18 Why Does God Bless the Meek? (Matthew 5:5)

Krisan Marotta: Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 18th talk in my series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we're going to study Matthew 5.5. You can find lecture notes with links to everything mentioned in today's talk on my website. Just click on the link below the podcast, or go to wednesdayintheword.com slash Matthew 1 8. You can also find all previous episodes in this series on that website and many others on wednesdayintheword.com. Thank you so much for listening today. We are continuing in the Sermon on the Mount from the Gospel of Matthew. We're still in the Beatitudes section of chapter 5, and today we're going to talk about Matthew 5.5, which is blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. This is probably the most famous of the Beatitudes. Many people who've never read the Bible can quote this Beatitude from the King James, and popular authors often refer to it without feeling the need to explain that it's a reference to one of the sayings of Jesus. They expect us to know that much from our culture. But I would argue that even though a lot of people can quote this verse, not that many people really understand what it means. To try to figure out what Jesus is saying, we're going to step through it. I've argued that in the Beatitudes, Jesus is describing people of faith. Even though Jesus doesn't use the term faith here, I've argued that he is describing those who will inherit a place in the kingdom of God, and we know from the rest of Scripture that people who have a place in God's kingdom have saving faith. And I've argued that the Beatitudes say four things about people of faith. First, such people are fortunate. They are in a highly desirable situation. That's basically what it means to be blessed. Second, each beatitude gives a reason why such people are fortunate, and the basic reason is that they have a glorious future promised from God. Their future destiny is what makes them fortunate now. Third, only these people have this glorious future. Only those who have these qualities described in the Beatitudes will inherit the kingdom of God, and these are the qualities that define saving faith. And fourth, the beatitudes are surprising or ironic. At first glance, the qualities that gain you the kingdom of heaven do not appear to be that desirable, and yet the people who have them are truly fortunate or blessed. So I have argued that each beatitude is structured like this paraphrase. As strange as it may seem, those who are in the seemingly undesirable situation of being X are actually in a highly desirable situation because they and they alone have a glorious future from God. So only those people with these qualities are fortunate because only they have a glorious future in the kingdom of heaven, and these are people who have saving faith. That's our review. Now let's dig in. We'll start step by step. So the first thing we know about a beatitude is it tells us who is blessed, who is fortunate, who is the person in a highly desirable situation, and in this case the fortunate person is meek. Now some translations have the word gentle and some have humble. And I have argued that one of the characteristics of the teaching of Jesus is that he speaks cryptically. He makes concise provocative statements that we must think about to figure out what he's saying. And this one's no exception. Jesus doesn't stop to explain what he means by meek. But in this case we have a pretty big clue what as to what Jesus is getting at and why he uses this language because he's quoting an Old Testament passage. Now we're going to read that passage and talk about it in a minute. But first I want to look at this word translated meek, gentle, or humble. Matthew wrote his gospel in biblical Greek, and he uses a Greek word that we're translating meek, gentle or humble, but Jesus is quoting an Old Testament passage that was originally written in Hebrew, and this Greek word has been chosen to translate the Hebrew word that is used in the Old Testament passage, which Jesus quotes. So if we want to understand Jesus, we have to study the Hebrew word in the Old Testament. We need to understand the concept of that word in the Old Testament. And to do that, I want to look at two passages. The first one is Numbers twelve three. You'll recall that God called Moses to be a prophet, and he tasked Moses with leading the people out of slavery in Egypt and into the promised land. At first, Moses balked at that call. He didn't want it. He didn't think he was up to the job, but then he accepted it anyway. He was the leader for the Israelites. He was the spokesman for God to the people, and he went regularly before God to listen to God, then he went back to the people and told them what God said. He functioned as a mediator between God and the people and as an advocate for God to the people. Well Moses had a sister named Miriam and a brother Aaron, and they were also leaders among the people of Israel. Miriam is described as a prophetess, and Aaron was a priest, and at this point in Numbers, Miriam and Aaron have become jealous of this unique role that God has called Moses to play. I'm going to read Numbers twelve one through eight. Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Kushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman, and they said, Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also? And the Lord heard it. Now the man Moses was very meek more than all people who were on the face of the earth, and that word meek there in twelve three, that's the word we're interested in. Now the man Moses was very meek more than all people who were on the face of the earth, and suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, Come out you three to the tent of meeting, and the three of them came out. And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward, and he said, Hear my words, if there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth clearly and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? Now I'm not going to go on in the passage and I'm not going to cover what's going on with Miriam and Aaron here. I have a talk on this passage and Miriam's situation, which I'll link to in the lecture notes, and if you're interested, I invite you to listen to that podcast. For our purposes, we need to know that Miriam and Aaron are jealous of Moses. Moses has a unique authority in Israel and a unique relationship with God, and his siblings don't think that's fair. They think that they ought to be recognized as just as big a deal as Moses is. Maybe they ought to be even a little more important because hey, Moses married this Kushite woman. He has a skeleton in his closet, and God had spoken to them as well, so why shouldn't we, Miriam and Aaron be as important as Moses? So the situation we're looking at is that God has given something to Moses that he has not given to Moses' siblings, and they don't like it. What interests us in this relationship to the Beatitudes is this description of Moses as meek or humble. When this passage got translated into Greek, they used the word that we have in our Beatitude. Let me read twelve three again. Now the man Moses was very humble more than any man who was on the face of the earth. Our English word humble or meek doesn't really capture the situation here. When we think of humble in English, it makes it sound like Moses is saying something like Ah shucks, I'm not that great. But notice in this passage, Moses is being contrasted with Aaron and Miriam. They're being presumptuous. They are trying to grab a calling or a role, a glory that God has not given them. Moses, on the other hand, has this very glorious important role and not because he went looking for it, but because God decided to give it to him. If you're familiar with the story of Moses, you'll remember that Moses didn't want this job at first. Let's go back to Exodus three where God calls Moses to lead his people. This is the first time he calls Moses. I'm going to start in Exodus three one. Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father in law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush, and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up. When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am. Then he said, Do not come near here, remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. He said also, I am the God of your father, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite, and the Parasite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Now behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to me. Furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain. Then God gives Moses some powerful signs to confirm his message, but notice the first response Moses has to this calling. In three hundred eleven he says, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? He's basically saying, What me? Don't you do you have the right guy? And then later on we see this exchange, this is skipping down to Exodus four ten. Then Moses said to the Lord, Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since you have spoken to your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue. The Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth or who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I the Lord? Now then go, and I, even I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to say. But he said, Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever you will. Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and he said, Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently, and moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you he will be glad in his heart. So here at Moses' calling we see him explaining to God that he is inadequate and he's unprepared for this job, and wouldn't God be better off sending someone else? Moses even provokes God to anger with his refusal until Moses finally humbly obeys. So Moses didn't think he was up to this job at first. He didn't really want it, he didn't seek it out, yet God decided to exalt Moses to this unique position that no other human being had. I think we're to understand this quality that Moses has, this meekness or humbleness in contrast to what we see in Miriam and Aaron. Moses is not presumptuous, he's not exalting himself, he's not demanding that he be treated as an important person, even though he is an important person. Rather, he's patiently depending on God. He has what God has chosen to give him, and he is not demanding or grabbing for more. Unlike his siblings, who God has also given an important role to, and they're saying, Hey, we want more, we want to be like Moses. Aren't we as important as him? So we have this contrast between Moses, who is humble, he is not presumptuous, he is not exalting himself, and Miriam and Aaron, who are trying to exalt themselves. Well, that gives us a pretty good idea what it means to be meek or humble. The second passage I want to talk about is Psalm 