The quieter atmosphere and surrounding grandeur would certainly enable His disciples to listen better. But there is no attempt to associate it with anything in the Old Testament Scriptures. Matthew is not here overtly trying to present Jesus as a new Moses. Rather he is seeing Him simply as attempting to get the disciples somewhere where they can be brought closer to God, just as He had previously sought out the wilderness when he was working out His future.

Note On The Mountain.

It is probable that the mention of ‘the mountain’ is to be seen as significant in Matthew. Mountains in Matthew can be divided into three groups, mention of a ‘high (or very high) mountain’, mention of ‘the mountain’, and general mentions of mountains, including the Mount of Olives.

1). References to a high mountain.

There is one reference to ‘a very high mountain’ and one to ‘a high mountain’. The former was probably an ideal mountain, and the second literally one that really was unusually high. But both are places where Jesus had extreme experiences. Let us briefly consider them:

• ‘Again, the Devil takes him up into a very high mountain, and shows him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them’ (4.8).
• ‘And after six days Jesus takes Peter, James, and John his brother, and brings them up into a high mountain apart’ (17.1), and there He is transfigured before them.

It will immediately be obvious that these are two ‘out of this world’ experiences. In the one the Devil is trying to draw Him into his clutches, in the other He is surrounded by God’s glory as His own glory is revealed (compare John 1.14; 17.5). It may well therefore be that in these cases the height of the mountain was also to be seen as symbolic, as well as in one case literal.

2). References to ‘The Mountain’.

It may well be that when Matthew indicates that Jesus went up into ‘the mountain’ he wants us to know that He has an important message to convey, for each example contains an event of significance.

• a ‘And seeing the crowds, He went up into the mountain, and when He was sat down, His disciples came to Him’ - (for discipleship instruction - 5.1). When He was come down from the mountain, great crowds again followed him (8.1).
• b ‘And after He had sent the crowds away, He went up into the mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, He was there alone’ (14.23), after which he walked on water as a demonstration of His power over creation, and over nature. By this He makes clear that He is not only the Lord of the land, but is also the Lord of the sea, a sea of whose power His disciples were well aware. His people had good cause to remember His power over the sea (Exodus 15.8, 10, 19) and the sea was always an unknown force, the control of which by God was looked on with awe in the Psalms (74.13; 77.19; 89.9). And the result is that they worshipped and said, ‘Truly You are the Son of God’ (14.33).
• b ‘And Jesus departed from there, and came near to the sea of Galilee, and went up into the mountain, and sat down there’ (15.29). And there the crowds came to Him and He performed miracles and fed four thousand men along with women and children at a covenant meal. ‘And they glorified the God of Israel’ (15.31).
• a ‘And the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into the mountain where Jesus had appointed them’ (28.16). And there He appeared to them and gave them their commission to make disciples of all nations and promised His continuing presence with them.

It will be noted that in the first two cases the mountain is seen as a kind of haven from the crowds. In the third case it does not at first appear to be a haven from the crowds, but we should note that this is a special crowd. They are all included in the partaking of the covenant meal and have been with Him in that isolated place listening to His words for three days. They are therefore almost if not completely disciples, and not just the normal ‘crowds’. The fourth case fits into the pattern of the other three. It is where He meets with His disciples to give them their commission for the future.

Furthermore the first and the last examples are places where Jesus specifically charges the disciples with their responsibilities, while the two middle ones reveal His power over creation, and end with the glorifying, in the one case of Jesus, and in the other of the God of Israel. We are probable therefore justified in seeing mention of ‘the mountain’ as pointing to ‘mountain top’ experiences.

End of Note.

And there ‘He sat down’ and His disciples ‘came to Him’. His sitting down suggests that their coming had been anticipated. It was normal for a Jewish Teacher to teach His disciples sitting down. And once they were there He ‘opened His mouth’ (compare 13.35 citing Psalm 78.2). The idea behind this phrase would seem to be that of indicating something new that would be spoken (compare Ezekiel 3.27; Daniel 10.16). Then after that ‘He taught them’. We note therefore the careful preparations made to get everything right for the delivery of what He was about to say. He clearly considered it to be very important.

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 kinds of proverbs. 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; 12.25 with parallels; 13.32; Matthew 5.12; 6.20; 16.19; 18.18; Luke 6.23; 10.20; 12.33; 15.7.

He speaks of God as ‘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 God 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/Luke7.25); 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 verse 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 therefore, when considering His teaching, always be looking out for evidence of a similar idea.

Thus following these precedents ‘Blessed ones (makarioi), the poor in Spirit’ must be seen as drawing attention to the fact that such people are to be seen as like that precisely because they have been blessed by God. (It is similar to using a passive verb). 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 by ‘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 (compare Isaiah 57.15), 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 3.11 as active through Jesus. See on that verse and compare Luke 11.13; John 3.1-6; 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 not therefore being 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 (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 (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. (Compare John 6.44). 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 therefore really meant that 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 (verse 3; compare Psalm 70.5; Isaiah 11.4), and the sin-convicted (verse 4, compare Psalm 34.18; 51.17; Isaiah 57.1; 66.2). They are the lowly in heart (verse 5, compare Psalm 138.6; Proverbs 3.34), and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (verse 6, compare Psalm 42.2; 63.1; Isaiah 41.17-20; 55.1-2). They are the merciful (verse 7, compare Psalm 18.25; Proverbs 11.17), and the pure in heart (verse 8, compare Psalm 24.4), and the ones who make peace (verse 9, see Psalm 34.14; 37.37; Isaiah 32.17 and contrast Isaiah 59.8; Jeremiah 6.14; 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 - 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 (verse 3; compare Isaiah 11.4; 57.15), to God’s present comforting and to the enjoying one day of God’s eternal comfort in the new Jerusalem (verse 4; 11.28-30; Isaiah 52.9; 66.13), to the inheriting of the earth and of the new earth (verse 5; 19.29-30 with Mark 10.30-31; Luke 18.30; and see Psalm 37.9, 11, 18, 22, 24, 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 (verse 6; Psalm 17.15; Isaiah 24.16; 32.17; 51.5; 61.3, 10; Daniel 9.24; Hosea 2.19; Malachi 4.2), to the obtaining of everlasting mercy (verse 7; Psalm 100.5; 103.17; Isaiah 54.8), to the hope of seeing God as He really is (verse 8; Revelation 22.4; Psalm 17.15; 42.2), and to being called, with tenderness, ‘the sons of God’ (verse 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 - 20.28; 23.11; Luke 12.37; 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’ (5.19), they will receive less praise from God (1 Corinthians 4.5).

Jesus seems regularly 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” (3).
• b “Blessed ones, those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (4).
• c “Blessed ones, the lowly, for they will inherit the earth” (5).
• d “Blessed ones, those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled” (6).
• c “Blessed ones, the merciful, for they will obtain mercy” (7).
• b “Blessed ones, the pure in heart, for they will see God” (8).
• a “Blessed ones, the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God” (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; 51.5). Through Jesus they can be assured that God’s righteousness will triumph, and that they themselves will be filled with and surrounded by righteousness, the righteousness of God, 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 verses 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.

So 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 came 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 (Psalm 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 (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 (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 chapters 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 (1 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’ (3.11) and shining His light on them (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 previously 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 (verse 3; compare Psalm 70.5), and the sin-convicted (verse 4, compare Psalm 34.18; 51.17; Isaiah 57.1; 66.2), and the lowly in heart (verse 5 compare Psalm 138.6; Proverbs 3.34), and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness (verse 6 compare Psalm 42.2; 63.1; Isaiah 41.17-20; 55.1-2), and the merciful (verse 7; compare Psalm 18.25; Proverbs 11.17), and the pure in heart (verse 8, compare Psalm 24.4), and the ones who make peace (verse 9, see Psalm 34.14; 37.37; Isaiah 32.17 and contrast Isaiah 59.8; Jeremiah 6.14; 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 - 3.11; Psalm 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 (verse 3); and they can be sure that they will be encouraged and strengthened (‘comforted’) in the future (verse 4, Isaiah 40.1; 49.13; 51.3, 12-13 etc.); they will inherit all that is best on the earth, and in the end will ‘inherit’ (and therefore receive as a gift, for inheritance is a ‘gift’ word) the new earth which is for ever (verse 5, Psalm 37.9, 11, 18, 22, 24, 29); they will find spiritual fullness both in the present and in the future (verse 6, compare Isaiah 35.7; 41.17-19; 44.3; 49.10; 55.1); they will obtain mercy, both day by day and in that Day (Psalm 100.5; 103.17; Isaiah 54.8); they will ‘see God’ now and will see Him even more really in the hereafter (Revelation 22.4; Psalm 17.15; 42.2; 1 John 3.2); 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, and have been 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 (3.3; 4.14-16; 8.17; 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 3.3; 4.15-16; 8.17; 12.14-16; 20.28).

