Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
The merciful are those who show tender pity and active kindness to sufferers and wrongdoers instead of indifference, harshness or revenge, and they are blessed because the mercy they show comes back to them. Mercy means treating others better than they deserve, being kind even to the unthankful and forgiving as God for Christ's sake has forgiven. Such compassion does not spring from the naturally cold and unloving human heart, but comes through God first loving and continually blessing people, above all in giving His Son, and through His Spirit moving upon the heart. The compassionate find sweet peace and satisfaction now, with God supplying their need and strengthening them in suffering, and in the final need they find shelter in the Saviour's mercy and are received into everlasting homes as heirs with Christ. Mercy is a precious mark of Christ's own character and kingdom, lived by Him before He preached it, and it is formed in His followers as they are united to Him, put on the new man, and practice His teaching daily in family, fellowship, forgiveness of the erring, and help to the poor and oppressed.
Setting of the Sermon
Jesus went up into a mountain after a night spent in prayer to His Father, and when He was set His disciples came to Him and He opened His mouth and taught them within hearing of the gathered multitude. The great multitudes who followed Him came from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and beyond Jordan, a multitude of Jews and Gentiles, with the disciples in the inner circle, and the call was to heart-reformation. He longed to fill the world with a peace and joy that would be a similitude of that found in the heavenly world, and the teaching was a soul-saving message to all who will receive it. Those who are humble in spirit and receive these truths from His lips are converted, and the rebuke of God for past wrongs is removed.
The saying is one of the blessings in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, one of the Beatitudes pronounced by Jesus and a guide to the life and work of His followers. It is Christ's greeting and blessing to the whole human family, identifying the character traits He recognizes and blesses and offering refuge to those the world disowns. The Sermon on the Mount is heaven's blessing to the world, given as a law of duty and as light and hope and comfort for humanity. It was spoken with clearness and power and divine authority about what God values and what brings true happiness, given first to the disciples and also meant for all who learn from it. Every sentence is a jewel of truth flowing like a long-sealed current of rich life.
The Beatitudes state the principles governing Christ's kingdom of divine grace rather than promising the earthly glory the people expected, and were addressed to the disciples and the assembled crowd. There Christ taught the conditions of entrance into God's kingdom and revealed its principles and His character, correcting false ideas shaped by worldly expectations. The sermon presents enduring principles of duty and describes the character required of Christ's disciples, and attaining that character depends on the heavenly help provided to those who seek it by faith. The people He called blessed were those whom the scribes and Pharisees might have called cursed, turning from the world's ambitious favorites to those the world disowned, and the Beatitudes describe the character of those who will share eternal rewards. Their teachings form a guide for seeking perfection of Christian character and becoming lights in the world, and the lessons are to be lived out because putting them into practice makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone.
The Sermon on the Mount restates principles given through Moses and sets out human duties to God and to fellow people, stating them more plainly because disobedience had confused people about God's claims. These principles are not a lower standard than those given in the Old Testament, and the sermon should be studied carefully. It explains the far-reaching claims of God's law and presents it in its true light rather than as a cold code of human traditions, stripping away self-righteous coverings and opposing the self-righteous teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. It reveals God as compassionate and merciful and loving, and reveals His law as spiritual and compassionate and an enduring standard of righteousness. Christ's holy life is the example for His followers, and the sermon gives a definition of true sanctification.
Meaning of Mercy
Mercy is tender compassion that pities and helps those who suffer or err, rather than magnifying their faults. It meets another's weakness and wrongdoing with kindness instead of indifference, revenge or retaliation. It bears patiently with others, protects them from discouragement, gently warns them when in danger, prays with them, and seeks their restoration, remembering one's own need for help and forgiveness and one's own responsibility to fellow beings. Those who are merciful are tender, compassionate and pitiful toward those around them, seeking to help, strengthen and bless them, which reflects Christ's character.
Mercy means treating others better than they deserve, just as God has treated people. God delights to show mercy and is kind to the unthankful and to the evil, teaching people to be kind to one another, tender-hearted and forgiving even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven them. The merciful do good to their own souls, for mercy is a precious grace that produces kindliness and love.
Such mercy does not come from man himself, for the human heart is by nature cold and dark and unloving. It comes through the Divine Spirit moving upon the heart, for man loves because God first loved him. God continually gives rich mercies, above all in giving His only-begotten Son so believers should not perish but have everlasting life, and those who receive such mercy must show the same mercy to others as their Father is merciful. When all who profess Christ exercise such Christlike mercy, His love and tenderness revealed in their characters begets love in others, changes the aspect of the world, and draws praise to God from voices now silent.
The blessing confronts arrogance, cruel intolerance, quarrelsomeness, harsh criticism and resentment toward opposers and toward those who reflect on one's own actions, evils common among the priests and people. Hardness and coldness of heart belong to the great apostate, and no one can truly represent Christ while remaining cold, unsympathetic and bound about by selfishness.
Mercy is an attribute God delights to see expressed in people, a mark of Christ's followers and of the blessed character Christ teaches. It is a godly trait of character belonging to the character of Christ's kingdom, opposed to ambition and earthly passions. It overturns worldly ambition and the pursuit of status and power, correcting them by Christ's exposition of God's law, and is opposed to a pompous, overbearing, dictatorial spirit, for God measures by moral worth not possessions. The beatitude is part of Christ's greeting and blessing to the whole human family, showing a character trait Christ recognizes and blesses with the promise that the merciful shall receive mercy.
