This one line is so incredibly complex. And there it is, central to Christ's model prayer. As a child, who learnt the Book of Common Prayer version of the Lords Prayer by heart, I never gave it much thought. But now, when I think on it, I realise how incredibly profound it is.
Got Questions has an interesting article that illustrates just how rich with meaning these words are.
Painting by Ilya Efimovich Repin
'Follow me, Satan', 1895
45×61cm
Genesis 2:4
The first 'toledoth' (תּוֹלְדֹת) introducing the progeny that came forth from God's first act of creation - the Heavens and the Earth.
What a beautiful way of rooting man back to nature and the cosmos.
Genesis 49:11 Israel's promise to Judah.
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey's colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
and his vesture in the blood of grapes.
Genesis 45:7 Joseph and his brothers are reconciled.
"God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors."
Joseph's foresight, borne out of slavery, saves not only Egypt, but Canaan and 'all the world'.
Genesis 34:7. Dinah is dishonoured. Jacob's sons seek vengeance.
This is a difficult story. Sin against us is never put right by our own sin. Genesis 34 shows what happens when we trust in ourselves. Better we should trust in God. HE will ensure justice.
I found this commentary, by David Vanacker of Grace Church Wyoming, very helpful in properly understanding this chapter. It is a complicated narrative, with more than surface level lessons to be learnt.
https://gracewyoming.com/the-defiling-of-dinah/
Perhaps the best overall take-out for me, is that 'the narrative passages of the Bible are not meant to teach morality. They are only meant to show the result of the moral choices people make.'
Genesis 32:28 Jacob wrestles with God.
When we pray, when the Spirit helps us with our insecurities, and we can barely describe our fears or our needs, our prayer is wrestling with God.
Jeremiah 1:4-5
And John knew Jesus from the womb.
Isaiah 65:17 and 20.
Not a description of the eternal Kingdom, nor a description of a millennial new Jerusalem... there's no death or sin in either... but hope and inspiration for the believer, perhaps, that things can and will get better.
Isaiah 61:11
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.
Isaiah 52:13-53:12
The Suffering Servant
Genesis 24:11-14
Abraham's servant seeks a wife for Isaac.
I do love how the servant entrusted with such a significant undertaking, uses such a simple approach to discerning a kind and generous heart.
And he made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at the time of evening, the time when women go out to draw water. And he said, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham.
Behold, I am standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water.
Let the young woman to whom I shall say, ‘Please let down your jar that I may drink,’ and who shall say, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels’—let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master.”
Genesis 19:24-26.
“For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.”
But not even ten righteous souls could be found in either Sodom, or Gomorrah.
Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.
Commentary from Luke 17:28-33.
“The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is whole toward him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9
God’s care is first to His children.
To those who mock the ‘foolishness of the Cross’, wondering why He doesn’t show himself to them, is it any wonder? All are welcome at His table. Accept His gift, let Him in to your heart.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
I've just finished reading Miller & Soden's 'In The Beginning ... We Misunderstood', which promised much but ultimately left me stronger in my view of a young earth, literal six day creation.
The book states that it seeks to interpret Genesis 1 as the ancient near-easterners did, the Exodus era Hebrews to whom Moses first presented Genesis.
In a nutshell it says that Genesis 1 is figurative, and that it 'recasts' Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation stories to show that Yahweh is the one true creation God.
The bottom line though is that this rips both the divinely inspired nature of Genesis, and the fundamental truth of Genesis from the foundation and heart of scripture.
While the authors claim that theirs is not an attempt to rewrite Genesis in light of modern scientific understanding, that science is not fixed, and that to force scripture to align with science is a fools errand, their flimsy theological arguments and assertions do suggest that their master is science and the theology is being made to fit. The same points are made repeatedly and are less argued than just stated.
I'm just a regular guy, but I feel strongly that regular people have just as much right to an opinion as 'educated theologians'. I do feel that I am in good company though. Soden and Miller say nothing about what the early Church fathers might have thought, and repeatedly imply that young earth creationism is more of a modern concept, popularised by the book The Genesis Flood by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb published in 1961.
This is a serious omission, but I can see why they chose not to, as the young earth, literal six day view of creation was the consensus view within the Church all the way through until and even well after The Enlightenment. Serious challenge to the literal reading of Genesis 1 is a very modern phenomena.
