Blessed the merciful, for *they* shall find mercy.
이 절의 주석
I have enough. Let me compose the answer.
Two Movements in the Beatitudes
Before we come to the words themselves, it helps to see where this fifth beatitude sits in the sermon. Andrew Miller shows that the seven beatitudes fall into two groups — four of righteousness, three of grace — and mercy opens the second:
Andrew MillerWe now enter on what may be called the second section of the Beatitudes. They are evidently divided into four and three — a division not uncommon in scripture. The first four are characterised by righteousness, or that which is due to God: the last three by grace, or the activities of grace towards others. There is great moral beauty, order, and instruction, in these two classes.
William Kelly draws the same dividing line and says that after poverty of spirit has opened the soul to God, mercy now opens it toward others:
William KellyAs righteousness is the key note of the first four, so grace is that which lies at the root of the latter three; and, therefore, the very first of them demonstrates not merely that they are righteous and that they feel what is due to God, but they appreciate the love of God, and maintain it in the midst of surrounding evil.
And elsewhere in the same volume Kelly adds that mercy stands at the head of this new group exactly as poverty of spirit stood at the head of the first:
This is the characteristic feature of the new class of blessing; just as poverty of spirit was the introduction to the first blessings, so mercy is to these.
Mercy as the Very Character of God
Both Miller and Kelly insist that "the merciful" are pronounced blessed because mercy is the native atmosphere of God Himself. Andrew Miller writes with unusual warmth here:
Andrew MillerNo word within the compass of our language has a sweeter sound than mercy; and no other word could bring the character of God more fully before thy mind... He is "the Father of mercies." Mercy is not merely a resource of God, but He is its source — "the Father of mercies." He is the well-spring of all the pity, compassion, tenderness, kindness, and charity, whether temporal or spiritual, which flow through this world of misery.
There is no interruption to His mercy: it is the active principle of His being in this world of sin and misery. "For his mercy endureth for ever."
W. Kelly puts it almost identically — mercy is what God most fully is while sin is in the world:
There is nothing on which God more takes His stand (as the active principle of His being in a world of sin) than His mercy. The only possibility of salvation to a single soul is that there is mercy in God; that He is rich in mercy; that there is no bound to His mercy; that there is nothing in man, if he only bows to His Son, which can hinder His constant flowing spring of mercy.
Because mercy is this flowing spring in God, those who are truly His will be channels of the same stream.
Mercy Distinguished from Grace
A question often raised here is whether "merciful" is simply another word for "gracious." Andrew Miller carefully separates them:
Andrew MillerIn what way, we may inquire, does mercy differ from grace? Clearly they are not the same thing, though they may come very near to each other... Both words, we find, are prominent in the character of God, as proclaimed to Moses — "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious." He is merciful to forgive, and gracious to help in every time of need.
And he sharpens the definition:
He is merciful to forgive, and gracious to help in every time of need.The term grace evidently conveys the idea of free gift, favour; without obligation on God's part, without claim on ours... But mercy always marks the receiver as a wrong-doer. To be "merciful" is to be ready to overlook or forgive a wrong, at the same time conscious that he to whom mercy is shown deserves a contrary kind of treatment.
So to be "merciful" in Matthew 5:7 is not merely to be kind-hearted in the abstract — it is to be ready to forgive a real wrong, exactly as we ourselves have been forgiven real wrongs by God.
How the Merciful Show Mercy
Miller is very practical about the manner of showing mercy, holding up the Lord's dealings with blind Bartimaeus as the pattern:
And here learn also, as a believer, how to show mercy. Give not thy alms to the poor as thou wouldst throw a bone to a dog. With what grace Jesus bends over the poor man, and asks, as if He were his servant, "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" Far from taking a place of manifest superiority, and causing the poor man to feel as if in a far distant place, He gave him to know and feel that He was dealing with him in love and grace...