Promise to the Merciful
Those who show mercy are blessed and shall obtain mercy in return, for the mercy shown to others is reflected back upon the one who shows it. Mercy is one of the virtues marking those called blessed, plainly stated as instruction for believers to seek, cultivate as a precious quality, and maintain as their work, and in doing the work called for their lives reflect that calling and share in its labors and rewards.
The merciful shall obtain mercy from Christ and from God, and even from those who are not naturally merciful. God is more pitiful and merciful than people, and He is tender toward those who are tender, compassionate and pitiful in seeking to help, strengthen and bless those around them. By such mercy they teach what it means to be a child of God and an heir of heaven, entering through the simplicity seen in Christ's character into eternal life rather than through scientific sophistries. This tender heart uses the privilege of helping through His saints to bring glory, and within family life husband, wife and household must turn from deception and work with God rather than relying on their own strength and will in order to receive His ready grace. Since God repeatedly pardons, that pardon should soften the heart toward those who have done wrong, for all who hope for mercy from God must be merciful to the erring with compassion rather than harshness, because an unmerciful spirit can crush a soul and drive it to conceal or deny sin.
The compassionate spirit finds sweet peace and blessed satisfaction now in self-forgetful service for the good of others, for one who blesses others is made rich and one who waters others is watered himself. One who gives life to God in ministry to His children is joined to God who commands all the resources of the universe and is bound by unbreakable promises, so God does not fail in the hour of suffering and need but supplies every need. The Holy Spirit abiding in the soul and seen in the life softens hard hearts and awakens sympathy and tenderness, so that a person reaps what is sown. The one who considers the poor is preserved and kept alive by the Lord, blessed upon the earth, not delivered to the will of enemies, strengthened on the bed of languishing and cared for in sickness.
In the hour of final need the merciful find shelter in the mercy of the compassionate Saviour and are received into everlasting homes. They are embraced among those who will compose His kingdom in this world, publicly chosen as His subjects and united with Him in service, made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to share blessing and glory and honor. Having been given from the riches of heavenly grace and the accumulated treasures of the eternal Father every blessing essential to happiness and joy, they trade upon those gifts. The benediction is spoken with clearness, power, fullness and abundant assurance as a treasure of goodness and encouragement, showing its Speaker to be the fountain of all goodness with the prerogative to bless and impress minds, acting in the office of God with the treasures of eternity at command and with no flattery to men of highest authority and worldly dignitaries. The divine nature shining through humanity draws from the inexhaustible store of richest treasures committed by the Father, and in disposing of them knows no bounds toward those who are objects of mercy and love.
The promised mercy is received by appropriating the words by faith, submitting the will to God, accepting the terms and placing oneself in the attitude of receiving. Christ is the bread of life and every supply for spiritual need, with all sufficiency to satisfy every craving belonging to perfection of character, so that no person need lack the mercy described and those who cherish these qualities find peace and joy in serving God. Those who unite with God in the molding work, with wills submitted to the divine will, wearing the yoke and working in His lines as co-partners in suffering and toil for lost humanity as wise instructors of souls, receive the promised mercy as part of the inheritance. Those who humbly receive these soul-saving truths are converted and the rebuke for past wrongs is removed, for being merciful is one of the characters fitting for heaven.
Christlike Character and Sanctification
Being merciful belongs to putting on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Mercy is fashioned in a person after Christ's likeness not by the person using the Holy Spirit but by the Holy Spirit using the person, in contrast to a pompous, overbearing, dictatorial spirit. It is worked out with fear and trembling because God works in the person both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Those thus made merciful shall obtain mercy, showing the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, having crucified the flesh and refusing vain glory, provoking and envying.
Those in union with Christ share the divine nature, with the heart filled with His grace and the will controlled by Him. Moved by His love they suffer with those who suffer, rejoice with those who rejoice, feel deep tenderness for every soul in weakness, sorrow or distress, reach forth a helping hand to those needing relief, and are touched with pity at the sight of woe as His heart was. Christ dwelling in the soul produces an overflowing, unfailing life of kindness and good deeds, seeking to reclaim people rather than condemn them, giving evidence that they are children of God. This merciful character is the likeness of the divine Lord and reflection of the divine law, shown in letting light shine before men in good works that glorify the Father and in being salt of the earth through character under the molding influence of the Spirit of God by faith that works by love and purifies the soul, giving the sweetness of humility with firmness instead of a hard spirit.
Mercy is one of the graces of Christ's Spirit pronounced blessed that disciples must exhibit in character in order to be lights of the world. The Sermon on the Mount gives the definition of true sanctification, and Christ's holy life is the example for His followers, so the call to mercy is part of the life of holiness they are to live and the perfection of Christian character they are to seek. He lived mercifulness and every phase of the sermon before He preached it, so the Beatitude describes His own deeds. His teaching corrects the false view of God as a cold despot and reveals Him as merciful and gracious as made known to Moses, meaning religion born of love is simple in operation, always kind, courteous, just, pure and uplifting, doing right because it is right and walking in all humility of mind before God. Accepting the light He gives is essential for restoration to spiritual life, and a sound, healthful, happy experience requires exercising the best and noblest faculties of the soul in obedience to the requirements of God, following where He leads in safe direction that does not go astray. Misunderstanding and disobeying this teaching brought ruin to the Jews, and the same history will follow those who claim to believe the truth today and pass over the same ground unless they speedily repent, while safety and converting power come only by living it.
