Introduction

We continue our treatment of the beatitudes by considering the fifth of the Lord’s beatitudes. It is helpful to note that these beatitudes are the several declarations of blessing by Jesus Christ in his famous sermon on the mount. The main theme of the sermon is the kingdom of heaven and her citizens. That is what Jesus always preached. Jesus came preaching that the time had come and that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. The gospel that Jesus preached was always the gospel of the kingdom of heaven (Mark 1:14–15). And within the context of the kingdom of heaven, Jesus declared those blessings upon her citizens. We have considered already the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, and the hungry and thirsty; and in this article we turn to the next beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

Who They Are

The first question that we are presented with in the text is, who are these merciful? The citizens of the kingdom are poor in spirit; they are meek; they are also merciful. For one to be merciful literally means that one shows mercy toward others. The citizens of the kingdom show mercy as an extension of the mercy of God shown toward them. Not, you understand, as if the merciful are so touched by the mercy of God shown toward them that they are compelled in response to show the same mercy toward others. Rather, when the citizens of the kingdom are merciful—that is, when they show mercy—that is really the extension, the outworking, the sure fruit of the mercy of God that has been shown toward them. There can, therefore, be no correct understanding of that mercy apart from a consideration of mercy in God himself. Just as there is no righteousness, no truth, no holiness, and no love apart from God, there can be no mercy apart from its divine source or origin.

Mercy in God is that perfection in God according to which God is tenderly affected toward himself and eternally wills his own blessedness. God is merciful in himself apart from any consideration of the creature. Mercy has its seat in the will and affection of God. God is tenderly affected toward himself and wills his own blessedness as the most blessed God and as the fullness of divine perfection. God has willed and only ever wills his own blessedness.

That God delights in himself and wills his own blessedness gives to us a window also into the trinitarian life of God. God the Father beholds himself in all the fullness of divine perfection in the Son and delights in the Son as the radiance of the Father’s being and the express image of his person, willing the blessedness of the Son. And God the Son likewise delights in the Father. Such is the effect of the delight of the Father toward his Son that it creates in the Son his own delight of the Father. The Son eternally wills the supreme blessedness of the Father. Mercy, as that is born out of love, is the fruit of that bond of fellowship and friendship in God, which bond is the Holy Spirit. Mercy, therefore, has its end in the covenant. Covenant fellowship is the end of the mercy of God, for the covenant is the very life of God. There is no more blessed life than the life that God himself lives out of, through, and unto himself. Mercy, like love, does not exist in a vacuum but needs an object. God as merciful in himself means that God is the supreme object of his own mercy, which therefore necessitates that God be the triune God.

The scriptures reveal God as the God who delights in mercy and delights to show mercy. That is astounding. God eternally wills his own blessedness and seeks his own blessedness in everything and is also tenderly affected toward us and wills that we be supremely blessed in him. It is no wonder then that the apostle makes the whole matter of salvation to be subsumed under the standard of mercy: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3, emphasis added).

The mercy of God is the standard according to which God performs all our salvation. The mercy of God shown toward his people is described as abundant not only because of the source of that mercy but also because of the depth of misery from which it saves. God’s mercy reaches down to his people in their low estate, where they lie under the curse and are by nature the children of wrath, even as others (Eph. 2:1–4); and God’s mercy raises them out of all their misery and woe appalling and raises them to the very heights of heaven itself, where they are already now seated together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (v. 6).

God’s mercy is a rich, tremendous mercy. That mercy, therefore, is the desire or motivation of God for his people’s salvation. God’s mercy toward his people is therefore that attitude of tender pity toward his people in their misery and the power to deliver them from it. The citizens of the kingdom are those unto whom the mercy of God has reached down, plucking them from out of destruction’s pit; raising them out of the miry clay of guilt, pollution, and death; and setting their feet upon a rock.

The eternal source of that mercy of God is God’s eternal will and good pleasure. God is merciful to whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens (Rom. 9:18). God is tenderly affected toward his people in their misery and is moved with bowels of compassion to deliver them from it because from eternity God has set his love on them and chosen them to be vessels of mercy over against those whom he did not love but whom he hated and willed their eternal destruction. Therefore, we see that the nature of the mercy of God shown toward his people is utterly gracious. From eternity God chose from one lump of clay, as it were, certain persons to be vessels of mercy and others to be vessels of wrath. Sovereign election was an act of divine mercy on the part of the sovereign Lord, in which he appointed certain persons to salvation and life eternal apart from any consideration of who they would become or what they would do, whether good or evil.

The end of that mercy of God shown toward his people is for them to know and to enjoy God as their God and to know themselves as sons and daughters of the King, adopted as children and heirs for Christ’s sake. Christ himself is the revelation of the truth, justice, and mercy of God. Indeed, there is no possibility of mercy apart from Jesus Christ. For the same God who delights to show mercy is also a God who delights in justice and who judges all the nations in his righteousness.

