1 When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2 He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, 3 “Blessed…” Matthew 5:1-3a
There is a triviality that I want to address before we move fully into this study. It is not so important that I could not just ignore it and go on with no mention of it at all, but it is something I think tends to come to the mind of some folks when they begin a study of these several chapters from Matthew’s gospel, so I think I’d like to tackle it, get it put in its proper perspective, and then we can move on to the task at hand without hindrance, at least from this particular point of error.
Now I have to say that I personally do not remember ever being in a class on the Sermon on the Mount where the teacher began by asserting that the way to remember the word ‘beatitudes’ is by noting that Jesus is teaching here, attitudes that we should ‘be’.
But for the same reason that I believe in the Lock Ness Monster, because so many reliable people with no reason to lie have said they have seen him, I also have to believe that some folks out there have made this statement about the beatitudes, simply because on more than one occasion and in the presence of different people, when I’ve asked a group if they know what the word ‘beatitude’ means, there has inevitably been at least one in the crowd who has chimed in with ‘they are attitudes we should be’.
(Perhaps I should insert here that Alistair Begg is a Scot and he says Nessie doesn’t exist; but what does he know?)
Now I do not wish to express any undo disrespect for my peers in the pulpit and in teaching ministries of our churches across this great land. So as politely and respectfully as possible I would just like to say to those proponents of this teaching that perhaps it would be advisable, to go and study their Bible doctrines and compare them to these early verses of Matthew 5 and ask themselves if they think it is possible for a non-Christian to ‘be’ these things.
The teaching that verses 3 through 9 of Matthew 5 set forth attitudes toward life, God and others that we should be striving to establish in our selves demonstrates from the one presuming to teach a point of ignorance of what Jesus actually was communicating to the multitude in front of Him or the 21st century student of the Holy Spirit.
Just let me put this issue to rest by saying, and also by way of introduction into our study, that the very beginning of wisdom and knowledge as relates to the passage we call the Sermon on the Mount is the realization that we are entirely incapable of manufacturing in ourselves even the beginnings of the characteristics Jesus is setting forth as those things that will bring blessing in and from our lives.
Jesus very often (and very frustratingly, for the legalist) told people to do things that were impossible for them to do, and the reason He did so was to hopefully cause them to realize their utter weakness and ineptitude so they would turn to Him for the solution to their problem.
As we go into this study of the Sermon on the Mount, let me just say that I do so with fear and trepidation, especially since the ‘attitudes-we-should-be’ teachers are now going to be very anxious to find some flaw in my own teaching; but more so because I am more aware than anyone of my cluelessness and my absolute need to depend on great men who have gone before me such as D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, James Montgomery Boice, John R.W. Stott and others; and most importantly of course, the leading and enlightening of the Holy Spirit of the scriptures if I have any hopes of giving you anything of help and worth whatsoever.
Come to think of it, maybe I could use that as my disclaimer. If any of the aforementioned offended parties comes to me with a challenge over something I will say in this series, I could reply that I think I got that from Stott or Boice or Lloyd-Jones or someone else, and perhaps they should go read those commentaries themselves to find out who is guilty and write him a letter.
In any case, without further ado, we step in.
SINNERS AND SLEDGE HAMMERS
In an essay printed in God in the Dock, by C.S. Lewis, Lewis is responding to a series of criticisms of various of his writings by a man named Dr W. Norman Pettinger. In the process of answering these critiques Lewis responds to some accusation Pettinger made that Lewis did not ‘care for’ the Sermon on the Mount but preferred instead to focus on Paul’s teachings.
This was Lewis’ reply.
“As to ‘caring for’ the Sermon on the Mount, if ‘caring for’ here means ‘liking’ or enjoying, I suppose no one ‘cares for’ it. Who can like being knocked flat on his face by a sledge-hammer? I can hardly imagine a more deadly spiritual condition than that of the man who can read that passage with tranquil pleasure. This is indeed to be ‘at ease in Zion’.” “Rejoinder to Dr Pettinger”, God in the Dock (1958)
Now I feel it is necessary to pause here and explain the reference Lewis made to being ‘at ease in Zion’.
In the book of the minor prophet, Amos, the prophet is giving the oracles of God concerning the idolatry and apostasy of the people and warning that they are about to be taken away into exile. This prophecy is to the Northern Kingdom just prior to their Assyrian captivity. Samaria was the capital city of the Northern Kingdom. In Amos 6:1 then, the prophet says,
” Woe to those who are at ease in Zion And to those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria...” Amos 6:1a
The people knew they were guilty of spiritual adultery and the prophets had been warning them for years concerning God’s building anger and the wrath they would incur, yet they were at ease and feeling secure without cause.