The Christian must not only be merciful — most merciful, always merciful — but he must learn to show mercy after the manner of his Lord and Master. The way of the world is to patronise, and to be esteemed as benefactors; and many will give for the sake of this honour. But not so those on whom the Lord lays His hand and pronounces blessed.
W. T. P. Wolston adds that mercy of this kind cuts straight against our natural hardness of heart:
W. T. P. WolstonAll through Scripture this word mercy abounds: it is a beautiful word, mercy. "Blessed are the merciful." Ah, beloved, I believe we are a hard lot. God delights in mercy. If a person has this thought inwrought in his soul, he will be quit of his hardness.
Wolston is careful, however, that mercy never lowers the standard of holiness:
Not that mercy makes light of sin. Not at all! Those who are nearest to God have this too, they are "pure in heart" likewise, for they are the most like Christ.
W. Kelly makes exactly the same point — mercy rightly tasted does not soften the conscience, it deepens it:
The effect of mercy is not a compromising of the holiness of God, but a larger and deeper standard of it. The fuller your hold of grace is, the higher will be your maintenance of holiness.
"For They Shall Obtain Mercy"
What of the promised reward? Andrew Miller faces the obvious objection — surely the saint in glory has no need of mercy — and answers it from Paul's prayer for Onesiphorus:
Andrew MillerBut thou mayest yet inquire, my soul, what is the promised reward here assured to the merciful — "They shall obtain mercy?" We cannot need mercy in heaven. Surely not. Nevertheless, the promise is future, whether strictly applied to the Jew, or morally to the Christian. Onesiphorus was no doubt a Christian, and Paul prayed for him, "that he might find mercy of the Lord in that day" — the time of future rewards.
And in the present life the merciful already taste a reward of their own kind:
In the exercise of mercy towards others, thou shalt taste afresh the sweetness of God's mercy to thine own soul. A gracious eye, a tender heart, an open hand, carry with them their divine reward.
Kelly says the same — those who show mercy are repaid, not with ease, but with a fresh sense of God's mercy toward themselves:
They will find, not that there is not difficulty and trial, but that though they shall know the cost of it, they shall know the sweetness of it; they shall taste afresh what the mercy of God is towards their own souls, in the exercise of mercy towards others.
W. T. P. Wolston extends the promise all the way to glory, pointing to Jude 21:
W. T. P. WolstonWhat met us at first? Mercy! What keeps us all along the road? Mercy! What does the Holy Ghost bid us look for? Mercy! We have received mercy to begin with, but the biggest mercy of the lot is to be delivered from this place and scene of corruption... To be taken up out of it all to be with Himself will be an immense mercy. We are exhorted to be "looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, to eternal life."
Christ Himself the Pattern
Finally, Wolston reminds us that none of this is abstract virtue — every line of the beatitudes was first perfectly realised in the Lord Jesus:
These last three blessednesses partake largely of the character of grace, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers. They are the reproduction of Christ in us... Was He not poor in spirit? Was he not a mourner? Was He not meek?... Was He not merciful? Pure in heart? A peacemaker? He was all these, and more, in perfection.
Synthesis
Matthew 5:7 opens the second half of the beatitudes by turning the disciple outward. The first four blessings describe the soul emptied before God; mercy is the first fruit of that emptied soul going out to others. To be "merciful" is not simply to be soft-hearted — it is, as Miller puts it, to be ready to forgive a real wrong while fully aware that strict justice would entitle us to do the opposite. Such mercy is possible only because God Himself is its source, the "Father of mercies," whose mercy is the very "active principle of His being in a world of sin." Those who have truly drunk from that spring cannot help but let it flow through them, and in doing so they taste afresh the sweetness of the mercy they once received. The promise — "they shall obtain mercy" — reaches from the daily comfort of the present hour, through Paul's longing for Onesiphorus "in that day," to the final mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And all of this is simply the reproduction in the disciple of what shone perfectly in Christ Himself, who was "the faithful witness of the mercy and of the purity of God."