The mourners are the meek, a contradiction of the world viewpoint of life. The meek are those who quietly submit themselves to God, to His word and to His rod, who follow His directions, and comply with His plans for their lives and the world. They are gentile towards all men. They bear provocation without being inflamed by it; are either silent, or return a soft answer; and who can show their displeasure when there is occasion for it, without being transported into any indecencies; who can be cool when others are hot; and in their patience keep possession of their own souls, when they can scarcely keep possession of any thing else. The meek are rarely and hardly provoked, but quickly and easily pacified; and who would rather forgive twenty injuries than revenge one, the meek.
The meek are blessed because although not perfect as Jesus is, they are like Him. They are, although not perfect as their heavenly Father is, who is Lord of His anger, and in whom fury is not, they are like Him. They are blessed because they have the most comfortable, undisturbed enjoyment of themselves, their friends, their God; they are fit for any relationship, and condition, any company; fit to live, and fit to die. They are blessed because they will inherit the earth. This does not mean they will always have what they need to live fulfilling lives in this world. We are not promised beds of roses in this life. Meekness, however ridiculed and run down, has a real tendency to promote our health, wealth, comfort, and safety, even in this world.
There have been many debates as to what exactly is this meekness. It has been defined as humility. This definition does not fully reveal all that is included in meekness. In Scripture there is a link between meekness and lowliness (Matthew 11:29; Ephesians 4:1-2), between meekness and gentleness (2nd Corinthians 10:1; Titus 3:2), between meekness and humbleness (Psalm 25:9). In the Beatitude Jesus is describing the orderly development of God’s grace in the soul. First there is recognizing the condition of the heart that leads to mourning and brings the sinner to his knees. This leads to a radical change in the life of the sinner who has been adopted as a son of God.
Meekness is the by-product of self-emptying and self-humiliation, a broken will and a receptive heart before God. It is the opposite of pride, stubbornness, fierceness, and vengefulness. It is the taming of the lion. It is the opposite of love of ease, absence of sensibility, stability, and other passions, susceptible of change in nature, modified in nature from good to evil that is found in the ungodly and religionist. Biblical meekness enables men of the most intense, passionate, impetuous, and merciless character by looking to Jesus through the grace of God learn to curb their tempers, cease from resentment, avoid offending by injurious words and actions, and forgive injuries done to them.
The fruits of meekness are first God ward. When this fruit is dominant in the heart the enmity of the carnal mind is subdued and the chastening of God is endured with quietness and patience. When man ward it causes the believer to endure patiently the insults and injuries he receives from his fellow man in both the secular and the church. It makes him ready to accept instruction or admonition. It enables the believer to endure provocations without being provoked to anger or vengeance. Paul told the Galatians, “Brothers, if a man is overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness (Galatians 6:1). This means not with a lordly or domineering attitude or a harsh and censorious temper, or with the love of finding fault and desire for inflicting discipline but with love, gentleness, humility and patience.
Meekness is not a sign of weakness. It is manifested in an individual who has yielded to God’s will and will not yield to or compromise with evil. God giving meekness enables us to stand up for God, the truth, and God giving rights. When God’s glory is profaned we are not to be sideliners but get involved in the spiritual warfare taking place in this world, nation, and community and denounce the profanity and those who profane God’s glory. Biblical meekness is never in conflict with the requirements of faithfulness to God, His cause, and His people.
The spirit of meekness enables us to get enjoyment out of what God has given us. It delivers us from a greedy and grasping disposition. It is not the proud and covetous who inherit the earth even though they for a time control many acres of it is the meek. For now we must be satisfied with the cottage God has provided for us rather than a palace of evil Satan is ready to give us.
In the first three Beatitudes we are called to witness the heart qualities of those who have been awakened by the Spirit of God. There is a sense of need, a realization of nothingness and emptiness. In the fourth Beatitude we are told the blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They are blessed because their hunger and thirst will be satisfied.
There are scholars who believe this is a reference to outward poverty and do not relate it to the inner attitudes of the true follower of Jesus as they do the poor in spirit. Claiming outward poverty, and a low position in this world which not only exposes them to injury and wrong, but makes it a vain thing for them to seek to have justice done to them. They hunger and thirst for the power that is on the side of their oppressors. They desire only that which is just and equal, but it is denied them by those that neither fear God nor regard men.
It is also believed those who hunger and thirst are those who suffer hardships and put their trust in God will see that justice will be done and He will deliver the poor from their oppressors. Those who contentedly bear oppression, and quietly comes to God to plead their cause, shall in due time be satisfied, abundantly satisfied, in the wisdom and kindness which shall be manifested in His appearance in that day.
Hunger and thirst for righteousness is to be understood spiritually. It is a desire for the gracious work of God’s grace in the soul that qualifies the soul for the righteousness of God purchased by Jesus. The righteousness conveyed and secured by the imputation of that righteousness to us and confirmed by the faithfulness of God. To have the whole man renewed in righteousness so as to become a new man and to bear the image of God. It is these we must hunger and thirst after. We must truly and really desire as one who is hungry and thirsty desires meat and drink, who cannot be satisfied with any thing but meat and drink, and will be satisfied with them, though other things are wanting. Our desires of spiritual blessings must be an earnest and burning desire. Every thing else is dross, chaff, and unsatisfying.
Hunger and thirst are appetites that return frequently, and call for fresh satisfactions. The satisfaction does not rest in any thing attained, but is a continual desire for a daily fresh supply of grace. The quickened soul calls for constant meals of grace as the body calls for food. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will not only desire spiritual blessings but use the appointed means to satisfy the hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are to set our sights upon that which is satisfying, and not deceiving; and not desire the things of this world but of heaven.