The sayings in Matthew 5 are so plain as It is written that if there were no other page of the Bible no soul would be lost, yet many who claim to be Christians do not choose to bring them into practical experience and their value is only dimly appreciated. They must be read and believed and practiced, taken with preconceived opinions laid aside as Thus saith the Lord on its own merits, truth expounding and explaining truth, as the bread of life which came down from heaven, believed and practiced irrespective of consequences to financial standing, losses or gains. The quality that brings His blessing is gained only by carrying out the principles of godliness in the daily life, and it needs to be incorporated into the life to give experimental knowledge of the highest value. Practiced, it puts the divine principles in the heart as if written with the finger of God, transforms character and makes His people reflect His character, so that the gaping lion's den or the fiery furnace cannot intimidate to deny and betray the truth for any favor or worldly honors or exalted position, reputation becomes as nothingness, and to live is to obey the word of Christ and to die for the truth's sake is gain. Studying and receiving these principles humbly, then obeying them, brings joy and peace and conforms life to Christ, for His blessing is worth time and effort to learn and gain, and the sanctification received through belief of the truth brings comfort and joy and imparts a quickening power to the life, enabling messengers when proved and tried to work it out in their own lives and to understand the true position they are called to occupy. This is one of Christ's lessons for workers in His institutions to study and put into practice.
Law Kingdom and Judgment
The blessings declare who is truly blessed, those who seek the righteousness that he alone can give, and describe the righteous character formed by the grace of the Spirit in the heart bearing fruit in good and righteous actions. That standard belongs to every age and every class, and through faith in him as the Life-giver everyone can reach it and live the life it requires. Studying these principles humbly, receiving them and obeying them brings joy and peace and conforms the life to his. They remove human-made distinctions and widen concern beyond one's own region to sinful, suffering people, so that those who meet the standard become lights imparting grace.
The blessing on the merciful magnifies and makes honorable the law he himself proclaimed from Sinai, showing what each precept comprehends and that the law is spiritual and reaches to every phase of life. The same one who spoke the ten precepts then explained them, correcting those who had robbed the law of its spirituality and burdened it with exactions, and he lived that law before heaven, fallen angels, and those he came to save by supreme obedience, purity, goodness, beneficence, devotion, zeal for God's glory, and unsurpassed love for fellow men. Keeping the commandments therefore requires love for God and for fellow men manifested in daily life, with his love for humanity instilled in the heart, sowing seeds of truth that produce holiness and beauty of character whose holy influence reaches far while time lasts and is felt through eternity. The law given from the mount and exemplified in his sinless life is far-reaching, condemns every evil action, and demands perfect obedience, restating the principles of mercy, compassion, and love toward everyone encountered so that obedience shapes heart and character in his likeness and prevents oppression of one another. Perfect obedience would leave the earth uncorrupted, end oppression and injustice, and bring love, harmony, and joy, revealing the power of Christianity in consistent lives, removing charges of inconsistency, and bringing the converting power of the Spirit.
Heaven's rewards are given to the faithful and true, not according to worldly favor, and the blessings foreshadow the judgment when each receives the fitting reward. Mercy must become a daily experience taught by Christ himself day by day to those who follow him, cooperate with him, wear his yoke rather than a yoke of human manufacture, and learn his meekness and lowliness while doing the work given them. This experience forms a faultless character without spot or stain, without fault in the sight of God and of Christ, which all who are saved must form in order to stand acquitted before his judgment seat. When the judgment sits and the books are opened each one is judged and sentenced according to the things written in the books and according to deeds done in this life, and those who have learned mercy are loved, welcomed, and ministered to by angels in every phase of life.
The lessons in practical obedience given from the Mount of Blessing are still binding. He was the foundation of the Jewish economy, and when type met antitype in his death the need for sacrificial offerings ceased, but the practical obedience taught in the Beatitudes did not cease. His people today have far greater light than ancient Israel, both increased light now shining and the instruction given through Moses that the difference between the sacred and the common must be strictly observed, and what God has set apart as sacred must ever be respected as sacred.
Living Mercy Daily
The principles of the sermon belong in daily family and social life, in benevolence and kind attention to others and self-forgetfulness that makes those around happy. In the home this is the appointed work: the father as priest and house-band binds the whole family together, keeping mind clear from dramshop, tobacco, liquor and every indulgence of perverted appetite so he can discern right from wrong and a mistake from willful sin. The mother is never to be a household slave, and children from childhood help her in little duties as part of the family firm, each doing duty at the post to make the family complete. Being merciful there means pleasant kind words and sweetness of disposition instead of cross fretful words and temper, for no one with a cross fretful temper will enter the gates of heaven. Such a merciful household is never passed by by angels, and this education fits parents with children for the courts above as members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King, while the Lord stands ready to show grace to husband, wife and family who turn from deception and work with God rather than their own strength and will.
