The first in a series of four talks on the Beatitudes given at community meetings in 1979. Paul DeCelles stressed the importance of Scripture study to see what the Lord says about himself so that we might adopt the spirituality of Jesus and have the mind of Christ.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
[The tape begins after Paul has already begun speaking.]
PAUL:. . . what should happen at the general community gatherings. One of the things that we agreed to was that we should, as often as possible and reasonable, have some Bible teaching that would take a little bit longer, even, than a normal little teaching that we might give at a meeting like this. Last week, Kevin began, like, the first of this sort of teaching, and I’m going to continue that today.
What I want to talk about is the Beatitudes, and—I have spoken about some of the Beatitudes, and some background to the Beatitudes, on several different occasions, to different groups in the community. Today will be different from all that. So, it doesn’t build on anything that I had said before.
In the future, I believe that everybody should–would feel better if they were—if they had their Bibles with them when they came to the meeting. Almost everybody does anyway, I’m sure. But you might also want to stick a 3×5 card in the back, or something like that, too, so that you’d be able to take some notes at the meetings.
I’d like to make just a few points and then read some of the Beatitudes here. And—this is going to resemble work, a little bit. So let’s—is everybody ready to do a little bit of work? It’s not too much, but a little bit.
I’d like to begin by saying that I believe that there are many different, legitimate ways to understand the Beatitudes, and . . . you may have read a lot of popular books, may have read some of the church fathers, and you may have been thinking about them yourself for a long time, and have come to some kind of understanding of the Beatitudes.
And I imagine that all those things that you’ve encountered are probably legitimate, inspiring, and on the mark. This may—what I’m going to say may be completely different from anything that you’ve heard, or read, or thought of yourself as you were praying. But as I was studying this—and I’ve read various people, what they have to say about it—and as I was praying about this, it did seem to me that this—that I have some things I should point—some connections that I should point out to you, which may not be what you have seen before.
So, if they are different—and different from what you had thought they meant before–don’t think that, well—that what you heard before was wrong, necessarily, or that there’s something mistaken in what I’m saying. But rather, just sort of enlarge your understanding of all of it, and include what I’m saying.
That’s characteristic, by the way, I’d say, of a lot of Scripture. If you take different people reading the same passages, in the different stages of life that they’re in, the different moments of their lives, they may well come up with quite different sorts of understandings—inspired by God for the occasion—from each other.
And yet, all being legitimate and helpful. And that’s usually a good thing. Sometimes, it can be misleading or confusing, and, occasionally, wrong. Today, what I’d like to do is make some parallels within Saint Matthew’s Gospel, in chapter 4, within the text itself. And I would like to use the text—this is—my strategy is to use the text itself to be the teacher of what the text means.
Before I do that, though, I’d like to say that all of the description of the Beatitudes sometimes is taken to be a form of a law. It’s, like, the “new law” that Jesus gave. It’s sort of put “over against” the old law, that Moses gave. And, you know, everybody knew the old law, and the old law died when Jesus came, and died for our sins, and rose from the dead. And that, whatever was said in the Old Testament, no longer particularly applies to us now. A lot of people believe that. I think that that’s a really—what I’ve just said, not very many—well, some people would say that. Those who would say that, it seems to me, would be saying something that might be—they might have the right idea, but they’d be saying it the wrong way.
That is, that our Lord’s attitude toward the Old Testament is not that it was wrong. It may be that our Lord regarded it as incomplete. At any rate, he at least did not want any of it to change. He wanted people to understand it properly, and he wanted to understand—he wanted them to understand—him as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. And he was the completion of the Old Testament. And the Old Testament, the—Moses, all the law, the prophets, and the Psalms—were all pointing to the Lord, Jesus, and that we should understand that when we’re reading the Old Testament.
And so anyway, some people will say that the Beatitudes is [sic], like, the “new law.” “This is now the pure teaching of Jesus”—as though it were something brand new, it had never been seen before. That’s not true. There is really nothing new in the Beatitudes. You can find everything that is said in the Beatitudes in the Old Testament.
So, our Lord is not really, in my estimation, presenting a new law. He is, if anything, you might say, gathering together some important parts of the Old Testament and restating them. That’s one thing.
The next point is this: that I believe that the Beatitudes, as we understand them, and as they’re read to us, and as we read them—as they come off the page at us—really do resemble something like a prophecy that Jesus was giving with regard to himself. That is, taken as a whole, they describe the life that Jesus lives; looking at them individually, they project forward to his death and resurrection.