5.3

‘Blessed ones, the poor in spirit.’ This certainly includes the thought that those spoken of (the blessed) are ‘happy’ and ‘enjoying spiritual fullness’ and blessed because of the future benefits that they will enjoy, but that is not at the heart of its meaning. Rather His emphasis is that they are that because of what God has done in them. Its central meaning is that they are ‘poor in spirit’ because they have been actively and positively blessed by God. They have been worked on by the Holy Spirit (see Psalm 143.7 with 10). They have been given a new heart and a new spirit (Ezekiel 36.26). It means that they are like this because God has worked within them to make them humble within, and that that is why they are as they are.

As previously mentioned, but repeated here so that it will not be forgotten, the use of the passive verb or its equivalent, without an obvious reference, is regularly a way in Jesus’ teaching of indicating God as the subject. It is typical of Jesus’ teaching. It was a method used by the apocalyptists, and also later used by the Rabbis. And here Jesus is using the adjective makarios (with the verb assumed) in the same way. He is saying ‘blessed indeed by God are those whom He has made poor in spirit in the right way, so that as a result of that poverty of spirit they have come to listen to Me and to respond to My words in order that they might enjoy ultimate blessing. How glad they should be that they have not been hindered from it by wealth or arrogance or the cares of life, and all this is because God has blessed them and worked in their lives and made them poor in spirit’.

This word ‘poor’ basically indicates the destitute. But in the Old Testament it regularly refers to the godly who recognise their own desperate spiritual need. It became a synonym for the godly in Israel. And we therefore regularly have to determine from the context whether the literal poor or the ‘poor in spirit’ are in mind (see for example Psalm 22.24 where ‘the poor’ refers to the Psalmist, and it is a Psalm of David).

Luke expresses similar words as being spoken by Jesus directly to His listeners. ‘Blessed are you poor’ (Luke 6.20) he depicts Jesus as saying, and he compares it with, ‘Alas for you rich’. At first this appears to be saying something different, as though He was saying that it was a blessing to be very poor, but in fact He is not. For the ‘you’ is what makes the difference. It is only those poor in front of Him, poor though they may be, who are said to be blessed, and they are seen to be blessed precisely because they are the responsive poor. They are here in Jesus’ presence because they recognise the poverty of their lives and are looking for something better. They have thus been chosen by God to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingly Rule which He has promised to those who love Him (James 2.5). On the other hand the rich onlookers, who were probably observing Him either out of disdainful interest or in order to decide what to do about Him, came under His ‘Alas’ or ‘Woe’ (Luke 6.24-26). So the reason that the poor were blessed was not because they were poor, but because they were there with their hearts open for Him to speak to them, and were open to God’s working on their lives. Jesus is not saying that God had blessed the poor who were not there. They still struggled on in poverty without help. Thus it was only His listeners who in this case should look on themselves as favoured.

We should in this regard consider that among those whom He is addressing, are Peter and Andrew, James and John. While they have left all and followed Him, their background is not one of total poverty, and should they wish to they can go back to their boats, and their businesses (John 21.3 compare 4.21; Mark 1.20). They are not thus the helplessly poor and destitute. They are the willing poor, the poor by choice. And they are that way because they have been blessed by God within, because they had not suffered the distraction of great riches.

In view of Luke’s use of ‘poor’, which can mean ‘actually physically poor’, at least to some degree, some have suggested that we should perhaps translate 5.3 as ‘blessed in spirit are the poor’ with the emphasis on the fact that Jesus is speaking of the poor and that the poor are more likely to find blessing in spirit because their minds are not taken up with riches and ambition. But that is to miss the dynamic behind the phrase, which is indicating the positive blessing of God. It would in fact have been foolish to say that all the poor everywhere are blessed in spirit. They are not. But it was a very different matter to say it of those who, as a result of God’s blessing, were there to listen to Him.

So in neither Matthew nor Luke is there the idea that poverty itself is a blessing. Jesus’ idea is not that it is a blessing to be poor, except in so far as it is those who are less rich who tend to think more on spiritual things, and will therefore, if they respond to Him because of it, as these have who are before Him, come into blessedness. Nor is He speaking of those living in abject poverty, (although the word can mean the very poor), as though somehow that was a wonderful thing to be. Nothing was further from Jesus’ mind. His whole concentration is on the particular ones whom God has blessed, and what the result has been in their attitude towards life. Show me the person who is humbled and lowly and contrite and hungry after God and merciful and seeking to be pure in heart and desirous of making men’s peace with God and I will show you a person whom God has blessed. It will be a person who was dwelling in darkness but on whom the light has shone (4.16). He will have repented and come under the Kingly Rule of Heaven (4.17), and will have been drenched with the Holy Spirit (3.11).

The world, and the Pharisees, tended to think that it was the rich who were blessed by God, but Jesus did not see material ‘blessings’ as a blessing. He was only too aware of what wealth could do to a man’s soul. He knew that in such people ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desire for other things choked the word and it became unfruitful’ (Mark 4.19). For such people’s minds were fixed on other things than the things of God. They had too many distractions. That is why Jesus did not see the rich young man as blessed. He was indeed far from blessed. He went away sorrowful because he had great possessions. While he was rich, he was really ‘poor, and still in need of mercy, and wretched, and blind and naked’ (Revelation 3.17). That is why even today Jesus has many lip-followers whose satisfaction with their affluent lifestyles prevents them from a true living commitment. They call Him ‘Lord, Lord’ but do not do what He says (7.21). They should take note of the fact that Jesus said that there is sadly no place for them in the Kingly Rule of Heaven (it was Jesus Who said it, not us). They have not been blessed, otherwise the thoughts of their hearts would be different. But they can be blessed. Let them but respond to Him truly and they will be blessed, and will become like those described here.

Thus we must interpret Matthew here as signifying mainly poverty ‘of spirit’ (see Proverbs 29.23). This does not mean poor-spirited (although some might be that for a while) but those of whom Jesus is speaking who have a sense of lowliness, who are not bumptious or overbearing, but who rather are aware of spiritual need, and of the fact of their total undeserving. They admit that without Him they can do nothing really worth while and lasting. And this change of heart is because of God’s work within them. It may be that being poor helped them to come to this position. But it is certainly not a position enjoyed by all who are poor.

A similar phrase, ‘poor in spirit’, was found at Qumran which supports this interpretation. There it signified a helplessness and lowliness of spirit which was looking for God to step in and help them, because they could do nothing of themselves (although in a different context). So the whole point in Luke is that their hearts (whether rich or poor) have not been prevented by riches from coming to Him, while in Matthew we may see it as similar to its meaning at Qumran. Indeed the Psalmists regularly spoke of ‘the poor’ when they were indicating the humble and lowly, possibly because most of such were to be found among the relatively poor in contrast with the godless rich (see Psalm 34.6; 37.14; 40.17; 69.28-29, 32-33; Isaiah 61.1). Such people may in the end be seen as summed up in the words of Isaiah 57.15; 66.2; Psalm 51.17. They are those who are of a contrite and humble spirit who tremble at His word.

The idea of the godly poor thus becomes synonymous with the righteous, while the ungodly rich become synonymous with the unrighteous. Compare Psalm 37.14 where ‘the poor and needy’ are paralleled with ‘the upright in the way’. This is something later exemplified in the Dead Sea Scrolls (for example the War Scroll parallels ‘the poor in spirit’ with ‘the perfect of way’ (War Scroll 14), and says of them ‘you will kindle the downcast of spirit and they will be a flaming torch in the straw to consume ungodliness and never to cease until iniquity is destroyed’ (the War Scroll 11)). But the final attitude of those mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls was not the same as the one that Jesus was encouraging, for they wanted nothing less than to destroy their enemies and put the ungodly to rout. However, the initial idea of poverty of spirit was similar, even though it had a very different outcome.

But with all this emphasis on ‘the poor’ it is quite clear in the end that not all the poor are actually righteous, nor are all the rich actually unrighteous. For as Jesus declared in the context of the failure of the rich young man, God can work miracles in all (19.26). God is merciful to all who call on Him from a true heart.

‘For theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven.’ To them (hoi ptowchoi) ‘belongs’ the Kingly Rule of Heaven. That is, they have entered under His Rule now, and they will enjoy it now, and also in the everlasting future. We may here bear in mind Psalm 22.28 where the Psalmist declares ‘of YHWH is the Kingly Rule (Psalm 21.29 LXX tou kuriou he basileia), and He reigns over the nations’, and this in a context where He has ‘not despised the affliction of the poor’ (verse 24, Psalm 22.25 LXX ptowchou), where ‘the poor’ is the Psalmist, and it is a Psalm of David. Thus it is to the poor (ptowchoi) in spirit that the Kingly Rule of Heaven belongs.

