Jesus Speaks the Beatitudes to the Poor in Spiritby CBPepper
5:1Matthew 5:1
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
Seeing the crowds He could not contain on the narrow shore, Jesus led them to a level place on the mountainside by the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum, sat down as a teacher, and His disciples gathered close around Him to open the Sermon on the Mount. He called them near so the great truths would be indelibly impressed on their minds by the Holy Spirit to be received without loss, repeated, written, and carried to every land and age, while the mixed multitude beyond them listened with hopes of earthly glory that He disappointed. There He declared the character of those He calls blessed and the principles of God's kingdom of grace, restating in stronger and clearer terms the same law He had given through Moses and exemplified in His sinless life. In peaceful beauty unlike the fear at Sinai, the same Teacher who spoke from Sinai magnified that law, stripping away human traditions and revealing God as merciful Father. His words are spirit and life with heaven's authority, to be read often, believed, practiced, and lived out in heart service until character is transformed into His likeness.
Mountain Setting Described
Seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain, sat down, and His disciples came to Him, and this opens the Sermon on the Mount. The disciples gathered close around Him and had room to be close beside Him whenever He addressed a multitude, sharing His burdens in ministry and bringing to Him people who needed help and healing, working together with Him. The setting introduces His public declaration of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12, describing the character of those Christ calls blessed and the blessings promised them as belonging to the kingdom of heaven. That mountain teaching on the Beatitudes and on being salt and light reveals the character of His teaching, and it is to be studied together with His conflicts and victories over temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Its sayings are the great Teacher's words, and reading, believing, and practicing them develops Christlike character and puts divine principles into the heart.
The narrow beach by the sea could not hold everyone within hearing distance after crowds had gathered to hear Him and be healed, so He led the people to a level place on the mountainside that could accommodate them. He had healed the sick and comforted the sorrowing on the narrow beach where the multitudes had gathered, but the crowd grew too large for room there, and He chose a level space where the people could gather. There He sat down and was followed by His disciples and the multitude, then called His disciples near so the great truths He was about to utter would be indelibly impressed upon their minds with nothing diverting their attention from His words. The sermon was directed especially to the disciples but was spoken where the crowd could hear it, so the gathered crowd was also meant to hear.
The mountain was beside the Sea of Galilee or Lake of Gennesaret near Capernaum, a high table-land overlooking the lake with a grassy plain below. He sat on an eminence beneath trees as the people gathered on the grassy plain below, and His disciples came to hear teaching that would endure through the ages. The setting was away from the turmoil and confusion of crowded cities, and Jesus often taught and trained His disciples outdoors where the quiet and simplicity of nature suited the lessons of simplicity, faith, and self-denial He wanted to teach. The natural setting helped turn people's thoughts from artificial things to God's creation. The peaceful beauty of the setting contrasted with the fearful signs at Sinai where God gave the law, for at the mount Christ was to explain the law's principles for practical life.
He sat down as a teacher, on a rock or some elevated place, ready to open the treasure of truth to those willing to listen. The mountain was a place of solitude where He spent the night in prayer to His Father before important work, and prayer preceded the Sermon on the Mount. It was morning after He had spent long before daybreak in meditation and prayer in communion with God on the shores of Lake Gennesaret near Capernaum while the disciples were still sleeping, refreshing His spiritual strength. The mountain setting belongs to prayerful communion with the Father before important work. As soon as it was day, multitudes who had learned where He was hastened to the lakeside anxious to hear the word of truth, so that though He loved retirement He could not remain alone very long at a time.
Disciples and Multitudes Present
Whenever He addressed a multitude His disciples had room to be close beside Him, gathered close around Him as an inner circle, including the twelve who followed Him in public and private and shared His burdens in ministry by bringing to Him those who needed help and healing and working together with Him. On the mountain they came near to Him and formed that innermost circle about Him as He sat to teach. They listened attentively in that place, while a curious multitude pressed near expecting something extraordinary.
He called the disciples near so that nothing would divert their attention and the great truths He was about to utter would be indelibly impressed upon their minds and remain in their memories through the Holy Spirit. Withdrawn thus from the turmoil of crowded cities, they belonged close to the Great Teacher to attend to every word spoken slowly and distinctly and to receive the truth without losing or misinterpreting it. So established, they could later repeat and write what they had heard for the benefit of the whole world and carry it to others who did not know it in every land and age.
He sat surrounded by His disciples with a large mixed gathering as He opened His mouth to teach. The sermon was directed especially to the disciples and spoken first to them, yet it was spoken where the crowd could hear and was designed to reach the hearts and consciences of those in ignorance and error and not limited to those already familiar with the way of life. The people at such large gatherings expected a great display of power concerning the new kingdom, with believing Jews looking for earthly glory and political freedom, liberty from the yoke of bondage, and restoration to ancient glory. He disappointed their hopes of earthly glory by opening His discourse with the Beatitudes, which state the principles that govern His kingdom of divine grace rather than promising what they expected.
