9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Matthew 5:9
In the last beatitude the pure would see God. In this beatitude Our Lord is going up a level and he explains to his disciples that with this new ‘Happy saying’ they will be called ‘sons of God’. Sons should be all inclusive for women too. Many of Jesus’s disciple were women and Saint Paul said in Galatians that there is neither male nor female. In the Kingdom of heaven men and women are equal. Anyhow before I dive into this beatitude, I want to think about the importance of peace makers. I can think of some from the top of my head.
- Muhammad Ali
- Gandhi
- Martin Luther King
- Nelson Mandela
- Dalai Lama
- Bishop Tutu
- Greta Thunberg (Global warming that affects all of us)
Peace making comes at many different levels and God loves genuine peacemakers. I’m not speaking from a salvific point of view but generally. When God created the world ‘It was good’. When He created Adam and Eve ‘it was good’. The moral order of the family was set in place one man and one woman, and they were told to be fruitful. We were created in the image of God and what does that actually mean. For me Jesus as the Logos is the prototype image of God. From the teachings of our Lord, we learn about the importance of loving Good and our neighbour.
What is the opposite of peace?
It is war!
Jesus was the ultimate peace maker and I find it very interesting that Gandhi a Hindu studied the teachings of Christ which helped him to put together his ethic of love to fight British oppression in India.
It doesn’t stop there; Martin Luther King Junior then studied Gandhi and using the ethic of Love fought for equal rights for people of colour and all people.
I could go on people of peace attract other people of peace for example did you know that Bishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama became good friends?
In Christianity, peace is a very important concept. First of all. There are scriptures that refer to God as the God of peace and in this beatitude, we find that the peacemakers are going to be called the Sons of God.
Sometimes when you make peace, you have to in a sense, there’s some sort of war I don’t mean physically but in various forms. So I’m just going to go through a few people that have shown the quality of peace:
In making peace Muhammad Ali, for example stood up against the American government because he did not agree with the Vietnam war and he had his world title belt that he won fair and square taken away from him. Although after he did his time in prison, he got his belt back.
Then of course you have Gandhi who had the philosophy of ahimsa. The idea that you’re not allowed to hurt any living thing, and he lived at the time when Britain was in charge of India. Using the concept of ahimsa, he was able to defeat the British and expel the British peacefully
Following in Gandhi’s footsteps, we have, Martin Luther King And he used the ethic of love to fight for the civil rights movement and it’s interesting that sometimes people who stand up for doing the right thing and are peaceful people usually sometimes end up being persecuted or killed.
Then we have Nelson Mandela who spent many years in prison he realized that peaceful protest is more powerful than the use of violence and he got rid of the apartheid system and became the First South African president and I have to say that I think John Calvin is the is the best one because it’s very simple and it gets to the point.
So it begins like this:
“Blessed are the peacemakers. He means those who have an enthusiasm for peace and as best they may avoid all quarrels and also those who take pains to settle. The dissensions that break out between others being agents of peace to all ready to stifle hatreds and rivalries, this is no light declaration. The result is that each wishes to have everyone in his pay to fight on his side that we may not then depend on men favours. Christ bids us to look to the judgment of the father for us. He is the God of peace. He reckons us among his sons as we work for peace even though our efforts do not please men. To be called has the same force as to be reckoned. “ (This is from. Calvin’s New Testament commentaries, new translation. Translated by Morrison. Edited by TF Torrance, on page 172)
I looked at four commentaries about this particular verse in the Sermon on the Mount.
The four were:
- by John Calvin (above).
- William Barclay
- Doctor Martyn Lloyd Jones commentary on the Sermon on the Mount.
- Jamieson Faucet and Brown (Olive tree Bible software)
The reason I liked Calvin’s the most is actually because it gets to the point. It’s very, very simple and he tries to get to the meaning of the text. The modern commentary was actually invented by John Calvin. He was the first to write Bible Commentaries in a scientific manner. When we look at the text in the New Testament, we have to ask ourselves the question:
- Do I have the real meaning of the text?
- What did it mean to those who first heard those words?
What is important is what Jesus meant by these words. It is not what I think Jesus meant by these words. It can be very difficult sometimes to get to the meaning that the writer wanted us to understand. There are two keywords that explains all this (eisegesis and exegesis):
The first word (eisegesis)suggests this; You read your own biases into the text. In this situation the text becomes gobbledegook (a myth, not true, false). It’s not reality.
Exegesis, on the other hand, means reading out of the text what is there. The text is actually telling you what it’s saying. So, when we’re looking at this particular beatitude that Jesus gave there isn’t a really lot to go on.
So, this is why I think that here Calvin is actually better than William Barclay et al. It just gives you the basic meaning. So then let’s start looking at it in a bit more detail and find out what we can learn. I just want to look at the reflection of Calvin on this after we said basically what a peacemaker is.