Almost the whole of Judaism was waiting and longing for this ‘Kingly Rule of God’ to be manifested on earth (although in a totally distorted way) but it was these few who were poor in spirit who were to receive it and enjoy it. For God had purposed His Kingly Rule and eternal life for those whom He had purposed to bless, those whom He will draw to His Son (John 6.44). And the reason that the Kingly Rule of God is now seen to be theirs is because they are now responding to Jesus and following Him (see John 10.27-28). They have put themselves under His kingly rule. Their awareness of their spiritual need and their lack of concern for worldly goods (they were willing to leave all and follow Him) is the consequence of their having turned their thoughts towards Him, and they have submitted to His Reign over their lives. Notice the present tense, which contrasts with the future tenses that follow, thus stressing its ‘presentness’. ‘Theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven’. It is something that they enjoy even now. For the Kingly Rule of God is within them and among them (Luke 17.21). They are pressing into it and refusing to take no for an answer (11.12). But it is also a permanent present. It signifies that the Kingly Rule of God will also be theirs in the future, when they will enter into the everlasting Kingdom, for that is in the end simply a continuation of His Kingly Rule on earth (see Isaiah 11.4; 42.4). Thus those who have been blessed by God, and are His, enjoy both present and future blessedness.

5.4

This is not saying that it is good to be in mourning because the result will be that someone is sure to comfort us. It rather has in mind Isaiah 40 (‘comfort, comfort, my people’) where the people of God were mourning over their sin, and God promised that finally He would come to them and encourage and strengthen them, and lift them up. He would take them in His arms like a shepherd and would ‘comfort’ them (Isaiah 40.11). In the same way the Anointed Prophet will come ‘to comfort (encourage, strengthen, establish) all who mourn’ (Isaiah 61.2) and to give them ‘the oil of joy for mourning’ (Isaiah 61.3), words which Jesus must surely have in mind here. These mourners, then, are those who are looking for ‘the consolation’ at the hand of the Lord of what are at present a downtrodden remnant who represent the true Israel (Luke 2.25). They are discovering that ‘the Lord is near to those who are broken-hearted and who are contrite in spirit’ (Psalm 34.18; compare Psalm 51.17; Isaiah 57.1; 66.2). And they have been brought into that blessed state by God so that through it they may be freed from their sins and brought through to enjoying the sustaining presence of God, which was a position that must now with God’s encouragement and strength (‘comfort’) be constantly maintained. And the result is that both now and in the future life they will continue to be ‘comforted’ and made strong (see Isaiah 49.15).

We may include here also the thought found in Psalm 119.136, ‘My eyes shed streams of tears because men do not keep your Law’. Here the mourning is of a godly sort caused by the fact that other men and women do not love God’s Law. Those who are His are always constrained in this way. Nothing grieves them more than the failure of men and women to respond to and love God’s word. It is the result of the Psalmist himself having become contrite in spirit. For further Old Testament examples of mourning over sin see Ezra 10.6; Psalm 51.4; Ezekiel 9.4; Dan. 9.19-20.

Thus the idea here is that those who are disturbed about their sinfulness, and about the sinfulness of others, to such an extent that it has caused them to mourn over it and seek Jesus, are like this because they have been truly blessed by God, and the result is that they will have found in Him the encouragement and strength that they need. They are thus seen to have truly repented. And they will therefore also enjoy His Great Comfort, both now and in the Last Day (Isaiah 40.1; 49.13; 51.3, 12-13 etc.).

So we are here already seeing the kind of people who make up Jesus’ disciples. They are humble and lowly, and aware of sin. And they have recognised in Jesus the One Who has come to save His people from their sins (1.21). And that is why they are seen as being those who have been blessed by God.

5.5

The ‘meek’ are those who take the buffetings of life and do not rebel against them overmuch. They accept them from the hand of God. They do not get riled up at them. They are not always seeking revenge. They accept what life brings. They do not allow themselves to be upset over things that they can do nothing about. They do not throw their weight about. They concentrate on what does matter. They are ‘meek and lowly in heart’ like Jesus was (11.29). Thus the word could be used to describe an animal which responded to its reins.

And yet like Him ‘the meek’ are strong for what is right. For they are bold in testimony. When necessary they speak out against sin. But even in boldness of testimony they remember Whose they are (1 Peter 3.15). They respond to His reins. That is why in 1 Peter 3.4 Peter speaks of, ‘the hidden man of the heart in the envelope/clothing of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price’.

In Psalm 69.32 ‘the meek’ are paralleled with those ‘who seek after God’. Their ‘meekness’ (Godlike humility) does not mean that they let people walk all over them. But it does indicate they are not always thinking of themselves and their own rights. Rather they think more about others and about God. They are exemplified in 5.44-48.

The words here are actually cited from Psalm 37.11, where we are told that such people will ‘inherit the earth’, in contrast with those who ‘will be no more’ (Psalm 37.10-11). In the context in the Psalm the idea behind this is of a wholesome and prosperous life, enjoying the earth’s benefits, in contrast with the sudden doom of ‘the wicked’ (the ungodly). The latter may not happen immediately but God sees that the day of the wicked is coming (Psalm 37.13), while the righteous know that their heritage will abide for ever (Psalm 37.18). So the meek, the godly, those who are responsive to God, will find that they prosper spiritually in their life on earth and that things on earth will be good to them, at least spiritually (19.28-29; Mark 10.29-30). And in the end they will finally inherit the new earth in which dwells righteousness (2 Peter 3.13; Isaiah 65.17), the new earth in which is based the eternal Kingdom.

But this could not possibly have been said of all meek people. For it is totally untrue to say that all who are meek will ‘inherit the earth’. Many of them will in fact be ground into it, even though it may sometimes be true that often the meek will survive when the strong have destroyed each other. But the Psalmist is rather speaking of those who are like this because of their response to God. God has blessed them and made them meek, and it is because they are the blessed ones of God that they will ‘inherit the earth’, both in terms of enjoyment in this earth, and, in the final consummation, in the new earth.

A very good example of true meekness was Moses. He was ‘meek above all men who were on the face of the earth’ (Numbers 12.3). But that did not mean that he was a soft option. What it meant was that he never fought his own cause or considered his own interests. He was wholly out for the Lord. When people attacked his own interests he left it in the Lord’s hands. But how different it was when people attacked the Lord’s interests. Then his strength was supreme, but always in obedience to what the Lord told him to do. And indeed the one time when he did give way to his own urgings he forfeited the right to enter the promised land with his people, because he had disgraced the Lord in front of them (Numbers 20.12).

5.6

We must here first consider what hunger and thirst in these terms signify. It must be remembered that these words were spoken to people, many of whom could only afford at the most one good meal containing meat a week, if that. And what they had then had to be shared with the whole family, while during the remainder of the week they subsisted on what they could afford, which was often very little. Hunger was what happened when even that failed. So they regularly knew what real hunger meant. For some it was a constant experience.

Furthermore many of them constantly knew what it was to be out working in the hot sun and be some distance away from water, meanwhile having to carry on until the opportunity came to struggle through the heat of the sun to find a well, which might well contain but little water, which they would share between them. Thus for them being what we would call really thirsty and panting for water was a regular experience. And even in the good times they knew what it meant to have to depend on water from a distant spring and having to share any available water collected with their families and friends. But that was everyday experience. They would not think of it as thirst. Thirst came when they were caught in a sandstorm in the wilderness, having to wait, kneeling down with their faces covered and their backs to the wind, until the storm died down, sipping any water that they carried and then having to survive until they could find more, with their lips cracked and dried, their throats parched, and their thirst constantly growing worse and worse.

So they regularly knew what real hunger and thirst meant. To them it was not just a matter of feeling a little peckish and a bit parched, but of real hunger and thirst. And this was what they would think of here, a craving and desire which had to be satisfied.

‘After righteousness.’ Verbs of hungering and thirsting are usually followed by the Genitive indicating the desire for a part. The use of the Accusative here therefore signifies the whole rather than a part. Thus the idea here is of seeking total righteousness.

In its central place in the chiasmus, this beatitude sums up all the others. And it is speaking of the ones who are genuinely ‘hungry and thirsty for full righteousness’. They long for it and they crave it. And because of this, and because it is what God has worked within them, they will all be filled. For they had been made aware of their lack of righteousness, and they have repented, and they are aware that Jesus has brought them forgiveness, and so now they are hungry and thirsty to have more of it and to be more like Him (Psalm 42.2; 63.1; Isaiah 41.17-20; 55.1-2), and the promise is made that they will finally be ‘satisfied’, their hunger and thirst will be satiated, and they will have all that they need.