The twelve had been called to the apostolic work in that mountain setting, and withdrawing to the mountain to meet with His disciples was communion with Jesus preceding their mission and later Pentecostal power. Taking unlearned fishermen from their boats and nets and connecting them with Himself as He traveled from place to place teaching the people and ministering to their needs, then gathering them about Him on a rock or some elevated place for instruction while hundreds listened, is the highest education of following in His footsteps in living connection with Him as laborers together with God. That training is the pattern in harmony with true higher education for qualifying nurses, physicians, and medical missionary evangelists. Crowds had followed Him from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, beyond Jordan, and Syria, drawn by His teaching in the synagogues, His preaching of the gospel of the kingdom, and His healing of every kind of sickness and disease. His compassionate acts in restoring the sick to health stirred deep interest and awakened concern that prepared the people to listen when, seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain, sat down, and His disciples came to Him to receive the lesson to be believed in simplicity and accepted in conversion.
Sermon Message Declared
This sitting on the mountain opens the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12, declaring the character of those Christ calls blessed and the blessings promised to them. The setting introduces His public declaration of who belongs to the kingdom of heaven and the way of life taught there, including being salt and light. The promises of verses 3-5 are precious jewels to take in, gather up, and consider when discouraged and thinking of having a hard, close time, and those who love and fear God in this world are the very people who shall realize His blessings. The blessing on spiritual poverty is for those who feel need, come to One rich in mercy, desire a better world and another kingdom, and are unsatisfied with earthly things.
The sermon begins by setting out the principles of God's kingdom of grace and kingdom of divine grace, giving a true conception of the kingdom and Christ's character and the conditions of entrance. It corrects false ideas of worldly greatness without directly attacking errors, not promising the earthly glory and political freedom many expected. Though spoken especially to the disciples, it was designed to reach the hearts and consciences of the mixed crowd assembled there.
There He restated principles previously given through Moses, setting out duties to God and to one another in stronger and clearer terms because disobedience had confused understanding of God's claims. There He defined the far-reaching claims of God's law and the spirit and conduct of those who love God and keep His commandments, in lessons of practical obedience still binding after sacrificial offerings ceased when type met antitype in His death. His teaching astonished both religious leaders and ordinary people because it revealed the law in its true light beyond human traditions, clarifying true principles and exposing human traditions and external observances that had displaced genuine religion.
He gave from the mount the same law He exemplified in His sinless life, unfolding the principles of His kingdom in peaceful beauty and loving words while explaining the same law proclaimed at Sinai. That law is far-reaching in character, condemns every evil action, demands perfect obedience, and is immutable. He expounded its precepts so that people departing from it might return to allegiance and become representatives of the Son and the Father, with truly following Him meaning keeping God's commandments as He kept them and manifesting love to God and fellow men.
He stripped from God's law the rubbish covering of human thou-shalt and thou-shalt-not, traditions, and external observances of priests, rulers, scribes, and Pharisees, letting the great moral standard of righteousness appear in its true light. His sermon opposed self-righteous teaching and human traditions, correcting the false picture of God as stern and without compassion or mercy or love and as a harsh despot. He revealed God as merciful, loving, and Father to be addressed, restoring confidence in His love and showing God's character through Himself.
He taught principles of God's law that shape daily life and form right character, showing the gospel is practical and true service involves the heart, not merely formal worship. There He defined true sanctification and the spiritual experience God expects and people may gain, showing the great things God expects of every believer. His holy life is the example, and followers are to be crucified and buried with Him, quickened and made alive by His Spirit, and filled with His life.
He pronounced blessings on those seeking the righteousness He gives, showing who is truly blessed and pointing to the rewards of the faithful at the judgment. The Beatitudes are His greeting to the whole human family and bread and water of life, declaring blessed those receiving His light and life, including the poor in spirit, meek, lowly, sorrowful, despised, and persecuted, and explaining what God values most and what brings true happiness. The qualities Christ blesses are gained by carrying godliness and its principles into daily life, and are worth time and effort to study and practice.
He spoke with clearness, power, and unlimited authority as the fountain of all goodness acting in the office of God, with treasures of eternity and riches of heaven at command. His words of blessing were to come down to our time as a treasure of goodness full of encouragement, to fill the world with heaven-like peace and joy and to refine, purify, and sanctify a people who receive His instruction through belief of the truth imparted as breath of higher life. There He publicly specified subjects of the heavenly kingdom, not flattering worldly dignitaries but presenting traits for a peculiar royal family as heirs of God and joint-heirs sharing service, blessing, glory, and honor while trading on His gifts, with a great reward for sufferers for His name as Saviour to all who receive Him.