And if you read—as you read these Beatitudes carefully, yourselves, I know that you’ll find all kinds of link-ups, like, “This is clearly an indication that Jesus is going to suffer and die.” Jesus is going to say that he’s thirsty on the cross, and he’s going to say that it’s completed, that he’s satisfied.
Jesus mourned as he looked at Jerusalem. He mourned when Lazarus—the looking at Jerusalem, and weeping over Jerusalem, was connected with his going to Jerusalem to die.
So, I just want to register that in your mind. The point I want to make is that the Beatitudes, I believe, indicate something about what Jesus thinks about his whole life and mission, and that you should read them as something like prophecy, as well as a lot of other ways to read them. Prophecy with regard to the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus.
The next thing I want to say is that it’s also true that the life of Jesus is the kind of—is the life that Jesus wants us to live. In this regard, then, these are like statements or prophecies about our life as a spirit-filled Christian. Each one of us is going to go through something of this description, of being poor, and mourning, being meek, and so on.
So, I’d like to say, also, as you’re reading this. . . . And I really am going to leave all the study of this up to you. That’s why it’s helpful to take some notes, and then you can meditate on it. It will take, I think, a long time for you to meditate adequately on all this. Like, maybe, weeks, or years. So, I believe that this is meant to be the description of a—of the Spirit-filled life.
This is the sort of life, the sort of person, that you and I are supposed to be. [Pause.]
If you look at the second letter to the Corinthians, in chapter 6, beginning around verse 4. . . . Or, beginning at the beginning, but I won’t read there; I’ll start later on. Paul says, “But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way through. . . .”—Now that—now what Paul is going to do here is describe his situation and how he has been experiencing the Christian life. The point I want to make here is that, as I just said, all these Beatitudes apply to Jesus. They also should apply to each Christian. And now, what I want to show you is how they have applied to Paul, how he has—and as we read over this passage, I think you’ll see elements of the Beatitudes all the way through this passage.
So he says,
But as servants of God, we commend ourselves in every way, through great endurance and afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; by purity, knowledge, forbearance, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.
You see in that passage just some echoes of the way the Beatitudes are presented.
“Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” This is, say—you see a contrast between, for instance, “as poor, yet making many rich,” in this passage. And this is the way that Paul experienced life. He experienced life like the Beatitudes describe it to be for a Spirit-filled Christian.
Now, let me go with you to the Beatitude—to this chapter 4 in Matthew’s Gospel. What I’d like you to do, is take out a pencil and write something down, okay?
This is it:
When you go down to—I want you to skip to verse 10, and next to 10 in your Bibles, write down “3.” Chapter—I’m sorry, chapter 5.
On verse 10, right next to 10, put down a 3. Next to 11, put down 4. Next to 13, put down 5. This all fits together, honestly. Next to 17, put down 6. And next to 21, put down 7. Next to 27, [put down] 8. And then, next to 38, put down a 9.
Okay. Glory to God. Everybody still working hard? Keep slugging; stay with it. Now, here we go.
I think that the way this whole chapter is laid out is as follows:
The first Beatitude is in—mentioned in verse 3. I think the first Beatitude is mentioned again in verse 10: that which is sometimes called the 8th Beatitude.
The second Beatitude is verse 4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And that’s described and commented on again in verse 13 on through to 16, inclusive. You get the idea? In other words, these verses—if you wanted to, you could put “3 means 1,” “4 means 2,” “5 means 3,” and so on. That’s the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, and so on, Beatitudes. When you go back to study it after today, I mean after this afternoon, I’d like you to study these passages in parallel. Look at 3, and look at 10, and pray about them together, and regard 10 as a commentary on verse 3. And so on down the line.
Now, I think that that’s the way this chapter is laid out by the evangelist. Now, let me just say, what’s described here, in the first place, is people who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are merciful, and pure in heart, and are peacemakers.
And then again, those who are “persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” That’s a group of people, or—people who are characterized by those attributes. When you look at them, they look like they’re poor in spirit. They mourn, they’re meek, they hunger and thirst for righteousness, they’re merciful, they’re pure in heart, and they’re peacemakers. Okay?
The effect of being poor in spirit is, in fact, that you are persecuted. That’s just—I’m not saying that that’s a cause. In fact, people can be poor in spirit, which you can also—which—by “poor in spirit,” you may also mean “humble,” or “the beginning of wisdom,” “humility,” the “fear of the Lord.”
