Chapter five is the beginning of Matthew’s three chapter long on what Jesus said in His hilltop speech in Galilee was addressed to a wide spectrum of Jews. This long speech is often coined The Sermon on the Mount. This speech represents the most consequential and panoramic expression of what it means to be a Believer and follower of Jesus. These instructions come directly from Jesus’ mouth, and Matthew must have grasped the importance of these words since he devotes three chapters in his Gospel to this speech.
It is curious that Matthew is the only Gospel of the four which records the Sermon on the Mount. Luke chapter 6 contains something similar, but they are not the same. The sermon which begins at Luke 6:17 and goes to the end of the chapter is often called The Sermon on the Plain. It occurs at a different location than the Sermon on the Mount. Let’s look at Luke chapter 6.
The introductory words to the Sermon of the Mount in Matthew 5 are: “Seeing the crowds, Jesus walked up the hill.” But in Luke 6, we read: “Then he came down with them (meaning His disciples) and stood on a level place.” The KJV reads: “And he came down with them, and stood in the plain.”
What follows in Luke is something similar to the words of the Beatitudes, but they are different and fewer. There are a few sayings, a parable and a few other sayings which are similar to the Sermon on the Mount. It seems the purpose of the sermon in Luke 6, the description of the make-up of the people who were there, the geography of where the speech was given and the timing of it make it another speech which is different from the one given in Matthew.
Remember, Jesus had a ministry which lasted several years. It is not uncommon, even today, for a teacher to repeat a message to a different group of people. The speech is often tailored to the audience and may change depending on what the audience needs to hear. Many commentators neglect this. They believe at every encounter, Jesus said something new and fresh. In the age of internet and television, politicians (for instance) will use the same core message in a number of different settings, slightly modifying each message to suit a particular audience.
One important thing to note, Matthew carefully chooses what he includes in his Gospel to paint an overall picture. For Jesus, Matthew is trying to depict Jesus as a second Moses. Notice that the Sermon on the Mount just as Moses went up to the top of a mountain (Mount Sinai) to obtain God’s instructions and then came down to the side of the mountain to instruct the Israelites, so too in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus went up a mountain (a hill) to address Israel and instruct them in a deeper understanding of God’s Word.
Verse 1: Matthew says that Jesus went up a hill in order to make a speech to a large crowd of Israelites. This crowd consisted mostly of people from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. People from these tribes are often referred to as Jews. There were also probably some individuals from some of the other tribes of Israel and some gentiles may also have been present.
To know who all were present at the Sermon on the Mount, we need to back up and re-read the ending of chapter 4. Remember, when Matthew was writing this, he wrote it as one continuous book. It was not broken up into chapters. Chapters are wonderful additions, which were added about 1,000 years ago; however, we can sometimes lose context when we simply start and end our reading with the chapter breaks.
Starting in Matthew 4:23-5:2:
23Jesus was going about in all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.
24And the news about Him spread throughout Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and severe pain, demon-possessed, people with epilepsy, and people who were paralyzed; and He healed them. 25Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and Jerusalem, and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
1Now when Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. 2And He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, (Matthew 4:23-5:2)
We learn the primary reason this enormous group of people came from many likes was for healing of all kinds of maladies. They came because of Jesus’ growing reputation as a tzaddik, a holy man. Remember tzaddik were considered men of God who had power to heal and were also known for their miracles. They taught in addition to being able to heal. It was common for Jesus to draw large crowds for the purpose of miracle healing, but also He could speak profound truths. As of this time, the Jews did not suspect Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus had not publicly proclaimed who he was.
Verse 3: Verse three begins what for centuries has been called the Beatitudes. We got this strange English word from the Latin version of the Bible, where the word beatus is used to translate the Greek word makarios.
The first beatitude is: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” This beatitude has had a number of opinions about its meaning. Let’s try to decipher it by understanding what the word “blessed” means.
Assuming Jesus spoke in Hebrew, the language of the region, then likely what we have is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word “berakhah”.”Berakhah” (and its Greek counterpart makarios) mean to be favored, fortunate, or happy.
Second, we need to examine what it means to be poor in spirit. I have heard a number of sermons over my lifetime on what it means to be poor in spirit, and I am not sure any two agree on the meaning. If being poor in spirit is supposed to be a positive and desirable trait, then what about being poor in spirit makes a person happy or fortunate?
To explain this, let’s look to Dr. Flusser, who is a legend among scholars. He believes that the first three beatitudes are more of a description of the people who constitute the crowd which followed Jesus up the hill in the Galilee. Here is his conclusion about the meaning and intent of the term “poor in spirit”:
“Now for the first time, because of the Dead Sea scrolls, we can understand the phrase ‘poor in spirit’. It was a title of honor among the Essenes. These are the poor to whom the Holy Spirit is given.”
In another, but separate quote, Dr Flusser further explains that among the Essenes this term referred to a person who was living in a spirit of “poverty, humility, purity and simplicity”. Just as today a good orator will acknowledge those who make up his audience, so it was in Jesus’ day.
Assuming that what Dr. Flusser says concerning the clarification about this strange phrase that the Dead Sea scrolls provides for us is correct, we can gather rather confidently that it was the Essenes (and perhaps those who lived on the fringes of the Essenes purity movement) that Jesus was acknowledging. Since we are told that many of His audience came from Judah, in the south, where the Essenes had their desert enclave next to the Dead Sea, and from Syria in the north, where it is known that a substantial Essenes community lived in the city of Damascus, then it makes sense that many members of the Essenes community might have attended Jesus’ sermon.
But what is the intent of including the statement that for certain members of the Essenes, the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs? Remember, the Kingdom of God is not a place, but it is a spiritual condition. When one repents of sinning and trust in Jesus, then they receive the Holy Spirit. As a result, the Kingdom of Heaven now lives within them. Notice the grammar. It is not some time in the future that the Kingdom of Heaven will be theirs, but rather it is that when they receive the Holy Spirit the Kingdom became theirs.
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