He gave a law of duty with heaven's light, hope, and comfort in discouragement, speaking words given by the Father as Master-teacher, a blessing to the whole world. Its enduring principles are for every age, class, and rank, presenting the high standard of character required with divine help provided by faith, and leading to salvation when received and practiced as the Holy Spirit impresses minds through those who teach them. Its words retain power through all time, and through faith in Christ and living His life everyone can reach the standard it sets in forming righteous character.
Links With Earlier Revelation
The mountain where Jesus sat to teach stood in peaceful beauty, in deliberate contrast to the fearful signs that attended the giving of the law at Sinai, yet the work there was the same, to explain the principles of that law for practical life in loving words. Though the setting was quiet and the speech was gentle, the instruction unfolded on that height was the same law once proclaimed amid Sinai's terrors.
That unnamed height beside the Lake of Gennesaret takes the place of Mount Gerizim as the Mount of Blessing and the mount of the Beatitudes. Israel had fallen short under Joshua and needed another Guide to bring His people into the true rest of faith, so the benediction once proclaimed from Gerizim is now given by Jesus to a sinning and sorrowing world. Its vividness and deeper lessons are found by sitting in imagination with the disciples on the mountainside and entering into what His words meant to those who heard them.
He who taught there is the same Teacher who gave Israel's laws at Sinai, and the principles taught on the mount of beatitudes are the same principles taught on Mount Sinai. They rest on love to God and to neighbor, the two principles on which hang the law and the prophets. The sermon magnifies and makes honorable the law He Himself had proclaimed to His chosen people during their wilderness wandering. Having laid aside the glory He had with the Father before the world was and clothed Himself with humanity to minister to men, He impressed the principles underlying His great standard of righteousness. Keeping God's commandments is shown there to mean manifesting love for God and for fellow men in daily life, while He instills His own love for humanity and sows seeds of truth that produce holiness and beauty of character, with a sanctifying and purifying influence of love reaching through time into eternity.
He gave His gospel from the mount of beatitudes just as truly as He gave His gospel to the children of Israel enshrouded in the pillar of cloud as Captain of the Lord's host. That giving reveals His prerogatives, high authority, glory, character, truth, and purity. Become flesh and dwelling among men, beheld full of grace and truth, He set before the human race the perfect standard of practice in purity, righteousness, and love, and with that standard gave the bright prospect of immortal life in the paradise of God.
As the foundation of the Jewish economy He gave there lessons of practical obedience that remain still binding on God's people today. When type met antitype in His death the need for sacrificial offerings ceased, but these lessons did not cease. The Jewish people's failure to walk in the light God had given them separated them from God, and as they failed to follow that light, darkness came upon them in proportion to the light they had allowed to shine on their path.
Manner of Teaching Used
He taught outdoors rather than in a temple, building, or imposing church, choosing the mountainside, fields, groves, lakesides, plain, highway, and fisherman's boat for instruction, meditation, and prayer. As He was cradled in a manger at birth, so His work on the mountainside shows that God's work begins in humble, simple places without grand buildings. He often trained the disciples outdoors beneath trees away from the confusion of the city, where quiet and simplicity suited lessons of simplicity, faith, and self-denial and turned thoughts from artificial things to creation and to God. He did so both because the crowds could not fit in a synagogue and because He loved nature and regarded quiet retreats as sacred, joining sacred experience with the beauty of mountain, valley, and sea.
He selected familiar figures, objects, and things before His hearers, often what was seen and happening at the very time He spoke, to make His discourse impressive. His illustrations were frequently drawn from nature and were beautiful in simplicity and living reality, so that minds were attracted and hung with intense interest upon His words. He did not use lofty eloquence, though He could have commanded it as readily, but preferred plain, simple, touching language so that even the least educated and weakest minds comprehended His meaning, including the weary and oppressed with great needs. In this way the living principles of God's law were brought home to minds and consciences, and some who heard and believed were among the thousands converted after His resurrection and ascension.
The sermon begun there was not sermonizing in modern style but Bible instruction and inculcation of important truths on an educating plan, in which everything received from God comes through His Word with the Spirit impressing it upon the heart. It was instruction in practical godliness distinctly outlining duty, illustrating truth in all its bearings to commend it to the conscience rather than proving truth by argument. He left hearers free to accept or reject without forcing belief, came right to the point with no long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, touched the heart and awakened sympathy, and the same power appears in the clearness and earnestness with which the disciples express truth.
