Chapter II: The Beatitudes in General

“And seeing the multitudes, he went up into the mountain: and
when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him: and he opened
his mouth and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for
they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’
sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when
men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of
evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding
glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you.”

OUR Lord went up into the mountain to get away from the multitudes. Thither He was followed by His chosen disciples, and it is to them that the Sermon is uttered. It was spoken to the Church, not to the world; but as ‘the multitudes’ appear also to have listened[11] to it, we may say that it was spoken into the ear of the Church and overheard by the world.

1. It begins with the familiar “Beatitudes.” They are a description of the character of the citizen of the new kingdom; that is, the character of the man who, enjoying the freedom of the kingdom of God, has entered into the inheritance of true blessedness. Observe, we have a description of a certain character, not of certain acts. Christ requires us not to do such and such things, but to be such and such people. And the character which we find here described is beyond all question nothing else than our Lord’s own character put into words, the human character of our Lord corresponding always in flawless perfection with the teaching which He gave. Here are two reasons why our Lord’s teaching is capable of universal and individual application: (1) because it is not made up of detailed commandments, but is the description of a character which, in its principles, can be apprehended and embodied in all possible circumstances: (2) because it is not only a description in words but a description set side by side with a living example.

And we cannot remind ourselves too early that this is the character by which we shall be finally judged. It is “by this man,” as St. Paul says, “God will judge the world.” And St. John says “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”[12] The estimate of our worth in God’s sight depends simply on this, How like are we, or rather, how like are we becoming to the character of Christ? But of this we shall have opportunity of speaking later on.

2. The beatitudes describe the blessed life――in other words, the citizen of the new kingdom is one who can say with Mary “all generations shall call me blessed.”

The idea of a blessed life had been common. We cannot begin to think about life without seeing that there are certain conditions which a man’s life must have if we are to be able to congratulate him on being alive. What sort of life is worth living? That is a question thinking men have asked from old days. Gautama and Confucius, Plato and Aristotle asked it. What sort of life possesses the characteristics which make it blessed――what sort of life can you congratulate a man, thoroughly and heartily, upon living?

Now observe a contrast in the answers given. To Gautama, the Buddha, the existence not merely of selfishness, but of the self, is a fundamental evil, delusion, and source of misery; and the true blessedness of painless peace is only to be attained by the emptying out of all desire, the extinction of all clinging to existence, and so at last by the extinction of life or personality itself. Thus though the Buddha’s moral teaching has many beautiful resemblances to that of our Lord, it has this fundamental difference, that Buddha regarded personal existence as a delusion and an evil to be got rid of, but Christ as a supreme truth and good to be at last realized in the vision of God and the fruition of eternal life. “I came that they may have life and may have it abundantly.”

Again, Aristotle asked the question, What is the blessed life? and he came to the conclusion that the life truly worth living was possible only for very few men. It was impossible for slaves, because they were the mere tools of other men; or for the diseased, because they were necessarily miserable; or for paupers, because they had not a sufficiency of this world’s goods; or for those dying young, because they had not time enough to realize true blessedness. Observe, I say, the contrast in all this. Christ lays the blessed life open to all. And why? Because he takes a man at once up to God: He centres his life on God: He puts him in full view of God as the goal of life: He bases life on God as a foundation. Again, as a consequence of this, He calculates life――as a life lived in God must be calculated――on the scale of eternity. Grant these two things――that each human life may be based on God and calculated on the scale of eternity――and you get rid of all the limitations which made Aristotle declare that neither the slave, nor the diseased, nor the poor, nor those who die young, can live the blessed life. Thus our Lord has described the character of true blessedness as belonging to man as man, to all men if they will have it, simply by the recognition of their true relation to God. From that point of view all accidents of life fade away into insignificance. They give, indeed, its special character to each life, and the conditions of its probation, but they cannot touch its true blessedness.

We can go one step farther. If you take the latter parts of the beatitudes, you will find in them a more detailed account of the blessed life. The end of each beatitude tells us what our Lord meant by blessedness. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven; they shall be comforted; they shall inherit the earth; they shall be filled; they shall obtain mercy; they shall see God; they shall be called sons of God.” All the last six of these seven expressions may be said simply to expand the first. They amplify the idea of membership in the kingdom of heaven. Membership in the kingdom is a life of perfect relationship with man and nature based on perfect fellowship with God. That is true blessedness, and that is open to all. Therein is consolation after all troubles; there is the freedom to move about with a sense of heirship in God’s world, as in our legitimate heritage and with no fear of being turned out; there is the satisfaction of all legitimate aspiration; there is gracious acceptance at all hands; there is the vision of all truth and beauty and goodness, in God; there is final and full recognition. That is true blessedness. That is the life which our Lord promises to every one who will simply put himself in the right relation to God.

3. There is only one more point that we need notice with regard to these beatitudes as a whole, and it concerns their order. Our Lord begins with strong paradoxes: Blessed are the poor――the mourners――the meek. That is to say in other words, He first describes the true character by its contrast to the character of the world. We frequently have occasion to use the expression “the world.” Let me, therefore, once for all explain what I understand by it when it is used in a bad sense. It means, of course, not God’s creation as such, which was pronounced very good. When “the world” is spoken of in a bad sense――the worldly world――you may define it in this way: it is human society organizing itself apart from God. That is what in the Bible is meant by “the world.” Well, the world notoriously clutches at all the gold it can get. The world avoids all the pain and suffering it possibly can, avoids it with a calculating selfishness. The world shrinks from nothing so much as from humiliation, and says “Assert yourself and your rights as much as you can.” Our Lord then describes the true blessedness, first of all negatively in the first three beatitudes by strong and marked contrasts to the character of the world: blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are the mourners. Then He goes on to give its positive characteristics: its strong spiritual appetite for righteousness; its active and vigorous compassionateness; its single-mindedness or purity of heart; the deliberate aim it has to promote the kingdom of peace. Then, in the last beatitude, He answers the question how is such a character likely to find itself in such a world; and answers that question in terms very like those employed by a Jewish writer, possibly not very long before our Lord’s time, the writer of the Book of Wisdom, who describes the attitude of the world towards the righteous thus:

“But let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
Because he is of disservice to us
And is contrary to our works,
And upbraideth us with sins against the law,
And layeth to our charge sins against our discipline.
He professeth to have knowledge of God,
And nameth himself servant of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts.
He is grievous unto us even to behold,
Because his life is unlike other men’s,
And his paths are of strange fashion.
We were accounted of him as base metal,
And he abstaineth from our ways as from uncleannesses.
The latter end of the righteous he calleth happy;
And he vaunteth that God is his father.
Let us see if his words be true,
And let us try what shall befall in the ending of his life.
For if the righteous man is God’s son, he will uphold him,
And he will deliver him out of the hand of his adversaries.
With outrage and torture let us put him to the test,
That we may learn his gentleness,
And may prove his patience under wrong.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
For he shall be visited according to his words.

Thus reasoned they, and they were led astray;
For their wickedness blinded them,
And they knew not the mysteries of God,
Neither hoped they for wages of holiness,
Nor did they judge that there is a prize for blameless souls.”[13]

* * * * *

“Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you,
and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in
heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before
you.”