The last word of the Book of the Old Covenant is the word “curse”. Jesus began his appeal to Israel with the command: “Repent!” He began the formal instruction of his disciples with: “Blessed” – but then proceeded to pronounce this blessedness upon a set of excellences which the world despises. There are eight of them, not because this exhausts the life of fine spiritual qualities which he esteems (for these are only samples of the kind of virtues which he desires more than sacrifice) but because eight is the beginning of a new seven, it is the number of the New Creation.

The first blessedness, and the key to all the others, is to be “poor in spirit”. This should not be taken to mean a craven gutlessness, but a true sense of proportion towards life’s problems and towards anything achieved through one’s own abilities or endeavours. It signifies not a complete lack of confidence in self but a complete lack of satisfaction with self. And with this must necessarily go an utter dependence on God, a positive even more difficult to achieve than the negative just enunciated. Laodicea, spiritually rich and increased in the goods of godliness and in need of nothing, thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked-because thou knowest not how to be poor in spirit. Then spend all your fine resources to buy of Me…!

“Poor and Needy”

The two facets of this virtue are set side by side in many a place in the Book of Psalms: “I am poor and needy: yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God” (40:17 and 70:5). “But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high” (69:29). “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy” (86:1). “Do thou for me, O God the Lord, for thy name’s sake… for I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me” (109:21, 22).

Here is the first lesson one has to learn in the school of Christ-that all which a man has by inheritance or which he has acquired by his own effort is worth little or nothing before God. Birth into a particular nation or segment of society, colour of skin, inherited brains, sweetness of disposition, capacity for hard work, superior education or technical qualifications, social status, personal elegance or charm, nimble wit or brilliant memory, high sense of duty or exceptional patience of spirit-none of these, except in so far that they have been nurtured in a man by the grace of Christ, are of any consequence whatever. Anything whatever which allows of self-esteem is fit only for the Lord’s rag-bag.

But he who learns to be truly poor in spirit has the kingdom of heaven also, and he who has the kingdom has all the rest that Christ can offer.

Examples

Abraham, seeing no way through the impasse, leaned hard on God. “My son, God will provide himself a lamb”, he said, not knowing what he said-but he learned within the hour, and also had the promise, on oath of God, of a heavenly kingdom.

Moses showed to the destitute of spirit how to be poor in spirit when he cried: “Stand still, and see the glory of God.”

Joshua, made leader of the most turbulent people in all the world, and quaking in his sandals at the responsibilities laid upon him, was bidden a dozen times over: “Fear not, be strong and of a good courage.” He had to learn the lesson for himself and teach it to the people also.

Barak, honest humble fellow, confessed his lack of bravery to a woman: “If thou wilt go with me, then I will go. But if thou wilt not go with me, then I will not go.” Only the providence of God could bring success in the risky project he was putting his hand to.

Gideon desperately craved the deliverance of his people, but there was no preening of himself because the angel of the Lord came to him of all people: “Oh my lord, wherewith shall / save Israel? Behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.” and this poor spirit wrought an epoch-making “day of Midian” foreshadowing Messiah’s greater victory.

“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief”, was the piteous cry of a man out of whom bitter afflication and sorely-taxed emotions had wrung the last dregs of self-reliance.

“Sir, come down ere my child die”, was the pathetic imperative of a man of worldly consequence, now ground small by the mills of God’s gracious tribulation.

“Poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word”-this was what God asked for through His prophet (Is. 66:2). Here in a phrase is all that Scripture has to say on this blessedness to which no man aspires with his whole soul.

Jacob

With these examples contrast Jacob before he became Israel. He was a better man than any of his adversaries. He had more godliness than Esau, more cleverness than Laban, greater strength of character than Isaac, more cunning than Rebekah, better judgement of affairs than his sons-all these qualities, and more, were his. And he knew it, and through many years gloried in it. But then he came to Jabbok, and all this tough self-dependence, which the world prizes highly as one of the finest of fine virtues, drained out of him, and for the rest of his life he limped ungainly on, leaning thankfully on the angel of the Lord who redeemed him from all evil, and most of all from the evil in himself. It was this-and not that-which gave him title to the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus poor in spirit

Where in Jesus is this high Christian virtue? With him it was normal to speak with authority, and to face all situations in tranquil confidence, but it was not confidence in himself. “I can of mine own self do nothing.” And how he underlined this truth when on his knees in Gethsemane! Poor in spirit-utterly outpoured!

He is King of the kingdom of heaven.

The Blessing of Poverty

In Luke there is no qualifying phrase. “Blessed are the poor.” Thus in its first declaration this “Manifesto of the King” turns the world’s assessment of real good upside down. For men esteem wealth as one of the highest blessings of life. Not so, says Jesus. He does not curse the well-off, but he pities them: “Woe unto you that are rich”. You poor people, what a load of temptation you carry through life!

But you who are financially poor are really best off. Not that all poor people are necessarily blessed by being chronically hard-up-for the simple reason that nearly all who suffer poverty covet money instead of contentment. But if Jesus is to be believed (and in this respect practically everybody thinks that he didn’t know what he was talking about!), being poor means opportunities for faith and dependence on God such as the rich have to find in other ways.

In moments of real honesty even the prosperous man will acknowledge the truth of this. But there is comfort in his next thought that after all he isn’t really rich. A man has to have twice as much as he now has before he considers himself in that category. Thus, always, human nature holds at arm’s length the challenge of Christ: “The Lord is talking to the other man, not tome”.

The Reward

It is specially noteworthy that this first beatitude and also the last are unlike the rest in expressing an identical reward (if that is what it is) in the present tense: “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” All the rest say “shall”.

At different times there has been a good deal of fuss amongst believers about what has been called “belief in present possession of eternal life” — an unnecessary concern generated largely by an unwillingness to let the Bible interpret itself.

Here, palpably, “theirs is the kingdom” is almost meaningless as long as “kingdom” is restricted to the Messianic Age. Nor will it do to cope with the difficulty which that present tense offers by a glib out-of-context quoting of “calling those things which be not as though they were”, for there is then the immediate question: Why should that principle come in here and not in “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”?

It is simpler to recognize that there is a sense in which the kingdom can be seen as not wholly future. Ancient Israel was already “a kingdom of priests and an holy nation” when the covenant was made at Sinai, even though the Promised Land was not yet theirs. So a similar use of language is surely not inappropriate regarding the New Israel. Not a few of the parables use similar phrasing (e.g.

13:24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47; 20:1; 22:2; 25:1). Serious error comes in, of course, when men blithely assert that the Kingdom is here and now, and not in the future.

Notes: Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20, 24

1. Eight the number of the New Creation. The day of the Lord’s resurrection, and of his appearing to his disciples (Jn. 20:26). Eight persons in the ark. Eight gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:28). Zacharias belonged to the eighth order of priests. The number of the Lamb is 888. But why Rev. 21:8?
2. Jacob is not the only man who learned the hard way. Abraham dissembling in Egypt (Gen. 12:13), David brilliantly playing the lunatic to save his own skin (1 Sam. 21:13; Ps. 34:6), Hezekiah preening himself on a fine political alliance and then with stark sense suddenly circling back into spiritual sanity (ls. 39)-all of these were God’s great men. There is much comfort in such examples.
3. “The kingdom of heaven” in Mt. 8:11; 11:11; 13:11 is “the kingdom of God” in gospel parallels,
4. Luke’s four Blessings and four woes (not curses!) have their counterpart in Dt. 28:3-6, 16-19 on a different level. But the word “woe” means woe.
5. “Ye have received” (Lk. 6:24). As in Mt. 6:2, 5, 16, Lk. 16:25 the past tense is very emphatic. Most of Ps.49 is on this sorry theme.

Since the word “blessed” means “happy”, this beatitude presents one of the most unlikely paradoxes in all the Bible. Yet Jesus did not say that they who mourn ore happy, for this would be worse than any modern example of crazy double-speak. His beatitude gives firm assurance of comfort to come. Yet at any given moment there are thousands in the world who are delivered over to grief and who are bereft of real solace of any kind. The cruel hand of death, sudden and violent, the loss of home or health, the savage “indiscriminate” heartlessness of war, famine, plague or cataclysm-such common experiences leave a long trail of misery and mourning across the world. What comfort for such?

The answer must be: none at all, except they mourn over other things even more fundamental.

A quick review of a wide field of Old Testament passages, which must be regarded as the background to this Beatitude of Christ, shows other mourning besides personal stroke or bereavement. Here are examples:

1. There is mourning for Zion, because the purpose of God with His ancient people seems as yet to have gone awry: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion” (Ps. 137:1).
2. Akin to this is the grief of mind which looks out on a weary sin-stricken world without God. There is the sickness of heart that the vindication of God is so long delayed: “the thing was true, but the time appointed was long… In those days I Daniel was mourning three full weeks” (Dan. 10:1, 2). There is a problem here. Should those in Christ afflict their souls with fasting because the Bridegroom is taken away from them (Mt. 9:15), and is long returning? Or is such grief out of place because he is with them now and to the end of the world?
3. There is the fret and heaviness which laments the indifference and sin of those who bear the name of the Lord unworthily: “Ezra did eat no bread, nor drink water: for he mourned because of the transgression of them of the captivity” (Ezra 10:6), just as — the commonest of all mourning — a man laments for the dead and the dying, those he holds in affection but seems helpless to help.
4. Most devastating of all is the utter loss of spirit in those who grieve over their own sins-the “broken spirit”, the “broken and contrite heart” grieving in wretchedness past describing over the collapse of personal self-dedication to God.