His words came from God with heaven's authority as Master-teacher on the mount of beatitudes, which represents the high spiritual elevation on which He stood. Every sentence carries divine authority and presents truth without anything false or nonessential, and is spirit and life, giving a law of duty with heaven's light, hope, and comfort in discouragement as He spoke the words given Him by the Father. The teaching is simple enough for a child to study without being misled, yet contains ennobling, saving truth and assurance of hope, retains power through all time, and became a sure foundation for faith and practice taught plainly and with authority. He lived every phase of the sermon before giving it, so the Beatitudes record His own deeds and His words express His life, revealing the contrast between His spirit and methods and those of the rabbis. Without kingly pomp or royal retinue, in a setting where He could teach humility, He came as teacher and example as well as redeemer with truths giving hope to the lowly.
Call to Study Obey
Matthew 5 opens a chapter full of precious instruction in which plans are laid out in figures to be studied and acted upon, to be read and written upon the tablets of the soul. Its teachings are valuable for old and young, to be read often in the family and lived out in daily life. It is wonderful teaching given before a large congregation listening in the open air, revealing the character of Christ's teaching in the Beatitudes and in being salt and light, to be studied together with His conflicts and victories over temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4.
Its sayings are the great Teacher's words, and reading, believing, and practicing them develops Christlike character and puts divine principles into the heart. Its lessons and divine requirements are to be cherished and followed, transforming character so that believers show forth God's praise. Its lesson is that unity and love and Christian fellowship shall prevail among followers, a lesson to be learned today by spending time in it. Learning and obeying it forms Christlike characters, while failure to learn it brings condemnation, because God cannot cooperate with those who do not obey His teaching and who look upon their own way as better than His.
The blessings spoken upon the mount are full of deep meaning and wonderful golden treasures of truth and instruction, where every symbol has value. Yet they are dimly appreciated, and many who claim to be Christians do not choose to bring them into practical experience. They need to be incorporated into the life to give experimental knowledge of the highest value, and when messengers see their real value they understand the true position they are called to occupy and work it out in their own lives when proved and tried. The qualities Christ blesses are gained by carrying the principles of godliness into daily life and practice, and His blessing is worth the time and effort this requires.
The chapter reveals truth about the laws of God's government and carries a soul-saving message. Those who are humble in spirit and receive Christ's truths will be converted, and God's rebuke for their past wrongs will be removed. There He clearly defined the spiritual experience people may gain, showing the great things God expects of every believer.
Its lessons are to be lived out, not merely taught, and workers are urged to exemplify them in life. Living those teachings makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone or sermons spoken from a pulpit. Modest speech that hides self in Christ is guided by the Holy Spirit, and Christ works with the speaker to impress hearts.
Obeying its teachings leads to seeking perfection of Christian character and forms Christian character. It makes followers lights in the world and witnesses carrying God's truth to people in spiritual darkness. It gives the standard for building a Christlike character, requiring rising above evil influences and poor character. Its truths widen vision beyond one's own region to include sinful, suffering people, removing territorial boundaries and human-made distinctions.
Matthew 5:1-48 gives a clear expression of Christ's will, to be considered often and applied in church life, including by resisting misunderstandings, unkindness, retaliation, and strife. The pure gospel given on the mount in its explanation of God's law sets the holy standard of character, requiring loving God wholeheartedly and loving one's neighbor, and exposing unjust business dealings as failure to learn God's law. Its principles are to be worked out in business life by everyone who takes Christ's yoke with full determination to obey God's word, giving a healthy, symmetrical experience and the blessings of a life hid with Christ in God. In business this means renouncing the bag of deceitful weights and despising fraud and tricks in trade, earning money not to hoard but to put in circulation, holding an abiding sense of partnership in the heavenly firm with duty to trade upon God-given talents, realizing adoption into God's family, and acting toward all as Christ acted on earth.
Its words set the scene of Jesus seated on the mountain with His disciples coming to Him, and they are to be studied for personal benefit in connection with doing what He says and building life on a firm foundation. The words spoken there are a source of sanctified, Christlike speech, and following Christ's way and teachings equips a person to meet the adversary and avoid leading others away from the path He has set.
Its principles are to be studied prayerfully, received with humility and with a teachable, contrite heart, and lived out in obedience. Taking heed to oneself and practicing its truths brings joy and peace and forms a life, spirit, inclinations, and habits conformed to Christ. Lessons illustrated by familiar things brought the living principles of God's law home to minds and consciences, and some who heard and believed were among the thousands converted after Jesus rose and ascended.
It declares followers the light of the world to shine before men by good works to glorify the Father in heaven, and the salt of the earth which must not lose its savor lest it become good for nothing. The attributes it teaches, when cherished, bring workers peace and joy. Its call is not satisfied by hearing or professing alone, for Christ's word must be put into practice, and doers are compared to a builder whose house stands firm through floods and winds. Those who cherish Christ's Spirit have His mind and can do His will.
The Sermon had long been in preparation as a book needed by the people. Its lessons are to be shared with people of every rank, and when received and practiced they lead to salvation, with the Holy Spirit working through those who teach them to impress minds.
