Introduction

So far in covering the beatitudes we have considered the marks of the Christian: on one hand as he is in himself and on the other hand as he is in relation to others. Of course, we know that both categories involve the Christian’s relation to God (thus: in himself before God and in relation to others before God). In summary, the Christian presents himself before the perfect righteousness of God, recognizes his spiritual poverty, is sorry for and turns away from his sin, hungers and thirsts for practical righteousness, and though he finds himself opposed, insulted, and persecuted, he responds with meekness/gentleness, mercy, and peacemaking. These qualities make up one person, the Christian (the saint of the new covenant in the new Israel being founded in process by this very Sermon and still being built by it through Matthew’s Gospel).

Last time we shifted attention from what the Christian is like (per the marks or qualities) to his blessedness. We discussed the kingdom blessing: its importance and its cause. The importance of the kingdom blessing is evident in the passage from the bookend nature of the phrase "theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (opening the series, v. 3, and closing the series, v. 10). Kingdom ownership (theirs per Matthew and yours per Luke) thus serves as an inclusio or inclusion: everything included is a kingdom blessing. The cause of the kingdom blessing derives from the location of the word for (because) in verses 3-10 and from the meaning of kingdom as a bestowal by heaven’s king (per a blending of kingdom of heaven with kingdom of God as interchangeable).

From the inclusio and the causal phrase we learn the following. 1) We learn to subdivide the blessedness into kingdom blessing and kingdom blessings. All the blessings cited in verses 3-10 are kingdom blessings. 2) To understand the blessings we must see them as conditioned and governed by the kingdom theme. 3) We learn that the reception of God’s blessing does not depend on man, arise from the earth to heaven, or involve some kind of synergism or cooperative principle in which God does His part and man does his part. Instead, owning the kingdom as your own is itself a bestowal from above. Hence, even the poverty of spirit conjoined with turning from sin is the gift of the sovereignty of God: that the poor in spirit have been blessed is evident in the very fact of their spiritual poverty. 4) These things accumulate to call us to grateful worship because we have been blessed. Thus all the marks (pure, poor, sorry, hungry, gentle, merciful, and peacemaking) are bestowals of pure grace by the sovereign Lord. In giving us the kingdom, the Lord brings us into a state of submission to Christ as our king to do whatever He commands. In that light, our response is to thankfully worship our sovereign Lord and to obediently serve Him in all things.

This morning I want to consider "The kingdom blessings." As you read through the blessings you can’t help but notice the change from is to shall (cf. Matt. 5:3-10). Interestingly, the future is not placed out there at the end like a time line from "what is" that runs out to "what shall be." Why do I say this? What is it about the blessings, the kingdom blessings that indicate that we should not read the text in a simple time line way that moves from the present to the future? The answer is found in the bookend (inclusio) structure of the blessings (again, the blessings are kingdom blessings). In other words, the future is framed within the present. Housed within the kingdom blessing that is now are the kingdom blessings that are not yet. Every use of "shall" is placed within the use of "is." The time line from the present to the future has a vertical "is" line at each end. The effect of this structure is that both "shall" and "is" affect both the bookends and the books. The now and not yet principle of the kingdom applies to all the blessings even though we may tend to apply the now to some blessings and the not yet to other blessings. For example, inheriting the earth (v. 5) and seeing God (v. 8) have a very pronounced future character to them. And being called a child of God (v. 9) has a loud ring to it of the present: the blessed person as new covenant saint is a child of God.

However intuitive it may be that one blessing goes better with the now and another blessing goes better with the not yet, we have to maintain our focus and read all the beatitudes in both a now and not yet way. This is how we should seek to understand all the blessings. This is how our meditation is guided by Matthew’s literary bookend structure. This is the way to read and find nourishment in Christ from His word in the beatitudes.

The challenge before us then is to not only lay hold of the obvious but to also lay hold of that which is more subtle in the teachings of Christ. This is so like our Lord to in effect bury treasures under our feet along with treasures that are put directly in front of our eyes. He calls us to seek, to dig, to strive, and in this way to find. So let’s go through the first three kingdom blessings trying to grasp both the now and the not yet aspects of each one as we take up "the kingdom blessings: now and not yet."

1A. Comfort (v. 4)

We have to view the promise of comfort against the background of the circle of righteousness (exposure, recognition, sorrow, and hunger for righteousness that draws us back to exposure again). Perhaps we should call this the spiral of righteousness because of the progress implicit in receiving the blessings of heaven’s king. It is not just a circle; it is an ascending spiral. In the middle of it all is the unusual fact that at the center of the blessed life is an abiding and fundamental sorrow. It abides in degrees. There are ups and downs in the Christian life. Sometimes Christian sorrow is marginal; other times it is enflamed and hard to endure. This is not the sorrow of self pity or the sorrow of self induced consequences. It is the sorrow that is deeply felt in due recognition of our sin against God and before the beauty of His holiness.

But now we are comforted by the Scriptures and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We are comforted in knowing that Jesus bore our sins in His own body on the tree. This is the profound comfort of the atonement. It is astounding to realize that Jesus dealt with our sins once and for all there on the cross. He endured the eternal punishment that we have merited by our sin. This is reassuring and comforting: we have sorrow in our sin but comfort in our Savior.

