In Exodus 20 the Lord God presented the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. Some 1300 years later, at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus Christ presented a new version of the Table of the Law, known as the Beatitudes, beginning with, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
View of the Sea of Galilee from the Mount of the Beatitudes
Note that both these charters were delivered from a mountaintop. The Mount of the Beatitudes, however, is much smaller than Sinai, really just a hill, befitting the gentler ethos of the gospel. These new laws are issued not from on high, but from down low, from the divine man who “made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant” (Php 2:7). Even so, the Beatitudes are still laws—and very stringent and demanding they are, too—for as Jesus says a few verses later, “Whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
The laws outlined in the Beatitudes are not the same sort of laws as those of the Ten Commandments. They are not “Thou shalt not” legal requirements, but rather laws in the sense of Newton’s Laws of Physics. That is, according to Jesus this is just how life works. At least, it’s how things work in the kingdom of heaven. Be merciful, and you will receive mercy. Be meek, and you will be masters of the earth.
Nor are the Beatitudes the only mention of these principles, but they serve as an outline of all that Jesus proceeds to preach in the ensuing sermon, indeed an outline of His entire teaching. He is laying the foundation of a new legal system called the gospel, a system that does not negate the Old Testament Law but transforms the very concept of Law into Blessing. The Beatitudes are not laws that restrain but that set free, not laws you must keep but laws that keep you. They are laws written no longer on stone but on the heart. How much more, then, are we constrained to follow them and “obey the gospel” (1 Pet 4:17).
Recently our Bible study group compared the Beatitudes with another famous passage, Paul’s description of love in 1 Corinthians 13: “Love is patient, love is kind …” and so on. What do these two passages have in common? Both list the traits of an ideal disciple; both describe the character of a mature Christian. Indeed, are these not portraits of Christ Himself? As Pope Leo recently preached, “Christ is the poor man who shares His life with everyone, the meek man who perseveres in suffering, the peacemaker persecuted to death on the cross.”
The New Testament gives no physical description of Jesus, but in the Beatitudes Christ limns His own character, offering at the outset of His ministry the pattern we are to follow in order to become like Him. In a similar manner He says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29).
The other passage that begs for comparison with Matthew 5 is the parallel version of the Beatitudes in Luke 6. Here there are just four Beatitudes, suggesting that Jesus, the consummate teacher, must have repeated this crucial message at various times and in different ways throughout His ministry. But Luke 6 has another surprise, for here the blessings are paired with four curses, beginning with, “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.” Whoa! Turns out there is a flip side to the development of a shining Christian character, and that is descent into sin and damnation.
Best to take the narrow road, then, and pay careful heed to these gentle gospel commandments.
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