The Beatitudes

BEATITUDES, THE. At the outset of His public ministry, as Matthew records it, the Lord issued that Manifesto known as the [[Sermon on the Mount]]. In it He announced the principles which would govern the citizens of the new spiritual order He had come to inaugurate. To to be sure, God’s kingdom is a term which covers a vast ambit, but Paul’s summary (Rom 14:17) disclosed its innermost nature, “The kingdom of God does not mean food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the [[Holy Spirit]].” Whatever its eschatological and cosmic dimensions, therefore, that kingdom is the quality of life which one experiences when by faith in the Gospel he submits himself to the rule of redemptive love. The opening passage in that Manifesto (Matt 5:3-12; cf. Luke 6:20-24) is a series of epigrammatic statements which are at once delineation and demand, the so-called beatitudes. Positioned at the threshold of Matthew’s unique biography, this passage immediately makes clear that a distinctive