In fellowship mercy puts away unkind criticism and grudges and works in harmony. It resists the unkindness and retaliation that grow from misunderstanding, shaping words, attitudes and actions to end strife among believers. When others are seen in trouble and difficulty or at enmity with one another, it speaks words of peace when nothing else can be done, which can stop complaining and prove a blessing. This is unity and love and Christian fellowship prevailing among followers, learned by disciples today under condemnation for failure, since God cannot co-operate with those who disobey and hold their own way better than His and work directly against formation of Christlike character. Keeping it means receiving Christ as personal Saviour, doing His work and following His way as members of the royal family, laborers together with God, washing robes of character white in the blood of the Lamb, and setting a Christlike example in word and deed with thanksgiving, instead of thinking and speaking evil, gathering jots and tittles of evil, worrying, finding fault and accusing brethren, using speech to destroy confidence, and standing before the world as a fractious fault-finding people.
Toward the erring mercy approaches with meekness, gentleness, tender love and kind encouragement for restoration rather than scorn or condemnation, remembering one's own weakness and liability to fall. It meets weakness and wrongdoing with compassion rather than indifference, revenge or retaliation, bearing patiently, protecting from discouragement, gently warning in danger, praying together, and seeking restoration. Those who have received Christ's love show the same pity and care, remembering their own need for help and forgiveness, for God is more pitiful and merciful than people and His repeated pardon should soften the heart toward wrongdoers. Whoever hopes for mercy from God must be merciful to others with compassion rather than harshness, for an unmerciful spirit can crush a soul and drive concealment or denial of sin, while the rule is to treat others with the kind forgiving spirit one desires from the heavenly Father, as fruit of Christ's grace.
Mercy is received as mercy is given, for God deals with people just as they deal with a fellow who has done wrong in spirit or action and afterward repented. Those who have themselves sinned against God must therefore forgive the repentant sinner and seek to restore every unsaved soul brought within influence, keeping in view the cross where Christ died a cruel death to redeem mankind and cherishing the same merciful spirit that led the Saviour to infinite sacrifice. Whoever does not show mercy cannot expect to be shielded by God's mercy, and refusing to cultivate this divine grace brings its own result, leaving him beyond mercy when he needs mercy from God and fellow men. Since all make mistakes and God does not cast off the erring but gives every son and daughter of Adam another trial, the true follower shows a Christlike spirit toward an erring brother instead of condemnation.
The merciful manifest compassion to the poor, the suffering and the oppressed by delivering the poor that cried and the fatherless and him that had none to help, bringing blessing to him ready to perish, causing the widow's heart to sing for joy, being eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, being a father to the poor, and searching out the cause not known. This requires a tender heart that uses the privilege of helping Christ through His saints, bringing glory to the Saviour. The compassionate spirit finds sweet peace and blessed satisfaction in self-forgetful service for others' good, and one who blesses others is made rich while one who waters is watered himself. The Holy Spirit abiding in the soul and seen in the life softens hard hearts and awakens sympathy and tenderness, so a person reaps what is sown, and one who considers the poor is preserved and kept alive by the Lord, blessed upon the earth, not delivered to enemies' will, strengthened on the bed of languishing and cared for in sickness.
Mercy marks Christian character to be revealed in service and business, acting toward everyone as Christ acted in forgiving and comforting repentant people and lifting the brokenhearted, shaping conduct even under temptation. It is one of Christ's lessons for workers in His institutions to study and put into practice. The lessons of the sermon are to be lived out and exemplified in life, forming Christian character and making disciples lights carrying truth to those in darkness, and such lived practice makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone. This call rests especially on workers handling God's books, above all canvassers for Christ's Object Lessons in its errand of mercy, to exemplify the sermon in daily life so lived mercy and goodness impress minds more than pulpit sermons. Even without eloquent speech, modest words with self hidden in Christ are dictated by the Holy Spirit, and Christ co-operating with the worker impresses hearts, while the merciful life is sustained by faith working by love and sanctifying the soul, advancing in knowledge of God and how to reach people, including helping and comforting the sick.
The words belong to Christ's instruction in practical godliness distinctly outlining duty, teaching truth illustrated in all its bearings rather than proved by argument, leaving hearers free to accept or reject without force while commanding the conscience with clearness and earnestness. They come right to the point with no long farfetched complicated reasoning, reading every heart as an open book, drawing things new and old from the treasure-house to illustrate and enforce teaching, touching the heart and awakening sympathies, as in the prodigal returning to his father's home with the father running to meet the son thought dead and now alive, and as at Simon's house where he whom He forgave most loves most. They clearly define the experience all may gain in the things of God and show the great things God expects of every believer, leaving no excuse for uncertainty, confusion and unbelief, with the Spirit's work bringing the world in touch with Christ so through His power men and women are continually won to truth, and they call for an understanding mind and pure heart. They are to be studied above all other knowledge because they teach the way to heaven and hold most precious lessons, kept instead of light reading, learned by heart, and repeated at the proper time in Scripture words rather than human words to every temperament and to those in trial and perplexity, as in a sanitarium, becoming a savor of life unto life, shielding from temptation, furnishing reasons for faith, and enabling a reason for faith in a manner that does not offend but glorifies God.
