Today’s post is a bit bigger than my usual because Ol’ Fuzzy is making up for the lack of a post yesterday. Bear with me and I shall be back on schedule by the end of this week.
The sixth blessing Jesus gives in the sermon in Matthew’s Gospel is to those whose hearts have been cleansed. “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.” The rendering of the King James Version is unfortunate but understandable in the context of the Church of England in 1604 when they started the work. The best rendering would have been “cleansed of heart.” the Greek word is καθαρός, an adjective which means something that has been cleansed, washed.
In early Seventeenth Century England, the Calvinist doctrines that are taught with the acronym TULIP were ascendant, and adherents to these doctrines felt themselves superior to the regular people because they were pure. It is from this group the American Puritans came to emigrate to the New World. The arrogance this belief nurtured was the primary reason their neighbors rejected them personally and they felt the need to flee to the other side of the ocean, where they wouldn’t be dirtied by sinners.
This is terribly foreign to the teaching of Jesus. The word pure gives a connotation of self-perfection that just isn’t there in the Greek. Picture a child that has been playing in mud and clay where livestock graze. Now take that child into the bathroom, run the tub full, and bathe the kid. Once the bath is done, the child is καθαρός. The condition of filth is a necessary predicate to the cleansing. That gives those of us with an honest assessment of our own personal condition hope for redemption.
Jesus is telling us that we are blessed if we let God give our hearts a bath because we shall see God. It doesn’t matter how filthy we were before we came to God. Once he washes us off, purges us of the soil of sin, we are appointed for a face-to-face meeting with the Father in Heaven. But the process of καθαρσις(literally: catharsis) is not a quick, one-time thing. The child needs a bath daily.
The seventh blessing Jesus gives is to the peacemakers, and this rendering was well done. “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” The Greek word rendered here as peacemakers is ειρηνοποιός, a compound word made from the combination of ειρήνη (peace) and ποιέω (I make). Jesus is explicitly declaring that those who make peace, between themselves and between third parties, shall be called the children of God. It is not enough to recite some formula at the altar and go about your life as usual. If you want to be called a child of God by Jesus, you must make peace with your neighbors, the people you have wronged, and the people who are in strife around you.
You are not responsible for the reactions of those whom you placate. If they continue to strive, you are absolved of culpability so long as you attempted to make peace.
If all of the people who claim to follow Jesus would be peacemakers, the world would be a far more tranquil place for humans to live. It is sad that so many wars are fought in the Name of Jesus that He would have us avoid for the sake of peace. I am not saying I am a pacifist. There are times in this world when it is imperative that we go to war, a fight it well. The greatest two examples of “just war” in modern times are the destruction of Fascism/National Socialism in the 1940s and the current fight against the Islamic State. In such a case, the route to peacemaking necessarily leads through war.
The eighth blessing from Jesus is in verse ten. “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There are two key words in this verse to look at, so we can understand the meaning of what Jesus said. The first one is διώκω, rendered “persecuted.” In the Koine of the New Testament, this word has a denotation of chasing, pursuing, kind of persecution. The idiomatic American phrase “go after” has the same meaning, as in, “I’m gonna go after that pesky do-gooder.” So Jesus is blessing people whom others are going after.
But the why matters as much as the what in this verse. Jesus only blesses those who are gone after for the sake of righteousness’ sake. The Greek word for righteousness here is δικαιοσύνη, a very broad word that denotes all that is right and just in a person. Right standing, justice, mercy and every other virtuous attribute a person could have. The fact that Jesus narrowed the blessing to those who are persecuted for the tribute of righteousness is telling. That means He expected people who display any righteousness will be persecuted. There are spirits of darkness at work in the world that so hate righteousness that they want to eradicate all righteous people in the most painful way. Jesus is reassuring us that this persecution is not the end of it all. There will be a blessing for the persecuted in the end. Righteousness is beneficial to the soul. Jesus guarantees that the righteous will be rewarded by possession of the Kingdom of Heaven.
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