All of these have their counterpart in the experience of Jesus and his New Testament saints:

1. “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings, that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy” (1 Pet. 4:12, 13). Here is comfort of a very real kind. “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel” (Lk. 24:21). Those who set out for Emmaus mourning returned in an ecstasy of joy.
2. Simeon, waiting for the consolation of Israel, was able to rejoice at the sight of a baby: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Lk. 2:25, 29, 30).
3. Jesus wept over Jerusalem: “If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day the things which belong unto peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes” (Lk. 19:41, 42). And Paul lamented the lack of a contrite spirit in the ecclesia at Corinth: “Ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned” — concerning the evil way of life present in their midst (1 Cor. 5:2).
4. James bade his readers: “Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (4:9, 10). If a saint like Paul could so lament his own unworthiness by exclaiming: “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24), can there be any question that all saints in Christ should similarly castigate themselves?

This last, most of all, must have been the chief reference of the Lord’s words. When a man is bowed down with dejection at his own spiritual condition, there is hope for him. When he goes with a heavy heart because of the meagre success attending his conscientious dedicated aspirations after godliness, then the happiness Jesus has promised is within his grasp. For what has proved to be futile and hopeless because of his own powers will be done for him through the grace of Christ.

Comforted

The reassurance is positive: “they shall be comforted”. The Lord’s own message in the synagogue at Nazareth was: “to comfort all that mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.” There is a charming paronomasia in the Hebrew of that phrase: “Sashes for ashes”. It is an invitation to weddings instead of funerals. It happened this way when the disciples “mourned and wept” over the loss of their Lord, and Mary Magdalene came with incredible news (Mk. 16:10)

The version of this beatitude in Luke is most striking: “Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh”.

Jesus himself wept over the hardness of Jerusalem’s golden limestone (Lk. 19:41); he wept-a strange mystery this! — at the grave-side of a dear friend whom only a few minutes later he was to restore to his mourning family (Jn. 11:35). He wept-can anyone grasp it? -at the inclination born with him to set his own will before that of his heavenly Father (Heb. 5:7). And never, in all the four gospels, is there a hint that he smiled, much less that he-this man of sorrows–laughed out of inexpressible gladness. But in these respects it was surely a different Jesus who encountered disciples on the day of resurrection. Would he not then prove to them the truth of his own Beatitude? (Ps. 30:11).

This transformation should have been the experience of the disciples when Mary Magdalene burst in on them “as they mourned and wept”. But “they, when they heard… believed not” (Mk. 16:10, 11). A strange reluctance to rejoice in good news! But before that day was out, they were different. When — and no one knows how soon — even better news comes to those who now mourn in Zion, will the reaction be the same?

Woe! Mourn and Weep!

The converse of this beatitude is stated in Luke just as forthrightly: “Woe unto you that laugh nowl for ye shall mourn and weep” (Lk. 6:25). Whether this be the mocking of the scoffer deriding the simple faith and piety of the disciple, or the empty laughter of the fool which is “as the crackling of thorns under a pot” (Ecc. 7:6), the miserable end of that mirth is the same heaviness (Pr. 14:13). A man whose life is not conditioned by a frank recognition of his own true state before God (that is, who is not “poor in spirit”), and who is not led thence to a contrite mourning because his life and his world are as they are, has no prospects at all. He can never know the genuine comfort and solace of soul which the Truth of God imparts through Jesus Christ.

Notes: Matthew 5;4; Luke 6:21, 25

1. All the elements of this beatitude are included in Jas. 4:9 – another of the copious allusions in this epistle to the Sermon on the mount? Or, an allusion to the Day of Atonement?
2. Jesus promised a Comforter to his mourning disciples. The effect of it is readily traceable in Acts. 2:41, 46; 4:24, 31, 32; 5:41; 8:39 etc.
3. In A.D. 70 the devastation of Jerusalem by the Roman armies was celebrated by a special coin issue showing a woman, representing Jewry, mourning under a palm tree. The inscription is “Judaea capta”. For “laughter” – Jewry had to wait till 1948. There is yet to be a more intense mourning and a finer gladness for modern Israel.

It is only to the man of God that this beatitude makes sense. To the average worldling it is a paradox of foolishness. This is because he has no appreciation of the strength of character which true meekness expresses. The world esteems self-assurance and self-assertiveness. The Jews in Christ’s day honoured those who were ready to rebel and struggle and fight against the power of Rome. Today the psychologist bids a man resolve his inner conflicts by giving expression to his personality (the man of true meekness is too much ashamed of his to feel that he ought to do anything of the sort). Even the churches have a firm belief in the power of organization; regardless of principle, they seek to unite and stand shoulder to shoulder, presenting a strong front to the world. They forget Gideon and the whittling down of the mass of recruits he had at his back.

What, then, is this meekness which Jesus seeks in his followers – or rather, what is it not, for it has its counterfeits? One may rule out flabbiness of character and lack of personality such as endears itself to neither God nor man. Nor is it indolence. There is nothing spiritually admirable about laziness. Nor is it to be confused with gentleness, for this often-charming trait of character is usually inherited, not acquired; it springs from the genes of one’s parents, not from a new birth in Christ. And even when acquired, it is not infrequently assumed, for respectability’s sake.

Wherein does meekness differ from being “poor in spirit”, the first beatitude? The relationship between the two virtues is obviously close, but one is subjective and the other objective. To be poor in spirit is to know frankly and honestly one’s own natural worth — or, rather, lackof it-in the sight of God. Meekness is the practical expression of this attitude of mind in the situations of daily life. Many of the manuscripts put these two Beatitudes together (as verses 3, 4). This seems to be right, for in Hebrew “poor” (‘an!) and “meek” (‘onav) are almost the same. They often come together in the Old Testament and are not infrequently confused in the manuscripts.

The “meekness” of Moses

It is doubtful whether the familiar passage about the meekness of Moses should be read in that way- more likely: “suffered travail, was afflicted” (Num. 12:3). But the fact remains that meekness showed very wonderfully in him when, already galled and goaded to desperation by the repeated murmuring of the people, he had to endure the bitter criticism of his own brother and sister. The record suggests no hint of hot rejoinder from Moses. Instead, he pleaded for the restoration of his stricken sister.

The sorry antithesis to this is seen in the second smiting of the rock. Then, openly despising his brethren and at the same time exalting himself to a pseudo-equality with the Almighty, he cuttingly addressed them: “Hear now, ye rebels, must we fetch you water out of this rock?” Thus he stored up retribution for himself.

David, Paul

Or consider David at the time of Absalom’s rebellion. Fleeing from his splendid capital in helpless misery he was made to drink the dregs of wretchedness when Benjamite Shimei followed him with curses and reviling. Yet opportunity for retaliation was ready to hand. Hot-headed impulsive Abishai needed only a nod, and in two minutes he would have been across that wild ravine, and his hands choking the life out of Shimei. Instead: “Let him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him. It may be that the Lord will look on mine affliction and that the Lord will requite me good for his cursing this day” (2 Sam. 16:11, 12). What a man!

There are things written by and about Paul which make the reader hesitate in assessing his character; for example, the rather high and mighty attitude he adopted when the magistrates of Philippi sent ordering his release (Acts 16:37) – there was, of course, a reason for this. And even though he softened his Corinthian self-vindication with “I speak as a fool”, would a man of true meekness have stretched out that long awe-inspiring catalogue of things done and endured for Christ’s sake (2 Cor. 11:21-30)? And was not his thorn in the flesh “lest he be exalted above measure” (12:7)?

The fact has to be faced-for the total accumulation of evidence is not to be said nay-that at one period of his apostleship Paul was near to undoing everything through a vainglorious satisfaction, however excusable, in all that he had endured and achieved in the gospel.

Nevertheless through this most trying ordeal of all this man of God came through unsoiled. Witness the following triad of passages:

“For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor. 15:9).

A few years later he wrote: “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given” (Eph. 3:8).

And a few years later still: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15).

As he grew nearer to Christ, so his self-esteem declined. In this especially his exhortation may well be heeded: “Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).

Jesus

And the imitation of Christ sets a standard from which many recoil in hopelessness: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being (as Adam was) in the form of God, thought equality with God (such as the serpent temptingly whispered) not* a thing to be grasped (by the seizing of the forbidden fruit), but he emptied himself (of self), taking the form of a servant, becoming obedient unto death (not disobedient unto death, as Adam) even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

What this meant is made clear in greater detail by Peter: “When he was reviled, reviled not again: when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself (them?) to Him that judgeth righteously” (1 Pet. 2:23).

There is nothing in life harder to bear than being flagrantly misjudged or being made to endure ill treatment, which is altogether undeserved and grossly unfair. To put up with experiences of this sort without bitterness, self-pity or savage resentment is the very acme of the Christian spirit of meekness.

How is this to be reconciled with the appeal of Jesus? “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek, and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Mt.l1:29). The fact is that when one has learned the meekness of Christ, there is a relaxed attitude towards these trials which is rest for the soul. The meek see all the experiences of life as overruled by God. They accept and rejoice in this divine Providence, and have nothing to fear or fret about. In their attitude to people, there is no need for suspicion or self-justification, no need to be prickly, constantly on the defensive. The headaches of life are endured without vexation or self-pity. And this because the “rights” of the individual have been renounced. The man of meekness has abdicated from his status as a human being. He is well content to be instead a son of God.

