The Nine Beatitudes and the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit
The Nine Beatitudes: The Nine-fold fruit of
the Spirit
1. Blesses are the poor in spirit 1. Love
2. Blessed are those who morn 2. Joy
3. Blessed are the meek
3. Peace
4. Blessed are those who hunger 4. Patience
and thirst for
righteousness
5. Blessed are the merciful 5. Kindness
6. Blessed are the pure in heart 6. Goodness
7. Blessed are the peacemakers 7. Faithfulness
8. Blessed are those who are 8. Gentleness
persecuted for
righteousness
9. Blessed are you when others 9. Self Control
revile you and
persecute you
and utter all
kinds of evil
against you falsely on my
account
The nine-fold fruit of the Spirit corresponds to the 9
Beatitudes. This is the fruit that Yehovah bears in the regenerate persons when
they will to have these nine holy and beautiful attitudes, these nine godly
inner attitudes! The lord Jesus is talking about inner attitudes of persons
spiritually in the Beatifudes; and Paul is talking about the results of having
these inner attitudes, the fruit of the Spirit, the counterpart of the works of
the flesh If you have a spiritual inner attitude you will do the works of the
Spirit in you life.
Poor in Spirit and Love are Foundational
The first Beatitude says: "Blessed are the poor in
spirit"; and the first fruit of the spirit is "Love".
Notice: The first Beatitude is a foundational statement that
includes in itself the other eight that follow. The same is the fruit of the
spirit. The first fruit "Love" all other eight within itself. So the
"poor in spirit" is a foundational statement from which all the other
Beatitudes derive and "love" is the foundational fruit from which the
other eight follow. If you do not have love, you will not have joy, you will
not have peace. None of the others will follow. If you are not poor in spirit
you will not morn for sin, neither will you have hungering and thirsting for
righteousness - right doing; neither will you have meekness - all these follow
from that foundational element - to be poor in spirit.
The lord Jesus says: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
they shall inherit the kingdom, for theirs is the kingdom
of God
Note: Jesus says: Truly I say unto you, Except you be
converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom
of heaven.
Mourning and Joy
What happens to those who mourn over their own sins, who
mourn over the sins of other people, who mourn over the sins of the called-out
Assembly. What happens when you mourn for sin? Yehovah pours forth His
forgiveness upon you. What happens when you are forgiven? You will be filled
with Joy. In Luke 6:21 ; the
second beatitude says this, “Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall
laugh.” You shall laugh. You will be filled with joy!
Do you see what Paul is doing? He is drawing forth the
consequences of applying the Sermon on the Mount into your life.
You see that the second fruit of the Spirit corresponds
exactly with the inner attitude of the disciple that mourns. You mourn for sin
- that is what you have to do - and God will, on His part through the Spirit,
fill you with joy.
Meekness and Peace
If you become meek, humble, contrite before God, what will
happen is that you experience God’s peace being poured into your heart. You are
going to see what God will do in your life. You will experience a peace that
you never understood before. Of course, that is exactly what the Lord Jesus
said in Matthew 11:28-29: “Come unto Me all of you who are weary
and heavy laden. Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of spirit and you shall
find rest - peace - unto your soul - being.” That is the consequence of
meekness: peace unto your soul - being. Paul has not failed to notice this
connection between meekness and peace in the very words of the Lord Jesus.
Besides, his own experience confirmed this.
Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness... and Patience
What happens as we press on if you hunger and thirst for
righteousness? What happens when you hunger and thirst for righteousness? When
you hunger and thirst for God? “Hungering and thirsting” - notice the present
continuous tense. You keep on hungering and thirsting for righteousness - what
will that do for you? For that will build for you spiritual endurance where it
is translated sometimes as steadfastness, sometimes as endurance, sometimes as
what I like to translate it as stickability - being able to stick the thing
through. Stickability - that is what Christians need.
Note: Paul says concerning our life in Jesus that: “He, God,
always gives us the victory through the Messiah Jesus our Lord.” Paul was never
one who knew spiritual defeat because he implemented spiritual principles in
his life and so always gained the victory. Okay, sometimes you get knocked down
but that is not defeat.
Left to ourselves, Satan would wipe the floor off us. He
would make a doormat out of us; he would trample us. But through Christ we
always gain the victory. So what happens to those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness? They learn endurance. What trains us so well in spiritual
endurance as learning to persevere in our hunger and thirst for righteousness
all through our spiritual life? Those who do not press on are the ones who give
up.
