Most of the beatitudes describe characteristics of want - something is lacking. The poor in spirit are not wealthy in spirit (although in this case it is better to be poor). Those who mourn are mourning loss or poor decisions or unmet expectations or simply the sins, sorrows and sufferings of life. The merciful show mercy because they have been harmed, wronged, used, or abused. Mercy is the intentional choice to accept a lack of justice (for purposes even greater than justice). Peacemakers are only needed where there is a lack of peace.
The meek, the pure in heart, and those who are persecuted are a bit different. But, you can see even in these beatitudes the counter-cultural values of Jesus’ kingdom.
To hunger and thirst implies emptiness. Being filled is the promise. But, hunger or thirst is more than just a lack of food or water in our stomachs. They are the body’s way of alarming us to something we need to live. We normally list only a handful of basic needs that every human requires for survival - food, water, air, shelter, sleep (I would add more but these are the most common). Food and water are always first and second on the lists.
Jesus says that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are blessed for they will be filled. Their hunger and thirst will be satisfied. But, what does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness?
Hungry for what?
Righteousness in the Bible tends to refer to one of two things. It is a legal term that often describes one’s relationship with God. So, Paul speaks of Abraham as a chief example of someone who is made right with God through faith. He quotes Genesis 15:6 where we are told that “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Then Paul makes this remarkable statement in Romans 4:4-5: “Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.” Abraham’s right-ness with God came through his faith in the promise and not his works. Paul says the same is true of us, our right-ness with God comes through belief in the “one who justifies the ungodly.” Those who believe are declared “righteous” with God through Christ and not their own actual godliness - Paul even refers to us as “the ungodly.”
The second way that the term “righteousness” is used in the Bible is to describe right living. Of course, that right living is in relation to God. It is not just right living in general (which is actually not really a thing - all of life is lived Coram Deo, before the face of God). So, Paul can use the same word in a passage like Ephesians 4:22-24 where he tells the Ephesians they are “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Here, righteousness clearly refers to right living.
Righteousness and Jesus
What does Jesus have in mind when he uses the word righteousness in Matthew 5? Is the beatitude about those who hunger and thirst after right living or for those who hunger and thirst after a right relationship with God?
Later in Matthew 5, Jesus uses the word to describe right living. He says, “Whoever relaxes one of the least of the commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (5:19-20). And then he concludes by saying, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:21).
But, when Jesus says this he means it to be a shock. The Pharisees were the kings of right living. They obsessed over right living. How could one exceed their righteousness?
The rest of the Sermon on the Mount is the answer. Don’t just avoid murder but root out anger in your heart. Don’t just not commit adultery but root out lust. Don’t just pray or give alms to the poor or fast but do so out of genuine love for God and love for people.
The Pharisees righteousness was based on outward fulfillment of the law - Jesus says they missed the heart of the law and therefore they missed the whole of the law. Their hearts weren’t in it. Their motivation was wrong.
When Jesus uses the word righteousness he does not mean less than right living - he says he hasn’t come to abolish the laws but to fulfill them - but he means much more than just outward acts of obedience. Jesus means right living (righteousness) that flows out of a right relationship (righteousness) with God. This is what Paul calls the obedience of faith. To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to hunger and thirst for both.
New Life
Martin Lloyd-Jones notes that in this beatitude we have the whole gospel in one sentence. The need for the gospel is found in the independent clause. We hunger and thirst for righteousness because we know we fall short of the glory of God. We long to be restored into right relationship with him because we know we cannot fulfill the right living required of us.
The promise of the gospel is found in the independent clause “for they will be filled.” The great good news of the gospel is that when we hunger and thirst for right relationship with God, God always obliges - “all who call on the Lord will be saved.”
New Appetites
I would add that in this one beatitude we also have the implications of the gospel in one sentence. When the Holy Spirit has opened our eyes and hearts to see the wonders of God’s grace for us in Jesus we desire different things. We are a new creation. We come to see that even God’s law is grace. What once condemned us because we could not fulfill it now becomes life and joy and hope. What we once saw as arbitrary or stifling is now seen as the only way possible to fully live. It doesn’t mean we fully live this way but it does mean we now hunger and thirst to do so. And the great promise of sanctification is that God is filling us - slowly but surely, through fits and starts - over the course of our lifetime.
This is why the beatitudes are supernatural. They aren’t just personality traits as if some people are lucky enough to be born with poverty of spirit and some tend to be mourners and others are peacemakers. These are traits the Spirit forges within us. To truly long for the things of God requires new hearts.
Regularly I will make a meal that our children devoured with great joy last week only to find that this week they have no interest in eating it. When I ask them how this is possible (usually not in the most gracious of tones) my daughter responds by saying “human taste buds change every 3 to 5 years.” I have no idea where she got that stat and I alert her to the fact that that doesn’t mean it should happen in our house every 3 to 5 days. But, here is the point. When the lights go on, when we awaken to the beauty of Jesus and the reality that God has “shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6) then our taste buds change. We hunger and thirst for different food. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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