Miller and Soden make some interesting points about the numbering of the creation days - the first being 'one day' rather than 'first day' and the importance of the sixth day, as determined by it being 'the' sixth day. But these are minor points.
Fundamentally I think the reviewer on 'Thinking to Believe' has it right when he notes in passing that 'If Genesis 1 is a recasting of the Egyptian creation account, then no revelation would be required for Moses to write what he wrote. If God was inspiring the book, we would expect for God to make a theological point using actual history, not fabricated myths.'
And this gets to the heart of the matter.
Genesis is not just another creation story. It is THE creation story. Jesus believed it to be literally true, quoting Genesis 1:27, Genesis 2:24, and Genesis 5:2 in Matthew 19. Why would the early Hebrews believe Moses 'recasting' of the old stories? Jesus certainly wasn't scared of confronting pre-existing cultural norms, why would Moses, when under direct inspiration and regarding the then most important story ever to be told?
It does not surprise me that there are parallels between ancient creation stories and Genesis. Flood narratives abound because The Flood actually happened and that experience is seared into the memories of many ancient cultures, who preserved it in their own oral traditions and historic narratives. Likewise stories of the Creation.
Creation happened. Humanity's collective consciousness about the event will have carried it's shadow down the generations from Adam and Eve into the four corners of the Earth over the 2,500 years or more until Moses committed the truth of the event as God chose to share it - around the time of the Exodus.
No man witnessed creation, and The Bible does not say whether Adam and Eve were told about the events prior to their creation, but the stories of the pre-man world predated the revelation of Genesis, and this common consciousness will have informed many creation narratives.
Almost at the end of the book there is a quote from a friend of Johnny Miller's, a 'top-notch geneticist who retired from Cornell University. He had been an atheist most of his life, and said that even after becoming a Christian, for a long time he remained a “compromised” Christian and a theistic evolutionist. He wrote:
I am now a creationist. I am getting stronger and stronger scientific reasons to defend my position, but these are not the real basis of my faith. As I have studied Scripture I have seen that believing God is “counted as righteousness,” and that unbelief really is sin. Salvation comes from surrendering: 1) our will, 2) our heart, and 3) our mind to the Lord. Have you done step 3? Would you be willing to be a fool for Christ?'
And that sums up how I feel.
Useful resources:
Read the book on Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/323339414
Answers in Genesis article on the Early Church Fathers view on Creation.
Creation Ministries International rebuttal of Miller and Soden.
A review of the book on the Thinking to Believe blog which makes some interesting points, but who's view ultimately I disagree with.
A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.
If every person knew what it was to hunger and thirst after righteousness there would be no war. Here is the only way to real peace.
One of the greatest tragedies in the life of the Church today is the way in which so many are content with these vague, general, useless statements about war and peace instead of preaching the gospel in all it's simplicity and purity.
'Blessed Are They Which Do Hunger And Thirst After Righteousness'. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statement of the whole of Scripture you can be certain you are a Christian. If it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.
We have been told that we must be poor in spirit, that we must mourn, that we must be meek.
Here we begin to look for a solution. For the deliverance from self for which which we long.
It is the great charter for every seeking soul.
It is doctrinal. It emphasises one of the most fundamental doctrines of the gospel, namely, that our salvation is entirely of grace, or by grace. That it is entirely the gift of God.
Remember 'blessed' means happy. The whole world is seeking happiness, but it is the great tragedy of the world that it never seems to be able to find it.
According to the Scriptures, happiness is never something that should be sought directly.
It is always something that results from seeking something else.
Whenever you put happiness before righteousness you will be doomed to misery. Put happiness in the place of righteousness and you will never get it.
Think of a man who is suffering from some painful disease. If the doctor only treats the pain, and does not discover the cause of the pain, and treat that, he is a very bad doctor. He is doing something that is extremely dangerous to the life of the patient.
We are not meant to hunger and thirst after experiences. We are not meant to hunger and thirst after blessedness. If we wabtr to be truly happy and blessed, we must hunger and thirst after righteousness.
Experiences are a gift from God, but we must covet and seek righteousness.
What is this righteousness then? It is not a sort of general righteousness or morality between nations.
Men wax eloquent about how countries threaten the peace of the world, break their contracts, yetr are disloyal to their wives and disloyal to their own marriage contracts.
There are those who say that righteousness means justification. It does.
But it also means santification.
