Matthew 5:7

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy--Beautiful is the connection between this and the preceding beatitude. The one has a natural tendency to beget the other. As for the words, they seem directly fetched from Psa 18:25, "With the merciful Thou wilt show Thyself merciful." Not that our mercifulness comes absolutely first. On the contrary, our Lord Himself expressly teaches us that God's method is to awaken in us compassion towards our fellow men by His own exercise of it, in so stupendous a way and measure, towards ourselves. In the parable of the unmerciful debtor, the servant to whom his lord forgave ten thousand talents was naturally expected to exercise the small measure of the same compassion required for forgiving his fellow servant's debt of a hundred pence; and it is only when, instead of this, he relentlessly imprisoned him till he should pay it up, that his lord's indignation was roused, and he who was designed for a vessel of mercy is treated as a vessel of wrath (Mat 18:23-35; and see Mat 5:23-24; Mat 6:15; Jam 2:13). "According to the view given in Scripture," says TRENCH most justly, "the Christian stands in a middle point, between a mercy received and a mercy yet needed." Sometimes the first is urged upon him as an argument for showing mercy--"forgiving one another, as Christ forgave you" (Col 3:13; Eph 4:32): sometimes the last--"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy"; "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (Luk 6:37; Jam 5:9). And thus, while he is ever to look back on the mercy received as the source and motive of the mercy which he shows, he also looks forward to the mercy which he yet needs, and which he is assured that the merciful--according to what BENGEL beautifully calls the benigna talio ("the gracious requital") of…

This chapter, and the two that follow it, are a sermon; a famous sermon; the sermon upon the mount. It is the longest and fullest continued discourse of our Saviour that we have upon record in all the gospels. It is a practical discourse; there is not much of the credenda of Christianity in it - the things to be believed, but it is wholly taken up with the agenda - the things to be done; these Christ began with in his preaching; for if any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God. The circumstances of the sermon being accounted for (Mat 5:1, Mat 5:2), the sermon itself follows, the scope of which is, not to fill our heads with notions, but to guide and regulate our practice. I. He proposes blessedness as the end, and gives us the character of those who are entitled to blessedness (very different from the sentiments of a vain world), in eight beatitudes, which may justly be called paradoxes (Mat 5:3-12). II. He prescribes duty as the way, and gives us standing rules of that duty. He directs his disciples, 1. To understand what they are - the salt of the earth, and the lights of the world (Mat 5:13-16). 2. To understand what they have to do - they are to be governed by the moral law. Here is, (1.) A general ratification of the law, and a recommendation of it to us, as our rule (Mat 5:17-20). (2.) A particular rectification of divers mistakes; or, rather, a reformation of divers wilful, gross corruptions, which the scribes and Pharisees had introduced in their exposition of the law; and an authentic explication of divers branches which most needed to be explained and vindicated (Mat 5:20). Particularly, here is an explication, [1.] Of the sixth commandment, which forbids murder (Mat 5:21-26). [2.] Of the seventh commandment, against adulter…

5:7 Jesus made a cardinal virtue of being merciful, that is, showing kindness to those in distress (see 6:12, 14-15; 9:13; 12:7; 18:23-35; 23:23; 25:31-46). Those who are merciful now will find God’s mercy in the final judgment.