However, sometimes, many times, you may say, "I hear what you are saying but I don’t feel comforted." There are objective and subjective sides to comfort. Comfort is there for us; it surrounds us in the gospel story, in the work of the Holy Spirit, and in the blessing we have in sharing our struggles with one another. Sharing with one another is a means God has provided; without a doubt, we need each other; we should not go it alone in our trials. Consider how Paul expresses this fact regarding suffering in general in light of the mercies of God:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. ⁶ If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. ⁷ Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort (2 Co. 1:3-7).

Thus the ups and downs of life involve much struggle and the need for comfort in our struggles in general and in our struggle with sin in particular. But one day (that has not yet arrived) we will experience the comfort that is ultimate in the coming new heaven and earth:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ² And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. ⁴ He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away" (Rev. 21:1-4).

Notably, there will be neither mourning nor crying nor pain; the pain the causes the tears by afflicting the soul will be a former thing that has passed away. How this is so is due to covenant fellowship: God dwells with man, the church will be His people, and He will be with them. There is so much contained in the wiping away of every tear and in the little word "with."

2A. Inheritance of the earth (v. 5)

The inheritance of the earth (v. 5), is easily put in the category of a future blessing. In the new heaven and earth where righteousness dwells, we will reign with Christ who is the heir of all things as redeemer and Sabbath king. We are joint-heirs with Him (if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, Rom. 8:17). This is why the creation will be delivered into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom. 8:21). What we have now will be filled out and polished off later in the new heavens and new earth. Now "the whole creation is on tiptoe" (Rom. 8:18, Phillips) for its deliverance into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. The promise to Abraham of the land of Canaan was a promise of the world (Rom. 4:13). The world to come is subjected to Jesus our Sabbath king (Heb. 2:5-8). The very earth will be transformed and restored from the effects of the fall; the angry waves and violent storms will bow down at the feet of Christ in calm submission!

But how can we take this in a present sense as something now in the lives of the new covenant people of God? The earth is ours now in the sense of present ownership. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof and consequently, the earth is ours with its fullness. This means that I own the tree across the street in my neighbor’s back yard. It does not mean that I have the right to go and chop it down for my wood stove any time I wish. His tree is mine in the personal sense of these beatitudes. There is a corporate element and an individual element (theirs and yours, Matthew and Luke). Thus the tree that belongs to God belongs to me (cf. how Burroughs lays claim to the Christian inheritance in the Scriptures: "This is part of my inheritance, it is mine, and I am to live upon it," The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p. 83). It helps to appreciate this by looking back again to Genesis 1-2. From 2:5 we learn that there would be no vegetation on the entire earth if it were not for God’s purpose for man His image bearer. As the new covenant people of God, each blessed one (forgiven, shown mercy), can truly say that the very existence of trees in my yard and my neighbor’s yard is due to God’s purpose for me; they exist for me, they exist for you, they exist for us. The sun is mine. The moon is mine. The stars are mine. They are mine in the sense that they exist for me for my enjoyment, for aesthetics and for food, for warmth and light. They exist as a communication of the mind and wisdom of God for me to hear His voice and share in the wonder of His thoughts. They exist for fellowship with God. The blessed are blessed because they inherit the earth now!

We are truly blessed

We have now in part what we shall have in fullness. This is amazing and we have but touched the hem of the garment. Truly the half has not yet been told us of what God has in store for us. But we do in fact have it now; it will not be different in the future qualitatively but only quantitatively. Praise the Lord O my soul praise the Lord! The new day has already dawned. We live in the dawn of the new day and we wait for the noon day sun. We taste now of the heavenly feast that is yet to come. 

In application of the “not yet” consider the illustration of Burroughs regarding sailors who are mightily troubled before they see dry land but when they come near the shore and can see a certain landmark, that contents them greatly. Likewise, “a godly man in the midst of the waves and storms that he meets with can see the glory of heaven before him and so contents himself” (The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p. 84).

That is, kingdom ownership or possession is now experienced and this is a taste of what is yet to be experienced. It is not simply a promise of the future but a foretaste of exactly what the future will be like. We have been rescued from the present evil age (Gal. 1:4) and have been brought into the life of the age to come (1 Cor. 10:11). We are in the dawning of the new day (Rom. 13:12). Consider this description of a Christian: "heaven was in him before he was in heaven" (Ferguson, Sermon, 46). What a marvel: so again, "Praise the Lord, O my soul praise the Lord!" (In the house of the righteous is much treasure, Prov. 15:6, such that the poorest in fact possesses all things, 2 Cor. 6:10; cf. Burroughs, Rare Jewel, pp 34-35).

Addendum for further thought and reflection

WHAT ARE THE KINGDOM BLESSINGS?

  COMFORT

THE EARTH

SATISFACTION

MERCY

SEE GOD (VISION OF GOD)

CHILDSHIP TO GOD

HOW SHOULD WE NOT SUBDIVIDE THE KINGDOM BLESSINGS?

Below is how we might tend to categorize but it is incorrect per the inclusio

                        Now (here and now)                                                                                                    Not Yet (there and then)

     Comfort

                                                                        Inherit the earth

     Satisfaction

     Mercy

                                                                        See God

     Childship to God