'They shall inherit the earth.' The words are quoted, as I have already
said, from one of the psalms, and in the Psalmist's mouth they had, I
suppose, especial reference to Israel's peaceful possession of the
promised land, which in that Old Dispensation was made contingent on the
people's faithfulness. In that aspect, and looking at this Sermon on the
Mount as the programme of the King Himself, what a bucket of cold water
such words as these must have poured on the hot Messianic expectations
of the carnal Jew! Here was a King that did not expect to win back the
land by armed rebellion against the Roman legions, but said, 'Be meek,
and you will truly possess it, whether there is a Pilate in the
procurator's house at Cæsarea or not.'
But for us the words have a double reference, as all the promises
annexed to these Beatitudes have. They apply to the present; they apply
to the future. And that is no mere looseness of interpretation, eking
out an insufficient verification of them here upon earth by some dim
hopes of a future fulfilment, but it flows from the plain fact that the
gifts which a man receives on condition of his being a true disciple are
one and the same in essence, and only differ in degree, here and
hereafter. Circumstances alter, no doubt, and there will be much in that
heavenly state unlike that which we experience here. But the essence of
Christian blessedness is the same in this world and in the furthest
reach of the shining but dim eternity beyond. And so we take the double
reference of these words to be inherent in the facts of the case, and
not to be a makeshift of interpretation.
There is a present inheritance of the earth which goes, as certainly as
the shadow with the sunshine, with the meekness spoken of in our text.
Not literal, of course, for it is not true that this Christian grace
has in it any tendency whatever to draw to itself material good of any
sort. The world in outward possession belongs to the strong men, to the
men of faculty, of force and push and ambition. If you want to get
through a crowd, make your elbows as sharp, and your feet upon the toes
of your neighbours as heavy as you can, and a road will be made for you;
but, in the majority of cases, the meek man on the edge of the crowd
will stop there.
Nor is it true that there would be any real blessedness, though the
earth were ours in that outward sense. For you cannot measure happiness
by the acre, nor does an outward condition of the most full-fed
abundance, and of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and above the
gnawings of care, ensure to any man even the shabby blessedness that the
world knows, to say nothing of the solid beatitude that Christ
proclaims.
So we must go deeper than that for the meaning of 'inherit.' Whatever
are our circumstances, it is true that this calm, equable, submissive
acceptance of the divine will and obedience to it, and this loving and
unresentful attitude towards men, bring with them necessarily a
peacefulness of heart which gets the highest good out of the modicum of
material supplies which God's providence may send us. It used to be the
idea that gods and beatified spirits were nourished, not by the gross,
material flesh of the sacrifices, but by a certain subtle aroma and
essence that went up in the incense smoke. So Christ's meek men do live
and thrive, and are blessed in a true possession of earthly good, even
though their outward portion of it may be very small. 'Better is a
little that a righteous man hath than the riches of many wicked.'
And, beyond that, there is a further fulfilment of this promise, upon
which I venture to say but very little. It seems to me very probable
that our Lord's words here fall in with what appears to be a general
stream of representation throughout Scripture, to the effect that the
perfected form of the Kingdom of God is to be realised in this renovated
earth, when it becomes the 'new earth in which dwelleth righteousness.'
Whether that be so or no, at all events we may fairly gather from the
words the thought that in the ultimate state of assimilation and
fellowship with God and Christ to which Christian people have a right to
look forward, there will be an external universe on which they will
exercise their activities, and from which they will draw as yet
unimagined delights.
But, at all events, dear brethren, we may be sure of this blessed
thought, that they who meekly live, knowing and mourning their sin, and
who meekly take to their hearts as their only hope the comfort of
Christ's pardon and cleansing, who are meekly recipient, meekly
enduring, meekly obedient, shall have in their hearts, even here, a
quiet fountain of peace which shall make the wilderness rejoice and
blossom as the rose, and hereafter shall be crowned with the lordship of
all. Meekness overcomes, 'and he that overcometh shall inherit all
things.'