It means ultimately the desire to be free from sin in all it's forms and in it's every manifestation. A desire to be free from sin because sin separates us from God.
Our first parents were made righteous in the presence of God. They dwelt and walked with Him. That is the relationship a righteous man desires.
And it means the desire to be free from the power of sin. To get away from the power that drags him down in spite of himself.
It means a desire to be free from the very desire for sin. We find that the man who turly examines himself in the lift of the Scriptures is not only in the bondage of sin, more horrible yet is he LIKES IT, he WANTS IT! Even after he has seen it is wrong he still wants it.
To put it positively, to hunger and thirst after righteousness is nothing but the longing to be positively holy. He who does, is a man who wants to show the fruit of the Spirit in every action and in the whole of his life and activity.
But what does it mean to 'hunger and thirst'. It does not mean that we can attain this righteousness by our own efforts. That is the worldy view of righteousness which focusses on man and leads to the individual pride of the Pharisee.
It leads to those things that the apostle Paul describes in Philippians 3 as 'dung'. The first Beatitude tells us that we must be 'poor in spirit' so it cannot be that worldly view of righteousness.
It is a consciousness of our deparate need.
It is something that keeps on until it is satisfied. It is not just a passing feeling, a passing desire. It hurts, it is painful, it is like actual, physical hunger and thirst.
It is like a longing for a person. There is always a great hunger and thirst in love.
The Psalmist has summed it up perfectly in a classical phrase: 'As the hart panteth afcter the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, My soul thirsteth of God, for the living God.
As J. N. Darby said, 'when the prodigal son was hungry he went to feed upon husks, but when he was starving, he turned to his father.'
Finally, let's look at what is promised to the people who are hungry and thirsting for righteousness.
'They shall be filled'.
The whole Gospel is there. That is where the gospel of grace comes in. It is entirely the gift of God. You will never fill yourself with righteousness, you will never find blessedness apart from Him.
When you and I know our need, this hunger and starvation, this death that is within us, then God will fill us. This is an absolute promise. If you are really hungering and thirsting after righteousness you will be filled.
How does it happen?
It happens - and this is the glory of the gospel - it happens immediately, thank God. We are justified by Christ and His righteousness and the barrier of sin and guilt between us and God is removed.
You are no longer under the law, you are under grace.
God looks at you in the righteousness of Christ and He no longer sees the sin.
The Christian therefore should always be a man who knows that his sins are forgiven.
He should not be seeking it. He should know he has it. That he is justified in Christ freely by the grace of God.
Thank God it happens immediately.
But it is also a continuing process. The Holy Spirit, begins within us His great work of delivering us from the power of sin and from the pollution of sin. Christ will come into you.
And as He lives in you you will be delivered increasingly from the power of sin and from its pollution. You will be enabled to resist Satan, he will flee from you. You will be able to stand against him and his fiery darts.
Finally, this promise is fulfilled perfectly and absolutely in eternity. There is a day coming when all who are in Christ and belong to Him shall stand in the presence of God, faultless, blameless, without spot and without wrinkle. A new and perfect man in a perfect body.
But there is a paradox. At this moment I am perfect in Christ, and yet I am being made perfect.
The Christian is one who both hungers and thirsts AND IS AT THE SAME TIME filled! You reach a certain stage in sanctification but you do not rest on it. You go on changing!
From glory to glory to glory 'till in heaven we take our place'. Perfect yet not perfect. Hungering, thirsting, yet filled and satisfied, but longing for more, never having enough because it is so glorious and wondrous.
Fully satisfied by Him yet a supreme desire to know Him.
Isaiah 42:14–16
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.
Isaiah 40:15 Great nations are nothing more than dust on the scales.
Isaiah 39:6
Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord.
El Rey Ezequías Hace Ostentación De Sus Riquezas a Los Legados Del Rey De Babilonia
(King Hezekiah Shows Off His Wealth to the Legates of the King of Babylon)
Vicente López Portaña (Spanish, 1772-1850)
Genesis 15:6 Abram is counted righteous by faith, not deeds.
One of the most important passages in the Old Testament. Righteousness in the OT was demonstrated by adherence to the law. But Abram is counted righteous by faith, before he'd proven by work.
A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.
The world thinks in terms of strength and power, of ability, self-assurance and aggressiveness. Yet again, we are reminded that the Christian is altogether different from the world.