The most difficult trait of all to acquire is the meekness that “trembles at God’s word” — “receive with meekness the engrafted word” (Jas. 1:21). There is no student of the Bible who has not committed this sin of refusing to believe just what Scripture says, substituting instead the interpretation to which his own inclination leads him. This has doubtless happened already a number of times in the course of these studies. All readers of these words are guilty of it.

Abraham

Meekness is, here and now, its own reward. When there came that altercation between herdmen, Abraham, with all right on his side could have bluntly told Lot to clear off elsewhere. Instead, knowing himself to be one to whom much heavenly graciousness had been extended (recall that unsavoury transaction in Egypt!), he renounced all rights and calmly left Lot to sort things out. No sooner had his kinsman gone off in the direction of Sodom, than Abraham’s meekness inherited the earth: “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art…” Such meekness in the seed of Abraham inherits the same covenanted blessing.

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him – fret not thyself…Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” (Ps. 37:7, 8). Such a placid unassertive attitude to life is possible only for the meek of the earth. They inherit this tranquil philosophy now, and they inherit the earth forever.

Notes: Mt. 5:5.

1. The following definitions of the meek may or may not be helpful: “Men who suffer wrong without bitterness or desire for revenge” (Expos. Gk. Test.) “The meek man is one who … bows at once to the will of God … Meekness commonly means a disposition towards men, but what is meant here and in Ps. 37:11 … is a disposition towards God” (Plummer). Is he right in this?
2. One commentator actually explains how the meek inherit the earth by citing the persecuted Puritans who emigrated and took to themselves the American continent (and in the process shot nearly all the Red Indians out of it!
3. It is past present understanding why Luke — Luke, of all people!- should not find room for this Beatitude in his chapter 6.

This is the only one of the Beatitudes to imply an aspiration after something not attained. All the others describe an existing spiritual condition – blessed are they who are poor in spirit, meek, mourners, merciful, peacemakers, persecuted. Here, too, there is a present continuing hunger and thirst, but it is an eagerness for change. No man can remain content with an abiding unsatisfied longing within himself. Hence the prayer: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.”

Strangely enough, Jesus nevertheless pronounces the existence of this spiritual hunger and thirst a present happiness. The paradox only makes sense in the light of his added assurance, “they shall be filled”. The very knowledge, received on the highest possible authority, that these eager longings will one day be fully and altogether satisfied, makes bearable the present lack.

There is only one form of selfishness which is commended in Holy Scripture. A man has a right to care for his own physical needs: “The appetite of the labouring man laboureth for him; for his mouth urgeth him thereto” (Pr. 16:26). And his own spiritual needs: “Are there few that be saved?” Jesus answered with a point-blank imperative: “Strive to enter in…” (Lk. 13:23, 24).

Yet, strangely enough, there is precious little a man can do for himself in this direction. He can set the valve of his will the right way. But the rest has to be done for him by a higher Power.

Happiness a by-product

The world’s philosophers, including even that great fool George Bernard Shaw, have been shrewd enough to recognize that when a man makes happiness his target, he invariably misses his aim; for happiness is always a by-product. Set out to “have a good time”, and somehow it doesn’t turn out to be as good a time as hoped for or expected. But let a man seek to follow the path of duty, let him concern himself about the well-being or the happiness of others, and he will not lack satisfaction in life – if only to a limited extent. This is true, even in the lives of atheists.

It is vastly more true in the spiritual life. The disciples left Jesus hungry and tired by the well of Sychar. They returned to find him alert and no longer interested in food: ‘I have meat to eat that ye know not of”(Jn. 4:32, 14).

And he commends this to his disciples. When others (in the synagogue at Capernaum) challenged him with: ‘Our fathers did eat manna in the desert. Jesus, give us food every day as Moses did’, he dared to say to them: “It was not Moses that gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father (who gave that) is now giving you the true bread… I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth in me shall never thirst” (Jn. 6:31, 32, 35). Here is perennial Manna and ceaseless flow of purest water from a Smitten Rock.

Jesus showed also that the greater includes the less. When eager crowds of people endured physical hunger and thirst because of their spiritual hunger and thirst he forthwith satisfied those needs too (Mt. 14:15; 15:32). “Bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure” (ls. 33:16).

Real hunger, real thirst

The highest aspirations ever put into words are these: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for the living God” (Ps. 42:1, 2). “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God” (84:2). “My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is” (63:1).

They say – and it is more than credible – that a starving man on a raff dreams of superb gargantuan meals, that a traveller with raging thirst in a desert cannot take his mind off the thought of bubbling springs of cool water. The present happiness of the saint in Christ is that he does not have to indulge in fantasies, he knows that his desperate need will be met. That need is met here and now to a great extent, in an assurance of the forgiveness of sins and a new righteousness which is more that a mere theological status.

The prodigal son, hungry, starving, is immediately at peace as soon as his resolve is taken to return to his Father. His welcome as he approaches home sets any last doubt at rest. And after that, not only is his immediate need more that met, he has also a lasting satisfying share in every good thing which his Father’s house can provide — each one of these transformed into a yet greater blessedness by the contrasting thought of swine and husks.

Mary, thinking little of “the food which perisheth”, even though it was for the Lord and his disciples, showed the craving that obsessed her, and was not thrust away. ‘Martha, your preparations are too elaborate. A one-course meal will do – and Mary is set on having hers now!’

Saul of Tarsus hungered and thirsted after righteousness and sought the wrong kind of satisfaction. But because he did seek, at last he found. Longings after self-made righteousness

Vanished when he recognized at last that God had provided a Lamb.

Zaccheus would have been well content with a quiet undisturbed sight of Jesus as he passed by. But he found himself personally addressed by the Teacher he revered from a distance. This Jesus chose to neglect the crowd in order that he – under-sized, outcast publican – might be the centre of attention: “Zaccheus, today I must abide at thy house.” Biggest marvel of all: “This day is salvation come to this house.”

So whilst there is no immediate release from the disappointments and discouragements of this imperfect life, present blessings in Christ can be marvellously satisfying, and to these is added the realism of the Lord’s future tense in this Beatitude: “he shall be filled”. There will be “new heavens and earth wherein dwell righteousness”, an incredible transformation from the sordid godlessness of this vice-doped twentieth-century Sodom.

Woe unto you

By contrast with the promised blessing there is the Lord’s lament over those unable to assess their own acute need: “Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger.” Jesus surely put that word “full” in quote-marks, to signify the man who persuades himself that he has what makes a good life. To him, sooner or later, the truth will come home with an aching pang which will be for ever past satisfying: “Behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry: behold my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty” (ls. 65:13).

But this “Woe to you that are full” has also present force, for it is a fulness of material things now which makes a man say: “I’m all right, Jack.” A true perception of his own lack is blinded by satisfaction with what is temporary and worthless.

To Jesus himself nothing could be more satisfying than fulfilling the work of God: “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (Jn. 4:34). And he brings his disciple to the same unsurpassed self-fulfilment by becoming for him “The Lord our Righteousness.”

Notes

1. The Old Testament roots of this Beatitude are not to be neglected; eg. Ps. 107:2-6; Jer. 31:25, 26; Ex. 24:11; and contrast Am. 8:11.
2. The Greek text is literally: “hunger and thirst righteousness” (an accusative instead of the expected genitive) as though perhaps implying that the hunger and thirst of such people is itself deemed by the Lord to be a kind of righteousness without them appreciating that fact.

It is useful to sum up at this point the fundamental spiritual truths which the Beatitudes have outlined to the disciple of Christ.

The first necessary virtue is for him to recognize that he has no virtue–in this sense he is “poor in spirit”. This inner sense of worthlessness (held, be it emphasized, in sheer honesty before God, and not merely as a formal doctrine) expressed itself outwardly in a spirit of meekness towards others. Further, there is a dejection of spirit because neither in the world nor in one’s own inner life is God honoured as He should be. Especially regarding self is there a great hunger for heavenly qualities, a thirst insatiable in this life that the righteousness of Christ express itself more truly in changed character.

Two of the Beatitudes, concerning the merciful and the peacemakers, now illustrate essential aspects of this New Man of Christian Blessedness in his attitude towards others.

Definition

Concerning the former of these virtues, it is important to be clear in one’s mind as to just what this Christ “mercy” is not. If is not soft-heartedness. It is not forbearance or leniency. It is not even compassion. It is a forgiving spirit. This is the basic Old Testament idea behind the word “mercy”. Indeed all through the Bible this word is only rarely used to describe men. It is essentially a divine attribute, and the chief field of its expression is in the forgiveness of sins extended to men who have nothing to offer except their repentance.

Psalms and Prophets teem with expressions such as these:

“The Lord is slow to anger, and of great mercy” (Ps. 145:8).

“Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness” (Ps. 51:1).

“In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting

kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer” (ls. 54:8).

The suggestion has been made of a distinction between mercy and grace-thatgrace expresses the divine attitude to men in their sin, and mercy His reaction to their misery. The distinction, if correct, is a fine one. Certainly the two run together inasmuch as men’s miseries stem from their sinfulness.

Mercy and Truth

It is specially to be noted that the familiar phrase “mercy and truth” is earmarked in the Old Testament to describe God’s Covenants of Promise: “Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers since the days of old” (Mic. 7:20). “Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and truth” (Gen. 24:27). “My mercy will I keep for him (the promised Son of David) for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him” (Ps. 89:28).

The reasons for the use of this expression are not difficult to sort out. The Promises are God’s “Truth” because of their certainty; they cannot fail. They are His “Mercy” because they are His unearned offer of heavenly forgiveness. This is how Peter and Paul expound the Blessing of Abraham in the greatest Promise of all (Gen. 22:18; Acts. 3;25; Gal. 3:8, 9).