Basically they had been made aware of their sin and spiritual need, and in their hunger and thirst they had turned to look to the source of their salvation, to Jesus Christ (compare 1.21; John 4.10-14), Who had saved them from their sins. They had been made righteous in Him (2 Corinthians 5.21). And this had now given them an even greater hunger for righteousness. They ‘seek first the Kingly Rule of God and His righteousness’ (6.33). That is their great desire. And so they now look for that work which God has begun in them to continue until they are themselves fully righteous in practise in the sight of God, until God wholly approves of them, until they are unblameable before Him. They want His Kingly Rule to be made real in their lives. So nothing is more important to them than to seek His righteousness, and to be like Him (1 John 3.2). And they do this because God has blessed them, and given them this hunger and thirst, and because they are confident that He will continue to bless them. How different these people are from modern man’s picture of the ideal man, confident, overbearing, selfish, and spiritually bankrupt, or even the self-righteous. But these latter are hardly likely to be blessed.

We should note here that in Isaiah, ‘righteousness’ regularly equates with vindication and deliverance. It is active righteousness, God’s righteousness in action. Through the work of the Anointed Prophet His new people are to be given a garland of rejoicing, the oil of joy and the garment of praise and this in order that they might be called ‘trees of righteousness’, (as a result of) the planting of the Lord, so that He might be glorified (Isaiah 61.3). Thus they will be able to say, ‘He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness’ (Isaiah 61.10), indicating by this that He has not only accepted them as righteous, but has been acting on them to make them righteous. The idea in both cases is that God has acted in righteous deliverance, so that, by His action, His righteousness, will not only be revealed but will also surround them and be imparted to them, with the result that their own resultant righteousness, will be revealed. For when the skies open He will pour down righteousness as the rain (compare the drenching in the Holy Spirit - 3.11) and the earth will produce deliverance (Isaiah 45.8). Isaiah 44.1-5 demonstrates that this very much has in mind spiritual blessing.

And again He says, ‘I bring near My righteousness --- and My salvation will not delay, and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel My glory’ (Isaiah 46.13; see also 51.5, 8; 56.1). Here again God’s work within them is in mind. So when God brings near His righteousness to those who are hungry and thirsty after righteousness, they will enjoy His deliverance and salvation, while the Mighty Warrior, ‘the Redeemer Who will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression (repent) in Jacob’, will also be upheld by salvation and righteousness, and He will wear righteousness as a breastplate and the helmet of salvation on His head (Isaiah 59.16-17, 20). The idea in all this is that God the Righteous One, through His Redeemer, will act in righteous power producing righteousness and salvation in His people. This is the righteousness for which those blessed by God will be hungering and thirsting. It is first imputed as they are taken up in His righteousness, and it is then imparted as they are changed from glory into glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3.18).

And along with a personal desire for righteousness we may see here the thought of their longing for the deliverance and vindication of all God’s true people, something which is to be revealed as a result of His powerful activity. They long for God’s salvation to come about in themselves and in all His people, as they long for the Messianic deliverance. They look for the establishment of righteousness under God’s King (Isaiah 11.1-4) and Servant (Isaiah 42.1-4). This combination of personal aspiration and corporate hope is a full part of the Gospel. The individual is important, but the individual is also part of a larger body of which he or she is a member. Each is the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6.19), and yet so are the whole body (2 Corinthians 6.16). And it is the presence of the Holy Spirit that will produce righteousness.

‘They will be filled.’ The word indicates that their hunger and thirst will be fully satisfied. They will enjoy something of His righteousness even now in all its aspects as He moves in saving power among them, but in the end they will be even more fully vindicated, being made fully righteous, and enjoying righteousness to the full when they are presented holy, and unblameable and unreproveable before Him. They will in the end gorge on true righteousness, enjoying to the uttermost extent the righteousness of God in Jesus, both imputed and imparted, and sovereignly exercised on them as in Isaiah. And they will not just enjoy it as individuals, they will enjoy it as part of God’s true people. They will see God’s purposes come to their full consummation with themselves being a full part of it. God’s King (Isaiah 11.1-4) and Servant (Isaiah 42.1-4) will have been finally established in righteousness and justice, and His people will all be one in it together with Him.

So while the emphasis in the first three beatitudes has been on men’s attitude towards God because God has blessed them, and on God’s resulting response to them, although it would certainly be an attitude that made them responsive to their neighbour, now in this fourth beatitude the full significance of His righteousness and salvation on behalf of His people has been made known. And then finally in the last three beatitudes Jesus will turn His thoughts more specifically towards their attitude towards others. For they must love both God and their neighbour. In these beatitudes, then, is revealed something of what is in the heart of God.

5.7

Not only does God make men lowly of heart and contrite, but He also blesses them by making them merciful, so that in return they can find mercy from Him. Such people as have been described will inevitably be merciful because God has been at work in them. They will thus forgive others because they have been forgiven (6.12, 14-15; 18.33). That is why Jesus could point out that those who would not forgive could not be forgiven. For it was evidence that they had not been made merciful. The merciful will have compassion on the weak, and give strength to the needy, because they are aware of their own need (9.13; 12.7). They will not be over-judgmental and yet will always be ready to humbly help their brothers and sisters (7.1-6; 12.7). They are meek at heart, so they will not exert their rights to the detriment of others (5.38-39). And the result is that they will obtain mercy from God and will have God’s forgiveness now, and mercy in the Last Day (Psalm 100.5; 103.17; Isaiah 54.8). ‘They will obtain mercy’. That is, God will be merciful to them. They will bask in His abundant mercy. For God is the abundantly merciful (Exodus 20.6; 34.7; Numbers 14.18; Deuteronomy 4.31; Psalm 18.25; 103.8, 17; 136 all; Isaiah 49.10, 13; 54.8, 10; 60.10; Zechariah 10.6)

The idea of mercy is seen as important in both wisdom literature (Proverbs 3.3; 11.17; 14.21, 22, 31; 17.5; 20.28; 21.21) and the prophets (Isaiah 57.1; Hosea 4.1; 6.6; 12.6; Micah 6.8; Zechariah 7.9). Mercy and truth are not to forsake men (Proverbs 3.3) and the merciful man does himself good (Proverbs 11.17), so that those who are glad at calamity will not go unpunished (Proverbs 17.5). Mercy, along with truth, even preserves the king, for his throne is upheld by mercy (Proverbs 20.28). And men must especially show mercy to the poor (Proverbs 14.21, 31). In Isaiah 57.1 the righteous are paralleled with the merciful. And when there is no mercy in the land (along with truth and the knowledge of God) God has a controversy with His people (Hosea 4.1), for God desires mercy and a knowledge of God rather than offerings and sacrifices (Hosea 6.6). Indeed to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God is God’s prime requirement for man (Micah 6.8), while in the exercising of justice, mercy and compassion must always be present (Zechariah 7.9). Thus mercy is at the very centre of God’s requirements for His people, and it was partly the lack of this that angered Jesus about the Scribes and Pharisees (9.13; 12.7; 23.23). It was the sin that finally showed them up for what they were.

5.8

Those whom God has blessed (by saving them) will also be pure in heart. Central to the thought here is Psalm 24. The ones who would ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place must have ‘clean hands and a pure heart’ (Psalm 24.4). Then they will not ascend in vain. And this involves among other things not having one’s thoughts fixed on vain and useless things, nor on dishonesty and deceit (Psalm 24.5). The pure of heart have their hearts fixed on God and are open and honest. None can therefore say that they have been truly blessed by God if there has not come into them a yearning for such purity of heart, for without it they cannot approach God. It is the upright and righteous who can behold His face (Psalm 11.7; 17.15). If men and women have no desire for purity of heart it is thus clear that God has withheld His blessing.

And this purity of heart results in a singleness of mind and purpose, and a rejection of all that is impure and false. The ones whom God has so blessed may still be sorely troubled by impurity of thought, but their greater desire will now be to be freed from it. They will hate impurity. For the pure in heart are those whose eyes are fixed on God and on what is good. Their eye is single (see 6.22; James 4.8) and their heart is pure, and this purity of heart will result in equanimity of spirit. They set their hearts on whatever is true, honourable, right, pure, lovely or gracious (Philippians 4.8). They do not lift up their souls to what is false, or engage in lies (Psalm 24.4). They are not envious of others (Psalm 73.1). They do not allow their eyes to stray (5.28). They rather turn their eyes and their hearts away from anything that displeases God. And thus their vision will be clear and they will see God in their hearts, ‘seeing Him Who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11.27), and one day will see Him as He really is (1 John 3.2; Revelation 22.4; Psalm 17.15).