Seeing the crowds He could not contain on the narrow shore, Jesus led them to a level place on the mountainside by the Sea of Galilee near Capernaum, sat down as a teacher, and His disciples gathered close around Him to open the Sermon on the Mount. He called them near so the great truths would be indelibly impressed on their minds by the Holy Spirit to be received without loss, repeated, written, and carried to every land and age, while the mixed multitude beyond them listened with hopes of earthly glory that He disappointed. There He declared the character of those He calls blessed and the principles of God's kingdom of grace, restating in stronger and clearer terms the same law He had given through Moses and exemplified in His sinless life. In peaceful beauty unlike the fear at Sinai, the same Teacher who spoke from Sinai magnified that law, stripping away human traditions and revealing God as merciful Father. His words are spirit and life with heaven's authority, to be read often, believed, practiced, and lived out in heart service until character is transformed into His likeness.
Mountain Setting Described
Seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain, sat down, and His disciples came to Him, and this opens the Sermon on the Mount. The disciples gathered close around Him and had room to be close beside Him whenever He addressed a multitude, sharing His burdens in ministry and bringing to Him people who needed help and healing, working together with Him. The setting introduces His public declaration of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:1-12, describing the character of those Christ calls blessed and the blessings promised them as belonging to the kingdom of heaven. That mountain teaching on the Beatitudes and on being salt and light reveals the character of His teaching, and it is to be studied together with His conflicts and victories over temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Its sayings are the great Teacher's words, and reading, believing, and practicing them develops Christlike character and puts divine principles into the heart.
The narrow beach by the sea could not hold everyone within hearing distance after crowds had gathered to hear Him and be healed, so He led the people to a level place on the mountainside that could accommodate them. He had healed the sick and comforted the sorrowing on the narrow beach where the multitudes had gathered, but the crowd grew too large for room there, and He chose a level space where the people could gather. There He sat down and was followed by His disciples and the multitude, then called His disciples near so the great truths He was about to utter would be indelibly impressed upon their minds with nothing diverting their attention from His words. The sermon was directed especially to the disciples but was spoken where the crowd could hear it, so the gathered crowd was also meant to hear.
The mountain was beside the Sea of Galilee or Lake of Gennesaret near Capernaum, a high table-land overlooking the lake with a grassy plain below. He sat on an eminence beneath trees as the people gathered on the grassy plain below, and His disciples came to hear teaching that would endure through the ages. The setting was away from the turmoil and confusion of crowded cities, and Jesus often taught and trained His disciples outdoors where the quiet and simplicity of nature suited the lessons of simplicity, faith, and self-denial He wanted to teach. The natural setting helped turn people's thoughts from artificial things to God's creation. The peaceful beauty of the setting contrasted with the fearful signs at Sinai where God gave the law, for at the mount Christ was to explain the law's principles for practical life.
He sat down as a teacher, on a rock or some elevated place, ready to open the treasure of truth to those willing to listen. The mountain was a place of solitude where He spent the night in prayer to His Father before important work, and prayer preceded the Sermon on the Mount. It was morning after He had spent long before daybreak in meditation and prayer in communion with God on the shores of Lake Gennesaret near Capernaum while the disciples were still sleeping, refreshing His spiritual strength. The mountain setting belongs to prayerful communion with the Father before important work. As soon as it was day, multitudes who had learned where He was hastened to the lakeside anxious to hear the word of truth, so that though He loved retirement He could not remain alone very long at a time.
Disciples and Multitudes Present
Whenever He addressed a multitude His disciples had room to be close beside Him, gathered close around Him as an inner circle, including the twelve who followed Him in public and private and shared His burdens in ministry by bringing to Him those who needed help and healing and working together with Him. On the mountain they came near to Him and formed that innermost circle about Him as He sat to teach. They listened attentively in that place, while a curious multitude pressed near expecting something extraordinary.
He called the disciples near so that nothing would divert their attention and the great truths He was about to utter would be indelibly impressed upon their minds and remain in their memories through the Holy Spirit. Withdrawn thus from the turmoil of crowded cities, they belonged close to the Great Teacher to attend to every word spoken slowly and distinctly and to receive the truth without losing or misinterpreting it. So established, they could later repeat and write what they had heard for the benefit of the whole world and carry it to others who did not know it in every land and age.
He sat surrounded by His disciples with a large mixed gathering as He opened His mouth to teach. The sermon was directed especially to the disciples and spoken first to them, yet it was spoken where the crowd could hear and was designed to reach the hearts and consciences of those in ignorance and error and not limited to those already familiar with the way of life. The people at such large gatherings expected a great display of power concerning the new kingdom, with believing Jews looking for earthly glory and political freedom, liberty from the yoke of bondage, and restoration to ancient glory. He disappointed their hopes of earthly glory by opening His discourse with the Beatitudes, which state the principles that govern His kingdom of divine grace rather than promising what they expected.