Mercy in Action

The merciful man emulates this characteristic of his God. As he has experienced the forgiveness of sins so also he extends the like forgiveness to others. So necessary and vital is this that the Lord was at pains to emphasize it both positively and negatively in the only comment which he added to the pattern prayer he framed for his disciples: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt. 6:14, 15; 18:33 RV; Jas. 2:13; Ps. 18:25, 26).

It is a simple basic divine principle which, according to personal experience, has received nothing like the emphasis it deserves. People store up criticism and cherish resentment of others in flat denial of the Lord’s simple truth that it is the merciful, the forgiving, who are happy; it is they, and no others, who obtain mercy, enjoying the assurance of sins forgiven.

The Answer to a Difficult Problem

Yet, for many who grope after the ideals of Christian discipleship, this is one of the major problems of life – how to be understanding, tolerant, forgiving, merciful towards those who themselves are small-minded, spiteful, bitter, uncharitable. “An eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth”, in spirit if not literally, seems to be the inevitable and almost proper reaction of offended human nature. How can any different attitude be possible?

The simple solution is: instead of resentment, pity! Those who behave badly and cause grievous offence to others are not to be given hatred for hatred, nor even contempt or despising, but pity. For such show all too plainly that they have failed to learn even the most elementary lesson in the school of Christ. Their lack of spiritual progress is not to be denounced from the superiority of a higher spiritual plane, but is to be pitied – with the gentleness which comes only from the man who has miserably known himself in need of a right disposition.

And why pity? Because they not only store up much unhappiness for themselves here and now, there is also a Day of Reckoning.

So the man of mercy, who can extirpate hard feelings from his mind and in all his mental attitudes think sympathetically regarding the undeserving, ensures for himself now a peace of mind and a happiness unknown to the other, and in the Day to come he will himself find mercy.

Luke’s version of this Beatitude is a straight imperative: “Be ye therefore merciful (to your enemies; v.35), as your Father also is merciful” (6:36). But in Matthew these words (with “perfect” for “merciful”) come as the spiritual climax to a chapter of impossible idealism! Is this because the man who can come near to a true imitation of his Heavenly Father in this field of forgiveness is not far from the summit of spiritual achievement?

This truth is delightfully emphasized in the designed parallel between the gracious characteristics of the Lord God, catalogued in Psalm 111, and the imitation of God by “the man that feareth the Lord” (Psalm 112). Phrase for phrase, from beginning to end, the two psalms correspond. In particular, “the Lord is gracious and full of compassion” is matched by: “he (the imitator of God) is gracious and full of compassion (the pity for the unmerciful already commented on).” The psalm continues: “and (thus) he is righteous.” Indeed, he is!

The Law was a schoolmaster to lead Israel unto Christ. Yet it failed as a teacher-not because of any defect in itself, but because its pupils were unwilling to learn.

In a number of important respects, such as contact with the dead or with leprosy or with human issue, an Israelite was pronounced technically unclean. Special rites and ceremonies were provided by which such an individual might be brought back into the congregation of the Lord. All these ordinances were intended, of course, to teach Israel to recognize that all which has to do with sin and mortality estranges from God. The people were being led to ask themselves what other characteristics of their daily lives could similarly set a barrier between themselves and the awful majesty of their God. They were being bidden learn and learn again the lesson of holiness–

“holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord”(Heb.12:14).

But alas, they were well content to stop short at superficialities. It suited them fine, and especially their professional religionists, the Pharisees, to concentrate on outward technical cleanness, because it diverted the spotlight of conscience away from the least glamorous thing in all human life-one’s own inner depravity and unworthiness. It is always uncomfortable to contemplate honestly one’s own tawdry failures and ingrained perversity. Washing your hands is easier than repentance. Having a bath is vastly more pleasant than regeneration. Sprucing up for a party is a positive pleasure, but who can enjoy a contrite searching of the soul?

The Heart

So Jesus called-and still calls-his disciples from obsession with externals. He bids them

seek God’s help in a spring-cleaning of the heart. Yet, until one recognizes clearly just what it is that needs this renewal and where to turn for help in the process, there can be no worthwhile progress at all.

For centuries English language usage has figuratively associated the heart with the emotions and affections and sympathies. Consequently ever since King James’ men made their version of the Bible, inserting the word “heart” where the original texts have the Hebrew and Greek words for “heart”, most readers of Scripture have imported into many a familiar passage a seriously mistaken idea.

When an eye is cast thoughtfully over a number of representative passages like the following, the true significance of “heart”, as meaning “mind” or even “brain”, becomes evident:

“Apply thine heart to understanding” (Pr. 2:2).

“Bezaleel and Aholiab… in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom (planning ability and technical skill)” (Ex. 36:2). Solomon asked for “an understanding heart to judge thy people” (1 Kgs. 3:9). “Thy words (the Book of the Law) were found, and I did eat them: and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart” (Jer. 15:16). “What reason ye in your hearts?” (Lk. 5:22).

“If thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead…” (Rom. 10:9).

And especially Lk. 24:25, 32, 38: “O fools and slow of heart to believe… Did not our heart burn within us (did not our minds race?)… while he opened to us the scriptures? … Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?”

So then, to be pure in heart is to have a mind which God regards as fit for His fellowship, a mind not given to evil, defiling thoughts, a mind cleansed by the detergents of heaven.

This is the big problem, this is the soul-shattering discouragement. How is a man to make his heart a fit dwelling-place of God, “a temple meet for Thee”? Many have set about the cleaning-up process in their own resolution and enthusiasm, only to end up where they started, with resolution worn down by constant failure and enthusiasm wilted before endless discouragement. For, of course, self-regeneration (which is what it amounts to) is a task beyond the powers of any man. If it is to be

done at all, it must be through influences outside himself. When did a drowning man save himself by pulling at his own hair?

Friends of the Right Sort

One answer to this problem lies, then, in help from without, from above. It is universal experience that it is much easier to be a “good” person in the company of some people than of others. There are those who bring out the very best that is in you. In their company godliness and holiness cease to be impossibles. There are others who have a genius for evoking from you every latent devilry.

It is, then, a matter of simple prudence to choose the society of the better sort and to eschew the company of the rest. In the Bible there is Jesus, the peerless Son of God, the man in whose word or look was power enough to change a man’s personality and his whole way of life. And in that Book along with Jesus there is an immense and variegated assembly of the very finest men and women the world has ever known.

The transforming and purifying influence of such as these is past describing. To neglect the spiritual help available through them is foolishness indeed. Yet it means living with the Bible and the people in it. Merely to use them as a kind of respectable appendage to a life more worldly than godly is to get nowhere.

Purified by Faith

An illuminating phrase of Peter’s yields a further helpful emphasis: “God which knoweth the hearts… put no difference between us (Jews) and them (the Gentile believers), purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts. 15:8, 9). Here, once again, faith is the key virtue. Not just the faith which believes the Promises to the Fathers, but that which “endures as seeing him who is invisible”, the faith which sees God in action in all the diversity of life’s experiences.

Here, then, is an unexpected circle of cause and effect. The attitude of mind which is ever ready to see God at work in one’s own life is what makes a man pure in heart; and thus purified, the promise that he shall see God is more than ever his.

“Surely God is good to Israel, even to such as are pure in heart” (Ps. 73:1 RV). These are the true Israel. But they are not always as pure in heart as they might be. It was for this that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. “He that is bathed (having sins washed away in baptism) needeth not save to wash his feet” (Jn. 13:10).And this renewal is granted, now as then, at the Breaking of Bread — but again, only by faith; there is nothing mechanical or automatic about it.

Seeing God

The blessedness held out to those who commit themselves to heavenly katharsis is told in the simplest phrase imaginable. But the implications of it are profound beyond any powers of human exposition: “they shall see God”.

The fulness of God’s blessing for the pure in heart belongs to a future day of realisation. Yet even now, in a limited but still wonderful fashion, the child of God has eyes opened to see Him in the marvels of Creation, in the purposefulness of History, in the personal experience of the Ways of God’s Providence, and more especially in the pages of Holy Scripture. Yet even there he sees “through a glass darkly”. What will it mean when “face to face”?

The Old Testament helps only so far. Isaiah lamented: “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts” (6:5). Moses, at a time when he was less worthy than Isaiah, “was afraid to look upon God” manifest in the burning bush. A better Moses, and with him seventy elders of Israel, was able to ascend mount Sinai to the presence of the Glory of God, and there “they saw God, and did eat and drink” — this only because, blood-sprinkled, they had declared: “All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient” (Ex. 19:5-9). Some months later a yet finer Moses was pressing with importunity for the privilege he formerly had feared: “I beseech thee, show me thy glory”-but all that was vouchsafed was a restricted manifestation*? of the heavenly splendour (Ex. 33:18-23).

Similarly in not a few other places when men were given the privilege of “seeing God”, what they beheld was the Shekinah Glory shrouding the Unseeable: “Tis only the splendour of light hidethThee.”

When Philip, like Moses, pleaded for the same surpassing experience as he-the plain reproving answer was: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” (Jn. 14:9).

There were lots of people in Judaea and Galilee who saw Jesus, but saw no beauty in him that they should desire him. But the Twelve, believing in him and constantly with him, saw the Father in him, and became witnesses to the world. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (Jn. 1:18).