Moses speaks of it as resulting from ‘the circumcision of the heart’ which removes men’s stubbornness and enables them to love the Lord with their whole being (Deuteronomy 10.16; 30.6). The hardness is cut away from their hearts leaving ‘a heart of flesh’ (Ezekiel 36.26, compare Isaiah 44.1-5; Jeremiah 31.33-34). They have thus become new creations (2 Corinthians 5.17). And that is what has been the experience of those disciples who have responded to God in repentance (4.17) and are here with the genuine intention of listening to Jesus. They have been blessed by God with purity of heart, and thus with a singleness of mind that is also pure. And it provides them with a spiritual check up before the final application in the remainder of the Sermon. If they fail here they need go no further.

5.9

The final description in the list is of those who seek to make peace, because they have been blessed by God. God has worked within them and given them peace, contentment and wellbeing (shalom) and so they seek in the right way to reconcile people with each other and to calm troubled waters. They are peacemakers. Their great desire is that of establishing harmony among men and women by dealing with the problems that lie between them. They are to ‘seek peace and pursue it’ (Psalm 34.14; 1 Peter 3.11). They are to seek to fulfil Paul’s dictum, ‘If it be possible, as much as lies in you, be at peace with all men’ (Romans 12.18). Such a suggestion would not have been seen as good news by many Galileans. They had a reputation as turbulent rebels. They hated the Romans and took every opportunity to hit back at them. So for it to be suggested that they should be peacemakers would have riled them beyond bearing. But it was an essential part of Jesus’ message. He was here as the Prince of Peace.

And He wanted to remove from His disciples any idea that He might be here to make war. He wanted them to see that He had come to reconcile men to God, not to set them at each other’s throats. On the other hand, having said that He was a realist. And so He also later warned them that His coming would spark off dissension and hatred (10.34-36), it would set people at the throats of Christians. But that was not to be the result of the activity of the blessed, and was not in mind here. That would come about through the unblessed. At this point He was laying a foundation of peacemaking.

But even greater than the desire to make peace between men should be the desire of those whom God has blessed to bring harmony between men and God. They should love their enemies (5.44). They should long that all men and women might find peace with God. For this is in the end what making peace and producing wellbeing is all about. In Old Testament terms to proclaim peace is to declare the Good News of salvation (Isaiah 52.7). It is to seek to bring men to God. It is therefore to proclaim the coming of the Servant of the Lord (52.13-53.12) and Prophet (Isaiah 61.1-2). For there can be no real permanent peace without reconciliation to God. Thus they do not try to suggest that such peace is available without repentance, saying ‘peace, peace, where there is no peace’ (Jeremiah 6.14; 8.11), because they know that that would be foolish. For above all they want to bring men and women into a peace with God that is true and genuine. So they proclaim only what is true, even when that does not satisfy others. It is not peace at any price.

Such people then walk in peace and at peace, while proclaiming the whole truth. Their feet are shod with the shoes of the Good News of peace (Ephesians 6.15). And they follow the Prince of Peace and His ways (Isaiah 9.6), and require that others do also. They seek to bring men and women into the Kingly Rule of God, so making peace. They seek to break down the walls of partition between men by bringing them to Christ (Ephesians 2.14). And by this they thus reveal themselves as true sons of God, in that they are behaving like God, and like His Son, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9.6). Thus here the term ‘sons of God’ would seem largely to indicate those who are declared as sharing the same aims and purposes as God, and as behaving as He does (compare 5.45).

So we see here an attitude completely contrary to that at Qumran. There all hope was for the war that would drive out their enemies and establish God’s people (themselves). They exulted in the idea. Their idea was peace for themselves and destruction for their enemy. But Jesus’ attitude is revealed as the very opposite of that. His people were to seek to make peace, both between God and man, and between man and man, applying it in the end to all men who would respond. And in general it would not be a very popular idea.

But where do we find the idea of ‘sons of God’ in the Old Testament, other, that is, than the bene elohim (the ‘sons of the elohim (God’) who are angels? And why should the term be specifically connected with peacemakers?

One place in the Old Testament where Israel are seen as the son of God is found in Exodus 4.22, where Israel is depicted as His firstborn son, something which is in mind in Hosea 11.1, which is in turn cited in Matthew 2.15. But there the thought is of the singular ‘son’. Israel was there God’s corporate son. So if Jesus had had Exodus 4 in mind He could have used the singular ‘son’. On the other hand there are other places where Israel are described in terms of being His sons. The idea is, for example, found in Deuteronomy 14.1, ‘you are the children (LXX - ‘sons) of YHWH your God’, where it is an argument used for showing why they should not do undesirable things. A similar use is found in Hosea 1.10 (compare 2 Corinthians 6.18) where the restored of Israel will be called ‘sons of the living God’ because they have been restored and are to be abundantly blessed in numbers as a result of their restoration to God, a verse which, in 2 Corinthians, is connected with their being set apart as pure and separated to God. All these examples demonstrate that the term ‘sons of God’ denotes a people of especial holiness and purity, and this might well be seen as going along with being peacemakers.

But the place where ‘a son’ is most connected with peace making is in Isaiah 9.6. There the Son who is to be born will be the Prince of Peace. So Jesus’ point here may well be that those who are like the Son in being peacemakers will themselves be seen to be true ‘sons of God’, enjoying their sonship through Him (see Galatians 4.4-7; Romans 8.9-17). And they will thus be identified as God’s sons in the everlasting Kingdom. (Compare Hosea 1.10 which is spoken of the restoration of those who had previously gone astray).

We may thus summarise the seven beatitudes as indicating the attitude wrought in men by God as a result of His work in their hearts, an attitude required by Jesus to be continued in His disciples (and us). And this work that God has brought about in them is so that they will continue to be like this, and enjoy the present blessedness and future rewards that will certainly be theirs. They describe what His disciples have become through repentance and entry into the Kingly Rule of Heaven, and give them something by which they can measure the genuineness of their own salvation. And the result will be that as they keep their minds fixed on things above they will become more and more like this, with God more and more working in their hearts to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2.13), and as a result they will be truly blessed, both in the present and under the eternal Kingly Rule. And all this is in the light of what God has done within them through the Holy Spirit at work through Jesus (3.11) and because Jesus is saving them from their sins (1.21).

The Persecution of the Godly, And the Blessedness That Is Seen To Be Theirs As A Consequence. They Will Therefore Be Like The Prophets Of Old Who Were Also Persecuted, And Will Be The Salt Of The Earth And The Light Of The World (5.10-16).

It will be noted that we have not included verse 10 in the above series of beatitudes, even though it appears to follow precisely the same pattern, and in spite of the fact that at first sight it appears to be the tail end of an inclusio made up of ‘theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven’ in verse 3 and 10. And yet there is good reason for not doing so, for once examined more carefully it will be seen that it does not actually strictly follow the same pattern as the previous verses.

The previous seven beatitudes are all of a kind. They have indicated the present spiritual condition of those whom God has blessed, including aspects such as poverty of spirit, a state of mourning, meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, an attitude of mercy, purity of heart and the heart of a peacemaker. It is not a question of anyone choosing between them. All have in varying degrees been worked into the hearts of those who have been blessed by God. But this ‘eighth’ beatitude, very much refers to something done to people in the past, even though still effective in the present time, and is therefore not strictly parallel to them. It is very much ‘the odd one out’. Rather than having in mind the present position of His disciples as the other beatitudes do, it has in mind what has happened to people who are seen as connected with the past (they ‘have been and are persecuted’). They also were ones blessed by God, but they are not specifically those addressed in verses 3-9.

Thus verse 10 is neither referring to anyone’s spiritual condition, nor is it looking at the present, both of which are an essential aspect of verses 3-9. Its conformation with them is thus in form not in substance. It does not fit into their pattern.

The exclusion of it from the list of beatitudes is further supported by the fact that it fits better into the context if it is seen as introducing what follows, for, as can be seen from the chiasmus below, it fits very adequately into the pattern of the following verses. Furthermore, seeing it in this way also fits in with the idea of the seven previous ‘blessings’ as paralleling the seven ‘woes’ of chapter 23. Had the beatitude in verse 10 exactly paralleled the other seven these considerations would have had to be thrust aside, but in view of the total difference in approach from the other seven these other considerations must be seen as gaining considerable weight.

Thus it seems more probable that we are to see verse 10 as forming a very suitable continuation link between the seven blessings, and His following words which deal with the persecution of those to whom He is speaking, that is, as its being the introduction to verses 10-12, rather than as being simply an eighth blessing of a slightly different kind to the others. And as we shall see His words in verse 10 do actually form an important introduction to the theme that follows.