The twelve had been called to the apostolic work in that mountain setting, and withdrawing to the mountain to meet with His disciples was communion with Jesus preceding their mission and later Pentecostal power. Taking unlearned fishermen from their boats and nets and connecting them with Himself as He traveled from place to place teaching the people and ministering to their needs, then gathering them about Him on a rock or some elevated place for instruction while hundreds listened, is the highest education of following in His footsteps in living connection with Him as laborers together with God. That training is the pattern in harmony with true higher education for qualifying nurses, physicians, and medical missionary evangelists. Crowds had followed Him from Galilee, Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, beyond Jordan, and Syria, drawn by His teaching in the synagogues, His preaching of the gospel of the kingdom, and His healing of every kind of sickness and disease. His compassionate acts in restoring the sick to health stirred deep interest and awakened concern that prepared the people to listen when, seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain, sat down, and His disciples came to Him to receive the lesson to be believed in simplicity and accepted in conversion.
Sermon Message Declared
This sitting on the mountain opens the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes of Matthew 5:1-12, declaring the character of those Christ calls blessed and the blessings promised to them. The setting introduces His public declaration of who belongs to the kingdom of heaven and the way of life taught there, including being salt and light. The promises of verses 3-5 are precious jewels to take in, gather up, and consider when discouraged and thinking of having a hard, close time, and those who love and fear God in this world are the very people who shall realize His blessings. The blessing on spiritual poverty is for those who feel need, come to One rich in mercy, desire a better world and another kingdom, and are unsatisfied with earthly things.
The sermon begins by setting out the principles of God's kingdom of grace and kingdom of divine grace, giving a true conception of the kingdom and Christ's character and the conditions of entrance. It corrects false ideas of worldly greatness without directly attacking errors, not promising the earthly glory and political freedom many expected. Though spoken especially to the disciples, it was designed to reach the hearts and consciences of the mixed crowd assembled there.
There He restated principles previously given through Moses, setting out duties to God and to one another in stronger and clearer terms because disobedience had confused understanding of God's claims. There He defined the far-reaching claims of God's law and the spirit and conduct of those who love God and keep His commandments, in lessons of practical obedience still binding after sacrificial offerings ceased when type met antitype in His death. His teaching astonished both religious leaders and ordinary people because it revealed the law in its true light beyond human traditions, clarifying true principles and exposing human traditions and external observances that had displaced genuine religion.
He gave from the mount the same law He exemplified in His sinless life, unfolding the principles of His kingdom in peaceful beauty and loving words while explaining the same law proclaimed at Sinai. That law is far-reaching in character, condemns every evil action, demands perfect obedience, and is immutable. He expounded its precepts so that people departing from it might return to allegiance and become representatives of the Son and the Father, with truly following Him meaning keeping God's commandments as He kept them and manifesting love to God and fellow men.
He stripped from God's law the rubbish covering of human thou-shalt and thou-shalt-not, traditions, and external observances of priests, rulers, scribes, and Pharisees, letting the great moral standard of righteousness appear in its true light. His sermon opposed self-righteous teaching and human traditions, correcting the false picture of God as stern and without compassion or mercy or love and as a harsh despot. He revealed God as merciful, loving, and Father to be addressed, restoring confidence in His love and showing God's character through Himself.
He taught principles of God's law that shape daily life and form right character, showing the gospel is practical and true service involves the heart, not merely formal worship. There He defined true sanctification and the spiritual experience God expects and people may gain, showing the great things God expects of every believer. His holy life is the example, and followers are to be crucified and buried with Him, quickened and made alive by His Spirit, and filled with His life.
He pronounced blessings on those seeking the righteousness He gives, showing who is truly blessed and pointing to the rewards of the faithful at the judgment. The Beatitudes are His greeting to the whole human family and bread and water of life, declaring blessed those receiving His light and life, including the poor in spirit, meek, lowly, sorrowful, despised, and persecuted, and explaining what God values most and what brings true happiness. The qualities Christ blesses are gained by carrying godliness and its principles into daily life, and are worth time and effort to study and practice.
He spoke with clearness, power, and unlimited authority as the fountain of all goodness acting in the office of God, with treasures of eternity and riches of heaven at command. His words of blessing were to come down to our time as a treasure of goodness full of encouragement, to fill the world with heaven-like peace and joy and to refine, purify, and sanctify a people who receive His instruction through belief of the truth imparted as breath of higher life. There He publicly specified subjects of the heavenly kingdom, not flattering worldly dignitaries but presenting traits for a peculiar royal family as heirs of God and joint-heirs sharing service, blessing, glory, and honor while trading on His gifts, with a great reward for sufferers for His name as Saviour to all who receive Him.