“Poor in spirit” means that—not puffed up, not arrogant, not counting on your own abilities, because you really don’t have enough to make it—to pull it off. And, for people who are like that—you may know many of them. Hopefully, many of us here in this room are like that. You find that they are persecuted. Sometimes people who are in that category are oppressed, or persecuted, but not for righteousness’ sake. They simply are picked on, and taken advantage of.
That’s very common in the world. It’s the way some wealthy men take advantage of the poor: they prey on them. But usually, you find people who are poor in spirit being persecuted. What’s important for us is not that we simply be poor in spirit, but that we should, in fact, be righteous as well.
We don’t want simply to be persecuted; we want to be persecuted for the right reasons. We want to be persecuted for living a righteous life, which, in fact, is a life—for example, the kind of righteousness that you find in the Old Testament. Now, of course, in the New Testament, in the walk after the Lord. The reason I point out 10 in connection with 3 is that you see that the reward is the same: “Blessed are the poor and spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” And in verse 10, we see, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
And, as you work through the rest of these parallels, you will pick up a lot of insights. I know you will, if you pray about them as you work through them.
Now, the poor in spirit are not promised in this—at this point—what I want to do now is just give you something like some technical information. The “poor in spirit” probably means, at least, that it is to some degree voluntary. That is to say, they’re not only poor, but they are also—they intend to be that way. They’re not—poor here, by the way, does not mean lacking money (although it might mean that, it would include that). It means defenseless, unable to take care of yourself, unable to make your own way all the way through to the end. You need help. Someone who is in that position, willingly depending on the Lord, for righteousness’ sake, will, in fact, obtain the kingdom of heaven.
The next Beatitude is, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” And you look down here in verse 11, and you can see, “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely, on my account.” That’s enough to make anybody cry. That may be happening to you. What the Lord says is, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
And again, I’ll just mention the—when our Lord looked at Jerusalem, and he wept over them.
He talked about how the prophets, how many people had gone before, who had wanted to gather the people together, and he referred to the prophets.
The next one is, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Then in verse 13, commenting on this, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by men. You are the light of the world.”
Now, in Scripture, light is always either applied to Jesus himself, or to a righteous life and holiness, as opposed to darkness, which is sin. You can find that even in the beginning of Genesis, where the Lord makes a distinction between, like—in separating the light from the darkness, it seems that he’s separating good from evil.
It says here,
You are the light of the world. (You’re the goodness of the world.) A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in a house. Let your goodness (or “light”) so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Okay, that’s the commentary on the fifth one.
Sixth one: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Now the Lord says, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfill them.” [In other words,] “I have not come to destroy them. I have come to complete them.”
Whatever “fulfill” means is something like, “I’m going to make an addition to it,” or “I’m going to show you the fullness of the meaning of the Old Testament.”
For truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever, then, relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now, the—this just is a very small point, but what our Lord is saying is that not even the smallest letter written down, the iota, not even the dot that goes over the smallest letter, is going to be removed. He is not changing any of that. He is coming to—he has come to fulfill that.
What I wanted to say, among other things, is—well, let me just go on. I’ll read some more of these parallels.
In verse 21 following—let me read verse 7 first, and then we’ll go on.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. . . .You have heard that it was said to the men of old, You shall not kill, and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brothers shall be liable to the council. And whoever says “You fool!” shall be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.
Now, you see, our Lord often talks about what—he says that the Pharisees should think about and understand the meaning of the passage from Scripture, that the Lord desires—does not desire sacrifice; he desires mercy. That is to say, the Lord does not desire the sacrifice, the hardship that these Pharisees and Sadducees were putting on themselves. But, in fact, what he wanted was that they should love one another, that they should have the care and attention to the smallest detail of each other’s lives, for the purpose of providing help to each other. And that all their pious attitudes and pious practices didn’t amount to anything unless they had mercy.
He wasn’t—he says, the law is not about, you know, washing the altar down with the blood of goats. He says that’s not what—“You’re misreading it,” he says. The law is not about keeping ritually pure at the expense of passing up the Samaritan who is knocked down on the side of the road! In fact, what he says is, you’re supposed to stop and take care of a guy like that! Because the Lord says, “I desire mercy more than I desire sacrifice.”