God will give those who hunger and thirst what they desire to complete their satisfaction. It is God only who can fill a soul, whose grace and favor are adequate to its just desires and He will fill those with grace who, in a sense of their own emptiness desire His fullness. He fills their hunger and thirst. He satisfies them. The happiness of heaven fills the soul. Those who have been filled with the happiness of heaven reach out to others. They are the merciful. They are the blessed because they will receive mercy. In this world the merciful are not considered to be the wisest, nor are likely to be the richest; yet Jesus said they are blessed.
The merciful of this world are charitably, inclined to pity, help and assist those who are in misery. They bear their own afflictions patiently and partake of the afflictions of their fellowman. As Christians we must contribute all we can for the assistance of those who are in any way in misery. We must have compassion on the souls of others, and help them; pity the ignorant, and instruct them; the careless, and warn them of the dangers they are facing. We must have compassion on those whom we have advantage over and not be rigorous and severe with them or those who are in want, and supply them with what they need.
The merciful resemble God, whose goodness is His glory. Being merciful is an evidence of their love to God. It will be a satisfaction to us to be in any way instrumental for the benefit of others. One of the purest delights in this world is that of doing well. The merciful shall find with God sparing mercy, supplying mercy and sustaining mercy. The merciful are the pure in heart the most comprehensive of all the beatitudes; here holiness and blessedness are fully described and put together. Those who are inwardly pure, show themselves to be under the power of pure and undefiled religion. True Christianity lays in the heart, in the purity of heart, the washing from wickedness and evil. We must lift up to God, not only clean hands, but a pure heart. The heart must be an honest heart that aims well; and pure, in opposition to pollution and defilement. The heart must be kept pure from fleshly lusts, all wicked and evil thoughts and desires, worldly lusts, covetousness, all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and all that comes out of the heart and defiles the man. The heart must be presented and preserved a chaste virgin to Christ.
The most comprehensive comfort of the true believers in Christ is that they shall see God. It is the perfection of the soul’s happiness to see God, seeing Him by faith in our present state and seeing Him as we shall in the future state, to see Him as He is. To see Him face to face and no longer through darkened glass. To see Him as ours, and to see Him and enjoy Him; to see Him and be like Him, and be satisfied with that likeness, and to see Him for ever and never lose the sight of Him, this is heaven’s happiness.
The happiness of seeing God is promised to those, and those only, who are pure in heart. None but the pure are capable of seeing God and this is as it should be. What pleasure could the ungodly and unrighteous find in seeing a holy God? He cannot look upon their iniquity, so they cannot look upon His purity; nor shall any unclean thing enter into the New Jerusalem, only the pure in heart.
The merciful and the pure in heart are the peacemakers in this world. They have a strong and hearty affection to peace. They love, desire, and delight in peace and want it put in this world. Their desire is to restore peace when it is broken and are ready to make peace with brothers and neighbors and do what ever is needed to restore the peace that has been broken, often a thankless job yet it is something we must be willing to do. By keeping the peace and restoring a broken peace, peacemakers are working together with Christ, who came into the world to proclaim peace on earth.
Peacemakers are blessed because they shall be called the children of God. God will own them as such because they resemble Him. He is the God of peace; the Son of God is the Prince of peace; the Spirit of adoption is the Spirit of peace. Since God has declared He is reconcilable to us His children must make peace with their fellowman. If peacemakers are blessed, woe to the peace-breakers!
Unlike the religions of the world that uses the sword to force people to worship their god, Jesus never intended to have His religion propagated by fire and sword, or penal laws, or to acknowledge bigotry, or excessive zeal. This is one reason why He said the blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. This is the greatest paradox of all the Beatitudes and peculiar to Christianity; and therefore it is put last, and more largely insisted upon than any of the rest. Jesus has told us His followers they will be persecuted, hunted, pursued, run down, as deadly beasts are, that they might be destroyed. They are fined, imprisoned, banished, stripped of their estates, excluded from all places of profit and trust, scourged, racked, tortured, always delivered to death, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter. This has been the effect of the enmity of the serpent’s seed against the holy seed, ever since the time of righteous Abel.
Jesus told His followers they will have derogatory names and names of reproach fastened upon them to picture them as something that is hateful and detestable. They will have charges made against them that they are not guilty of doing. Those who have no power to do any harm to anyone will be harmed by those who have the power to kill them and do bodily harm and will justify themselves in their barbarous treatment of His followers. They will falsely accuse them as a witness in the courts, in songs of the world, to their face and behind their backs. All this will be done because they are the followers of Jesus.
The persecuted are blessed because they shall be rewarded, the kingdom of heaven is theirs. There is nothing in the persecuted to merit entrance into the kingdom of heaven yet it is promised to them. The reward of the persecuted surpasses the service rendered. It is in heaven, out of sight of the evil and wicked of this world, out of reach of fraud and violence. In heaven we will be abundantly rewarded for all the difficulties we meet in this world.
When we are persecuted we should not see it as something unusual. Jesus has told us the prophets experienced persecution. They were persecuted and abused. From church history we are told the apostles were persecuted. The greatest persecution that has ever occurred and will ever occur was the persecution of our Lord Jesus. We can find comfort in knowing this is not some new attack upon the church. We can find comfort in knowing those who have been persecuted were given the strength to carry them through the persecution and it shall be deficient to us. Those who persecuted us are the seed and successors of them who have throughout the ages persecuted and mocked the messengers of the Lord.