The merciful are those who show tender pity and active kindness to sufferers and wrongdoers instead of indifference, harshness or revenge, and they are blessed because the mercy they show comes back to them.
Mercy means treating others better than they deserve, being kind even to the unthankful and forgiving as God for Christ's sake has forgiven.
Such compassion does not spring from the naturally cold and unloving human heart, but comes through God first loving and continually blessing people, above all in giving His Son, and through His Spirit moving upon the heart.
The compassionate find sweet peace and satisfaction now, with God supplying their need and strengthening them in suffering, and in the final need they find shelter in the Saviour's mercy and are received into everlasting homes as heirs with Christ.
Mercy is a precious mark of Christ's own character and kingdom, lived by Him before He preached it, and it is formed in His followers as they are united to Him, put on the new man, and practice His teaching daily in family, fellowship, forgiveness of the erring, and help to the poor and oppressed.
Setting of the Sermon
Jesus went up into a mountain after a night spent in prayer to His Father, and when He was set His disciples came to Him and He opened His mouth and taught them within hearing of the gathered multitude. The great multitudes who followed Him came from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and beyond Jordan, a multitude of Jews and Gentiles, with the disciples in the inner circle, and the call was to heart-reformation. He longed to fill the world with a peace and joy that would be a similitude of that found in the heavenly world, and the teaching was a soul-saving message to all who will receive it. Those who are humble in spirit and receive these truths from His lips are converted, and the rebuke of God for past wrongs is removed.
The saying is one of the blessings in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, one of the Beatitudes pronounced by Jesus and a guide to the life and work of His followers. It is Christ's greeting and blessing to the whole human family, identifying the character traits He recognizes and blesses and offering refuge to those the world disowns. The Sermon on the Mount is heaven's blessing to the world, given as a law of duty and as light and hope and comfort for humanity. It was spoken with clearness and power and divine authority about what God values and what brings true happiness, given first to the disciples and also meant for all who learn from it. Every sentence is a jewel of truth flowing like a long-sealed current of rich life.
The Beatitudes state the principles governing Christ's kingdom of divine grace rather than promising the earthly glory the people expected, and were addressed to the disciples and the assembled crowd. There Christ taught the conditions of entrance into God's kingdom and revealed its principles and His character, correcting false ideas shaped by worldly expectations. The sermon presents enduring principles of duty and describes the character required of Christ's disciples, and attaining that character depends on the heavenly help provided to those who seek it by faith. The people He called blessed were those whom the scribes and Pharisees might have called cursed, turning from the world's ambitious favorites to those the world disowned, and the Beatitudes describe the character of those who will share eternal rewards. Their teachings form a guide for seeking perfection of Christian character and becoming lights in the world, and the lessons are to be lived out because putting them into practice makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone.
The Sermon on the Mount restates principles given through Moses and sets out human duties to God and to fellow people, stating them more plainly because disobedience had confused people about God's claims. These principles are not a lower standard than those given in the Old Testament, and the sermon should be studied carefully. It explains the far-reaching claims of God's law and presents it in its true light rather than as a cold code of human traditions, stripping away self-righteous coverings and opposing the self-righteous teaching of the scribes and Pharisees. It reveals God as compassionate and merciful and loving, and reveals His law as spiritual and compassionate and an enduring standard of righteousness. Christ's holy life is the example for His followers, and the sermon gives a definition of true sanctification.
Meaning of Mercy
Mercy is tender compassion that pities and helps those who suffer or err, rather than magnifying their faults. It meets another's weakness and wrongdoing with kindness instead of indifference, revenge or retaliation. It bears patiently with others, protects them from discouragement, gently warns them when in danger, prays with them, and seeks their restoration, remembering one's own need for help and forgiveness and one's own responsibility to fellow beings. Those who are merciful are tender, compassionate and pitiful toward those around them, seeking to help, strengthen and bless them, which reflects Christ's character.
Mercy means treating others better than they deserve, just as God has treated people. God delights to show mercy and is kind to the unthankful and to the evil, teaching people to be kind to one another, tender-hearted and forgiving even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven them. The merciful do good to their own souls, for mercy is a precious grace that produces kindliness and love.
Such mercy does not come from man himself, for the human heart is by nature cold and dark and unloving. It comes through the Divine Spirit moving upon the heart, for man loves because God first loved him. God continually gives rich mercies, above all in giving His only-begotten Son so believers should not perish but have everlasting life, and those who receive such mercy must show the same mercy to others as their Father is merciful. When all who profess Christ exercise such Christlike mercy, His love and tenderness revealed in their characters begets love in others, changes the aspect of the world, and draws praise to God from voices now silent.
The blessing confronts arrogance, cruel intolerance, quarrelsomeness, harsh criticism and resentment toward opposers and toward those who reflect on one's own actions, evils common among the priests and people. Hardness and coldness of heart belong to the great apostate, and no one can truly represent Christ while remaining cold, unsympathetic and bound about by selfishness.
Mercy is an attribute God delights to see expressed in people, a mark of Christ's followers and of the blessed character Christ teaches. It is a godly trait of character belonging to the character of Christ's kingdom, opposed to ambition and earthly passions. It overturns worldly ambition and the pursuit of status and power, correcting them by Christ's exposition of God's law, and is opposed to a pompous, overbearing, dictatorial spirit, for God measures by moral worth not possessions. The beatitude is part of Christ's greeting and blessing to the whole human family, showing a character trait Christ recognizes and blesses with the promise that the merciful shall receive mercy.