Perfect justice requires that sin that is committed against the most high majesty of God be punished with both temporal and eternal punishment. Perfect justice requires that sin committed against God be punished with extreme punishment in body and soul. The question that confronts us then is, how then can we be delivered, who are sinners by nature and by very deed? The answer is that it is utterly impossible—at least it is for man. With us deliverance from sin and guilt is utterly impossible except there be one who satisfied the justice of God for us.

The gospel declares the righteousness of God, who will by no means acquit the guilty and who punishes iniquity, transgression, and sin in his wrath, and yet who is also the God of infinite mercy, who has delivered his people in Jesus Christ at the cross. There at the cross the mercy of God was raised up for the whole world to see in all its graciousness, in its particularity, in its righteousness. For it was there at the cross that we were delivered in principle from all our misery and woe. There at the cross Christ bore all the sins of his elect people and sustained the burden of the wrath of God that was due unto them for their sins against God, thus delivering them from it.

Such mercy is known and experienced by the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Although we will touch on this more later, we must insist here that part of the deliverance of the people of God is that God creates in them the will to show mercy and causes them to show mercy toward others. We might say that that is the very purpose for which God communicated his own mercy toward them.

The citizens of the kingdom are merciful toward those who are without. Businessmen in the church are called to show mercy toward their employees by treating them well and paying them honestly for their labors. Employees are to show mercy toward their employers by being longsuffering toward them, laboring as unto the Lord and not unto men. The citizens of the kingdom are called to show mercy toward all those who are in authority over them, showing all longsuffering toward them, submitting themselves unto them in all things lawful, and not having a spirit of rebellion or hostility toward them, recognizing them to be ministers of God unto them for good.

However, the citizens of the kingdom show mercy especially toward their neighbors in the church—toward their wives, their husbands, their children, and their fellow church members. The citizens of the kingdom desire that all things in the church be done in mercy. The citizens of the kingdom show mercy by showing all longsuffering toward the other citizens of the kingdom, willing to do good to them and never evil, even when the members of the church make that extremely difficult and even demand of their time, their energy, and their resources. The citizens of the kingdom are merciful.

The citizen of the kingdom is merciful toward his wife, so that he walks in love toward her and makes her the object of his delight and desires to do good to her and provide for all her needs, whether physical or spiritual. The citizens of the kingdom of heaven are merciful toward their children, so that as parents they pity their children and exercise all patience and longsuffering in raising their children in the fear of the Lord according to the demand of the covenant in the home and in the good Christian school, even when the children misbehave and do not always heed their instruction. Christ gives officebearers to his church to be ministers of mercy toward the poor and indigent, to grant relief to them both spiritually and physically as they have need. We refer especially to the deacons, who are called of Christ to be ministers of the mercies of Christ to the poor and needy. The minister is called to be a preacher of the mercy of God, bringing the gospel of mercy, not the doctrines and commandments of men, to the poor and needy souls of the congregation.

And here we may not limit the meaning of the text to the external displays of mercy of the citizens of the kingdom. We live in a world where mercy is something that is made to be almost entirely outward, where with a touch of a button someone can send money overseas to give to the relief of some impoverished family that he has not met and probably will never meet in his lifetime. The world has all its charities and volunteer relief programs. Many people appear to be merciful men and women, unto whom the Lord is not merciful, who have never tasted of the mercy of God, and who will be condemned to hell with all their works.

To be merciful is to be tenderly affected toward others and to will the blessedness of others with the goal being their highest good, which is covenant fellowship with God. The citizen of the kingdom is not reluctant to show mercy but is motivated by a sincere, Spirit-wrought desire to do all good toward and to seek the eternal salvation and blessedness of his neighbor.

This has a special application to the behavior of the members of the church toward their former friends and acquaintances who have stepped foot on the road to apostasy from the truth or who are walking in the way of sin. Mercy is shown in speaking the truth every man with his neighbor! Mercy is shown in speaking the truth even to those who hate and vilify the one who brings that witness. Are not the merciful also those who are persecuted and falsely spoken evil of for Christ’s sake (Matt. 5:11)? Indeed, it is not merciful, nor is it loving, but it is most cruel and unmerciful to refrain from speaking the truth for the sake of earthly peace. The man or woman who refrains from speaking the truth is no more merciful than the man or woman who sees another person flailing about in quicksand, sinking deeper and deeper by the second, and who says nothing, neither reaches out to deliver but with a cold heart turns a deaf ear.

The Explanation of This

What explains the merciful? The merciful are those whom God has delivered in his own mercy and grace toward them. God is the sole cause or explanation of the merciful. This must be so because the citizens of the kingdom are by nature most unmerciful. By nature man does not delight to show mercy but delights himself in cruelty. What shall we say about wicked man, concerning whom the scriptures say that even his tender mercies are cruel?

