The Beatitudes are popularly known and rightly beloved, yet we can too quickly read past them and fail to ponder their message. Moreover, they can be difficult to understand. After all, what does Jesus mean when he teaches that the “poor in spirit” have the kingdom or that “those who mourn” will somehow find comfort? What sort of logic does Jesus use when he says that those persecuted for righteousness are actually blessed?
Alternatively, the subtle imperatives embedded within the Beatitudes can feel impossible to obey. After all, who is always “merciful” and “pure in heart”? Which of us never ceases to “hunger and thirst for righteousness” and always seeks peace? While Christians pursue these virtues, all too often — especially on Monday morning! — we sense how distant we are from the virtuous life enjoined by the Beatitudes.
We need to identify what the Beatitudes are in order to discern how they function. We must see them as Jesus’s invitations shaped by the Old Testament, directed to the empty, and intended to produce faith in Christ. When we read them rightly, we see them as Jesus’s good and gracious gift pointing us to the blessed life.
The Beatitudes as Invitations
First, the Beatitudes are invitations to a life of eternal joy. Each of the Beatitudes begins with the Greek word makarios, which is frequently translated in English Bibles as “blessed.” The term refers to the happy state of someone who is living the good life. Due to the widespread usage of the term in ancient religious and secular Greek texts, Friedrich Hauck posited the existence in antiquity of “a specific genre of beatitude to extol the fortune accruing to someone and to exalt this person on the basis or condition of the good fortune” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 4:363).
What does this mean for our understanding of the Beatitudes? It means that Jesus began his sermon intending to pique our interest by inviting us to the good life. He grabs our attention by offering us deep and abiding happiness if we will hearken to his instruction. Indeed, the very first word out of his mouth is makarios, and in case we missed it, he repeats it eight more times in the opening paragraph of the sermon.
Jesus’s repeated invitations motivate us by tapping into our innate, God-given desire for lasting happiness and joy, and they guide us into that happy existence by pointing us to its source. As Jesus puts it at the end of his sermon, such hearers are like a wise man whose house is built on a rock and is never shaken (Matthew 7:24–25).
Invitations Shaped by the Old Testament
But the Beatitudes are not simply invitations; they are invitations shaped by the Old Testament. Jesus did not preach his sermon in a theological vacuum, but wove into it themes that emerge from the Old Testament’s ethics and eschatology, concepts that evoke the Old Testament’s instructions and promises. The following list illustrates the kind of Old Testament themes and texts that undergird the Beatitudes. (The Old Testament texts are listed on pages 8–9 of the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament.)
- Poor in spirit: Psalm 34:18; Isaiah 57:15; 61:1
- Comfort for mourners: Isaiah 61:2–3
- Meek inherit the earth: Psalm 37:11 (see also Deuteronomy 4:38)
- Satisfaction for the hungry and thirsty: Psalm 107:5, 9
- Blessing for the generous and merciful: Proverbs 14:21
- Pure in heart will see God: Psalm 24:3–4; 73:1 (see also Genesis 20:5)
Knowing how the Old Testament shapes the Beatitudes helps us understand what Jesus meant. For instance, Jesus promises comfort for those who mourn (Matthew 5:4). Is this a sweeping promise to anyone who feels sad? Or does it apply more specifically to certain mourners? Knowing the background of Isaiah 61 helps us answer this question, for in Isaiah 61:2–3 the word “mourn” occurs three times to refer to those in Zion who hope in the Lord’s future salvation. They mourn, writes Dale C. Allison Jr., “because the righteous suffer, the wicked prosper, and God has not yet righted the situation” (The Sermon on the Mount, 47). They mourn because their hearts and the world around them are broken, and they long for God to make all things new (Revelation 21:5).
A similar example comes from Jesus’s promise that the meek will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Who are the meek that Jesus has in mind? Jesus is probably alluding to Psalm 37:11, which contains the phrase “the meek shall inherit the land.” In the psalm, the meek are identified as those who trust the Lord and patiently wait on him for vindication. Instead of enacting vengeance against the wicked prospering all around them, they refrain from anger and are meek as they wait on the Lord (Psalm 37:8–11).
These two examples illustrate the importance of interpreting Jesus’s invitations in the Beatitudes in light of the Old Testament. Specifically, the Old Testament clarifies that the good life to which Jesus invites us is offered to those who trust him and long for his kingdom to come. Tethering our interpretation to the Old Testament guards us from the errors of universalizing Jesus’s words or re-creating him in our own image.
Invitations to the Empty
The structure of the Beatitudes also helps us understand Jesus’s meaning. There are nine makarios statements, but there are good reasons to think there are eight distinct beatitudes with an additional one at the end. First, the additional beatitude breaks the rhythm. The first eight beatitudes speak in the third person (“Blessed are those who . . .”), but the last shifts to the second person (“Blessed are you who . . .”). Second, the content of the ninth beatitude does not substantially differ from the eighth but rather restates and expands upon it. Finally, the first and eighth beatitudes mirror each other, for both contain the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” and identify the kingdom as the present possession of believers (“theirs is the kingdom of heaven”). By contrast, the other beatitudes do not mention “the kingdom of heaven” and speak only of a future promise.
Further, within the eight distinct beatitudes are two groups of four: 5:3–6 and 5:7–10. The first group emphasizes blessing for the empty; the second, blessing for the filled. In the first group are the spiritually poor, mournful, meek, and hungry. They feel their spiritual insufficiency, brokenness, and lack of righteousness. Even their meekness can be defined negatively as faith’s restraint. The second group, on the other hand, is filled with mercy, purity, peacemaking, and righteousness. Whereas the first group hungers and thirsts for righteousness, the second group has been filled with it to the point of persecution.
The structure of the Beatitudes teaches us that in the sermon Jesus invites the empty to come and be filled. Jesus doesn’t offer ultimate happiness to those who trust in themselves for spiritual riches, restoration, and righteousness. Rather, Jesus offers the life of the kingdom to those who are empty and in faith look to him for their eternal good. And in doing so, Jesus promises that he won’t leave his followers empty but will infallibly fill them. Because they rest on his promises, he will fill them with his own mercy, purity, peace, and righteousness — increasingly in this life and fully in the next. He will not leave them as they are but will transform them from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Invitations to Trust Jesus
Finally, the Beatitudes invite us to trust in Jesus. At the outset of Jesus’s sermon, he draws up not only the parameters for the blessed life but also the blueprint for his own life and ministry. As the rest of Matthew’s Gospel shows, he lived out the Beatitudes perfectly.
For instance, in calling us to meekness, he himself was meek and lowly (Matthew 11:29; 21:5). In urging us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, he himself hungered more for God’s word than for bread (Matthew 4:1–4). He followed the invitation to show mercy by showing mercy consistently throughout his ministry (Matthew 9:27; 15:22; 17:15; 20:30–31). Unlike the Pharisees, Jesus exhibited a genuine concern for purity of heart (Matthew 15:17–20; 23:25–28). As God’s Son, he was the peacemaker par excellence in his saving work, and more than any of us, he was persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
As our representative and forerunner, Jesus decisively lived out the Beatitudes in our place, accomplishing and fulfilling all righteousness for us (Matthew 3:15). As our example, he modeled the Christian life with its deep and abiding joy. In this way, we have in Jesus not only a Teacher but also a Savior, and though we follow him now with faltering footsteps, yet follow him we will, for he has gone before us and by faith we belong to him. And through our faith in him, we enjoy both now and forever the happy existence to which the Beatitudes invite us.
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