Merciful and Kindness
Let us go to the next point - the merciful. In the
Beatitudes you have, “Blessed are the merciful” and the counterpart in the
fruit of the Spirit is "kindness". These two words are so close in
meaning that there is hardly a need for drawing a connection. In fact the words
‘merciful’ and ‘kindness’ are constantly linked in the NT. Take for
example Titus
3:4; where you have this word for ‘kindness’ which is in the fruit of
the Spirit here, and in v.5 you have the word for ‘mercy’. Kindness and mercy -
one is simply the consequence of another. One is simply so internally linked
with the other that no fuller definition is required. Or take for
example, Ephesians
2:7; there you have ‘kindness’. In v.4 you have ‘mercy’. Kindness and mercy
are constantly linked. In 1 Peter 2:3; you
have ‘kindness’ and in v.10 you have ‘mercy’. These are constantly linked to each
other.
Pure in Heart and Goodness
In the beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart”, we see
the correspondence to the fruit of the Spirit of ‘goodness’ very easily.
The connection is so obvious that there is hardly need for
anything to be said. The connection is even explicitly stated, for example,
in 1
Timothy 1:5; where you find the word ‘pure’ just as you have here in
the Sermon on the Mount, directly connected with the word ‘good’ as is in the
fruit of the Spirit - the pure in heart, the good of conscience. Pure and good,
they are simply synonymous terms.
Peacemakers and Faithfulness
When we come to the seventh one, “Blessed are the
peacemakers”, the corresponding fruit of the Spirit is faith, more
specifically, faithfulness. The Greek word for ‘faith’ is the same word for
‘faithfulness’. There is in fact no difference in the Greek. You will find that
for example the RSV sometimes translates the word as ‘faith’, sometimes as ‘faithfulness’.
There is not any real distinction from the point of view of the lexicon. The
peacemaker is a person who can be described as faithful because such a person
is one who is walking faithfully in the footsteps of the master. Why did the
Lord Jesus take up the cross? In order to be a peacemaker - to reconcile us to himself.
Why do we take up the cross? Why does the Lord Jesus call us to take up the
cross? Well, when we studied this beatitude we saw it already! Because we also
are, as Paul says, given “the ministry of reconciliation”. So when you are
following exactly in his footsteps, doing the work that he does, being a
reconciler, a peacemaker, that is the test of faithfulness. It is so obvious,
so clear. And in fact the words ‘faithfulness’, ‘faith’ and ‘peace’ are linked
together in 2 Timothy 2:22. These words are again linked right there.
Persecution and Gentleness
So we press on to the eighth beatitude, “persecuted for righteousness’
sake”.
What is the corresponding fruit of the Spirit? Well, the corresponding
fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. Persecuted for righteousness’ sake - gentleness.
The correspondence is extremely clear. Why? How should a Christian behave when
he is persecuted for righteousness’ sake? Should he shout back? Should he
revile back? Should he behave in an aggressive manner? No! His attitude is to
be one of gentleness. As Peter says in 1 Peter 2:23 ;
when Jesus was reviled he did not revile again, that is, when he was abused,
ridiculed, laughed at, he did not retaliate in any way. He was gentle. He was
meek. That is what meekness is about - one does not strike back. When he was
reviled, he reviled not again. Peter said to the Christians, you be like him.
When you are ridiculed, when you are mocked, when you are trampled upon, you do
not revile back again. You do not shout back; you do not talk back. You will be
like him: meek, gentle. That is why Paul speaks of the meekness and patience of
the Messiah in 2 Corinthians 10:1. This is the pattern of Paul’s own life under
persecution. We can look at what Paul says about how he behaves when he is
persecuted for righteousness’ sake in 1 Corinthians 4:12. I find this passage
so Messiah-like. I would like to read this to you from v.11: “To the present
hour we hunger and thirst (you need a lot of endurance for that as we have
noticed), we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless (like the Messiah who had
nowhere to lay his head), and we labor, working with our own hands. When
reviled” - what did he do? He did not revile again - “When reviled, we bless;
when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate (that is, make
peace); we have become, and are now, as the refuse of the world, the
offscouring of all things.” We are treated like garbage and we take it meekly,
gently. Now this I find so beautiful.