So Lewis’ meaning, in saying that a man who can read Matthew 5-7 with ‘tranquil pleasure’ is ‘at ease in Zion’, is that he is either negligent in his application or ignorant of his own condition in the reflection of this passage.
The pure fact is that the characteristics listed by Jesus in these first 9 verses must be in place before a man can even begin to apply the rest of this sermon to his life, and since each and every one is a spiritual characteristic and not a fleshly one, men are left absolutely and forever incapable of acting on them to any degree. Therefore the sledge hammer that Lewis used as a metaphor comes crashing down on the sinner, and with the realization of his utter uselessness and inability he wonders how this word, ‘blessed’ could ever apply to him at all.
Now let me make something clear at this point also. By saying ‘men are left absolutely and forever incapable of acting on them to any degree’, I mean in the power and strength and volition of the flesh. In short, men by their own will and a sense of civic duty and human responsibility can commit acts of humility and mercy. Certainly they are capable of mourning along side a grieving friend. Certainly there are examples of men of flesh going the extra mile in some sort of humanistic service. But Jesus is talking here of qualities of the Spirit that go beyond the flesh and the desires or abilities of natural men.
Does that mean that we have no responsibility in them but that it is all done by the Holy Spirit as we stand there with our arms at our side? Of course not. In fact as Christians in whom this redemptive and sanctifying work is being done, we have a responsibility to surrender our members for His use in doing these things and acting out these traits of spiritual character. We’ll get into all of this as we go.
There is another thought I should interject here just in case some of you deep-thinking folks out there are beginning to wonder, if this sermon is an introduction to a series on Matthew 5 – 7, why it seems to center on the first 11 or so verses of chapter 5 and doesn’t really address the rest of the Sermon on the Mount in any way worth mention.
The reason I give is two-fold. First, a single sermon trying to capsulate the entire Sermon on the Mount by way of introduction would have to be very long and probably boring and most certainly disjointed and incomplete.
Secondly, the beatitudes, (meaning a state of bliss), are in themselves an introduction to the study. Jesus didn’t do things in a scattered and convoluted way. Even the beatitudes themselves are in a certain order for a certain reason which we will study later, and the fact is, Jesus began like this by way of describing what a Christian is, before going on to teach how a Christian should live. If a person is not what is being defined in the first 12 verses, the rest won’t really apply to him at all.
The Sermon on the Mount is for Christians. No non-Christian could ever begin to live by the admonitions of Jesus there, and as Lloyd-Jones points out, to expect a non-believer to abide by the Sermon on the Mount is heresy.
Students, just keep in mind that a purely flesh-level reading and understanding of the beatitudes and striving to attain to these qualities in the power of the man falls through like a foundation of rice paper when brought to bear on this one verse of scripture:
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
If we are to hear the words of Jesus there and put any credence in them by faith, then we cannot go back to Matthew 5 and say, ‘now let’s set to work somehow conjuring up from within ourselves these fine qualities, these fine ‘attitudes’ that mark the Christian, and then go out and build the Kingdom with them and win the world for Christ.
The sinner and the legalist, if he had any perception whatsoever into the expectations of a holy God in what is being said here, would either have stood on his feet at about verse 12 and gone home, or he would have been on his face crying ‘be merciful to me, a sinner’, and surrendering into the hand of God.
Let’s determine that we too will approach this study with no expectation that we are going to learn something by way of instruction or gain some academic tool that we can use to fine-tune ourselves and then go out and practice what we’ve heard preached, but with a humble admission that if any of these things apply to us they are in place by the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and therefore any of this fruit manifest in and through our lives has its origins in the Vine to which we have been grafted and in Whom we abide. All of this is prerequisite to our ‘doing’ or ‘being’ anything.
BLESSED
Boice, in his commentary, goes into quite a bit of detail about the origins and development of the word that finally has come to be pronounced ‘blessed’ or ‘bless-ed’. I really don’t want to take the time to copy his narrative here, as I do not feel that the knowledge of those minute details will bless or instruct you concerning the application of these verses.
I should point out though, that in its course, the word or forms of the word have been used in reference to consecrating something or someone; that is, setting aside for special use or service, such as in consecrating or blessing the elements of the communion meal. It has also been used in reference to pronouncing blessing on a person in a benediction or to eulogize, and it has been used to speak of blissfulness or joy, especially in a spiritual sense.