So then, even though the Beatitude is couched in a future tense, enjoyment of the vision of God is possible in limited fashion in this day of small things. “But we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn.3:2). Even such an explicit declaration as this leaves much unexplained, unappreciated. And so also does the assurance in the Apocalypse: “He will dwell with them, and they (the pure in heart) shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God” (21:3). The reality and fulness of blessing behind these words will be known in God’s good time, only then.

This Beatitude is perhaps the simplest and most clear-cut of all. Yet probably it is also the most misunderstood. To the modern mind peace is the absence of strife, and therefore a peacemaker is one who patches up a quarrel between two who disagree. In this sense, admittedly, peacemakers are all too rare a commodity in this fractious world. The fruits of their work are rarely seen.

But there is also a common yet specialised Bible use of the word “peace” in the sense of peace with God. It would be possible to fill more than one page with very obvious examples of this usage.

“The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace” (Num.6:26) was the high-priestly pronouncement of reconciliation with God renewed in the accepted sacrifice of the Day of Atonement.

The Messiah is “The Prince of Peace”, not only because he eliminates strife from the world, but because it is he through whom fellowship with God is permanently established.

The sacrifice of the peace-offering was an expression of fellowship with God–the Old Testament counterpart of the Breaking of Bread. When men ate a peace offering together they had fellowship with one another because both had fellowship with God.

“In this place (the new temple) will I give peace”, foretold Haggai in words which still await fulfilment (2:9). And to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem” is more than to plead for the end of its centuries of strife. It is a petition that God will be reconciled to His ancient people in His ancient city. This is the meaning of its name: The Lord will provide peace.

The Psalmist’s phrase: “righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (85:10) now carries more meaning than it could ever have from any other point of view.

The song of the angels celebrating first “peace on earth” and then “God’s good pleasure toward men” expresses essentially the idea of the peace-offering- a sacrifice offered to God, with heavenly fellowship established and continued as a joyful consequence.

The song of Zacharias anticipating the work of the Messiah as “guiding our feet into the way of peace” is appropriately linked with an allusion to “them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death” (Lk.1:79).

Peter summed up the gospel as “preaching peace (with God) by Jesus Christ” (Acts.lO:36). He could hardly have chosen a better phrase for the purpose.

And Paul similarly: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom.5:1). Hence also his invariable greeting at the beginning of his letters. “Grace and peace” combine to make the warmest possible wish of spiritual well-being: Forgiveness of sins, and the consequent life of reconciliation with God.

These examples are surely more than sufficient. It is one of the easiest and most satisfying pieces of Bible study available to the non-specialist reader, to use the concordance on this lovely word, noting how one passage after another unfolds a fuller and better meaning.

It follows, then, that the peace-maker is one whose work leads to renewal of fellowship, not between man and man, but between man and God. He is a preacher of the gospel. This beatitude re-states the joyous words of Isaiah: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet’ of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace… that publisheth salvation” (52:7). The pronoun is singular, but when Paul appropriated these words to the preaching of the gospel (Rom. 10:15) he made it plural because since the Ascension the Lord has been working through his brethren in the ecclesia.

Evangelism through Benevolence?

Now and again the point of view is advanced that it is high time the Lord’s people replaced talk with action. Instead of preaching, preaching-mostly an unwanted message spoken into ears that cannot make sense of it-why not show the Christ-life in action? Go amongst people with a gracious overflow of kindliness and good works, and this benevolence will have its due effect. The Christ-life will incline men to listen to the Christ-message, and thus the gospel will prosper. So they say!

It is a futile procedure. Some of the churches attempted this approach when they lost their former conviction about the authority of Holy Scripture, and as a result they have lost ground more than ever. It is a truth which the “do-gooders” are slow to recognise, that the finest contribution one can make to the life of any of one’s fellows is to give him a contented mind, and this comes from a thorough conviction regarding the gospel, not from having a full belly or a better roof overhead or a doctor to hand out pills in time of sickness. In western countries the social reformers have provided these amenities, only to find their recipients more and more discontented as the material standard of living creeps steadily higher.

Called Sons of God

But to bring the gospel of Christ into a man’s life is to bring him incalculable blessedness here and now, as well as the reassuring prospect of the imminent kingdom of Christ. Therefore blessed indeed are the peacemakers today more than at any other time in the world’s history: “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shall thou be established” (Is. 54:12, 13).

The special happiness pronounced by Jesus upon the preachers of his gospel of reconciliation is that they shall be “called” – that is, openly known as – “the sons of God”. Not that this title is theirs exclusively. But they are known as sons of God by virtue of the message they carry. No man can truly impart the gospel of salvation without himself believing in it heart and soul. There is no greater strengthener of faith than personal activity in proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. Thus witness for Christ not only brings peace into the lives of others, it also stamps the preacher of the message as one of Christ’s men, and – best of all — it nurtures in him the deeper conviction and firmer faith which means justification before God.

Notes

1. “Called the sons of God” may well be another example of the Bible idiom which means “they are the sons of God, this is their character and true status”; cp. ls. 9:6; 1 Jn. 3:1 (see RV); Num. 11:3, 34 etc. But they are specially so called by those who hear and welcome their message of peace.
2. Heb. 12:14 is a fine passage very easily misunderstood. The idea is: ‘Follow peace (with God) along with all (your brethren in Christ), and sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord (cp. the pure in heart)’. The word “men” is not in the Greek text of this verse.

The eighth Beatitude has the same shape as the rest. “Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. But just as Jesus picked up one phrase out of his pattern Prayer (“forgive us our trespasses”) that he might explain and re-emphasize it, so also now he chose to dwell on this blessing specially, underlining its almost unbelievable paradox.

One implication behind the Lord’s word here is that persecution is not inevitable. But it comes to a great many – “by coldness, contempt, and ridicule, if not by actual ill-usage” (Plummer). In the past century the Lord’s people have been marvellously free from persecution, partly because they have had the good fortune to serve Christ in an epoch and in the midst of nations remarkable for broad-mindedness and tolerance, and partly because they have not been wondrously efficient in making their message or their personal dedication known.

Persecution a Blessing

That persecution is in itself a blessing can hardly be questioned. Not only does it distinguish sharply between the counterfeit and the true. It also has a fine astringent effect, bringing home to the believer the truth and unique value of his faith.

But it is important to observe that Jesus promised this happiness to those persecuted for righteousness’ sake, not because of self-display or through fanatical combativeness or out of the delusion (as often happened in the third and fourth centuries) that martyrdom guarantees an inheritance of life everlasting. The emphasis must be on Christ and witness for Christ, as the parallel phrase: “for my sake”, very plainly shows. The two expressions meet in that loveliest of all titles of Jesus: The Lord our Righteousness.

Different Varieties

The phrases used to describe the persecution envisaged cover a wide range of bad treatment: “they shall revile you (that is, to your face), and persecute you (physically), and shall say all manner of evil against you (behind your back).” Perhaps the worst feature of all is that these vile things are said falsely, the persecutors knowing them to be false. It is a hard trial of faith and patience to know that pernicious slanders are put round, and to have no redress. In such circumstances, to relax and leave all in God’s hands is no easy matter. Yet, beyond all question, this is the best possible attitude to adopt.

It has been suggested that this Beatitude is a fairly plain hint that the Sermon on the Mount is a compilation of discrete items out of the Lord’s teaching, for (it is asked) would Jesus talk to his disciples about persecution, using a past tense, so early in his teaching? Luke’s version also (6:22) has an explicit future tense. Certainly the best examples of this come right at the end of the ministry when it was possible to see very plainly that “if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you… If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” And in that context (Jn. 15:18, 19) the word “world” (meaning certainly “the Jewish world”) comes six times with sickening reprobation. But the warnings are just as needful concerning this worldly twentieth-century world.

In Luke the persecution phrases are quite different, though the gist of them is the same: “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you (i.e. apply the knife of disfellowship), and reproach you (this is the “reviling” of Mt. 5:11), and cast out your name as evil.” This last expression probably refers to the invention of labels of opprobrium. And they will say it “falsely”-the Greek word means “telling lies” (and knowing that they are lies).

Such experiences are not to be lamented, but should be ground for quiet satisfaction, always provided that the operative phrases: “for righteousness’ sake”, “for the Son of man’s sake”, dominate the situation.

On a later occasion Jesus foretold explicitly the hardships which beset his preachers of the gospel: “they shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (Jn.l6:2). Even during the lord’s ministry the very threat of this was sufficient to scare men away from open confession of loyalty to him: “Because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue” (12:42). This experience actually befell the blind man whom Jesus healed through the waters of Siloam (9:22, 34), but lie was a tough character, and, fortified by his new Christ-endowed sight, was willing to face up to anything.

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility -though it is highly unlikely-that this easy-going generation might well change suddenly to one of intense hostility to the truth of Christ. There are those interpreters who believe that they can find this foretold in Bible prophecies of the Last Days. The contingency should be considered, and minds prepared and (as far as possible) policies settled beforehand.

In the Early Church

A worse form of persecution hit the early church when the emperor Nero, spurred on by his concubine Poppaed, a convert to Judaism, turned savagely against the believers in Christ. This is the background to the first epistle of Peter, written from Rome at a time when the persecution was spreading to the provinces. What could Peter do better than fall back on these reassuring words of his Lord: “But and if ye suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed are ye” (3:14). “Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings: that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye” (4:13, 14) – the entire section of that chapter is worthy of study.

“Rejoice”

The idea that persecution for the faith is something to rejoice in is an attitude of mind altogether foreign to current thinking. Yet Jesus used the most extreme language to emphasize this: “Rejoice ye in that day, leap for joy” (Lk. 6:23). The word is that which describes the rich foot settling down to enjoy his comfortable retirement. It is used also of the intense happinesp at the prodigal’s return. Paul writes of persecution as a special privilege: “For unto you it is granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake” (Ph. 1:29).