This pass—All these passages, I believe, need to be read in light of our Lord’s atonement, and his sacrifice. All the Beatitudes are pointing toward that.
Let me just go back for a minute and talk about the meek. One of the things that you see about our Lord is that—well, let me remind you of one thing. In Numbers 11, Moses is described as being the meekest of all men. When there is, like, a coup d’etat starting—his brother and a woman are trying to take over some control from him—what happens is that God, in fact, defends Moses. He steps in on his own authority, God does. Moses does not strike them down; he doesn’t say, “You can’t do that,” or anything like that. What happens is that the Lord defends Moses and his position.
We see with our Lord that he was very meek. At the time of—when he was taken, he was meek. He didn’t resist—the fact that they came and took him away as though he were a robber, in the middle of the night. They struck him in the face when he was blindfolded, and demanded that he prophesy, and he didn’t bring down a bolt of lightning. In fact, he did not defend himself when evil came against him personally. Rather, he was waiting for the Lord to defend him and to be his justification.
Our Lord is the most meek of all men. It had been said of Moses before—at Moses’ time—that he was. But in fact, Jesus is the most meek of all.
We see in Jesus also his hungering and his thirsting, and how he said as he was hanging on a cross that he was thirsty; and then they gave him the sponge, dipped in hyssop. And then, later on, he said that he was satisfied, or that it was completed.
Again, read all these passages from the point of view of what kind of a man, and what kind of a life—in particular, what kind of an atonement and sacrifice—Jesus has made to reconcile us to the Father.
Okay. Now, just one other small observation. I won’t go through the rest of these. I’ve got it lined up now. All you have to do is work it through and pray about it a lot. My talking about it is not going to be a substitute for your praying about it. All I intended to do was to give you some directions as to which way to look as you pray about this.
If you pray about this, I guarantee you that you will learn a lot along these lines, and the Lord will move in your heart to make clearer and clearer what he is accomplishing—what he wants to accomplish in these Beatitudes.
Let me just say one more small thing. That is that you notice that there is a debate among those who study these things deeply, as to whether there are fewer than seven Beatitudes, whether there are seven Beatitudes, or whether there are eight Beatitudes, and so on.
I just would like to point out for your spiritual, you know, edification or something, that there is one value that one of the church fathers raised. That is that—he said that there were seven Beatitudes. The eighth one is—as I’ve seemed to go—is a repeating of the first one. If you want to stay with eight, the eighth one comes back and touches the first one, and it kind of starts the cycle all over again. So you start with the first one, you read on through, you live that through, and you come to the eighth one, and you’re back at the beginning again. There is something like an “ascent,” as you study this and pray through this, in the spiritual life connected with each of these things. And all of the spiritual life is a whole: the beginning is also the end.
Another thing is that there are seven days to the week, but the eighth day, in the early church especially—and we also regard it this way—is the Lord’s Day. You know, in the churches, we have ordinarily—although this is not true of all Christian churches—understood that the Sabbath was the great rest day of the Old Testament, and that the Lord’s Day was not the Sabbath, although there are some who would dispute that. They would say that there was the Sabbath, but the Lord’s Day is the day of the resurrection, the next day.
And then what we celebrate is, in fact, the eighth day, not the seventh day, when we go to church on Sunday. That’s the Lord’s Day, not the Sabbath. The Moslems, you know, celebrate a holy day on Friday. The Jews celebrate a holy day on Saturday. And Christians celebrate a holy day on Sunday, and that’s the reason. And that’s what the eight Beatitudes are interpreted as meaning, sometimes. That is to say, you have the ordinary seven, and the eighth one is the capstone. And it sort of completes the whole thing and fulfills all the teaching and the Beatitudes that goes [sic] before.
Now, this is kind of a difficult thing for us to get into. But the feeling that we had as we were talking about the life of all of us in the People of Praise, is that it would be very, very good for us at this time to get more and more into the spirituality that the Lord Jesus had. To get the mind of Christ. And the way to do that is, in fact, to see what he had to say, and to learn it— what the Lord has revealed about himself in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. So, we just want to urge you all to, at this time, seriously pick up your Scriptures and start working through them, in order to get to the mind of the Lord.
MAN’S VOICE: [inaudible] . . . on some of the things that Paul has said, let’s sing together “Blessed is The Man.” The words are on page 50.
[Recording ends here.]
Copyright © 2022 People of Praise, Inc.