In fact, here I will quote Boice because he offered some information that I do think will help you as we move on later to study these early verses of chapter 5. He says:
“At this final stage of its development ‘blessed’ became a term for spiritual joy. When this happened a new word was called in to express non-religious joy, the word ‘blithe.’ … It is the third use of the word ‘blessed’ that occurs in the Sermon on the Mount. Hence, when Jesus spoke these words He was telling His listeners how they could be deeply, spiritually, and profoundly happy and how they could maintain this happiness even in the midst of life’s disappointments and hard times.” The Sermon on the Mount J. M. Boice, 1972, Zondervan pg 17
One truth, and by far the most important truth we will endeavor to keep before us in this study is that Jesus is the perfection of these characteristics. One writer said “Jesus is the Sermon on the Mount”. I would submit for your meditation, Christian, that Jesus was the happiest guy who ever walked this earth.
Now by the word ‘happy’ I don’t mean it in the way we usually use the word. If you are talking to average folk on the street and ask them if they’re happy they will immediately begin thinking on some short term plane.
Am I happy? Well, not at the moment since a car just went by and splashed me with a mud puddle. Or, well, yes I am. My coffee this morning was hot and fresh, my breakfast pastry was soft and sweet, my spouse was in a good mood and I like my job. Maybe they would think more deeply and say, well, one might expect that I would not be happy because I struggle to pay the rent and my health has been better and my son just dropped out of college in the middle of his third year, but I like my work, my wife loves me and I have a roof over my head and there’s always a good book nearby to read in my leisure time, so I’m contented; I’m happy.
I was recently given a book by Dean Koontz called “Life Expectancy”. Now if you know who Koontz is you might be tempted to ‘tsk, tsk’ me since he is known as a writer of some pretty graphic horror. This particular book though was not only relatively clean and devoid of monsters and ghoulies, it was actually quite humorous and a delightful read.
The main character is a baker who is the son of a baker. At one point in the story he quotes his father as saying in difficult times, “Where there’s cake there’s hope, and there’s always cake”.
Do you see the underlying message of what I’m saying here? In all these responses the fundamental criterion on which we tend to gauge our happiness is our comfort, our convenience, our future prospects; it’s all about us.
According to Jesus, true, deep spiritual bliss springs up from it being about everyone else; God first, others second, me not in the picture!
THE HAPPINESS OF JESUS
One of the most prominently displayed examples of the backwards condition of the sin nature is that glaring contrast between what makes us happy and what made Jesus happy.
In Philippians 2:5 Paul exhorts us to have the attitude in us that Christ had, and then in the following verses describes that attitude as emptied of self, humble and obedient to the point of death.
And in Hebrews 12:2 the writer says that His endurance of the cross was for the joy that was set before Him, that joy being, I believe, the reconciling of us back to God.
Let’s go down the list of beatitudes briefly and see some verses of scripture that ascribe these characteristics to our Lord.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
“Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.” Matt 11:29
Blessed are those who mourn.
“Be not far from me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help. 12 Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
13 They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me.” Ps 22:11-14
And…
“He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” Isa 53:3a
Blessed are the gentle. (or meek)
“A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish;” Isa 42:3
And…
“Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” Jn 4:34
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
“YOU HAVE LOVED RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HATED LAWLESSNESS; THEREFORE GOD, YOUR GOD, HAS ANOINTED YOU WITH THE OIL OF GLADNESS ABOVE YOUR COMPANIONS.” Heb 1:9
Blessed are the merciful.
“Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.” Matt 8:3
Blessed are the pure in heart.
“We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” Jn 6:69
Blessed are the peacemakers.
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” Rom 5:1
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
“For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God,” I Pet 3:18a
I don’t really agree with the humanistic assertion that we are what we eat. But I have often wished I could be what I preach.
Friends and family, Jesus is. He is the Sermon on the Mount.
Therefore we can go to His Word with unbridled anticipation and expectation that He will, by His Spirit, open our spiritual eyes to see and our heart to understand.
I Jn 5:20 “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”
As we go on to study these three chapters of Matthew’s gospel let’s remind ourselves often that as difficult as much of it will be to hear, and as convicting as His words will often be to our hearts, as the One who is the perfection and even the origin of the characteristics we’ll be talking about in the first 11 verses, He is also the perfect One to preach the rest of this Sermon to us.
Furthermore, He is the One who would graciously, gently, meekly, mercifully, work these things in our surrendered and yielded hearts.
For from the moment we believe, His purpose in us is to conform us to the image of Christ. As His willing partners in that process we need to ask Him for clarity and understanding and then be willing to say, “Here I am, Lord, your will be done on earth”.
Emptied of self, humble, obedient. Phil 2:5-8
Those are the attitudes we should ‘be’…for starters.