(We have no ardent quarrel with the majority who wish to make it an eighth rather distinctive beatitude, something which might be seen as supported by its parallel ending to that in verse 3, for after all, the two statements referring to the present possession of the Kingly Rule of God would make a good inclusio. Nevertheless in our view the overall evidence is against it and it interferes with the argument. It is better seen as transitional).

So we would suggest that its exclusion from the previous list would seem to be supported by two facts:

• 1). This beatitude is different in emphasis from the other seven, referring to something that is done to blessed ones, rather than to an attitude that they are to maintain.
• 2). This beatitude does not refer to the present in the way that the other seven beatitudes appear to do, but specifically refers back to the past. Had it been intended to be one of a group of eight why should there be such a largely unnecessary change of tense?

Certainly its likeness to them in structure emphasises how closely the seven beatitudes are to be linked with it and what follows, but in view of the change of tense the persecuted and blessed ones of verse 10 do not appear to be identical with the blessed ones of 3-9 (who are in fact referred to in verse 11). We can talk of timeless presents and the perfect taking an aoristic force as much as we like, but the question still remains as to why such a shift had to be resorted to. if it was a continuation of the beatitudes. Why not simply have verse 10 as a timeless present as well?

The question then that we must ask is why there was such a change of tense? And if it is not part of an inclusio why does it end with the same phrase as verse 3?

In fact the first question is answered if we look at the balance of verses 10-12. This small passage opens with - ‘Blessed ones those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake’, - and ends with - ‘so (as in verse 11) persecuted they the prophets which were before you’. The parallel is clear. The former is then followed by, ‘for theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven’, while the latter is preceded by ‘for great is your reward in Heaven’. Again the parallel is clear. The parallels and the balance are unmistakable. The whole emphasis of the passage is then based on verse 10 as introducing people who have been persecuted in the past. The idea is that having outlined how His disciples have been blessed He turns that idea of God’s blessing on the persecuted ones of the past, in order to introduce the idea to the disciples that they too must expect to be persecuted. Verse 10 thus includes the prophets, it includes famous martyrs of the past (see Hebrews 11), it includes John the Baptiser who has been persecuted and still is being persecuted, and it includes some of John’s disciples, who must surely also have suffered to some extent for their faithfulness to John, and were still doing so. These are shown to enjoy a similar blessedness to the people being described in verses 3-9, and that in a phrase which is similar to and follows the pattern of verses 3-9, while at the same time being intended to be introductory to verse 11. Verse 12 then goes on to make the contrast with the prophets more specific.

In view of the fact that the disciples had not yet been persecuted their persecution could not simply be described in the same form as the previous beatitudes, for it had not happened. So we may see Jesus as devising this way of continuing the general pattern of the beatitudes by following them with a beatitude on persecution which clearly refers to those persecuted in the past, in such a way that it could then lead on to introducing the future persecution of the disciples, something which He was well aware was coming. It also had the intention of introducing the persecution of those in the past as an encouragement to the disciples. A blunt introduction of the disciples’ coming persecution without the encouragement of the fact that it had already been experienced by others might have been something that He saw as too abrupt. And besides He probably wished positively to give them that encouragement. Verses 13-16 can then be seen as explaining, by contrast, what will cause men to wish to treat them so badly. No one is more hated by the ungodly than those who act as salt and come bringing light.

The mention again of ‘for theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven’ then brings out that the prophets, and martyrs, and John and his disciples, will not lose out on the Kingly Rule of Heaven either, indeed they will have the same blessing as the current disciples in verse 3. And if it be argued that the Kingly Rule of Heaven was not for them we simply point out that in 8.11 it is made quite clear that figures from the past will also sit down in the heavenly Kingly Rule of Heaven. It was not for them on earth because its time was not yet come.

This interpretation further explains the difference between ‘for righteousness’ sake’ in verse 10 and ‘for My sake’ in verse 11. John after all came ‘in the way of righteousness’ (21.32) and the blood of the prophets was ‘righteous blood’ (23.35). See also 13.17 where the ‘righteous men’ certainly include those who have suffered in God’s name. So they suffered ‘for righteousness’ sake’, for the carrying forward of His purpose of deliverance (see on verse 6), while for Jesus’ disciples there was the greater joy and privilege that they suffered ‘for His sake’. Note also how this places Jesus in a position at least on an equality with that of ‘righteousness’ (is this last a circumlocution for God on the same basis as the use of ‘Heaven’?).

By this means Jesus is seen to be bringing together the saints of the past and the saints (‘holy ones’, God’s true people) of the present, while putting the main emphasis on those in the present, that is, His listeners. Yet at the same time He is demonstrating that they are now being called on to carry on the witness (light) and preserving influence (salt) of the prophets. For Jesus’ new community this is evidence that they do not stand on their own. They are rooted firmly in the past, as the past is rooted firmly in them (Hebrews 11.40).

The Persecution of the Godly, And the Blessedness That Is Seen To Be Theirs As A Result. They Will Therefore Be Like The Prophets Of Old Who Were Also Persecuted (5.10-12).

Analysis of 5.10-12.

• a “Blessed ones, those who have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake (10a).
• b For theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven” (10b).
• c Blessed are you when men shall reproach you, and persecute you (11a).
• d And say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake (11b).
• c Rejoice, and be extremely glad (12a).
• b For great is your reward in Heaven (12b).
• a For so persecuted they the prophets who were before you” (12c).

Note how in ‘a’ reference is made to the persecuted for righteousness’ sake, and in the parallel reference is made to the persecuting of the prophets. In ‘b theirs is the Kingly Rule of Heaven and in the parallel great is their reward in Heaven. In ‘c’ those who are reproached and persecuted are blessed, and in the parallel they are to rejoice and be very glad, and centrally in ‘d’ the cruelty of the treatment of His people is emphasised.

As we have already noted this section also follows a threefold pattern. ‘You’ (His disciples) are addressed, and are advised that firstly they are to be persecuted for His sake (10-12), secondly that they are to be the salt of the earth (13), and thirdly that they are to be the light of the world (14-16).

5.10

Here those who are blessed by God ‘have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake’. This can hardly refer to His current disciples, for they are hardly yet in a position to have faced any real level of persecution. And if it had been meant to refer to them, why the change of tense? Thus the blessed ones spoken of are in the past, which is confirmed by the introduction of the present listeners in verse 11. For John, who is specifically said to have ‘come in the way of righteousness’ (21.32), had certainly been persecuted ‘for righteousness’ sake’, and we may see it as very probable that some of his faithful disciples had suffered with him in one way or another. They would not have sat idly by while he was hauled off to prison, and they may well have been roughly handled when they visited him, as very bravely they continued to do (11.2). And they may also have come in for mistreatment in the synagogues as well, in the same way as Jesus’ disciples would later. So Jesus may here be pointing His disciples in that direction as an example.

The past tense may, however, also be seen as including the prophets (who are specifically referred to in verse 12) and others who in the past have suffered ‘for righteousness’ sake’. There were in fact no lack of heroes of the faith in the past (Hebrews 11.35-38). And that such would enjoy the Kingly Rule of Heaven is implicit in 8.11 where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are also seen as enjoying it. If this is so then this reference to the persecution of others in the past is a timely warning to His disciples of what they too can expect (see 10.17-23), and an assurance that the saints of the past will not lose out, any more than they will. (It also confirms the exclusion of this beatitude from the original list of beatitudes). And the whole point is that these things happened to God’s blessed ones in the past, with the consequence being their enjoyment of His Kingly Rule. This is then ample confirmation that His present blessed ones will experience the same.

The persecution of the prophets is a clear theme in 2 Chronicles 36.16, see also 1 Kings 19.10, 14; Nehemiah 9.26; Jeremiah 2.30, so that Jesus was by no means the first to draw attention to it (21.34-36; 23.29-31, 35). Indeed, as He points out, the persecutors drew attention to it themselves (23.30). Jesus is thus aligning His present disciples with the past, as part together of all God’s purposes through history.

5.11

The switch here to the second person confirms that the previous verse is referring back to the past. His God-blessed disciples are now to recognise that they too will be reproached, persecuted and calumniated in the same way as the saints of the past. In the end people will have little good to say about them also. And in their case it will not just be for righteousness’ sake, it will be for His sake. Theirs is the greater privilege. Furthermore the use of ‘for My sake’ confirms that the listeners are genuine disciples. Only genuine disciples could suffer ‘for His sake’. They will be seen as fine while they are not treading on people’s toes, but once what they say becomes personal to the people in question, or begins to touch on sensitive ideas, antagonism will soon arise. Godly persons very often do find it difficult to understand how anyone can treat them in this way when all they are doing is taking to men and women the most wonderful message known to men, but it will in fact not be long, if their testimony is true, before they find that it is so. For they will be disturbing the consciences of men and women, and the almost automatic result will be retaliation and persecution and insults. People do not like their consciences being disturbed.