Man is not merciful toward his neighbor because he does not love his neighbor but is an inveterate hater of God and the neighbor. That must be remembered when it comes to mercy. Mercy is born out of love. Really, mercy is love as that love is motivated to deliver the object of that love from out of the greatest misery and to bring the beloved into the highest state of blessedness and glory. And, therefore, when we consider the natural man, we must say that he is as capable of willing the blessedness of his neighbor as he is capable of blessing the name of God.

There is nothing more foreign to the natural man than to show mercy. Instead, man curses God to his face, and man murders his neighbor in his heart. Man might show what appears to be mercy on the outside, but it is only a thin cover that he uses to serve his own purposes and agenda. A man tends to the needs of his wife from a superficial viewpoint, not because he is moved and motivated by a will to do good toward her but because he seeks a feeling or an advantage that might serve him. A man takes care of his employees and is honest because he thinks that he can buy loyalty and sees an earthly advantage to not running his business like a crook. A man is a member of a church because of how the church can best serve him and his carnal desires.

Not so for the citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The citizens of the kingdom are those whom the Lord beheld from all eternity with eyes of tender affection and with bowels of mercy. The Lord moved to bless the citizens and to deliver them from all their sins and miseries, chose them in Jesus Christ, reached down to them by a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm and delivered them in their consciences and experiences from all the terrible guilt of sin, and released them from sin’s terrible bondage. That is the essence of what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom. God himself must reach down and transform the cold and unmerciful heart, putting in its place a heart of flesh wherein God himself enters and rules by his word and Spirit.

Within the heart of the citizen of the kingdom, there is a newfound perspective that he is poor in spirit and therefore utterly destitute of any hope of salvation in himself. That citizen has also undergone a profound and deeply spiritual change of mind concerning sin, so that whereas formerly he gloried in sin and boasted in his wickedness, now he is a mourner who sorrows daily for his sins and pleads for the forgiveness of his sins on the basis of Christ’s perfect satisfaction. And, too, when God comes to that one by his gracious rule in his heart, God comes by a wonder of divine grace and works in that new heart new desires and a new will, a will that delights in mercy and delights to show mercy toward others. Therefore, true mercy is that which proceeds out of the regenerated heart alone and which evidences itself in the life of the citizen of the kingdom of heaven.

The Blessedness of the Merciful

The merciful are blessed. How are they blessed? Is it because they are merciful? Is it even true that they are blessed in the way of showing mercy? Is that why you and I are blessed—because we did something? No, not at all. If we were to be honest with ourselves, we would find that often we are not merciful, but we are most unmerciful and cruel. And if you were to say to me, “Well, I am merciful!” then I would say this, “Are you perfect in your displays of mercy?” For if a man were to be truly merciful in the fullest sense of the word, then he would be a well-nigh perfect person. Then that man would love the Lord his God and his neighbor perfectly with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength. Surely, the blessedness of the merciful is not in the way of his showing mercy. Rather, Matthew 5:7 defines what is the blessedness of the merciful: they shall obtain mercy.

The Lord Jesus does not lay before us a condition upon which a blessing from God depends. Instead, he lays before us a promise, which is God’s holy oath that he swore by himself, for he could swear by none greater. God’s promise does not fail, and God’s word never returns to him void. There is, therefore, a certainty in the promised blessing: the merciful shall obtain mercy. No more may the citizen of the kingdom doubt that God is merciful toward him than if he were to suppose that God’s promise fails. God does not bless his people sometimes and then other times punish them. God is merciful, always merciful, full of tender pity toward his people. This mercy of God belongs to the goodness of God according to which God only ever blesses the righteous and only ever curses the wicked.

The citizens of the kingdom know in their consciences and experiences that God is merciful toward them. God himself has reached down in his mercy and has delivered them from all the dreadful guilt, shame, and bondage of their sins. They know that it is of the Lord’s mercy that they are not consumed. They awake to each new day and boldly live in it, knowing that the mercies of the Lord are new every morning and that his faithfulness is exceedingly great. God will never leave nor forsake them, and his eyes are always toward his people, especially in their misery.

And then by faith the citizens of the kingdom are also confidently assured that what they have obtained already now in principle shall be obtained forever in the life that is to come. They will not always have to strive with the weaknesses of their faith and the sinful lusts of their flesh, which corrupts even the very best of their works, so that they cannot do the good that they would. They will not always need to cry out to be delivered from this body of death and from out of this life, which is only a vale of tears and a valley of the shadow of death. When they shall appear before the righteous tribunal of God at the end of their lives upon earth, they shall not hear the verdict of judgment without mercy. For then they should only look forward to that day with the greatest dread. Rather, they shall at last be delivered when God vindicates them in Jesus Christ, who brought justice and mercy together at his cross, and in whom the citizens of the kingdom shall be raised far above this night, to view the glories that abide and to dwell with God in perfection, world without end.

That mercy of our Lord shall be revealed at his coming, a mercy that shall lead us to everlasting life, and therefore it is that mercy that will not rest until we are completely delivered from all sin, death, and corruption and brought finally into the rest that is promised us in heaven.