Promise to the Merciful
Those who show mercy are blessed and shall obtain mercy in return, for the mercy shown to others is reflected back upon the one who shows it. Mercy is one of the virtues marking those called blessed, plainly stated as instruction for believers to seek, cultivate as a precious quality, and maintain as their work, and in doing the work called for their lives reflect that calling and share in its labors and rewards.
The merciful shall obtain mercy from Christ and from God, and even from those who are not naturally merciful. God is more pitiful and merciful than people, and He is tender toward those who are tender, compassionate and pitiful in seeking to help, strengthen and bless those around them. By such mercy they teach what it means to be a child of God and an heir of heaven, entering through the simplicity seen in Christ's character into eternal life rather than through scientific sophistries. This tender heart uses the privilege of helping through His saints to bring glory, and within family life husband, wife and household must turn from deception and work with God rather than relying on their own strength and will in order to receive His ready grace. Since God repeatedly pardons, that pardon should soften the heart toward those who have done wrong, for all who hope for mercy from God must be merciful to the erring with compassion rather than harshness, because an unmerciful spirit can crush a soul and drive it to conceal or deny sin.
The compassionate spirit finds sweet peace and blessed satisfaction now in self-forgetful service for the good of others, for one who blesses others is made rich and one who waters others is watered himself. One who gives life to God in ministry to His children is joined to God who commands all the resources of the universe and is bound by unbreakable promises, so God does not fail in the hour of suffering and need but supplies every need. The Holy Spirit abiding in the soul and seen in the life softens hard hearts and awakens sympathy and tenderness, so that a person reaps what is sown. The one who considers the poor is preserved and kept alive by the Lord, blessed upon the earth, not delivered to the will of enemies, strengthened on the bed of languishing and cared for in sickness.
In the hour of final need the merciful find shelter in the mercy of the compassionate Saviour and are received into everlasting homes. They are embraced among those who will compose His kingdom in this world, publicly chosen as His subjects and united with Him in service, made heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ to share blessing and glory and honor. Having been given from the riches of heavenly grace and the accumulated treasures of the eternal Father every blessing essential to happiness and joy, they trade upon those gifts. The benediction is spoken with clearness, power, fullness and abundant assurance as a treasure of goodness and encouragement, showing its Speaker to be the fountain of all goodness with the prerogative to bless and impress minds, acting in the office of God with the treasures of eternity at command and with no flattery to men of highest authority and worldly dignitaries. The divine nature shining through humanity draws from the inexhaustible store of richest treasures committed by the Father, and in disposing of them knows no bounds toward those who are objects of mercy and love.
The promised mercy is received by appropriating the words by faith, submitting the will to God, accepting the terms and placing oneself in the attitude of receiving. Christ is the bread of life and every supply for spiritual need, with all sufficiency to satisfy every craving belonging to perfection of character, so that no person need lack the mercy described and those who cherish these qualities find peace and joy in serving God. Those who unite with God in the molding work, with wills submitted to the divine will, wearing the yoke and working in His lines as co-partners in suffering and toil for lost humanity as wise instructors of souls, receive the promised mercy as part of the inheritance. Those who humbly receive these soul-saving truths are converted and the rebuke for past wrongs is removed, for being merciful is one of the characters fitting for heaven.
Christlike Character and Sanctification
Being merciful belongs to putting on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Mercy is fashioned in a person after Christ's likeness not by the person using the Holy Spirit but by the Holy Spirit using the person, in contrast to a pompous, overbearing, dictatorial spirit. It is worked out with fear and trembling because God works in the person both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Those thus made merciful shall obtain mercy, showing the fruit of the Spirit in love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance, having crucified the flesh and refusing vain glory, provoking and envying.
Those in union with Christ share the divine nature, with the heart filled with His grace and the will controlled by Him. Moved by His love they suffer with those who suffer, rejoice with those who rejoice, feel deep tenderness for every soul in weakness, sorrow or distress, reach forth a helping hand to those needing relief, and are touched with pity at the sight of woe as His heart was. Christ dwelling in the soul produces an overflowing, unfailing life of kindness and good deeds, seeking to reclaim people rather than condemn them, giving evidence that they are children of God. This merciful character is the likeness of the divine Lord and reflection of the divine law, shown in letting light shine before men in good works that glorify the Father and in being salt of the earth through character under the molding influence of the Spirit of God by faith that works by love and purifies the soul, giving the sweetness of humility with firmness instead of a hard spirit.
Mercy is one of the graces of Christ's Spirit pronounced blessed that disciples must exhibit in character in order to be lights of the world. The Sermon on the Mount gives the definition of true sanctification, and Christ's holy life is the example for His followers, so the call to mercy is part of the life of holiness they are to live and the perfection of Christian character they are to seek. He lived mercifulness and every phase of the sermon before He preached it, so the Beatitude describes His own deeds. His teaching corrects the false view of God as a cold despot and reveals Him as merciful and gracious as made known to Moses, meaning religion born of love is simple in operation, always kind, courteous, just, pure and uplifting, doing right because it is right and walking in all humility of mind before God. Accepting the light He gives is essential for restoration to spiritual life, and a sound, healthful, happy experience requires exercising the best and noblest faculties of the soul in obedience to the requirements of God, following where He leads in safe direction that does not go astray. Misunderstanding and disobeying this teaching brought ruin to the Jews, and the same history will follow those who claim to believe the truth today and pass over the same ground unless they speedily repent, while safety and converting power come only by living it.