It is part of the solid satisfaction which must accompany any persecution to know that by such an experience one joins a noble and glorious fellowship: “in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” By this expression Jesus implicitly put his disciples on the same level as the prophets who by their worthy witness in Old Testament times attempted to stem the tide of apostasy. The reflection follows inevitably: if mere disciples have such high status before God, what of the One whom they serve? Thus, in an almost casual incidental fashion, Jesus claimed a greatness surpassing that of Moses, David, Elijah, Jeremiah and Daniel.

Fellow-Sufferers

But what a prospect is this, for the present-day disciple to be offered a status comparable to that accorded to the superlative characters just named! Moses, rejected by his nation when he sought to join them in their suffering and struggle, knew what it was to experience “the reproach of Christ”. David was hunted as a fugitive in the wilderness until his morale almost gave way under the strain. Elijah’s lament — how understandable!-was: “Lord, now take away my life for I am not better fin what I can achieve) than my fathers.” Jeremiah in the pit thought all hope was lost. Daniel had to contemplate being savaged by lions rather than let go his loyalty to the God or Israel. And Jesus chose to speak of his own followers in the same breath as men like these!

Nor should it be overlooked that some of them met their vile treatment at the hands of those who should have been their best supporters. It is a question with possibly humiliating answers to it when one enquires to what extent the same has been true in the past century — sincere conscientious servants of the Lord being ostracized and treated despitefully by their brethren, “when attempts at sympathetic understanding would have been more appropriate than censure.

Reward

“Filling up the sufferings of Christ” is not the only reason for enduring persecution without fear or complaining: “for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” The conjunction here makes clear that it is seemly and right to rejoice at the prospect of future reward. True, the loyal service of Christ is its own reward here and now, but if the Lord bids his disciple look to the future also with keen expectation, how can anyone say that such forward-looking joy has anything ol a mercenary spirit about it. The literal words of this Beatitude are part of the overflowing rejoicing of Christ’s saints in the new Jerusalem: “Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto him” (Rev. 19:7).

“Woe unto you”

There is, however another very sombre antithesis to this rejoicing by the Lord’s people: “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you) for so did their fathers to the false prophets” (Lk. 6:26). Only when there is some conformity of outlook will the world speak well of the disciple of Jesus. This kind of thing can happen only when the disciple has a message which the world approves of, or else when he has no message at all. And, either way, his discipleship is then scarcely worth the paper it is written on. In Jeremiah’s day, “the prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bore rule by their means; and the people loved to have it so” (Jer. 5:31). The world’s approval can be a danger signal. The Lord has no more serious warning: “Woe unto you.”

Notes Mt. 5:10-12; Lk. 6:22, 23, 26.

1. Matthew’s word “persecuted” is in perfect tense, i.e. implying not only in the past but still feeling the effects of it, either physically or in the spirit.
2. “Theirs is” presents a problem. Why should this last Beatitude and the first be the only ones with a present tense?
3. “Great is your reward in heaven” clearly does not mean “you go to heaven for it”, but that it is stored up in heaven; 6:20. Here is an echo of Abraham’s experience, facing threat of persecution through offending the pride of the king of Sodom; Gen. 15:1; 14:21-54.
4. This Beatitude seems to have its roots in ls. 66:5, 10, and in turn is alluded to in Jas. 2:6, 7 (= Lk. 6:22, 24a) and in 1 Pet. 3:14; 4:14. A similar though rather less obvious chain is; Jer. 5:31 = Lk. 6:26 = Jas. 4:4.
5. Does Lk. 6:22 specify three intensifying degrees of excommunication?

The careful reader of Matthew’s gospel can hardly fail to note the method by which that record has been put together. It is the compiler’s aim to bring together similar material into well-defined sections each of which reveals some aspect of the Ministry of Jesus.

A very obvious early example is chapters 5, 6, 7 — the Sermon on the Mount. These are followed by two chapters narrating a long catalogue of miracles. Chapter 10 assembles the instructions given by the Lord to his disciples, not all at the same time, regarding their own work of preaching. Next, two chapters detail encounters with Pharisees and others who rejected his claims. Chapter 13 lists a long series of parables. Then comes the great turning point of the ministry when, rejected by Pharisees and the common people alike, he foreshadows the acceptance of the Gentiles (ch.14, 15). Then through two eloquent chapters (16, 17) the shadow of the cross is cast across his path. Next, there is instruction regarding offences and forgiveness (ch.18, 19, 20). The rejection of Jerusalem follows (20, 21) together with a variety of symbolic indications that the Gentiles will receive what Israel have scorned. Chapter 22 details the long controversy with Pharisees and Sadducees in the temple court, and is followed by the great arraignment of those religious leaders (ch. 23). Then the Olivet prophecy (ch. 24, 25), and the detailed account of the Lord’s trial, arrest, and crucifixion with a brief triumphant record of the resurrection.

A Miracle among miracles

None of the other gospels has the same kind of pattern in its structure. An inevitable consequence of this method is that here and there Matthew has had to sacrifice exact chronological sequence. Indeed it is remarkable that these dislocations should be so very few.

The miracles of Chapters 8 and 9 are almost certainly not given in correct sequence, although they do all belong to the early part of the year of the Lord’s popularity.

That section has one particularly impressive feature. Embedded in it is the story of Matthew’s own call to discipleship. It is as though the apostle was saying to his readers: “Here, amongst all these other miracles, is a miracle to match any of the wonders included in this record — the Lord called me from the sordid selfishness of a tax-gatherer’s routine to be one of his chosen few.”

Publicans

The crowds assembling to hear Jesus were so great that the synagogue could not hold them, so open-air meetings were improvised by the lake side (Mk. 2:13). Not very far away was the custom house, to gather tolls from the fishing fleet and all the boats which plied in and out of the harbour there. The great east-west road entered the territory of Herod Antipas a short distance away, and the trade it carried was also a fruitful source of revenue. The tax-gatherers who did this unpopular work for the Romans and for Herod were the most hated people in the nation. They in turn shrugged their shoulders and saw to it that they were well paid for all the resentment and ostracism they had to put up with. With hardly an exception they were a villainous unscrupulous lot. It is on record that in one part of the Roman Empire several cities erected statues to one Sabinus, “the honest publican.”

The Call of Levi

One day Levi the publican, the son of Alphaeus (Mk. 2:14; 3:18; Study 42), was seen by Jesus as he sat there “at the receipt of custom”. It was no casual glance which Jesus gave him. He stood and watched (Lk. 5:27 Gk.) and probably not for the first time. Then the word of power which wrought so many miracles produced yet another marvel: “Follow me”. Without any hesitation this publican quit his ledgers and his tax-assessing to be henceforth a full-time disciple of Jesus: “he left all, rose up, and followed him” (Lk. 5:28). The language is precisely that used to describe the call of Peter and Andrew, James and John (v. 11), but with a verb added which the New Testament normally uses to describe resurrection: Matthew rose up to a new life in Christ (as did the paralytic; Lk. 5:25 s.w).

This forsaking was a big act of faith. The others whom earlier Jesus had called at the same place still had their fishing boats as an insurance policy. But this publican, who had doubtless paid handsomely for the privilege of rooking his fellow-citizens, would now never be able to ask for his civil- service job back again. He had burnt his boats.

Matthew’s gospel is the only one of the three which uses the name Matthew in this incident, his Greek phrase implying that this was an added name. The others veil the publican’s identity, calling him Levi. Similarly, in the lists of the Twelve, the first gospel is the only one which describes Matthew as “the publican”. This splendid man gloried in the fad that the Lord had rescued him from such a sordid soul-destroying way of life. Now he paid his dues to a higher Lord, and chronicled not the avarice of an evil master, but the glorious deeds and words of one who laid down his life for his friends (Matthew means ‘God gives’).

Renunciation and Witness

When Elisha said farewell to his old life to become Elijah’s disciple and minister, he did so formally, sacrificing the oxen he had been ploughing with, and sharing the peace offering with his family and friends (1 Kgs. 19:21). When Peter and Andrew left their fishing, they too gave hospitality to their new leader (Mk. 1:29). Levi did the same thing, even more formally. “He made for him (that is, for Jesus) a great feast in his house, and there was a great company of publicans and of others”(Lk.). This implies that Matthew’s house was a big one. Its owner was no underling but a man who had ‘ risen high in a lucrative profession.

Again there is what might be called an undesigned coincidence in the narrative — Mark and Luke both specify that the reception took place in his (Levi’s) house. But, naturally enough, Matthew, writing about his own home, calls it simply “the house”.

Probably an appreciable amount of time elapsed between the call of Matthew and the giving of this great feast (held most likely in the courtyard of what must have been one of the biggest houses in Capernaum). Since there were “many publicans” among the guests, it may be surmised that Matthew sent invitations to all his civil-service colleagues in that area (perhaps including Zaccheus at Jericho), and it would take time for notification and assembly of the guests. Jesus seems to have been using this conversion of Matthew as the spearhead of a campaign amongst these second-class citizens. Mark’s text is delightfully ambiguous as to whether the house and the feast were Matthew’s or Christ’s. “I came not to call (invite) the righteous…” seems to imply the latter.