There you see the parallel between this beatitude and the
fruit of the Spirit. “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness’
sake” and then the fruit of the Spirit. What is the blessing? The spiritual
blessing comes forth now in the form of gentleness, then in the form of
inheriting the kingdom of God
Being Reviled and Persecuted and Having Self-Control
What is the last beatitude? “Blessed are you,” the Lord Jesus
says, “when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account”. You are slandered; false stories are told
about you; all kinds of lies are repeated about you. There is no truth in them
at all and you are just having your reputation blackened. Your name is sullied;
you are falsely treated in this way, how should you behave? You see the fruit
of the Spirit? When ever did you need more desperately that fruit of the Spirit
under those circumstances in self-control? How easily when we are falsely
accused that we fight back. We are willing to take it when we deserve to be
reprimanded. We can still be gentle because we feel that we are suffering
justly. We wanted to suffer like this - it is a nice to have the feeling of
being a martyr in some ways. When we are suffering for Christ, we can take it
gently. But the one time we cannot take it and we will not take it is when
people slander us and say false things about us. Then our anger arises; then we
are going to strike back, because we feel, “This is not right! This is not
true! Because I did not do this and you have not the right to say that about
me.” Paul says, “No, no. Do not worry. The fruit of the Spirit when you endure
false accusations is self-control.” It is during those times when you most
desperately need that fruit of the Spirit of self-control that you do not allow
yourself to get angry, to lose your temper. None of these will be glorifying to
God. Rather, keep well under control. Let the Spirit of God help you so to live
that you show forth the beauty of the Messiah Jesus.
Which Comes First - The Beatitudes or the Fruit of the Spirit?
The Sermon on the Mount talks about the inner attitude in us
but the fruit of the Spirit is what God’s Spirit does in us, but which comes
first? We would like to say, “The fruit of the Spirit comes first and then we
will be poor in spirit and we will do this and we will do that, when God has
done all that in us. But since He has not done all that in us, then look at us
as a church - we are all pitiful spiritual beggars. What can we do because God
did not do anything in us?” That is very remarkable up to this point. Let me
tell you: if you do not understand the text, read the commentary, that is, read
what Paul has to say.
We Reap What We Sow!
Let us read what Paul has to say, as we turn to Galatians
again. In Galatians Paul is continuing to expound his point about the fruit of
the Spirit and the works of the flesh. This is what he says in Galatians 6, and
we read from v.7. He says to the Galatians Christians, “Do not be deceived; God
is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will he reap.” What will you
reap? It depends on what you sow! That is very obvious. You do not have to be a
genius to understand that. You want to reap the fruit of the Spirit? Then you
have got to sow something to the Spirit. Do you want to become a person who is
spiritually powerful and that can be used by God? That depends on what you sow
to the Spirit. Now that is what he goes on to say in the next verse, in v.8:
“For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he
who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Eternal life is
something that we are to reap. But in order to reap, we have to sow something,
because you do not reap anything if you do not sow anything. If you sow the
wrong thing, you reap the wrong thing. If you sow to the flesh, you will reap
corruption and death. If you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life. It
depends on what you are going to sow.
You cannot go on to become a spiritual giant by sowing to
the flesh. All that you will reap from sowing to the flesh is corruption and
death. So then in v.9 Paul goes on to say: “let us not grow weary in
well-doing, for in due season we shall reap (a harvest), if we do not lose
heart.” There is the patience. You keep hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
you have to have the endurance. You do not lose heart. So then, as we have the
opportunity, let us do good. Let us do good to all men.
Now I hope that you can see which comes first. The harvest
or the sowing?
The fruit of the Spirit is the outward manifestation of what
God does in us, but to get fruit, you have to sow something; the fruit is the
harvest. You do not get any harvest if you do not do the sowing.
So Paul is going on to say, “If you sow to the Spirit, you
shall reap the fruit. If you do not sow anything, you get nothing. And if you
sow to the flesh, you reap corruption.” “If you sow sparingly,” he said in
another place, “you will reap sparingly. If you sow abundantly you will reap
abundantly.” Whether you get a big harvest or a small harvest depends on what
you sow and how much you sow. You see Paul, in other words, is putting the
responsibility on all of us, it comes right back to me, right back to us. He
will not allow us to say, “Lord, we did not get a big harvest because You did not
do much work in me.” That would be an insult to God. God’s power is sufficient
for big harvests and is fully available to each person. It depends on what you
sow. That is very important!
Learn from Paul - Pursue Spiritual Things!
What does it mean to talk about sowing? What does it mean to
sow to the Spirit? Well, it depends, in other words, on what is your spiritual
input? The harvest is the output. What you reap is the output. What is your
input and where did you put the input? The sowing is something we do. That is
very obvious if we are going to get any harvest. It is something we must do.
There is a word that Paul uses time and again - the word is to pursue, to make
it your aim. The reason why Paul was a spiritual giant is not at all
accidental, nor is it a question of predestination. It was a question of what
kind of a person he was by the grace of God. What kind of a person he was
becomes obvious when you study his writings, his letters.
