The answer to the questions in the people's hearts is given in no cold
didactic way. The truth about the heavenly kingdom comes warm from a
loving heart yearning over the woes of a weary and heavy-laden
humanity. Its first word is "Blessed"; its first paragraph,
Beatitudes. Plainly the King of heaven has come to bless. There is no
thunder nor lightning nor tempest on this mount; all is calm and
peaceful as a summer's day.
How high the key-note struck in this first word of the King! The
advantages usually associated with the best earthly government are
very moderate indeed. We speak of the commonwealth, a word which is
supposed to mean the common welfare; but the common welfare is quite
beyond the power of any earthly government, which at most can only
give protection against those enemies that would hinder the people
from doing what they can to secure their own welfare. But here is a
kingdom which is to secure the well-being of all who belong to it; and
not well-being only, but something far beyond and above it: for "eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him," and
which His ambassador wrapped up in that great word "Blessed," the
key-note of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
As He proceeds to show wherein this blessedness is to be found, we are
struck by the originality of the conception, and its opposition to
vulgar ideas. What the ordinary way of thinking on the subject is to
this day can be readily seen in that very word "wealth," which in its
original significance means welfare, but from the mistaken idea that a
man's life consists in the abundance of the things which he possesses
has come to mean what it means now. Who can tell the woes that result
from the prevalence of this grand mistake--how men are led off in
pursuit of happiness in a wrong direction altogether, away from its
true source, and set to contending and competing with one another, so
that there is constant danger--a danger averted only by the degree in
which the truth enshrined in the Beatitudes prevails--that "the common
wealth" will become the common woe? What a different world this would
be if only the teaching of Christ on this one subject were heartily
accepted--not by a few here and there, but by society at large! Then
should we see indeed a kingdom of heaven upon earth.
For observe wherein our new King finds the universal weal. We cannot
follow the beatitudes one by one; but glancing over them we see,
running through them all, this great truth--that blessedness is
essentially spiritual, that it depends not so much on a man's
condition as on his character, not so much on what he has as on what
he is. It needs no great effort of imagination to see that if men in
general were to make it their main object and endeavour in life to be
what they ought to be, rather than to scramble for what they can get,
this earth would speedily become a moral paradise.
In expounding the blessedness of the kingdom the Master has unfolded
the character of its members, thus not only explaining the nature of
the kingdom and the advantages to be enjoyed under it, but also
showing who those are that belong to it. That this was intended seems
evident from the first and the last of the beatitudes both ending with
the emphatic words "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It is as if on
the two gates at the hither and farther end of this beautiful garden
were inscribed the words, "The truly blessed ones, the citizens of the
commonwealth of heaven, are those who are at home here." Originality
of conception is again apparent. A kingdom so constituted was an
entirely new thing in the world. Previously it had been a matter of
race or of place or of forced subjection. The forefathers of these
people had belonged to the kingdom of Israel, because they belonged to
Israel's race; themselves belonged to the empire of Rome, because
their country had been conquered and they were obliged to acknowledge
Rome's sway; moreover, they were subjects of Herod Antipas, simply
because they lived in Galilee. Here was a kingdom in which race
distinctions had no place, which took no account of territorial
limits, which made no appeal to force of arms or rights of conquest--a
kingdom founded on character.
Yet it is no mere aristocracy of natural virtue. It is not a Royal
Academy of the spiritually noble and great. Its line seems rather to
stretch down to the lowest, for who else are the poor in spirit? And
the mourners and the meek are no elect classes of nature's nobility.
On the other hand, however, it runs up to heights even quite out of
sight of the easy-going virtue of the day; for those who belong to
this kingdom are men full of eager aspirations, bent on heart purity,
given to efforts for the good of others, ready even to suffer the loss
of all things for truth and righteousness' sake. The line is stretched
so far down that even the lowest may enter; yet it runs up so high
that those have no place in it who are satisfied with mere average
morality, who count it enough to be free from vices that degrade the
man, and innocent of crimes that offend the state. Most respectable
citizens of an earthly commonwealth such honest men may be; but no
kingdom of heaven is open to such as they. The foundations of common
morality are of course assumed, as is made specially evident in the
next division of the great discourse; but it would have been quite
misleading had the Herald of heaven's kingdom said "Blessed are the
honest," or "Blessed is the man who tells no lies." The common virtues
are quite indispensable; but there must be something beyond
these--first a sense of need of something far higher and better, then
a hungering and thirsting after it, and as a necessary consequence
some attainment of it, in order to citizenship in the kingdom of
heaven and enjoyment of its blessedness.
The last beatitude breaks forth into a song of joy. No light-hearted
joy, as of those who shut their eyes to the dark things in life, but
joy in facing the very worst the world can do: "Blessed are ye when
men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of
evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding
glad." O wonderful alchemy of heaven, which can change earth's dust
and ashes into purest gold! Think, too, what riches and royalty of
spirit in place of the poverty with which the series began.
These eight beatitudes are the diatonic scale of heaven's music. Its
key-note is blessing; its upper octave, joy. Those who heard it first
with quickened souls could no longer doubt that the kingdom of heaven
was at hand; indeed, was there on the mountain that day!