Part 4 - The Meek, and Those who Hunger After Righteousness
Sermon on the Mount
The Christian Character
Matthew 5:3 - 7:27
(Cf. Luke 6:20-49)
This is Part 4 in a 14-part series of studies I call “The Christian Character” as described by Jesus to a crowd of people on a Galilean hillside as he delivered what is more familiarly known as the “Sermon on the Mount.” In this part we examine the beatitude, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
The 14 parts are as follows:
Part 1 – Introduction
Part 2 – Beatitudes – the poor in spirit
Part 3 - Beatitudes – those who mourn
Part 4 - Beatitudes – the meek, and those who hunger and thirst
Part 5 - Beatitudes – the merciful and the pure in heart
Part 6 - Beatitudes – peacemakers
Part 7 - Beatitudes – the persecuted and insulted
Part 8 - Salt of the earth and light of the world
Part 9 - Righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees; divorce, oaths
Part 10 - Eye for eye, loving neighbor and hating enemy, being perfect
Part 11 - Three things to do, not to be seen by men and a model prayer
Part 12 - Laying up treasures, eye is the lamp of the body, serving two masters
Part 13 - Do not judge, do not give what is holy to dogs and pigs
Part 14 - Ask, seek, and knock; the narrow gate; false prophets; building on the rock
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Review
Last week we discussed the beatitude, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:4).
A definition of mourning is hardly needed. We’ve all suffered loss and mourned, sometimes bitterly in the aftermath. Everyone mourns. Some may be mourning now. It’s a necessary element in the process of healing the wounds in our hearts.
It has been suggested that Jesus is talking about mourning because of our sins, because there is comfort in knowing Jesus has taken them all away.
I can see that as one application, provided that one mourns over his sins, prior to bringing them to Jesus. But we mourn about other things, and the language of the beatitude does not specify sins as the object of mourning that leads to blessedness in comfort received.
No cause of the mourning is specified by Jesus, so we shouldn’t restrict it in our thinking to something Jesus didn’t say.
2 Corinthians 1:3 tell us God is the provider of all comfort, regardless of what the channel of comfort is – a parent, spouse, friend, fellow Christian…or directly from God himself.
I have been told by someone in the throes of deep grief, when things were at their worst, “I felt God take my hand.” I have experienced something similar. Don’t ask me to explain it. It’s to be experienced, not analyzed.
End of review
Part 4 - The Meek, and Those who Hunger After Righteousness
BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, FOR THEY WILL INHERIT THE EARTH (Matt 5:5)
Jesus appears to be quoting Psalm 37:11 –
… the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
The phrase “inherit the earth” appears two other times in that Psalm, and once in Psalm 25.
More later on that inheritance.
Meekness – as we use the word in today’s parlance - isn’t a quality we ordinarily aim for. We’d rather be self-assured, feisty, sassy, take-charge people. We want others to think of us that way. We feel complimented when others describe us in those terms. In common use, “meek” seems to be the opposite of the personality we admire. It seems to suggest weakness, not strength.
Moses was said to be a meek man. How meek was Moses? Let’s find out:
Num 12:3 ESV - Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.
Several translations render the word “humble.”
Meekness is not bashfulness, or weakness, as it has come to mean in our day. In Moses and Jesus, meekness was co-mingled with powerful leadership qualities. But they were also gentle and tender, except when the circumstances required that they exercise other characteristics.
What does “meek” mean in the sermon on the mount? Is meekness “gentle strength” as some suggest? Maybe that’s a fair way to abbreviate it. Indeed, the meek are those who quietly submit to God; who can bear insult and be silent, or return a soft answer. Someone who is meek is humble and gentle - mild, tender, and considerate of others. Someone who is meek is not rough, cruel, and harsh...in short, a ruffian, a brute. But perhaps there’s a more comprehensive way of learning about meekness.
Do you want to learn what meek looks like? Jesus answers:
Matt 11:29 (KJV) - Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls."
“Learn of me for I am meek” is exactly what Jesus says.
To be meek is to be Christlike.
The meek, Jesus says, will inherit the earth. If the word “earth” is taken literally, the earth requires no definition. We know what it is and where it is. Is that what Jesus meant the meek are to inherit? And what should/will/can we who are meek do with our inheritance?
Verse 33 later in this sermon, Jesus says to not swear by the earth, for it is God’s footstool.
The earth is God’s footstool, created by himself as the habitation for mankind. And what a splendid dwelling it is!
Can God’s footstool be possessed by us? In some sense, yes:
Psalm 115:16 - The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's; But the earth He has given to the children of men.
Make no mistake - the earth is the dwelling place of many who are not meek. All kinds of people live here. Later on in this sermon, we will hear Jesus say:
He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt 5:45)
Then what does Jesus mean that the meek are to inherit the earth? That we are to be be rid of all the people who aren’t meek, and have the earth to ourselves, the meek?
Some do believe that this literal earth is to be the eternal home of the redeemed, but that view strains my understanding of 2 Peter 3:5-13, which projects the final destruction of the present heavens and earth.
A meaning that seems more plausible to me is rooted in the typology that characterizes the bible and enriches or understanding of divine things.