Calvin Finishes off by saying this, “that we may not then depend on men’s favours. So, we shouldn’t look at doing your boss, a favour, or whoever a favour, what’s important, Calvin says, is Christ bids us to look to the judgment of the Father, it’s what God wants us to do. It’s not what other people want us to do for as he is the God of peace, He reckons us among his sons as we work for peace. To be in a sense, to be a true image of God. One of those characteristics is actually to make peace, even as God makes peace.
The greatest example of that is when Jesus died for us so that we could have peace with God. He reckons us among his sons as we work for peace even though our efforts do not, please men. Yeah, being a peacemaker and doing what God wants us to do is going to please very, very few men. People, should I say for example.
When we talk about the 10 Commandments that God has given which is for everyone at all times. A lot of people kind of accept those. This causes problems, so we’re going to have problems to be called has the same force as ‘to be reckoned’, Calvin said. Yes, so we are reckoned to be as children of God.
It means the same thing and I wonder what it says in the Greek. I’ll have to look at that a bit later on.
The Judaeo-Christian ethic is that we should love God with all of our heart with all of our mind and all of our strength and as a general rule, the natural man who hasn’t seen God’s goodness is only interested in himself and pleasing himself. A lot of people nowadays they don’t want anything to do with God. They just want to go their own way doing their own thing, living the way that they want. For example, marriage is thrown out with the bath water. Sad to say, for example, in places like London Knife crime is very, very prevalent. There’s a mood in large chunks of society that life isn’t worth very much. if a person gets stabbed by another young person and they die (that isn’t seen as a problem). There is no Fear of God, there is no sense of duty. Let’s look at some people who have spoken about peace in the world.
For example, in the USA Martin Luther King when he was around at the marches and the civil rights movement. He was assassinated for doing the right thing and it’s a problem that comes right into the 21st century where people think that if you’re white, you’re better than blacks, and if you’re black, you’re better than whites. Bruce Lee went against the current of racism; In one of his interviews, he was asked if he was Chinese or if he was American. Bruce Lee said, “I’m a human being. It doesn’t matter about what colour you are, what race you are under the Sun we’re all the same. “ We’re human beings and we should treat each other with the dignity that everyone deserves.
For the Christian; God created us in his image. We’ve been created in the image of God. We are very, very special. We are sacred but unfortunately, the world doesn’t actually always see that.
Some people choose to interpret this particular beatitude only in a churchy spiritual way and internalize peace making from within and the objective reality is lost. That it only means making peace with God within you the struggle inside you.
But I don’t agree obviously I accept the spiritual but people like Martin Luther King has shown us that it has practical life changing elements for the real world outside the Church
After we’ve become Christians and we’ve learned how to do this walk with God because of God’s grace. We come to a position where we can actually take part in the world and start to try to bring peace by the help of The Holy Spirit; Peace with people and peace with God.
It’s a very objective thing. It’s something that that can change the world, save lives and then also bring people to know Jesus Christ as we know Jesus Christ as well the ultimate peace with God.
All the commentaries failed me when looking to this beatitude, but they gave me clues.
I found it very interesting that William Barclay reminded us about the word Shalom can mean a peace but has various meanings. Peace means not only be “freedom from all trouble” but it can also mean “enjoyment of all good.”
So I did a bit of research and I went to the Wikipedia on shalom. Barclay is right and It can mean that as well because it’s used in everyday greetings for health and everything but it still didn’t answer my question:
- What Jesus means by peacemaker
And lo and behold, I went to Matthew chapter 1012
Let me just tell you a bit a little bit about the context:
Jesus has chosen the 12 disciples and he sent them out to the House of Israel.
And they’re going to greet everyone. This is what Jesus says in one of the verses with me paraphrasing, he says. “As you enter the house, give it you’re greeting. If the house is worthy, give it your blessing of peace but if it is not worth of it, take back your blessing of peace.
And then a bit later on:
Jesus talks about the persecution that the believers are going to face in the future.
Now it’s very interesting that when we look at the Beatitudes in Matthew Chapter 5 verse nine and verse 10, one is about making peace and the next one is about persecution and in Chapter 10 from verses 5 all the way through to verse 23 the same order is followed. When disciples do peace-making, they are going to face persecution and I think that’s probably the best way to interpret that particular beatitude.
Why did I use the word shalom?
You need to remember that Greek was the prevalent language around the Middle East at the time of Christ. Even the Old Testament was translated into Greek known as the Septuagint (LXX as the abbreviation for the Septuagint (meaning 70 ‘the Seventy Elders’). It is a fact that the Apostles favoured the Septuagint to that of the Hebrew at the time. Scholars think that Jesus actually spoke Aramaic a local dialect!
Reflection
If you are a disciple of Christ, then you are a peacemaker. ‘Love changes everything’. God sent his only Son into the world to open the way for us to walk into God’s Kingdom. Being a peacemaker is not an easy task spiritually or objectively. The hard example of this beatitude for us is in Matthew chapter 10.
External links for further general reading:
Martin Luther King and Gandhi links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
A Messianic-Jewish interpretation of Matthew 5 verse 9
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