The Beatitudes: Today's Verse is Matthew 5:10

Today we continue our verse by verse look at what is often referred to as The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:2-12.  We will be looking at Matthew 5:9.

The overview of Matthew 5:2-12 can be found here, while an important word study on the term blessed can be found here.  You can find the overviews of the previous verses in from Matthew 5:2-9 at the following links:

• Mat 5:2   Mat 5:3  Mat 5:4  Mat 5:5  Mat 5:6 Mat 5:7 Mat 5:8  Mat 5:9     

For any person who does not have easy access to Bible software you can look up all cross references listed in this blog at the Bible Gateway website.    It is easy and quick to use and you can choose from many different translations.  The cross references are a big part of any Bible Study that we may undertake!

Matthew 5:10

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  (Matthew 5:10)

Grammatical Considerations

Cause and effect:  Effect is that those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake will be blessed!  The cause is that "theirs is the kingdom of God."

ARE and FOR:  As in all the previous Beatitudes, Jesus makes it clear that what He is NOT stating probabilities. What He is stating are truths and they will occur given the circumstances He sets forth.

Important Terms

All definitions were culled from the Complete Word Study Dictionary from AMG Publisher, Vine's Expository Dictionary and/or Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary.

Blessed:    

• see word study at this link.  

Righteousness:

• Gospels search---  Mat 3:15  Mat 5:6  Mat 5:10  Mat 5:20  Mat 6:1   Mat 6:33   Mat 21:32        Luk 1:75  Joh 16:8-10
• Letters of Paul Search---  Rom 1:17  Rom 3:5  Rom 3:21-26  Rom 4:3  Rom 4:5-9  Rom 4:11-13  Rom 4:22  Rom 5:17-18  Rom 6:13  Rom 6:16-20  Rom 8:10  Rom 9:30-31  Rom 10:10            Rom 14:17  Gal 5:5  Eph 4:24  Eph_6:14  
• Paul often refers to righteousness as something that comes from or is given by God.  We can not make ourselves righteous.  Jesus also seems to be saying this, especially in Mat 6:32-33  
• Definition--- Righteousness (in both the OT and NT) is the state commanded by God and standing the test of His judgment.  God is the standard of righteousness.  Or...of whatever is right or just in itself, whatever conforms to the revealed will of God
• We are expected to conform to this.
• We can only live up to this righteousness by receiving and accepting the GIFT of righteousness as given to us when we repent our sins and receive Christ as our Savior and Lord!!
• Also faith in God!
• In other words, righteousness is not achieved or earned!  We can not earn it on any merit of our own.  We only obtain rigtheousness (right relationship with God) through faith in Jesus Christ!  IT is given to us by God when we accept His standards and His will which we can only do when we accept His Son Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord!  We must acknowledge Jesus' sacrifice for our sins and His resurrection that defeated sin.
• Mounce clarifies this even more by explaining (summarizing Paul) it this way:  The law is God's standard of righteousness and we can not ever live up to that.  But Jesus did live it up to that standard and died for our sins!  And then rose again defeating sin forever.  When we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord we are accepting the gift of HIS righteousness so that we may be counted as righteous.

Persecuted:

• This word means to pursue with repeated acts of enmity. 

kingdom of heaven: 

• So based on the definition of blessed as used in the beatitudes (see word study on blessed) it seems  that Jesus is mostly referring to the spiritual kingdom of God WITHIN us (as the poor in spirit are humbled and thus ready for a true relationship with God!  Psa 51:17  )  (for the complete definition and thoughts on kingdom of heaven see the post on Mat 5:2 )

Jesus is showing us a possible "negative" consequence of following Him. (being persecuted)  But anyone who does follow Jesus will still be in that permanent state of blessedness because they will have the kingdom of heaven inside them!  The Holy Spirit will be a permanent fixture in their heart because God has placed His Holy Spirit within us when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.  And this blessedness will override any possible negatives of being persecuted!


In fact one of the reasons Jesus may discuss the negative of persecution THREE times in the beatitudes when He doesn't repeat any other worldly state of the blessed ones, is that He is trying to emphasis that there will be a negative and yet we will still feel blessed, we will still be right with God and will still have the permanent state of well-being thanks to His Holy Spirit residing within us.  Jesus does again tell us that there will be sorrow and tribulations in Joh 16:20-22 

Another example from Scripture that further demonstrates that Jesus meant persecute in the negative sense in this verse is:  Joh 15:18-24 

Jesus speaks very plainly in the above verses from John.  (He spoke plainly in His final discourse to His disciples.  Another topic entirely!)

Yet more cross-references where Jesus details the persecution that those who have chosen to believe in Him may face:

• Mat 10:18-23  Mat 10:39  Mat 19:29  Mat 24:9   Mar 8:35  Mar 13:9  Mar 13:13  Luk 9:24       Luk 21:12   Luk 21:17  Act 9:16  Php 3:8  Rev 2:3 

 Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.