He gave a law of duty with heaven's light, hope, and comfort in discouragement, speaking words given by the Father as Master-teacher, a blessing to the whole world. Its enduring principles are for every age, class, and rank, presenting the high standard of character required with divine help provided by faith, and leading to salvation when received and practiced as the Holy Spirit impresses minds through those who teach them. Its words retain power through all time, and through faith in Christ and living His life everyone can reach the standard it sets in forming righteous character.
Links With Earlier Revelation
The mountain where Jesus sat to teach stood in peaceful beauty, in deliberate contrast to the fearful signs that attended the giving of the law at Sinai, yet the work there was the same, to explain the principles of that law for practical life in loving words. Though the setting was quiet and the speech was gentle, the instruction unfolded on that height was the same law once proclaimed amid Sinai's terrors.
That unnamed height beside the Lake of Gennesaret takes the place of Mount Gerizim as the Mount of Blessing and the mount of the Beatitudes. Israel had fallen short under Joshua and needed another Guide to bring His people into the true rest of faith, so the benediction once proclaimed from Gerizim is now given by Jesus to a sinning and sorrowing world. Its vividness and deeper lessons are found by sitting in imagination with the disciples on the mountainside and entering into what His words meant to those who heard them.
He who taught there is the same Teacher who gave Israel's laws at Sinai, and the principles taught on the mount of beatitudes are the same principles taught on Mount Sinai. They rest on love to God and to neighbor, the two principles on which hang the law and the prophets. The sermon magnifies and makes honorable the law He Himself had proclaimed to His chosen people during their wilderness wandering. Having laid aside the glory He had with the Father before the world was and clothed Himself with humanity to minister to men, He impressed the principles underlying His great standard of righteousness. Keeping God's commandments is shown there to mean manifesting love for God and for fellow men in daily life, while He instills His own love for humanity and sows seeds of truth that produce holiness and beauty of character, with a sanctifying and purifying influence of love reaching through time into eternity.
He gave His gospel from the mount of beatitudes just as truly as He gave His gospel to the children of Israel enshrouded in the pillar of cloud as Captain of the Lord's host. That giving reveals His prerogatives, high authority, glory, character, truth, and purity. Become flesh and dwelling among men, beheld full of grace and truth, He set before the human race the perfect standard of practice in purity, righteousness, and love, and with that standard gave the bright prospect of immortal life in the paradise of God.
As the foundation of the Jewish economy He gave there lessons of practical obedience that remain still binding on God's people today. When type met antitype in His death the need for sacrificial offerings ceased, but these lessons did not cease. The Jewish people's failure to walk in the light God had given them separated them from God, and as they failed to follow that light, darkness came upon them in proportion to the light they had allowed to shine on their path.
Manner of Teaching Used
He taught outdoors rather than in a temple, building, or imposing church, choosing the mountainside, fields, groves, lakesides, plain, highway, and fisherman's boat for instruction, meditation, and prayer. As He was cradled in a manger at birth, so His work on the mountainside shows that God's work begins in humble, simple places without grand buildings. He often trained the disciples outdoors beneath trees away from the confusion of the city, where quiet and simplicity suited lessons of simplicity, faith, and self-denial and turned thoughts from artificial things to creation and to God. He did so both because the crowds could not fit in a synagogue and because He loved nature and regarded quiet retreats as sacred, joining sacred experience with the beauty of mountain, valley, and sea.
He selected familiar figures, objects, and things before His hearers, often what was seen and happening at the very time He spoke, to make His discourse impressive. His illustrations were frequently drawn from nature and were beautiful in simplicity and living reality, so that minds were attracted and hung with intense interest upon His words. He did not use lofty eloquence, though He could have commanded it as readily, but preferred plain, simple, touching language so that even the least educated and weakest minds comprehended His meaning, including the weary and oppressed with great needs. In this way the living principles of God's law were brought home to minds and consciences, and some who heard and believed were among the thousands converted after His resurrection and ascension.
The sermon begun there was not sermonizing in modern style but Bible instruction and inculcation of important truths on an educating plan, in which everything received from God comes through His Word with the Spirit impressing it upon the heart. It was instruction in practical godliness distinctly outlining duty, illustrating truth in all its bearings to commend it to the conscience rather than proving truth by argument. He left hearers free to accept or reject without forcing belief, came right to the point with no long, farfetched, complicated reasoning, touched the heart and awakened sympathy, and the same power appears in the clearness and earnestness with which the disciples express truth.