Another interesting comparison between the synoptists is this. Mark’s phrase is: “many publicans and sinners… with Jesus and his disciples”; But the corresponding expression in Luke is: “a great company of publicans and others (the word means ‘others of the same sort’)”! Mark adds: “and they (the publicans) followed him.” This can only mean that one of the fruits of Levi’s splendid public witness to faith in Christ was the conversion of a considerable number of his colleagues.

The Pharisees criticize

The phrase used by Mark about the feast is exactly that which describes Abraham’s great celebration of the weaning of Isaac (Gen. 21:8 LXX). That public designation of the heir of the promises was immediately followed by mockery from the one who deemed himself to be Abraham’s true heir. On this occasion also, immediately after Matthew’s open proclamation of Jesus as Lord this true heir of the promises found himself exposed to the mockery of those who preened themselves on being the elect of God. The Pharisees, the very men who had sat criticizing Jesus as he healed the paralytic in the synagogue, were well aware of what was happening. The point is often made in books on Bible manners and customs that it was commonplace for others besides the invited guests to walk in and out whilst a feast was in progress, and that this is what the Pharisees did. Such an idea should be viewed with suspicion. Has any evidence ever been cited that this was a normal practice of the times? It is difficult to resist the impression that this notion, like a number of others dogmatically set out in such volumes, has been made up as a fairly confident inference from what is already there in the gospel story; and then, as a lovely demonstration of how to reason in a circle, these “manners and customs” are cited in support of this kind of interpretation.

The bogus character of this particular sample is readily seen when the record is read with a little more attention to detail. Is it at all likely that such men would enter the house of such a man? Also, the criticism of the Pharisees was addressed to the disciples, and not to Jesus himself–they were astute enough for that! But if this was done whilst the feast was in progress, was not Jesus bound to be immediately aware of it? The main intention was to sow uneasy doubts in the minds of the disciples without Jesus knowing what was afoot. So the criticism was almost certainly put to the followers of the Lord as they were coming away from the feast. The ellipsis is wrongly filled out in Matthew 9:11: “When the Pharisees saw it…” (note the italics in the AV). A better rendering would be: “when the Pharisees saw who the guests were.” They saw because they were on watch outside the house.

The disapproval was cleverly expressed: “How is it that he (your Teacher! Mt.) eateth — and drinketh! — with publicans and sinners?” (Mk. 2:16). Either the disciples also had taken part in the feast, but were carefully left out of the gibe of the Pharisees; or else they had not been invited, and were therefore all the more ready to listen to disparagement of this kind. The aim was to undermine confidence in their leader. The kind of answer which these devious men wished to insinuate and were ready to supply was: ‘Because he is one of the same kind. His holiness and pious talk are a facade. Here is his true-character.’

The Lord’s Response

As on every later occasion when his disciples were under fire, Jesus came to their aid at once. Did his marvellous powers of awareness of what was going on in people’s minds operate here? Or did one of his friends quickly and quietly inform him of what was happening?

The answer came promptly and pithily: “How is it…? Because they that are strong need no physician, but they that are sick”. Of course Jesus welcomed such company because these were the people most in need of help. By contrast, the Pharisees thought themselves spiritually healthy and strong. The Lord’s irony was sharp and biting. He had no time for them. Spiritually more sick than the publicans, they deemed themselves to be not only thoroughly healthy but also the physicians of others. Poor fools that they were, they had no ability to diagnose their own sickness. So Jesus bade them: “Go ye, and learn what that meaneth: I will have mercy (see Study 39), and not sacrifice” (Mt. 9:13). The words were like a blow in the face. That this untutored artisan should bid them, the educated doctors of the Law, go home and read their Bible! “Go ye, and learn…!” Were they not the teachers of the nation, honoured and revered by every one? And what were they to learn? “I will have mercy (a spirit of forgiveness for those in need of it) and not sacrifice (selfishly offered for one’s own high standing with God)” (Hos. 6:6; where note the context: 5:15; 6:2). Then was it not their duty, if indeed they were the nation’s spiritual healers (and how they liked to think that they were!), to spend all possible time and effort on the reclamation of these despised and hated publicans?

In quoting Hosea’s blunt words the Lord was not proscribing sacrifice (the time for that would come later; Mt. 21:12). He was employing a common Bible idiom for “not so much this as that”, “not only this but also that” (Pr. 8:10; Jer. 7:22, 23; Joel. 2:13; Mk. 9:37; Lk. 14:26; Jn. 3:17; 5:30; 6:27; 7:16; 9:3; 12:44, 47; 14:24; Acts 5:4; Rom. 2:13; 1 Cor. 7:10; 15:10; 1 Jn. 3:18).

The Lord continued, his words a matchless fusion of irony and tenderness: “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5:32). It was he who called sinners. They joined him, not he them! (cp. Gen. 14:13d). So he ate and drank with publicans — repentant publicans, who stirred by the self-denial of one of themselves, recognized that here was One who could help them as no Pharisee in the land was able. “And they followed him”. Jesus, gained wealthy and grateful disciples that day.

A Link with Isaiah?

The Old Testament is never very far away from the teaching and work of Jesus. Yet, in many an instance, the ideas of psalms and prophets are so subtly woven into the fabric o| the gospel record that they easily go unrecognized or unappreciated. Is the incident just considered an example of this? The following collation with Isaiah 58 is either designed and impressive or else marvellously fortuitous:

Isaiah 58

4.	Behold, ye fast for strife and debate. . .to make your voice to be heard on high.	The Pharisees’ quibble about fasting (Mt 9:14).
5.	Is it such a fast … for a man to spread sackcloth under him?	The patch on the old garment?
6.	Is this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free.	The saving of publicans and sinners (these oppressors were really the oppressed.)
7.	Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor to thy house?	Matthew’s feast.
8.	Then… thy healing (RV) shall spring forth speedily.	“They that are whole need not a healer but they that are sick.”
9.	If thou takeaway from thee . . . the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity (LXX = murmuring speech).	The pointing of criticism at Jesus.They “murmured” at him (same Gk. word)
12	Thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.	Sinners called to repentance.

(cp. also Is. 57:17, 18: “Covetousness, see his ways (Lk. 5 :27), heal him, lead him (follow me)”.

Notes: Mark 2:13-17

14.	He saw. Consider other people Jesus “saw”: Mt. 4:18, 21;Jn. 1:48; 9:1; Lk.21:2.
	Sitting at the receipt of custom. In the time of the Egyptian Ptolemies, a publican received between 8 and 16 talents in salary, ie.£2-3 m. (1983 inflation).
	Follow me; and he rose up and followed him. Mark used the name Levi. He does not say explicitly that Levi was an apostle, but this language (1:17, 18) plainly implies it.
15.	And they followed him. The very phrase used about Matthew (v.14). So even though not peripatetic apostles, they definitely became disciples.
16.	Scribes of the Pharisees (RV), i.e. scribes dedicated to the Pharisee style of interpretation of the law.
	Said to his disciples. It was a trick they would try several times more in the next two years — trying to drive a wedge between leader and followers. Lk. has “murmured”, the much repeated word in Ex., Num. to describe faithless Israel in the wilderness.
	Sinners. These were probably people Jesus had healed and who (so people reasoned — as John’s friends did) must have suffered as they did because they had been sinners. Lk. is content to call them “others”. His word means “others of the same sort”.
17.	No need of a physician. Specially no need of physicians unable to diagnose their own sickness!
	They that are sick. And these publicans had come to the best doctor. Contrast Asa: 2 Chr. 16:12.

“I fast twice in the week”, boasted the Pharisee in the parable (Lk. 18:12), as he wrote his own testimonial for the Almighty to read. And indeed he did — every Monday and Thursday. It was evidently on one of these fast-days when Matthew’s great reception was held (Mk.). To the Pharisees this splendid feast became a welcome opportunity for criticism. To the disciples of John, who also had adopted this fasting practice, it was an offence and a source of perplexity. These, of course, knew of the witness their leader had made regarding Jesus, but the sharp contrast between John’s austerity and the social spirit shown by Jesus reinforced their natural loyalty to their teacher, and they were offended. So they came to Jesus about it: “Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft (and make formal prayers: Lk.), but thy disciples fast not? they eat and drink.” The form of the phrasing in Greek makes a subtle distinction, as though implying that these followers of Jesus were not as whole-hearted in their discipleship as they themselves we re of John.

Gentle Correction

The rebuke of Jesus could hardly have been made more gently: “Can the sons of the bride-chamber (ie. the wedding guests) fast whilst the bridegroom is with them?” It may be that before Jesus began his ministry John had taught his disciples to fast as an expression of their eagerness for Messiah’s coming (Mt. 11:18); a prophecy of the Last Days has the same idea and purpose (Joel 2:15, 16).

It is to be noted that the reproach took once again the form of a question, so that they might supply their own answer. Jesus might have treated their enquiry peremptorily by bidding them go home and read their Bible; for, when, except on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:29), did Moses enjoin fasting? But the Lord avoided a head-on clash of this kind.

Since the imprisonment of their master these followers of John, left with no firm guidance, had come under the evil influence of the Pharisees and needed to be saved from the present unhappy trend of their religious ideas. Of course, they should have obeyed the lead given them by John, gladly attaching themselves to Jesus, to whom their leader had borne such emphatic witness. But it is ever thus with human nature (even today!). Men who recognize the need for reformation are willing to go so far, and then they take fright, and the shackles of conventional thinking exert their restraint on faith once again.

The reply of Jesus unmistakably quoted back at John’s disciples the words of John himself. When these disciples had come to John worried about the greater progress being made in Judaea by Jesus, he had bidden them find satisfaction in the fact: “He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, but the friend of the bridegroom which standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled” (Jn. 3 :29) — and so also ought theirs!