The sayings in Matthew 5 are so plain as It is written that if there were no other page of the Bible no soul would be lost, yet many who claim to be Christians do not choose to bring them into practical experience and their value is only dimly appreciated. They must be read and believed and practiced, taken with preconceived opinions laid aside as Thus saith the Lord on its own merits, truth expounding and explaining truth, as the bread of life which came down from heaven, believed and practiced irrespective of consequences to financial standing, losses or gains. The quality that brings His blessing is gained only by carrying out the principles of godliness in the daily life, and it needs to be incorporated into the life to give experimental knowledge of the highest value. Practiced, it puts the divine principles in the heart as if written with the finger of God, transforms character and makes His people reflect His character, so that the gaping lion's den or the fiery furnace cannot intimidate to deny and betray the truth for any favor or worldly honors or exalted position, reputation becomes as nothingness, and to live is to obey the word of Christ and to die for the truth's sake is gain. Studying and receiving these principles humbly, then obeying them, brings joy and peace and conforms life to Christ, for His blessing is worth time and effort to learn and gain, and the sanctification received through belief of the truth brings comfort and joy and imparts a quickening power to the life, enabling messengers when proved and tried to work it out in their own lives and to understand the true position they are called to occupy. This is one of Christ's lessons for workers in His institutions to study and put into practice.
Law Kingdom and Judgment
The blessings declare who is truly blessed, those who seek the righteousness that he alone can give, and describe the righteous character formed by the grace of the Spirit in the heart bearing fruit in good and righteous actions. That standard belongs to every age and every class, and through faith in him as the Life-giver everyone can reach it and live the life it requires. Studying these principles humbly, receiving them and obeying them brings joy and peace and conforms the life to his. They remove human-made distinctions and widen concern beyond one's own region to sinful, suffering people, so that those who meet the standard become lights imparting grace.
The blessing on the merciful magnifies and makes honorable the law he himself proclaimed from Sinai, showing what each precept comprehends and that the law is spiritual and reaches to every phase of life. The same one who spoke the ten precepts then explained them, correcting those who had robbed the law of its spirituality and burdened it with exactions, and he lived that law before heaven, fallen angels, and those he came to save by supreme obedience, purity, goodness, beneficence, devotion, zeal for God's glory, and unsurpassed love for fellow men. Keeping the commandments therefore requires love for God and for fellow men manifested in daily life, with his love for humanity instilled in the heart, sowing seeds of truth that produce holiness and beauty of character whose holy influence reaches far while time lasts and is felt through eternity. The law given from the mount and exemplified in his sinless life is far-reaching, condemns every evil action, and demands perfect obedience, restating the principles of mercy, compassion, and love toward everyone encountered so that obedience shapes heart and character in his likeness and prevents oppression of one another. Perfect obedience would leave the earth uncorrupted, end oppression and injustice, and bring love, harmony, and joy, revealing the power of Christianity in consistent lives, removing charges of inconsistency, and bringing the converting power of the Spirit.
Heaven's rewards are given to the faithful and true, not according to worldly favor, and the blessings foreshadow the judgment when each receives the fitting reward. Mercy must become a daily experience taught by Christ himself day by day to those who follow him, cooperate with him, wear his yoke rather than a yoke of human manufacture, and learn his meekness and lowliness while doing the work given them. This experience forms a faultless character without spot or stain, without fault in the sight of God and of Christ, which all who are saved must form in order to stand acquitted before his judgment seat. When the judgment sits and the books are opened each one is judged and sentenced according to the things written in the books and according to deeds done in this life, and those who have learned mercy are loved, welcomed, and ministered to by angels in every phase of life.
The lessons in practical obedience given from the Mount of Blessing are still binding. He was the foundation of the Jewish economy, and when type met antitype in his death the need for sacrificial offerings ceased, but the practical obedience taught in the Beatitudes did not cease. His people today have far greater light than ancient Israel, both increased light now shining and the instruction given through Moses that the difference between the sacred and the common must be strictly observed, and what God has set apart as sacred must ever be respected as sacred.
Living Mercy Daily
The principles of the sermon belong in daily family and social life, in benevolence and kind attention to others and self-forgetfulness that makes those around happy. In the home this is the appointed work: the father as priest and house-band binds the whole family together, keeping mind clear from dramshop, tobacco, liquor and every indulgence of perverted appetite so he can discern right from wrong and a mistake from willful sin. The mother is never to be a household slave, and children from childhood help her in little duties as part of the family firm, each doing duty at the post to make the family complete. Being merciful there means pleasant kind words and sweetness of disposition instead of cross fretful words and temper, for no one with a cross fretful temper will enter the gates of heaven. Such a merciful household is never passed by by angels, and this education fits parents with children for the courts above as members of the royal family, children of the heavenly King, while the Lord stands ready to show grace to husband, wife and family who turn from deception and work with God rather than their own strength and will.