Typology is an extensive system in the bible of conveying thought, in which some person or thing that symbolizes or exemplifies in a reduced way the greater or ideal characteristics of something.
For example, the bible calls Adam a type of Christ (Romans 5:14 in context).
• Both were the first of what they were.
• In both cases their actions had universal results affecting every person who would ever live, though in opposite directions.
Adam was not another Christ – Adam was a type of the Christ.
My belief is that in this beatitude, “earth” is a type.
In the original language, “earth,” the inheritance of the meek, is ge (pronounced ghay).
It appears 226 times in the New Testament. This beatitude is one of them.
To get an idea of the ways ge is used in the New Testament, turn to Acts 7
We will read a few selected verses and see the ways “earth” in this beatitude is used in that one chapter. It appears 10 times in Acts 7.
The passages inserted below are in the English Standard Version.
Acts 7:3-4 and said to him, ‘Go out from your land and from your kindred and go into the land that I will show you.’ Then he went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living.
(In this passage, the Greek ge is translated “land” three times.)
Acts 7:6 And God spoke to this effect—that his offspring would be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who would enslave them and afflict them four hundred years.
(In this passage, the Greek ge is translated “land.”)
Acts 7:29 At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
(In this passage, the Greek ge is translated “land.”)
Acts 7:33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
(In this passage, the Greek ge is translated “ground.”)
Acts 7:39-40 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’
(In this passage, the Greek ge is translated “land.”)
Acts 7:49 “‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me, says the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?
(In this passage, the Greek ge is translated “earth.”)
In the Old Testament, Canaan was land promised to Abraham – from Dan to Beersheba and from the Great Sea (now called the Mediterranean) to the Jordan River. That’s what Stephen was referring to in Acts 7.
In the New Testament, Canaan is a well known type of heaven.
But I strongly believe that in the nearer term, Canaan points to another type - being “in Christ.”
In the New Testament, the Christian’s condition revolves around the phrase “in Christ.”
That condition – our condition - I believe is a type of heaven itself. I’ll explain.
Listen to just a handful of the descriptions the New Testament gives of our present condition in Christ:
Faith in Christ
Redemption in Christ
Alive to God in Christ
Eternal life in Christ
No condemnation in Christ Jesus
Free in Christ
Love of God in Christ
Truth in Christ
One body in Christ
Sanctified in Christ
Grace of God that was given in Christ
Wise in Christ
Made alive in Christ
New creation in Christ
Reconciling the world to himself in Christ
Justified in Christ
Sons of God in Christ
Encouragement in Christ
Upward call of God in Christ
Being “in Christ” right now, our citizenship is right now in heaven.
Philippians 3:20 ESV But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ…
The third tier of the type: Heaven, the eternal home of the soul
Rev 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
(“Earth” in this passage is from ge often translated “land” when referring to Canaan.
The earthly figure of what we call Israel (give or take a few areas) represents a eternal kingdom of which we are now citizens, as mentioned earlier in this series, and celestial place or state of being.
HEAVEN
IN CHRIST
CANAAN
Because of these parallels, it is not unusual for us to think of heaven as a “land.”
To Canaan’s land I’m on my way
On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand and cast a wishful eye to Canaan’s fair and happy land, where my possessions lie
I have heard of a land on a faraway strand…
Beyond this land of parting, losing and leaving…lies the summerland of bliss
(5:6) BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS, FOR THEY SHALL BE FILLED
cf Luke 6:21 - Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled.
v25 Woe to you who are full, for you shall hunger.
The word “righteousness” appears 5 times in the sermon on the mount.
What is righteousness – that which we are blessed if for it we hunger and thirst?
Discuss
Thayer’s definition of righteousness: The state of him who is as he ought to be – the condition acceptable to God.
Who is righteous?
Romans 3:10-12 (tells us who is righteous - not one)
When Jesus spoke of hunger and thirst for righteousness, he meant strong desire and appetite--not only for “knowing right,” and “doing right,” but also “being right” with God; i.e., being held blameless before him.
This would require that there be nothing that separates us from God.
Isaiah 59:1-3 Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, and your tongue mutters wicked things.
Our sins separate us from God in three ways:
? They make us reluctant to call upon him. (The shame of them)
? They alienate us from him. (Make us unfit for his presence)
? Unrepented, they will separate us from his presence eternally (The second death)
These are the effects of sin, which creates the unrighteous condition. And it is a wretched condition, and universal.
Then what does this beatitude mean? That we are blessed if we hunger and thirst for that which we will never acquire?
But how shall we, who have sinned, be accounted righteousness? (There is hope!)
The solution to our “righteousness problem” begins with believing:
Romans 4:3 What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
Rightness before God, having not been achieved by us, is provided by God himself.
Jeremiah 33:14-16 'The days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. 15 "'In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The only righteousness that will ever be ours is the righteousness of Christ imputed – or accounted – to us. The blessing in this beatitude is in the “filling.”
It is for this that the blessed hunger and thirst--that condition of being counted as right with God, which we cannot obtain for ourselves.
“They shall be filled.”
Filled with what?
Some examples of what fills the Christian:
Ephesians 3:19 …and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit (appears to be by our own choice)
Colossians 1:9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,