There are so many words you could study but notice one
particular word, it is the word ‘pursue’. The Greek word is “dioko” - pursue,
which is sometimes in the RSV translated rather weakly by the words “make it
your aim”. The word “dioko” means pursue. It expresses a certain intensity in
which, for example, you are running hard after a another person, say, in
battle. You are pursuing or chasing the enemy. For example, you are hunting
down a prey. You are pursuing, running fast so that you do not lose the prey -
the animal you are hunting - or else you will go without supper, and so you
pursue. It expresses a straining of every nerve in order to get to the prize,
the goal. This word is used many times, at least 8x in the letters of Paul, for
example, in Romans 12:13; or Romans 14:19; or 1 Corinthians 14:1; to
pursue love, to make love your aim; Philippians 3:12, which is so
characteristic of Paul. “I pursue - I press forward towards the mark.” There is
an intensity! That is the intensity of the input.
The reason why we have a generation of feeble Christians is
because there is no input. I see Christians who are absolutely unmotivated, who
have no goal, no pressing forward, no striving in the spirit. Nothing! They sit
back waiting for a harvest when they have sowed absolutely nothing. No wonder
they go through life with nothing. How can I expect God to give me a spiritual
harvest when I have sowed absolutely nothing? I beg you to really think on this
point very deeply.
That is why the Beatitudes are what comes first! That is the
attitude of your input. That is what you sow. If you say, like Paul, “I shall
make it my spiritual goal, my spiritual purpose; I shall pursue with
single-minded determination, by the grace of God, to be poor in spirit. That
is, I shall come to God as a person who is completely dependent upon Him. I shall
come to God as somebody who is wholly committed to Him, fully yielded to Him,
entirely open to Him like a spiritual beggar, that He may fill me with all His
fullness.” If you come with that kind of an attitude, if you pursue this kind
of an attitude with steadfastness, and if we steadfastly pursue such an
attitude, we shall be filled with the fullness of God. “He shall pour His love
into me in overflowing measure by His Holy Spirit because now I have opened my
heart fully wide to Him. I have sowed a spiritual attitude which makes it
possible for Him to give me the spiritual harvest. If I aim, by God’s grace,
then I shall learn to mourn - mourn for the sin in myself and for sin in
others. If I aim to be meek by God’s grace (i.e. by His enabling power), then
the way is clear or open for Him to give me His revitalizing peace. Though I do
not as yet intensely love righteousness, if I make it my object to learn to
hunger and thirst for righteousness, then He is going to give me the fruit of
the Spirit. [”To will is with me.” I can at last will to have that inner
attitude.]
God’s Part and Ours
This is what the Lord is teaching us in the Sermon on the
Mount: what we are to sow, what is our spiritual direction, what we are to
pursue, what is the direction of our high calling that we must press forward
to. Paul did not say, “Well, we have a high calling and I am waiting to be
lifted up by the scruff of my neck to the high calling. I have a high calling
but I am waiting for God to attach the booster jets to my back so that He can
shoot me to the high calling.”
No, he says, “I press forward”. This is what I am doing. I
am pressing forward so that God, by His grace, will then empower me onwards.
God cannot do anything in you unless you have the right attitude. I am sure
that as a Christian you have discovered that already. You have to have the
right attitude. For example, if you do not repent to begin with, He just cannot
forgive you. His forgiveness is there like a vast ocean ready to forgive your
sins. But if you do not repent, that impenitence is like a dike that holds back
the ocean of His forgiveness. That ocean of forgiveness cannot come into your
life. That water cannot fertilize the fields of your life because of the lack
of repentance on your part holds back the whole of God’s grace. Now if we can
comprehend this principle as regards repentance, how easy it is to understand
this on any other level.
Aim to Be the Kind of Person Blessed by God!
God cannot do anything for you until you open your heart to
Him. It is said, for example, that right at the beginning of the ministry of
the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus could not do many mighty works in Nazareth
These Beatitudes then, brothers and sisters, you have to
understand, is what the Lord Jesus is saying to His disciples, “Blessed are
this kind of people”. Now you aim to be this kind of person who is blessed by
God. He said to His disciples, “You make this kind of person the objective of
your life. You become that kind of person, because that kind of person is
blessed by God.” That must be the goal of every disciple.
Hopefully from what is written; the whole objective, the
whole teaching, the internal spiritual connection of the Lord’s teaching on the
Beatitudes becomes very, very clear to us. These Beatitudes are not meant to be
intellectualized. They are meant to be applied into our life as the goal and
direction which we are to follow. Then we are going to experience the power of
God in our lives in a way that we never knew, never dreamed was possible, until
our lives are so open to God through a poverty of spirit that He will fill us
with all His fullness. I pray that God will truly help each one of us to
understand these life-giving words of the Lord Jesus.
Written by Eric Chang and edited by Bruce Lyon: thefaithofjesus.blogspot.com
Written by Eric Chang and edited by Bruce Lyon: thefaithofjesus.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment