Mat 5:7; Give Mercy, Or Else …

Class Outline:

April 17, 2024

MAT 5:7

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

 

The only Beatitude where the promise is the same as the characteristic.

 

This brings before us the incredible nature of free-will; or more specifically, the power to reject God’s beautiful gifts and intentions.

 

Example of the free will of children.

 

EPH 6:1, 4

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, … Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

 

Yet it is clear to anyone that the child can reject discipline and instruction.

 

PRO 1:7-8; 4:1-2; 4:13-14; 5:7-8; 5:11-12; 5:22-23

 

Still, this is not the full picture. The instruction of a son, as any parent knows, is a long course.

 

Every student struggles and fails. Humility and perseverance in obedience creates wisdom. [Aesop: Tortoise and hare]

 

And, the son fails, even if he has learned and is motivated to implement the lesson; he will fall due to temptation, forgetfulness, emotions, what have you. And this is another lesson: do unto others as you would have them do to you.

 

MAT 7:12

 

Is this not another way, and a way that beautifully pierces every soul, of saying “Love your neighbor as yourself.”?

 

We easily imagine the son, the student, who has grown into a moral man, yes, but it is a morality that hardens and makes one more severe with others.

 

A part of morality is having a heart that shows mercy.

 

Twice in the Gospel of Matthew, we find Jesus quoting HOS 6:6, “I want mercy instead of sacrifice.”

 

LUK 18:9-14

 

“Be merciful” - hilasterion = reconcile me or propitiate (appease) Yourself for me.

Aorist passive imperative - dire need that you cannot do for yourself.

 

You cannot do it for yourself. This is why we need mercy and why God has made it that we can help one another.

 

Morality is from self if it does not show mercy. “I want mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt 9:13; 12:7). There is a morality that hardens, that makes one more severe with others the more one has learned to be severe with oneself.

 

This is why we are to told to remember from where we have fallen (EPH 4:31-32; REV 2:5).

 

There are traps in all directions: immoral and moral. The path we are looking at is the tempting route of sacrifice-centered, spiritual-disciplines-focused, perfectionist, higher-life, and consciousness-raising ethics. But the test of ethics or morals is not only personal endurance (toughness) but also mercy (softness).

 

Augustine: The merciful are those “who come to the aid of the needy.”

Calvin: The merciful are those “who are prepared to put up with their own troubles but who also take on the other people’s [troubles].”

 

Jesus is declaring the merciful to be blessed and promises that they will be shown mercy. This is a fearful corollary and it is not only taught here.

 

MAT 6:14-15; 7:1-2; 18:35

 

The promise of the Beatitude of mercy is, surprisingly, mercy.

 

Fullness of received mercy exists to be passed on, not stored up. Everywhere in the teaching of Jesus the test of one’s relation with God is one’s relation with other people.

 

MAT 5:23-24; 6:14-15

 

The source of one’s relationship to God is God. But once God has delivered mercy to believers, God intends that believers hand this mercy on to others, or else.

 

Or else what?

 

1. Self-induced misery of an independent heart.

2. Discipline-judgment of God who gave mercy and expected its fruit.

 

Remember the definition. Mercy comes to the aid of the needy and fulfills that need. If I am hardhearted and severe with another, would we expect God to supernaturally enter our hearts and fill them with the peace that only forgiveness can bring.

 

There is also the active discipline-judgment of the Father upon the unmerciful. What does God do, actively, with the proud?

 

Everything we receive, salvation, forgiveness, adoption, election, mercy and more are all by grace and God expects us to pass all of them on to others as is appropriate.