He is a new man, a new creation. He belongs to an entirely different kingdom. And if we are obviously different from the non-Christians around us, this tells us a great deal about of profession of the Christian faith.
The Jews that Christ was speaking to expected a materialistic and military kingdom, with Him on the throne. They were not expecting a kingdom of the meek. It was important to confront that.
The meek are NOT THOSE who trust to their own organising, their own powers and abilities, their own institutions, they are the reverse of that.
'Blessed Are The Meek'. These Beatitudes get increasingly difficult. It demands that we allow others to say critical things to us. We are happy to say we are a wretched sinner, but how do we feel when someone else tells us the same thing!
The Lord Jesus exemplifies meekness in the face of his enemies, and in his submission to His Father. He says that 'the father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works'.
This meekness is not a natural quality. Every Christian is meant to be like this.
It is something that is produced by the Spirit of God.
It is compatible with great strength, authority and power. The martyrs were meek but never *weak*. God forbid that we should confuse this noble quality with something merely animal or physical or natural.
Meekness is a true view of oneself, expressed through attitude and conduct with respect to others.
You see how inevitably it follows being 'poor in spirit' and 'mourning'. The meek man is not proud of himself. He does not want to be. He is ashamed of it.
The meek man - for blessed are the meek - does not make demands for his position, his privileges, his possessions, his status in life. Christ did asset that right to equality with God. He deliberately did not. And that is the point to which you and I need to come.
The man who is truly meek is the one who is amazed that God and man can think of him as well as they do and treat him as well as they do.
It also means that we are ready to listen and learn - that we have such a poor idea of ourselves, our capabilities that we are ready to listen to others.
We learn to accept that 'vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'. He will repay. We have nothing to do
We who are meek have already inherited the earth. As Paul said 'having nothing, and yet possessing all things'.
But in the future kingdom 'do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?'. We will judge the world. We will judge angels!
Nothing but the Holy Spirit can humble us. Nothing but the Holy Spirit can make us poor in spirit and make us mourn because of our sinfulness and produce in us this true, right view of self and give us this very mind of Christ Himself. -- Dr M. Lloyd-Jones
Genesis 13:14-15 God's promise to Abram.
All the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.
In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword–
his fierce, great and powerful sword–
Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent;
he will slay the monster of the sea.
The Destruction of Leviathan
Picture from The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments books collection published in 1885, Stuttgart-Germany.
Drawing by Gustave Doré (1832-1883).
Engaving by Héliodore Pisan (1822-1890)
Genesis 11:4. Hubris.
"Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth."
A distillation of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones 'Studies on the Sermon on the Mount'. All credit to him. One of the finest preachers and theologian minds of the modern age.
The world regards this as utterly ridiculous! "Forget your troubles" it says. But the meaning is entirely spiritual. He is happy who mourns in spirit.
Absence of this in the Church is one reason why it is failing to evangelize. As Christians more closely approximate the Beatitudes, they are more sucesful in drawing others in. But not false piety. To be religious is not to be miserable!
But we will not attract other to the faith through forced brightness and joviality. We fail to see the true depth of sin AND fail to understand true Christian joy. A double failure!
That results in a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate Christian life.
We have to be poor in spirit before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Conviction must precede conversion. A real sense of sin must come before there can be a true joy of salvation. That is the essense of the Gospel.
"Blessed are they that mourn".
People want joy without the conviction of sin. But that is impossible. It can never be obtained.
Why is there no record of Jesus ever having laughed?
He was a 'man of sorrows, aquainted with grief' - but why?
As I confront God and His holiness, and contemplate the life that I am meant to live, I see myself, my utter helplessness and hopelessness. I discover my quality of spirit and immediately that makes me mourn.
Mourning is our reflection upon this wretchedness. Our state of sinfulness. We must ask ourselves 'what is it in me that makes me behave like that. Why am I not able to control myself'. We should hate it.
But we should also mourn the sins of others.
Mourn the state of society and the world. Know that it is all due to sin.
THAT is why our Lord Jesus mourned. Why he was a man of sorrows. It is impossible to be merry, to laugh, in the face of knowing ALL THAT SIN, the sin that he took upon himself on the Cross.
But for our mourning, we are comforted, by Christ's salvation, and the happiness and contentment that that brings. And the hope that lies in the new Kingdom, and Christ's return.