37, and this is the Psalm that Jesus is quoting from in Matthew 5 5. First we're going to look at this word, meek or humble, and then we're going to go back and look at the psalm a little more closely. Let me set the psalm up a bit first. Some people get ahead in this world by grabbing for it, by committing evil to get it, and by plotting against the righteous to make gains for themselves. So the psalm is speaking to those who trust in God and telling them, Don't worry about the evil people who seem to be getting ahead. Don't be angry or wrathful toward them. Instead, trust and wait in the Lord. One day God's going to cause those who trust in Him to prosper, and He's going to cut off the wicked. So what are the qualities of the wicked in this Psalm? Well, they prosper because they carry out wicked schemes, they plot against the righteous, they cast down the afflicted and the needy, they slay the upright, they borrow and do not pay back, and so forth. By contrast, the qualities of the righteous in this psalm are that they trust in the Lord, they commit their way to Him, they rest in the Lord and wait for Him. And using the word that Jesus uses in the Beatitude, they are humble, they are not presumptuous. Now the theme of this psalm is one that we see frequently in the Old Testament, and let me see if I can spell it out a bit more. Every person who has ever lived wants to have a life that is filled with blessings. We all want good things and not bad things. We want security and comfort and peace and prosperity. We would like our path to be smooth and straight and we would like to have abundance and security. Speaking in simplistic and broad absolute categories, which is often the case in this kind of poetic literature, there are two kinds of people. We can divide the world into two opposite types. One group, often referred to as the wicked, aggressively and presumptuously fights for what they want. They're not generous, they take what they need regardless of how it impacts others, they're willing to hurt others for their own personal gain, they ignore God, they grab and snatch for what they want in life no matter who else gets hurt in the process. In contrast, the other group, usually called the righteous, trusts in God. This group wants to find abundance and blessing just as much as the other group, but they're not willing to go against God to get it. They take seriously what God says about right and wrong, they are unwilling to trample others to get what they want, and instead they wait patiently for whatever God decides to give them. Because of this choice to wait on God, they are often the victims of the other group. Those who ignore God take advantage of those who submit to God. But in the end, those who wait on God will prevail. God will raise up those who trust him, and he will cut off those who ignore him. Now this picture of the wicked and the righteous is very common in the Old Testament, and we see it frequently in the Psalms. The wicked are those who grab and steal and take what they want, and the righteous are the ones who wait on God. And I will argue that this picture of the wicked versus the righteous is what informs the meaning of this Greek word we're looking at. The idea of being humble is this idea of being brought low and afflicted because you are waiting on God. These people are lowly because they have humbled themselves before God and they are waiting patiently for whatever He gives them. They're not presumptuous in contrast to the wicked who do anything and everything to grab and snatch and take what they want. Now putting all that together, I think the best way to understand the sense of this word is something like this. People who are meek humbly wait on God and do not presumptuously or disobediently grab for what they want. These are the people that Jesus is speaking of in the Beatitudes. I think he's quoting this psalm and alluding to this theme of the wicked versus the righteous that we find throughout this Psalm in the Old and in the Old Testament. Who then are the fortunate ones? The fortunate ones are those who humbly and patiently wait on God and do not presumptuously and disobediently grab for what they want. Now let me make one clarifying comment on this idea of not being one who grabs for what you want. You might conclude from this that the Bible is advocating that we should be passive and not do anything. That being meek, being not presumptuous means I don't try to accomplish anything. I just wait and do without. That is not what I'm saying. I don't see anything in the Bible that says there's something wrong with working toward goals. There's nothing wrong with having goals and vision and trying to fulfill them. There's nothing wrong with trying to better our financial situation. The Bible approves of hard work and being productive and supporting ourselves. It is not presumptuous or grabby to get a paycheck for a day's work. Instead, I think the biblical picture is something like this. God has a creative purpose and a plan for each one of his children. Miriam's plan looked different than the plan God gave to Moses, which was different than the plan God gave to Joshua, which was different than the plan God gave to King David, which was different than the plan to that God gave to you and to me. There's a sense in which that plan gives us boundaries. Now some boundaries are universal. They apply to everyone. For example, all the ideas expressed in the Ten Commandments apply to all believers in all ages. Other boundaries