In fellowship mercy puts away unkind criticism and grudges and works in harmony. It resists the unkindness and retaliation that grow from misunderstanding, shaping words, attitudes and actions to end strife among believers. When others are seen in trouble and difficulty or at enmity with one another, it speaks words of peace when nothing else can be done, which can stop complaining and prove a blessing. This is unity and love and Christian fellowship prevailing among followers, learned by disciples today under condemnation for failure, since God cannot co-operate with those who disobey and hold their own way better than His and work directly against formation of Christlike character. Keeping it means receiving Christ as personal Saviour, doing His work and following His way as members of the royal family, laborers together with God, washing robes of character white in the blood of the Lamb, and setting a Christlike example in word and deed with thanksgiving, instead of thinking and speaking evil, gathering jots and tittles of evil, worrying, finding fault and accusing brethren, using speech to destroy confidence, and standing before the world as a fractious fault-finding people.
Toward the erring mercy approaches with meekness, gentleness, tender love and kind encouragement for restoration rather than scorn or condemnation, remembering one's own weakness and liability to fall. It meets weakness and wrongdoing with compassion rather than indifference, revenge or retaliation, bearing patiently, protecting from discouragement, gently warning in danger, praying together, and seeking restoration. Those who have received Christ's love show the same pity and care, remembering their own need for help and forgiveness, for God is more pitiful and merciful than people and His repeated pardon should soften the heart toward wrongdoers. Whoever hopes for mercy from God must be merciful to others with compassion rather than harshness, for an unmerciful spirit can crush a soul and drive concealment or denial of sin, while the rule is to treat others with the kind forgiving spirit one desires from the heavenly Father, as fruit of Christ's grace.
Mercy is received as mercy is given, for God deals with people just as they deal with a fellow who has done wrong in spirit or action and afterward repented. Those who have themselves sinned against God must therefore forgive the repentant sinner and seek to restore every unsaved soul brought within influence, keeping in view the cross where Christ died a cruel death to redeem mankind and cherishing the same merciful spirit that led the Saviour to infinite sacrifice. Whoever does not show mercy cannot expect to be shielded by God's mercy, and refusing to cultivate this divine grace brings its own result, leaving him beyond mercy when he needs mercy from God and fellow men. Since all make mistakes and God does not cast off the erring but gives every son and daughter of Adam another trial, the true follower shows a Christlike spirit toward an erring brother instead of condemnation.
The merciful manifest compassion to the poor, the suffering and the oppressed by delivering the poor that cried and the fatherless and him that had none to help, bringing blessing to him ready to perish, causing the widow's heart to sing for joy, being eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, being a father to the poor, and searching out the cause not known. This requires a tender heart that uses the privilege of helping Christ through His saints, bringing glory to the Saviour. The compassionate spirit finds sweet peace and blessed satisfaction in self-forgetful service for others' good, and one who blesses others is made rich while one who waters is watered himself. The Holy Spirit abiding in the soul and seen in the life softens hard hearts and awakens sympathy and tenderness, so a person reaps what is sown, and one who considers the poor is preserved and kept alive by the Lord, blessed upon the earth, not delivered to enemies' will, strengthened on the bed of languishing and cared for in sickness.
Mercy marks Christian character to be revealed in service and business, acting toward everyone as Christ acted in forgiving and comforting repentant people and lifting the brokenhearted, shaping conduct even under temptation. It is one of Christ's lessons for workers in His institutions to study and put into practice. The lessons of the sermon are to be lived out and exemplified in life, forming Christian character and making disciples lights carrying truth to those in darkness, and such lived practice makes a deeper and more lasting impression than preaching alone. This call rests especially on workers handling God's books, above all canvassers for Christ's Object Lessons in its errand of mercy, to exemplify the sermon in daily life so lived mercy and goodness impress minds more than pulpit sermons. Even without eloquent speech, modest words with self hidden in Christ are dictated by the Holy Spirit, and Christ co-operating with the worker impresses hearts, while the merciful life is sustained by faith working by love and sanctifying the soul, advancing in knowledge of God and how to reach people, including helping and comforting the sick.
The words belong to Christ's instruction in practical godliness distinctly outlining duty, teaching truth illustrated in all its bearings rather than proved by argument, leaving hearers free to accept or reject without force while commanding the conscience with clearness and earnestness. They come right to the point with no long farfetched complicated reasoning, reading every heart as an open book, drawing things new and old from the treasure-house to illustrate and enforce teaching, touching the heart and awakening sympathies, as in the prodigal returning to his father's home with the father running to meet the son thought dead and now alive, and as at Simon's house where he whom He forgave most loves most. They clearly define the experience all may gain in the things of God and show the great things God expects of every believer, leaving no excuse for uncertainty, confusion and unbelief, with the Spirit's work bringing the world in touch with Christ so through His power men and women are continually won to truth, and they call for an understanding mind and pure heart. They are to be studied above all other knowledge because they teach the way to heaven and hold most precious lessons, kept instead of light reading, learned by heart, and repeated at the proper time in Scripture words rather than human words to every temperament and to those in trial and perplexity, as in a sanitarium, becoming a savor of life unto life, shielding from temptation, furnishing reasons for faith, and enabling a reason for faith in a manner that does not offend but glorifies God.