The multitudes who awaited our Lord “in the level place” were made up of Apostles, disciples, and people “who came to hear him and be healed.” In some passages of this discourse our Lord had the disciples, and in others the rest of the people, particularly in view.
It was to the disciples that He turned when He began to speak.
“And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.”[173]
The four beatitudes are, to my mind, expressly addressed to those who are about to take service on Christ's side. It was only to a disciple that our Lord could say that He would be hated, and cut [pg 254] off and vilified “for the son of man's sake,” and it was only disciples, and disciples too who were active in spreading the word, who could be brought into comparison with prophets either true or false. The interpretation also of these beatitudes depends on the fact that our Lord is speaking to the disciples. Blessing did not belong to the poor as an appanage of their poverty but because they were His disciples and theirs was the Kingdom of God; it was easier for the poor than the rich to enter this Kingdom, and then their earthly poverty brought out by contrast the greatness of their spiritual wealth. There is this difference between the lessons taught here and those delivered in the Sermon on the Mount; here all is personal while there it is general. Here, our Lord is speaking to His disciples and says, “for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven,” and “ye shall be filled.” In the Sermon on the Mount the corresponding pronouns are theirs and they.
A special lesson is conveyed to the Twelve is the last of these beatitudes.
“Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the same manner did their fathers unto the prophets.”[174]
Although the enthusiastic reception of their [pg 255] Master must have cheered the Apostles and set them forward in good heart, yet they were not to think that they were called to share in a triumph that was already won. They were not to be over-elated by this passing favour of men. The danger was, lest they should be too sanguine and be carried away by the fascination of popular goodwill. Well might they be lifted up. Their Master had just entrusted them with superhuman powers, and multitudes had come from miles around and had waited for them all night at the foot of the hills. So, in the midst of the flush of success, our Lord tells them that the criterion of their being true soldiers of God is their winning, not the world's praise but its hate. There is in the world an enmity to God as God. There are many who will readily enough acknowledge a Deity so long as He is not real and actual and is not brought too near; they find in the abstract idea a serviceable support for their social institutions; but from the notion of a living God close by them they shrink in dismay, and along with their terror goes hate.
Parallel with these beatitudes run the denunciations of woe.
“But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you, ye that are full now! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you, ye that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for in the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets.”[175]
These denunciations are not found in the Sermon on the Mount. That discourse was addressed to people mostly of the same class and in the same posture of mind. When our Lord first spoke to the crowds on the hillside people had not begun to take sides; but, at the period of the history now before us, they had already clustered into parties; some had declared for the word and some against it, while many remained indifferent or in doubt, and to these several parties our Lord speaks in turn.