are unique to our situation. If I'm married, my boundaries are different than if I'm single. If I'm a parent, my boundaries are different than someone who's childless. If I'm a child, my boundaries are different than if I'm an adult. Outside of the boundaries are things that I cannot do without being unfaithful. Within those boundaries I can be faithful to God. Outside those boundaries I can't. For example, I might be able to improve my financial situation by cheating someone else. That would be stepping outside the boundaries because I have stopped loving my neighbor as myself. To cheat my neighbor is outside the boundary. Now each and every one of us have days when we stand at the border of our boundaries and we gaze longingly at the other side. unknown: We long. Krisan Marotta: Look over the boundary and we say, it sure would be nice to have that. It looks good over there on the other side. But to go over there means to stop trusting God and to grab for what I want. As people of faith, we are learning to resist the temptation to step over that boundary. We are learning to trust that what God says is best, no matter how much greener the grass appears to be on the other side of the boundary. We're learning to say it looks good over there, but my eyes deceive me. God says wait and I will wait. It is better to wait on him now and receive my future inheritance that he promises than to step over that boundary, presumptuously take matters into my own hands and grab for what I want now. Now all of us cross a boundary we shouldn't cross at some and probably many points in our lives. Faith is a journey, it's a process that we grow in. Jesus is not saying one strike and you're out, one step over any boundary and you're no longer in my kingdom. That is not what he's saying. Jesus is asking us to consider what is it that we ultimately want? What are we counting on? Who are we counting on? Where's our hope? So not being presumptuous is not deciding to be passive. It's deciding not to take a certain road because to take that road would be to abandon what God says is right. And instead it's to seek to follow God and wait because we know that ultimately God will keep his promises. As is so often the case in these kinds of discussions, the core issue is whether I am actually trusting that God is who he says he is and that he will keep his promises. So to summarize, people who are meek humbly wait on God and do not presumptuously or disobediently grab for what they want. They seek to live within whatever boundaries God has put in their lives and to wait and trust that God will keep his promises. Alright, now that we understand who is fortunate in this beatitude, let's look at why they are fortunate. So Matthew 5 5, blessed are the meek or the non presumptuous, for they shall inherit the earth. Okay, what does it mean to inherit the earth? You may be aware that this word translated earth here can also be translated land, as in the promised land or the land of Israel, and that gives us at least two interpretive options. Is Jesus saying they will inherit the earth as in the whole earth, or is Jesus saying they will inherit the land of Israel? And then no matter which one of those we pick, we still have to figure out what each of them would mean. And this is where Psalm thirty seven can help us, because Jesus is quoting from Psalm thirty seven. Now to understand the Psalm, we have to make sure we understand another very common and important Old Testament theme. One of the most important concepts in the Old Testament is the Abrahamic covenant. God made great promises to Abraham, and we talked about this earlier when we looked at the genealogy in Matthew one. God promised to give Abraham many descendants. God promised to make a great nation from Abraham's descendants, and God promised to bless all the nations of the earth through Abraham's descendants, and God promised to give Abraham's descendants the land of Israel. The fact that God has promised a land to the children of Israel is very important. It comes up repeatedly in the Old Testament, and the Old Testament frequently uses the language that the Jews will inherit or possess the land. In Genesis fifteen seven, God promises this to Abraham. I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess it. Now the Greek word we have in Matthew translates this Hebrew word to possess or to inherit here in Genesis. Abraham and his descendants will possess the land. And there are literally hundreds of passages in the Old Testament that speak of the Jews inheriting or possessing the land. We can kind of group these verses into categories or like types. Some of them are early passages that look forward to the fulfillment of a future promise. For example, we see this word in the context of the promises to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob that their descendants will inherit the promised land. As Joshua takes Israel into the land, there's a lot of discussion about how they are possessing the land, and then once they are in the land, we see quite a bit of discussion about what sort of people they need to be if they want to continue to possess the land. For example, David writes in Psalm twenty five verses twelve and thirteen, Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. His soul shall abide in well being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. Now David wrote this Psalm at a time when the children of Israel are living in the land. He says it is those who fear the Lord whose descendants will inherit the land. Later on, Israel is taken into captivity and exile, first Assyria and then Babylon come to conquer the people and take them away to be slaves. In this context then we see the prophets writing about the day when once again the children of Israel will inherit or possess the land. For example, Jeremiah thirty verse three, for behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I shall bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it. Our Greek word translates this Hebrew word take possession. This is the word we're investigating. Here's another example from Isaiah. Isaiah is speaking of the glorious day when God restores Israel forever, and we find this in Isaiah sixty verse twenty one. Your people shall all be righteous, they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands that I might be glorified. Now we can spend all day looking at passages that talk about inheriting the land. There are lots and lots of them. But we can group those passages loosely into three big categories. There are early promises that one day they will go into the promised land. That's the first category. The second category is warnings about what they must do, what kind of people they need to be to stay in the land. And then the third group, after they have been taken into captivity, there are promises about the day when God establishes his kingdom on earth. He will send his Messiah and His people will possess the land forever, finally and completely. With that in mind then, let's look at Psalm thirty seven because this is the specific context that Jesus quotes. Psalm thirty seven is a discussion about who will inherit the land, and I'd like to read the whole Psalm. It's not that long and it's a beautiful Psalm. The Psalm is an acrostic. Each pair of lines starts with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So the first two lines start with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the next two lines start with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the next two start with the third letter, and so on. Now as I read this psalm, listen for two things. First, listen for the contrast we talked about earlier between the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous, the wicked being those who grab for what they want, and the righteous being those who wait on the Lord. And then second, notice how often the issue of inheriting the land comes up, and when you hear this phrase inherit the land or dwell in the land, possess the land, notice what it's paired with. This is Psalm thirty seven, it's a Psalm of David. Fret not yourself because of evil doers, be not envious of wrongdoers, for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Fret not yourselves over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices. Refrain from anger and forsake wrath. Fret not yourself, it tends only to evil, for the evil doers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while the wicked will be no more, though you look carefully at his place he will not be there. And then this is verse eleven, this is the verse Jesus is quoting. But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. The wicked will draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and the needy, to slay those whose way is upright. Their sword shall enter their own heart and their bows shall be broken. Better is the little that the righteous has than the abundance of many wicked, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The Lord knows the days of the blameless and their heritage will remain forever. They are not put to shame in evil times, in the days of famine they have abundance, but the wicked will perish. The enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures, they vanish, like smoke they vanish away. The wicked borrows but does not pay back, but the righteous is generous and gives, for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a man are established by the Lord when he delights in his way, though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand. I have been young and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously, and his children become a blessing. Turn away from evil and do good, so you shall dwell forever. For the Lord loves justice, he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. The law of God is in his heart, his steps do not slip. The wicked watches for the righteous and seeks to put him to death. The Lord will not abandon him to his power or let him be condemned when he is brought to trial. Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land. You will look on when the wicked are cut off. I have seen a wicked, ruthless man spreading himself like a green laurel tree, but he passed away, and behold he was no more, though I sought him he could not be found. Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace, but transgressors shall be altogether destroyed, the future of the wicked shall be cut off. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord, he is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them, he delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. This psalm was written at a time when the people of Israel are in fact living in the land. King David wrote it. Notice in thirty seven three, he gives the advice dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness, and they are in the land as he writes. But even though they are presently in the land as David wrote this psalm, notice that this psalm implies there's an ultimate future destiny in the land. There's a time when the wicked will be destroyed altogether, their posterity will be cut off, but the inheritance of the blameless will be forever. Now the people living at the time of David did not experience that. The wicked did not vanish in their lifetime. The wicked seem to be prospering in their lifetime, and the righteous are not prospering. They're waiting on God to act on their behalf in the future, and they're waiting because ultimately the tables are going to be turned. So the godly are waiting on the Lord precisely because this future inheritance where the wicked are cut off has not yet happened. And the Psalm makes many mentions of this. Look at this is thirty seven nine through eleven. But the evil doers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land. In just a little while the wicked will be no more, though you look carefully at his place he will not be there, but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace. And then this is verse twenty two, for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. And then twenty seven, twenty eight and twenty nine, turn away from evil and do good, so you shall dwell forever. For the Lord loves justice, he will not forsake his saints. They are preserved forever, but the children of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land and dwell upon it forever. And then verse thirty four, wait for the Lord and keep his way, he will exalt you to inherit the land. You will look on when the wicked are cut off. Well that leaves us modern Christians with a question. As Gentile Christians, we're not looking forward to living in the land the way the Jews were according to the promises made to Abraham. So what are we to do with all these promises? What are we to do with this language? What is Jesus doing by referring back to this psalm which seems to refer to being established in the land which God promised to the children of Abraham? Now, as you might imagine, many, many scholars have tackled that question and have written entire books about it. These are just my worthless conclusions for whatever they're worth. You can investigate all the other options as you wish. I think that in the Beatitudes Jesus is speaking of the promises associated with the coming kingdom of God. The day is coming when God is going to send his Messiah back to earth. The Messiah is going to rule over the earth in righteousness and justice, and Israel will be established forever in the land. Now all of the beatitudes point to the coming kingdom of God. The poor in spirit are blessed because one day they will have a place in the kingdom of God. Those who mourn are blessed because one day in the kingdom the problem they mourn over now is going to be solved. And now we see those who are not presumptuous now, those who humbly wait on the Lord now, they are blessed because one day they shall inherit the earth. I think these are very much in the spirit of the future promises we see in the Old Testament prophets about how the day is coming when God sends his Messiah and establishes his kingdom with the result that all his people will finally and fully inherit the land. It is that ultimate sense of the kingdom of God coming. Now remember the Abrahamic covenant included a promise to all the nations of the earth. God promised that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through the descendants of Abraham, and Jesus is aware of those promises as well. That's another very important theme that runs through the Old Testament and the prophets. The day that brings the children of Israel their ultimate blessing is the same day that brings blessings to all the nations of the earth. And I would argue that even if the language Jesus quotes here specifically refers to the nation of Israel, it must include the blessings to all the nations because they come about at the same time. Further, all people, whether they're Jew or Gentile, face the same issues. We all face the question of will we presumptuously demand what we want and ignore God, or will we wait on the Lord in faith? And that's a choice each and every one of us must make. The issues that the faithful person faces in David's Psalm are the same issues that every person of faith has faced throughout history. This quality of being meek, humble, nonpresumptuous is just as important for the Gentile believer as it is for the Jewish believer. So is Jesus speaking of the promise to the Jews that they will possess the land of Israel? Well, probably. Is this an earthly kingdom that will happen in the present age? Is it pre-mill, post mill, amil? I have no idea. That is a question I cannot answer at this point. And there's a sense in which I think for understanding the Beatitudes, that question doesn't really matter. Because however you think those promises are fulfilled, the real question is, which camp do I belong to? Am I a person who demands my due and ignores God, or am I a person who humbly waits for God and trusts in him? That's really the bottom line. And on the day that Jewish believers enter into whatever God has promised them, however you think that's going to come about, all the followers of God are going to enter into what God has promised for them. All those who trust God will inherit a place in the kingdom of God. And all of God's people share this quality of being meek, humble, and non presumptuous. So here's what I think Jesus is saying in Matthew 5 5. The fortunate ones are those who humbly trust in God and wait on him and do