But when disciples are so treated ‘for His sake’ they can take comfort in the fact that it indicates that they are those who have been blessed by God, and that they are truly His.

‘Reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely.’ Note the small chiasmus. Persecution is central as being the most virulent, but is surrounded on each side by their being the subject of virulent words. It does, however, also follow a pattern, first the reproaches, then the persecution, and finally the calumniation of their names to the world as their reputations are destroyed.

‘Falsely’ is omitted in some manuscripts, such as D, most Old Latin witnesses and the Sinaitic Syriac version, and also in Tertullian. But the weight of the evidence is for inclusion. It was probably omitted because the copyist could not accept that the disciples might behave falsely. It does bring out to us that it is important that we ensure that we do not deserve any calumniations. It is not blessed to be persecuted for merely being awkward.

5.12

And when persecution happens they should rejoice. Indeed they should be deliriously happy. For it will indicate that they are deserving people, and it will mean that their reward in Heaven will be great. To them will belong the Kingly Rule of Heaven which has been given to the persecuted ones of verse 10. Eternal blessedness will be theirs. For such treatment will put them into the same category as the great prophets of the past. For the prophets too were persecuted by the fathers of these people in the same way as they will shortly be. This last statement parallels that in verse 10. Those prophets were ‘blessed ones’ as well.

Here then Jesus’ current disciples are paralleled with the prophets. They are presumably indeed to see themselves as prophetic men. Theirs is to be the privilege of carrying on in the train of the prophets, and indeed, because of their present position in the Kingly Rule of God, to be at present of an even higher status than they (11.11).

And here He stops, on a high note with no jarring thought of false prophets. But later He will add a warning. He will introduce the thought that they must take heed to themselves. For towards the end of Jesus’ message the contrast will be brought out of false prophets. Sadly they too will arise. And they will be known by their fruits (7.15-23). It will then be brought out that it was important therefore that His disciples recognise the danger of becoming false prophets. They were to ensure that if they were persecuted and insulted it was for the right reason. They must look to the fruit that will be borne in their lives in the doing of the will of Jesus’ Father in Heaven (7.21). By ensuring that they do His will, they will then ensure that they remain as true prophets. However, this is not part of Jesus’ message yet. At present He is speaking with positive confidence in His disciples, and showing them what kind of people they are and must be. For their present status demonstrates that they have been truly blessed by God.

‘Your reward in Heaven.’ That is, ‘your reward stored up for you by God’. This is another example of the desire to avoid using God’s name more than necessary. The point is that no one will lose out, however much they are called on to suffer.

Rather Than Deserving Reproach And Calumniation They Are to Be The Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World (5.13-16).

Having commenced His sermon by revealing what the disciples are, by virtue of God’s active work within them (His ‘blessing)’, and having warned them against persecution as a consequence, in a similar way to the prophets, Jesus now explains the significance of it for them in the context of the world. They are present in the world in their new state as preserving salt and as revealing light. And although through it many will be blessed, that is why they will be persecuted (this is the story of Acts).

Here we have further evidence that His words in the Sermon are mainly directed to disciples. Not only are they to be persecuted for His sake, but their special influence in the world is to be powerful and all-pervading. And this could only be spoken of people in whom verses 3-9 have been actualised so that what is spoken of there has become a living experience.

We are aware, of course, of how far the disciples came short of this ideal, certainly for a long time, but at least a beginning has been made. They are now changed men, and on the way to becoming ‘perfect’ (verse 48), fully matured in righteousness and love, even though they have a long way to go. They have therefore even now become agents through whom God will fulfil His purposes. This should comfort us with the thought that we too do not have to have become perfect before this can happen, for He reveals His glory in earthen vessels so that all the glory will go to Him (2 Corinthians 4.7).

The Disciples Are The Salt Of The Earth (5.13-14).

Jesus’ first declaration about His disciples is that they are the salt of the earth. And this is then followed by a grave warning. For it is possible for (Palestinian) salt to lose its savour. And then what will the result be? It will be fit for nothing but to be thrown away to become the equivalent of the dust under men’s feet.

Analysis of 5.13-14.

• a “You are the salt of the earth (13a).
• b But if the salt have lost its savour (literally ‘become foolish’) (13b).
• c With what will it be salted? (13c)
• b It is from then on good for nothing (14a).
• a But to be cast out and trodden under foot of men” (14b).

Note the parallels. In ‘a’ it is the salt of the earth, influential and effective, while in the parallel it is useless and rejected, and fit only for men to treat with contempt. In ‘b’ the salt loses its savour, and in the parallel it is thus good for nothing. And in ‘c’ we have the central punch line. If this happens there is no way in which it can be restored.

Note also the advance in thought. First the idea itself, ‘you are the salt of the earth’, then the warning, the salt can lose its savour, then the catastrophic realisation, that if it does there is then no way for it to be re-salted, then the consequence, it is useless for anything, and then the result, it becomes something to be trodden under men’s feet.

As we shall see, this combination of advance in thought alongside chiastic comparisons in parallel is a feature of the Sermon on the Mount, a sign of the genius that lay behind it.

In order to understand this illustration we have to know something about Palestinian ‘salt’. It was not pure salt. It was gathered from areas like those around the Dead Sea, and contained considerable impurities. When it was stored there was always the danger of dampness causing the actual salt (sodium chloride) to dissolve leaving behind a tasteless mass. The ‘salt’ would then have lost its savour, and there would thus be no further use for it. Some, however, argue that it is the very impossibility of salt losing its savour that is the point behind the illustration. True disciples cannot lose their saltiness. Therefore those who do simply reveal that they were never salt at all. Either way the point is the same. Without saltiness they are worthless.

5.13

‘You are the salt of the earth.’ While these salts were sometimes used as fertiliser they were not very effective as such, and that idea is probably not intended here. The meaning rather is that the disciples are like salt among the people of the world, and the thought of its uniqueness is in mind. There is no replacement for salt. In the same way His disciples were to recognise that they too were unique in the world (as Christians also ought to be, but for the right reasons, not because of peculiarities of behaviour). Salt was famed for its preservative qualities, and for making things palatable. It prevented corruption advancing so quickly, and brought out what was good in food. And it thus both kept things edible and made them enjoyable. It could also be used as a cleansing agent (Exodus 30.35; 2 Kings 2.19-22; Ezekiel 16.4). In the same way the disciples, behaving in the way described in verses 3-9, will slow down the corruption in the world, and make the world itself a better place by the effects of their example and their teaching, slowing down the spread of corruption, making the world a more tasty place by transforming many of those who are within it, and having a continuing purifying effect.

Note the ‘YOU are’ (the ‘you’ is emphatic). This was spoken to His disciples, not the general run of people. It refers to the same ones as were to be persecuted and reviled for Jesus’ sake (verse 11). The emphasis may be as a contrast to those who would revile them, or it may simply be a positive assessment of them in contrast to the rest of the world. We should note in passing that they are not told to ‘become salt’. That has already been done for them by God. They are rather to reveal the saltiness that God has put within them.

Salt was also used by the Rabbis as a symbol of wisdom (see Colossians 4.6). This may explain the use above of the Greek verb ‘become foolish’ which probably translates the Aramaic ‘tapel’. This was closely associated with ‘tabel’ which indicates to lose taste and may disguise a typical play on words of a type that Jesus loved. This then reveals the disciples as also being the source of the true wisdom in the world. They are being trained up by Jesus in order to be the world’s source of true wisdom. How sad then if they cease to do His will and become foolish.

But what if through neglect the salt lose its savour? Then it will be useless. It will cease to have any effect and will become fit only to be thrown out onto the streets, to be treated with the contempt that it deserves. This is looking back to His previous indication that the disciples are replacing the prophets, and is introducing the warning of the danger of becoming false prophets, which will be developed in more detail towards the end (7.15-23). It is therefore at this stage a warning to be careful how they behave, and how they learn and teach.

‘With what will it be salted?’ There is no way of restoring saltiness to the mass of chemicals that the dissolving of the sodium chloride (salt) has left behind. In the same way once His disciples have lost their way they will find it very difficult to get back to what they were (but thank God not impossible, for at that point there is a difference. We are dealing with God’s ability to restore. God can ‘make it again’ (Jeremiah 18.4). But this must not be presumed upon). All they can then hope for is to be tossed out for the rubbish collector to collect, meanwhile being trodden over by heedless men and women.

‘It is from then on good for nothing.’ Once men have lost the salt of a truly godly life they may witness all they like, but they will achieve nothing lasting.

‘Trodden under the foot of men.’ The phrase indicates disdain and contempt, or, even worse, being totally ignored. Once the church is ignored it is a sign that it has lost its savour. The picture is probably that of being tossed out as rubbish into the streets, to be later collected by the rubbish collectors, but meanwhile walked over by all. It has. however, been pointed out that such salts were used in strengthening the flat roofs of houses, with the result that people would then trample it under foot. But this is probably becoming too sophisticated.

Jesus regularly uses the illustration of salt, and it would simply be being pedantic to suggest that they must all have been said at the same time just because of the mention of salt. Consider Mark 9.50; Luke 14.34-35; see also Mark 4.21; Luke 8.16; 11.33. But there is little real parallel and no reason for therefore suggesting that they are the same saying taken up and used in a different context. The picture was such a useful one that He must literally have used it scores of times in different ways. The unfortunate impression given by some scholars, in their eagerness to discern what Jesus might actually have said, which results in their trying to find a core in a number of sayings, is that Jesus simply went around making inane comments, and all the interesting expansions came from the later interpreters, who were all moral geniuses.

His Light Having Shone On Them (4.16) His Disciples Are To Be The Light Of The World.

In 4.16 a great light was seen as having come into the world in Jesus Christ, and as having shone on Galilee, revealing God and Himself to the people. Now the disciples are to recognise that they have a similar function, to be a light to the world (note the oneness implied by the singular noun). And they must ensure that that light shines for one purpose only, to bring glory to God in Heaven. It is not accidental that Matthew spoke of the coming light, before describing Jesus’ teaching about them as the light of the world. We may reasonably assume from what Matthew said that Jesus had also prepared them for this by speaking in a similar way.

Analysis.

• a You are the light of the world.
• b A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
• c Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel measure, but on the stand.
• d And it shines to all who are in the house.
• c Even so let your light shine before men,
• b That they may see your good works,
• a And glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Note that in ‘a’ they are the ‘light’ of the ‘world’, and in the parallel they ‘glorify’ their Father in ‘Heaven’. By their actions on earth they are to bring Heaven to earth. In ‘b’ they are like a city on a hill visible to all, and in the parallel their good works are to be visible to all (for the right reasons, not in the same way as the Pharisees). In ‘c’ men light a lamp, and in the parallel the disciples are to let their light shine before men. Centrally in ‘d’ it is to shine to all who are in the house.

But note also that there is the prime statement followed by the progression. They are the light of the world. They cannot therefore be hidden. Nor should any attempt be made to hide it. Rather it should be allowed to shine out. Then men will glorify God in Heaven. (The twofold pattern continues).

5.14-16

“You are the light of the world.” As we have seen the idea comes from the fact that Jesus Himself has come as a light into the world (4.16; compare John 8.12). And the purpose of that light is to reveal God, and what He is like, to men on earth. God is in Heaven and they are on the earth. Thus if men who are on the earth are to see God, it must be in Jesus and in His people as they live out their lives on earth. ‘The world’ may not here have the same wide significance as in 28.19. But it contains the seeds of that idea. There may have indeed already have been in Jesus’ and Matthew’s minds the thought of the Servant as the light of the nations (Isaiah 42.6; 49.6; compare 12.18-21).

But the words that probably lie at the root of Jesus’ idea here are those of Isaiah 60.3 where Israel’s light is to shine out because the glory of God has come upon them (they have been ‘blessed’ as in verses 3-9) in order that they might shine out of darkness and be a light to the nations. This would link in with the idea of glorifying God in the last phrase of the verse, and with the recognition that they are now the new congregation of Israel (16.18; 21.43).

Note how this first assumes that the world is in darkness. That is constantly the theme of Scripture (Psalm 82.5; 107.14; Proverbs 4.19; Isaiah 9.2; 42.16; 49.9; Luke 1.79; John 1.5; 3.19; 8.12; 12.46; Acts 26.18; Ephesians 4.18; 5.8). And it then declares that in His true people God has brought light out of darkness because they have come in contact with the Light of the world (4.16; John 8.12; compare also Acts 13.47; 26.18; Ephesians 5.8).

“A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” Jesus’ idea is that the city has been set there by God, just as He has now set the disciples in the world as His witnesses. But that does not exclude the idea that men do set their cities on hills so that they can be admired. With its white houses any city set on a hill would glisten in the sun by day, and at night the lamps shining in the houses would draw attention to its presence. It thus could not be hid either by day or by night. And because His disciples have been given a prominent position, they also cannot be hid. This is bringing home the inevitability of their position. It is the inevitable position for all true Christians, a privilege given to them by God. And cities set on hills and made visible are vulnerable to attack. They will be ‘persecuted’.

This likening of the true people of God to a city is later taken up in Revelation where the heavenly people of God are seen in terms of the new Jerusalem, with its foundation laid on the Apostles. A city as one entity with large numbers of inhabitants is a good picture of the one body with its many members. There may have been a hint here in Jesus’ words of how this tiny group of disciples will grow in numbers until they become like a populous city.

“Nor do men light a lamp, and put it under the bushel measure, but on the stand.” Furthermore when men light a terracotta oil lamp in their homes it is in order that it may shine out. They do not put a corn measure over it. (Note that, as with an attempt to hide the city, the idea would be ridiculous). Rather they put it on a stand or table where it can give light to all. So would it be foolish for the disciples (and us) not to let their lights shine out before men by what they are, how they behave, and what they say. For that is now their very purpose for being in the world. This general idea was used often by Jesus with interesting variations on the theme (see Mark 4.21; Luke 8.16; 11.33).

“And it shines to all who are in the house.” The aim must be that everyone will benefit (compare Philippians 2.15).

“Even so let your light shine before men.” The illustration is now made specific. They are the light whose light is to shine out into the world before men. If they are faithful as the lamp of God they cannot help but shine, and through their lives, as well as with their lips, they will thus give testimony to Jesus.

“That they may see your good (kalos) works.” Compare here 11.4-5; Acts 2.22. Jesus would do great works. And the disciples would do similar works of power. But the people of God in general are to be zealous of more ordinary ‘good works’ because they are God’s own possession (Titus 2.14), and good works are regularly urged on God’s people throughout the New Testament. ‘Kalos’ means good in the sense of being attractive. They are not to be works that are thrust on people who do not want them. The Sermon will later amplify on these good works which in the end signify the doing of the will of His Father Who is in Heaven (7.21).

Note that what they are and how they behave is pre-eminent. If the people of God, and especially the preacher, are not behaving well the preacher preaches in vain. Their good living and positive actions for the good of others must be visible to all, not because they thrust them in front of their noses like the Pharisees and Gentiles do (6.2. 5, 7, 16), but because their good works so abound that they cannot help but be seen. They should not want to be seen of men, they should want God to be seen of men. It is these good works above all else, discreetly and lovingly carried out, that convince the world of the truth about Jesus.

“And glorify your Father who is in Heaven.” And their sole aim in all this is to be in order that men may glorify the Father of the disciples Who is in Heaven. This is the first mention of God as being their Father, but it will occur regularly through the Sermon. Note, however, that the first mention speaks of their responsibility to their Father. It is because they acknowledge their responsibility to bring glory to Him that they can later be seen as relying on His provision for them. Note also that He is the Father of the disciples, not of those who see their good works. The pronoun is specific. There is a general sense in which God is the Father of all men by creation, but in the sense used in the Sermon on the Mount He is the Father only of disciples of Jesus, those who are seeking to be true sons of their Father (5.9, 45) because of the blessing that He has worked on their lives.

Note how ‘your Father in Heaven’ contrasts with the ‘light of the world’. Their Father is in Heaven. The only way that men will see Him is if they see Him in us. For we are in the world. If our light shines brightly in what we are and how we behave (without any ostentation), men will become aware of Him and will glorify Him.

And now, the basis of discipleship having been sorted out, we can move on to the detail. For as we now come to the main body of the Sermon it is on the basis of the fact that we recognise that the working of God in His disciples in verses 3-9 has resulted in the effectiveness of their ministry to the world in verses 13-16. Had they simply perfected personal holiness in secret they might not have been persecuted, it was when they began to affect the world around them (13-16), and make the world feel guilty, that the world began to react and hit back (10-12). The world did not want to be shaken out of its apathy, and would resent it. What follows will now bring out more fully what their ‘good works’ are to be, and will reveal the way in which they are to be truly a light in the world.

IS THERE SOMETHING IN THE BIBLE THAT PUZZLES YOU?