The Beatitude of Mercy
P.C. Barker Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. The line of cleavage that obtains so clearly in the tables of the ten commandments, between those of our duties that look direct to God and those which in their first action regard fellow-men, has not an exact parallel in the ever-welcome table of the Beatitudes. The distinction is probably in the nature of things not so apparent. Ten commandments readily admit a distinctness of classification which the expansive force of living and ever-growing qualities of soul do in part resolutely refuse. These act more freely and on their own account, and intermingle where they will and where they can. If such qualities and virtues at first seem to turn the face more Godward, in that very act none can fail to see how it is all the more laid upon them to be operative, and powerfully so, towards man; and vice versa. The distinction, nevertheless, does exist, and in some of the Beatitudes utters itself forth clearly. It is so with the one, fifth in order, now before us. Our mercifulness has no operation towards God, though it must be that he observes with an ever-open eye whether we observe it, and how liberally or otherwise we observe it to others! He taught the petition and its very wording, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Consider - I. THE OBJECTS OF THIS BEATITUDE. They are the "merciful," i.e. those who have mercy of heart; and if they have this, it must be that they will show and practise it. A man may have money in his pocket and not show it. He may have some skill, some knowledge, some talent, in his composition, and may not show them. But mercy is that which, to have it, is to show it and "do" it. So a man cannot be credited with the "forgiving" disposition unless he habitually practise forgiveness. Mercy in itself is (with Remigius, presbyter, and monk of Auxerre, A.D. 880) "to count another's misery or want one's own, and to be sad at all another's grief as at one's own." The spring of it lies perhaps far away, concealed certainly from general sight and from feeble sight, high up in the hills. Sympathy is its twin rill, and its ever-fresh, crystal, flowing tributary. Its stream now has somehow become deep and full, and circles the world around; for it has become a vital necessity for human-kind. Its compass extends from the freshest, youngest possibilities of the works of the sweetest charity, to the anguished, shamed, smarting sense of pity awakened by and for the worst of sinners. Point special attention to: 1. The grand Exemplar of this quality, the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. 2. The crying, awful, supreme need of it, as poured on a world by him; and as multiplying itself then by the myriad (however weak and small yet) genuine reproductions of its own spirit, 3. The wide, universal use of it - every-where, in everything, in the home, the city, the Church, the nation, for the body and for the soul - where is there the variety or where the grouping of society which does not hang precarious on mercy and its works? 4. The deep degradation signified by the absence of it, and illustrated so patently, so lamentably, wherever in the world, on smaller or larger scale, the level of it is now lowest. Contrast the world of Christian mercy with all its imperfection, and every blot that lies upon it, and all its wayward inconsistency, i.e. at its worst, with the unchristian world, to which mercy is a stranger all but absolute. Mercy is indeed "mightiest in the mightiest;" but of the mightiest earth has not a pattern to show, unless mercy be there to give the solid strength and enduring framework. Only mercy has in it to find what can meet and bear the strain. II. THE PROMISE ON WHICH THEIR BLESSEDNESS IS BASED. "They shall obtain mercy." This assurance is the justification and the original of that claim on behalf of mercy that it is "twice blessed," blessing him that gives as well as him that takes. Point forcible attention to the fact that here it is signified: 1. That "to obtain mercy" is indeed blessedness. Is it not the necessary deep foundation of all individual and all real blessedness? Quote and compare the beautiful and encouraging exhortation," Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy," as if to say that it is the first and last great effect of the throne of grace. 2. That as "God is not unrighteous to forget the work and labour of love" which is "showed toward his Name" when any "minister to the saints," so certainly he specially appraises this ministry, whether showed to the saints, or possibly yet more, when not shown to saints at all, viz. the ministry of mercifulness. 3. That the reward apparently set forth here, as the return of mercy for mercy, is no mere equivalent. Far otherwise; for, as Chrysostom says, "human mercy and Divine mercy cannot be put on an equality." The latter is "much more" - nay, is it not infinitely "much more"? The two are compared by the warrant of this very passage. But is it not only in one sense, important and significant indeed, but yet limited, that they are compared, viz. for the motive of them? Intrinsically are they not incomparable? The mercifulness of a human heart taught of God, touched by Jesus, is indeed the evidence of its parentage, and a most grateful one. But what mercy of human action can for a moment compare with that here in view when it is said, "for they shall obtain mercy"? CONCLUSION. Let all lay to heart what, in the estimate of Jesus Christ, must be the place in the world, and in human life and all the compass of its social relations, for this grace of mercifulness, that it should be enshrined in this elegant, chaste temple of the Beatitude, and fill one niche out of so sacred a nine! - B. Parallel Verses KJV: Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. WEB: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.