Thus Jesus’ rejoinder told them again that he was the heavenly bridegroom. In his presence fasting, which Scripture describes as “afflicting one’s soul” (Lev. 16:29; ls. 58:5), was utterly out of place. Since fasting is an open sign of mourning, how incompatible it was with the satisfaction and joy which John himself felt at the increasing success of Jesus! In this gentle way Jesus reminded them that their well-intentioned adoption of Pharisaic practice was really an evil thing. They had taken a big step in the wrong direction.

Even the Pharisees exempted bridal parties from the regular fasts which they practised, and that, in effect, is what this great feast at Matthew’s house was. Theft Bridegroom himself was present.

“Taken away”

He went on in more sombre fashion: “But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.” Here was yet another hint (like Jn. 2:19) in the Lord’s early teaching that his ministry must end in rejection and suffering. The words “taken away” imply violence. It has been well pointed out that there is an echo here of the familiar words of ls. 53:8 LXX: “his life is taken away from the earth”, and that in the Song of Songs the bridegroom is taken away from his beloved, so that in her dream she goes about the city seeking for him in her distress (Song 5:6).

Already, no doubt, these Scriptures were in the mind of Jesus. And the fact that he spoke prophetically in this way immediately after a clash with the Pharisees may have been intended to prepare the minds of his disciples for the unwelcome experience of seeing their Master brought to his death through conflict with these men.

To Fast or not to Fast?

It is a question not to be lightly brushed aside whether these words of Jesus are an implied instruction to his followers in every generation to practise fasting during his absence. At that hope-destroying Passover when they saw their Lord crucified, they were to need no commandment to fast.

But forty days later, when “he was parted from them and carried up into heaven, .. . they returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (Lk.24:51, 52; cf.v.17). This was the very reverse of the mourning which fasting betokens. The obvious explanation is that they did not consider the bridegroom to have been taken away from them: “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Mt.28:20). “For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Heb. 13:5; a valuable passage, the Greek of which has five negatives!) Thus the one who practises religious fasting proclaims not his closeness to the Lord but that he lacks a present sense of His help and comfort.

Only in times of extreme perplexity or tribulation would the believers perhaps do well to undertake fasting — afflicting their souls — as a means of reinforcing special prayers offered before God in such circumstances. It could become another powerful outward expression of their sense of need. If this is a correct understanding, then Christ’s ecclesia in the present day has something to learn.

Three Mini-Parables

By means of three pocket-sized parables Jesus now proceeded to generalise the problem which had arisen regarding fasting. They are possibly the first examples of this form of instruction in the gospels, though almost certainly not the first that he had ever employed.

The synoptists’ versions of the first of the three emphasize different details. Possibly the one in Luke represents a later version, for it is not unlikely that Jesus had occasion to teach the same lesson more than once.

The Patched Garment

In Matthew and Mark the absurdity is emphasized of using a piece of unshrunk cloth to patch an old garment. What happens? As the new cloth gradually shrinks, it pulls away some of the weaker old material, and the last state of that garment is worse than the first. Thus, in a parable, Jesus prophesied that the ill-found alliance between Pharisee (the old worn-out garment) and disciple of the Baptist (represented by the crude unfinished patch) could not possibly last. The fundamental difference in outlook was too great. The Pharisees clung to a thread-bare philosophy of dependence on a pseudo-righteousness wrought, not without some self-satisfaction, by one’s own personal efforts and discipline. John’s teaching had as its foundation: “All flesh is grass;” he insisted that only through repentance, baptism and faith in the Lamb of God can a man be acceptable before God. Where was the compatibility?

In Luke’s version of this parable, the patch is torn out of a new garment. Here it is not the raw quality of the patching material which makes the procedure unsatisfactory. Instead, there is the ruin of the new garment and the blatant fact that the new does not match the old. The incongruity is obvious.

The new garment represents, of course, the teaching of Jesus. Any attempt at alliance with the Pharisees was bound to mean ruin to this movement which Jesus had begun, because the Pharisees were interested only in absorbing for their own prestige and benefit this and any other surge of religious enthusiasm. It was their intention that in doing so they would modify it into harmony with their own ideas and practices. Jesus knew that any such confederation would bring his work to nought. The “new garment” would be utterly spoiled.

Besides this, there was the hopeless incompatibility between the Pharisees’ outlook and the teaching of Jesus. Basically, in attitude to God and man they were as different as could be. How could there be any sort of liaison between two systems of teaching so drastically different from each other? They just did not match.

The Old Testament background to this parable–often overlooked–adds considerably to its force. Before many weeks had passed, in the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus was to appropriate as an apt summary of his gospel, the satisfying sonorous words or Isaiah 61. That passage goes on: “To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes (weddings for funerals!), the oil of joy for mourning (fasting), the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness … I will greatly rejoice in the Lord … for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments… “(61:3, 10).

Messiah’s work was not a pre-appointed patching of garments, bit complete replacement with a God-provided robe of righteousness, apparel appropriate to a royal wedding, with himself in the role of the Bridegroom.

New Wine, Old Bottles

The variance between the old and the new was further underlined by the parable of new wine in old wineskins, now emphasizing a difference of inner spirit as well as of outward form. A man with the characteristic outlook of Judaism — that by religious regimen and self-discipline he can make himself worthy of God’s approval — is compared to an old wine-skin. The fermentation still busy in the new wine is more than the old skin can stand. The result–it bursts, and is thenceforth useless, and the wine runs away and is lost.

This similitude was also a prophecy. The strenuous attempts by first-century Jewry to capture Christianity as a sect of Judaism resulted in the wreck of the Mosaic system and also the loss of the Truth (see “The Jewish Plot”, Testimony, June 1974). By this figure Jesus prophesied the hopeless failure of those, whether his own disciples or John’s, who attempted to reconcile the new outlook with the venerated but unprofitable religious practices of the Pharisees. A man assimilating the new teaching must himself become a new creature and not a rather more respectable version of the old man. Put new wine in new wine-skins, and both are preserved.

New Wine and Old

At this point Luke includes a third mini-parable: “And no man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith. The old is better (Lk. 5:39).

It may be that here Jesus was making a kind of half-apology for the attitude adopted by the disciples of John. All their lives they had been accustomed to see in the punctilious devotion of the Pharisees to the tradition of the elders, a way of life deserving admiration. Then it was not to be wondered at if, in their own new-found zeal for serving God, they tried to emulate it. Yet, implied Jesus, in fact it is the new wine of the gospel that is better; so as speedily as possible they must become accustomed to the new, especially since soon there would be none of the old left. The saying became very meaningful in later days when Jews brought to faith in Christ had to let go their innate prejudice in favour of the old Law of works. A Jewish palate would not instinctively take to the new wine of Christ’s faith-gospel right away, but salvation depends on learning a preference for the new. (cp. Mk. 4:33; Jn. 3:12; 16:12; 1 Cor. 3:12; Heb. 5:12-14).

These words of Jesus show a gracious understanding of the weaknesses of human nature. There are few people indeed whose conversion to the way of Christ is sudden and complete. With most it is a matter of gradual readjustment of outlook. Peter had to be called by Jesus three times. And there is many a man who dates his conversion from long offer his baptism into Christ. “Peter, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Jesus said that at the end of his ministry, not at the beginning.

Notes: Mark 2:18-22

18.	And the Pharisees. There is more than a hint here of collaboration. John’s disciples, who should have remembered Mt. 3:7, were being made use of.
	Used to fast. A more likely reading: “they were fasting”, ie. on that very day of Matthew’s feast. Thy disciples. But disciples take their tone from their Leader, so this was a criticism of Jesus really. The criticism also implies: “they do not practice fasting.” The Lord’s followers had been under close observation! Note how, here, the disciples are criticized to their Master; in v. 16 the Master is criticized to the disciples.
19.	The children of the bridechamber. A common Bible idiom for “those invited to the wedding.” Cp. Mt. 8:12; 23:15; Lk. 10:6; 16:8; 20:36. There are many more.
	Can they fast…? Lk: Are you able to make them fast (even once: Gk. aoristj? NT. passages about fasting which in modern times tend to be glossed over: Acts 13:2; 14:23; 2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27; also Acts 10:30; 1 Cor. 7:5; Mt. 17:21, Mk. 9:29. There is not a hint in the Bible about fasting being good for one’s health, but rather the reverse.
	The bridegroom. So many marriages in Scripture anticipate this figure – Adam’s, Isaac’s, Joseph;s, Moses’s, Boaz’s, Hosea’s, Hezekiah’s and also the Song of Songs. To these the NT. adds: Mt. 22:2; 25: 1; Eph. 5:23-32; Rev. 19:7-9; 21:2.
20.	Taken away from them. An ominous allusion to Is. 53:8. Is the Bridegroom taken away now? Consider Mt. 28:20;Heb. 13:5, 6; Jn. 14:16, 17, 21; and also Lk. 24:15, 35, 51, 52.
21.	An old garment. Is. 50:8, 9; 51:6-8 have the same impressive figure of speech, with the same clear lesson: In the spiritual world, don’t try to “make do and mend”; instead, scrap the old, and put on a new garment; Gal. 4:3, 9; Heb. 7:18.
22.	Old bottles. Both mini-parables come in Job. 13:28 LXX: “I am that which waxes old like a bottle, or like a motheaten garment” (cp. also 32:19 LXX). New wine. These men are full of new wine” (Acts 2:13). Indeed, they were!