Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. –
Matthew 5:8 (NET)
The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew, commonly
referred to as “The Sermon On the Mount,” begin with a programmatic
declaration. Jesus, in Moses-like fashion, has taken up a position on a
mountain, in order to deliver God’s will to the people and begins with a set of
statements prefaced by “Blessed are”. By using the term “blessed,” while
standing on the mountain to speak to the people, Jesus has not only conjured up
thoughts of Moses, but pulls Abraham into His context as well, as God was going
to bless Abraham and his descendants, and through them all the world would also
be blessed (Genesis 12:2-3).
Beginning with “Blessed are,” and with what follows during
the course of this particular “sermon,” Jesus offers up a new set of “laws,” if
you will, to govern the way in which His people will interact in and for the
world that God is redeeming through Him. If we think of Jesus as offering
up a new set of governing principles, we have a helpful lens through which to
view His statement of “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the
prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them”
(5:17). Of course, Jesus also immediately goes on to say “I tell you the
truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a
letter will pass from the law until everything takes place” (5:18). By
speaking of “these things” (5:17), along with saying “heaven and earth pass
away” (5:18), Matthew lays the groundwork for the other important and extended
discourse from Jesus to be found in his Gospel, which is His speech concerning
the Temple. There, in chapters twenty-four through twenty-six of Matthew,
we see the repeated use of “these things” (24:2,3,8,33,34,26:1) as well as
“Heaven and earth will pass away” (24:35), with the two statements linked and
clearly connected with the fall of the Temple (“heaven and earth” was a common
way of referring to the Temple---the place where heaven and earth meet).
We cannot disconnect Jesus words from chapter five with His words from chapter
twenty-four, and doing so would probably be a mistake.
When we then hear Jesus go on to say “So anyone who breaks
one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called
the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others
to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (5:19), we must realize
that He is talking about that which He has said here with His initial delivery
of “laws,” upon which He is about to elaborate. In that sense then, we
could even be justified in looking at the “beatitudes” as something of a new
set of “Ten Commandments,” though there are not ten, and though they aren’t
really commandments in the traditional sense. We are also put in the
position of seeing the beatitudes as the outline of the sermon, with all that
follows serving as the explanation of those beatitudes.
As we know, Jesus begins by saying “Blessed are the poor in
spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them” (5:3). Beginning in
this way fits perfectly with what we see from Matthew prior to this.
First, we are introduced to John the Baptist and his message, which is “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is near” (3:2). Then, the first report that we
receive about the message that is going to come from Jesus, is “Repent, for the
kingdom of heaven is near” (4:17b). Matthew follows this up by informing
his audience that “Jesus went throughout all of Galilee, teaching in their
synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the kingdom” (4:23a). So Jesus
beginning the message in which He outlines His vision of the kingdom of heaven
with a mention of the kingdom of heaven makes perfect sense. He is quite
consistent in this regard.
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