His words came from God with heaven's authority as Master-teacher on the mount of beatitudes, which represents the high spiritual elevation on which He stood. Every sentence carries divine authority and presents truth without anything false or nonessential, and is spirit and life, giving a law of duty with heaven's light, hope, and comfort in discouragement as He spoke the words given Him by the Father. The teaching is simple enough for a child to study without being misled, yet contains ennobling, saving truth and assurance of hope, retains power through all time, and became a sure foundation for faith and practice taught plainly and with authority. He lived every phase of the sermon before giving it, so the Beatitudes record His own deeds and His words express His life, revealing the contrast between His spirit and methods and those of the rabbis. Without kingly pomp or royal retinue, in a setting where He could teach humility, He came as teacher and example as well as redeemer with truths giving hope to the lowly.
Call to Study Obey
Matthew 5 opens a chapter full of precious instruction in which plans are laid out in figures to be studied and acted upon, to be read and written upon the tablets of the soul. Its teachings are valuable for old and young, to be read often in the family and lived out in daily life. It is wonderful teaching given before a large congregation listening in the open air, revealing the character of Christ's teaching in the Beatitudes and in being salt and light, to be studied together with His conflicts and victories over temptation in the wilderness in Matthew 4.
Its sayings are the great Teacher's words, and reading, believing, and practicing them develops Christlike character and puts divine principles into the heart. Its lessons and divine requirements are to be cherished and followed, transforming character so that believers show forth God's praise. Its lesson is that unity and love and Christian fellowship shall prevail among followers, a lesson to be learned today by spending time in it. Learning and obeying it forms Christlike characters, while failure to learn it brings condemnation, because God cannot cooperate with those who do not obey His teaching and who look upon their own way as better than His.
The blessings spoken upon the mount are full of deep meaning and wonderful golden treasures of truth and instruction, where every symbol has value. Yet they are dimly appreciated, and many who claim to be Christians do not choose to bring them into practical experience. They need to be incorporated into the life to give experimental knowledge of the highest value, and when messengers see their real value they understand the true position they are called to occupy and work it out in their own lives when proved and tried. The qualities Christ blesses are gained by carrying the principles of godliness into daily life and practice, and His blessing is worth the time and effort this requires.
The chapter reveals truth about the laws of God's government and carries a soul-saving message. Those who are humble in spirit and receive Christ's truths will be converted, and God's rebuke for their past wrongs will be removed. There He clearly defined the spiritual experience people may gain, showing the great things God expects of every believer.
Its lessons are to be lived out, not merely taught, and workers are urged to exemplify them in life. Living those teachings makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone or sermons spoken from a pulpit. Modest speech that hides self in Christ is guided by the Holy Spirit, and Christ works with the speaker to impress hearts.
Obeying its teachings leads to seeking perfection of Christian character and forms Christian character. It makes followers lights in the world and witnesses carrying God's truth to people in spiritual darkness. It gives the standard for building a Christlike character, requiring rising above evil influences and poor character. Its truths widen vision beyond one's own region to include sinful, suffering people, removing territorial boundaries and human-made distinctions.
Matthew 5:1-48 gives a clear expression of Christ's will, to be considered often and applied in church life, including by resisting misunderstandings, unkindness, retaliation, and strife. The pure gospel given on the mount in its explanation of God's law sets the holy standard of character, requiring loving God wholeheartedly and loving one's neighbor, and exposing unjust business dealings as failure to learn God's law. Its principles are to be worked out in business life by everyone who takes Christ's yoke with full determination to obey God's word, giving a healthy, symmetrical experience and the blessings of a life hid with Christ in God. In business this means renouncing the bag of deceitful weights and despising fraud and tricks in trade, earning money not to hoard but to put in circulation, holding an abiding sense of partnership in the heavenly firm with duty to trade upon God-given talents, realizing adoption into God's family, and acting toward all as Christ acted on earth.
Its words set the scene of Jesus seated on the mountain with His disciples coming to Him, and they are to be studied for personal benefit in connection with doing what He says and building life on a firm foundation. The words spoken there are a source of sanctified, Christlike speech, and following Christ's way and teachings equips a person to meet the adversary and avoid leading others away from the path He has set.
Its principles are to be studied prayerfully, received with humility and with a teachable, contrite heart, and lived out in obedience. Taking heed to oneself and practicing its truths brings joy and peace and forms a life, spirit, inclinations, and habits conformed to Christ. Lessons illustrated by familiar things brought the living principles of God's law home to minds and consciences, and some who heard and believed were among the thousands converted after Jesus rose and ascended.
It declares followers the light of the world to shine before men by good works to glorify the Father in heaven, and the salt of the earth which must not lose its savor lest it become good for nothing. The attributes it teaches, when cherished, bring workers peace and joy. Its call is not satisfied by hearing or professing alone, for Christ's word must be put into practice, and doers are compared to a builder whose house stands firm through floods and winds. Those who cherish Christ's Spirit have His mind and can do His will.
The Sermon had long been in preparation as a book needed by the people. Its lessons are to be shared with people of every rank, and when received and practiced they lead to salvation, with the Holy Spirit working through those who teach them to impress minds.