not presumptuously or disobediently grab for what they want. Only those who are not presumptuous are fortunate. Now that's fairly easy to see from Psalm thirty seven, because there's this repeated language that the wicked will be cut off, the humble will prosper. There are only these two groups. This quality is essential for those who want a place in the kingdom of God. The wicked will be cut off, but those who trust and wait on God are fortunate because as this Psalm says, they will inherit the land. And this will happen on the day when the Messiah returns and establishes the kingdom of God on earth. And again we see this same ironic or surprising quality, this reversal of fortune that we've seen in the previous Beatitudes. I think that becomes especially clear in the Psalm, because those who are waiting on God are being trampled now. The wicked are seeking their doom, the wicked appear to be getting ahead as they take advantage and trample those who wait on God. So the humble, the non presumptuous don't appear to be prospering because they're being victimized. They don't look like winners, they look like losers. But one day we will see this ironic inversion the wicked will vanish like grass, they will be cut off, you will look for them and you will not find them, but you will find the righteous secure and prosperous in the land. So the one who grabs will end up with nothing, and the ones who wait will end up with everything. Here then is my paraphrase. The fortunate ones are those who humbly wait on God and do not presumptuously or disobediently grab for what they want. This may seem surprising because in the short run they seem to be losing to those who ignore God and take what they want. But these humble trusting ones are the only ones who are truly fortunate because as the Psalm promises, they will inherit the land, and this will happen on that day when the Messiah establishes the kingdom of God on earth. Now let me remind you that I have argued that Jesus makes these strong categorical black and white statements that ultimately reflect the end of a long process of growth and maturity. So I would argue just as being poor in spirit is not a rule that we have to follow, neither is mourning a rule we have to follow, and neither is being meek a rule we must follow. Instead, Jesus is talking about this process we enter into as we grow in saving faith. Jesus is just Describing in these Beatitudes what I would call saving faith, and I will remind you quickly of the four core convictions of saving faith, as I've defined it. Saving faith involves a genuine desire for holiness in and of itself, a genuine understanding that left to myself I am incapable of obtaining holiness, a genuine understanding that God owes me nothing and I am not worthy of his gifts and his mercy. And then finally a firm trust that God will make me holy in the age to come because of the work of Jesus Christ. I think this beatitude highlights those last two aspects. A genuine understanding that God owes me nothing. I'm not worthy of his gifts, but that God does, in fact, intend to bless me because of the blood of Jesus Christ. I recognize that I am poor in spirit, that is, I am morally bankrupt. I am not the kind of person that I should be, and I long to be changed. The poor in spirit acknowledge their spiritual poverty. They don't have what it takes to be holy, they don't have what it takes to make life truly rich. I mourn over the brokenness and the sin and selfishness I see in myself, and I recognize that left to myself I cannot solve that problem. Those who mourn are sorrowful because of this lack, this poverty. They look at their situation and they mourn over it and long to be holy. And then those who are humble accept this spiritual poverty. They do not arrogantly demand that God save them. They do not grab for the blessings of God without trusting Him or seeking Him. They recognize that nothing they can do will force God to grant them mercy. So we can't earn His favor by law keeping. We can't tip the scales of justice in our favor. It doesn't matter that I might have refrained from the big sins of murder and adultery because I'm a sinner in need of God's grace. And if God doesn't help me, then I am lost. Given that understanding, I do not presumptuously demand God's blessings. I don't thank God that I'm better than other folks. I don't grab and cheat and steal to get my way. Instead, I wait on the Lord. I trust that He will make me holy and righteous in His timing and that He will forgive me because of the blood of Jesus Christ. So I cling to that firm trust that God through the work of Jesus both intends to and will in fact make me holy in the age to come and grant me a place in his kingdom. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage of Scripture means, but seeks to show you how to figure it out. You can find all previous episodes in this series on my website. Just go to wednesdayintheword.com. There are no advertisements and no spam on the website, only podcasts and Bible study resources, and it's all free. If you want to thank me, please join the mailing list. If you can, leave a positive rating or review wherever you listen to your podcast. Subscribe to the podcast, and most importantly, tell a friend what you learned. And if you can, tell him where you learned it. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. You can find more of his music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I hope I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.