And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you shall be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you
and when they exclude you
and revile you and spurn your name as evil,
on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy,
for behold, your reward is great in heaven;
for so their fathers did to the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now,
for you shall be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you, when all people speak well of you,
for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Luke 6:20–26 ESV

Harmonization is easily one of the most difficult aspects of studying one or more of the Gospels. The goal of recognizing the harmony among the Gospels is a worthy and even necessary endeavor, especially given the attempts of secular and liberal textual critics to disembowel Scripture’s fourfold testament of the King. Yet harmonization can go too far. Often a study of one of the Gospels can instead become a general study of the life of Christ by harmonizing the four Gospels through the lens of the one being studied. Mark’s Gospel is particularly prone to this because of its swift pace and the fact that almost all of its contents are also found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Indeed, whenever we studied Mark, I purposefully tried to avoid a harmonized study because I believe that Mark’s Gospel deserves to be seen in its own light, rather than just being treated as though it were a condensed version of Matthew and Luke.

Instead, each Gospel ought to be rightly studied itself. The four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) are each named for their traditionally identified author, and they present to us the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Robert Gundry notes that these four writings are unique to any other genre of literature:

Unlike modern biographies, however, they lack contemporary historical background, analysis of character and personality, and probing of the inner thoughts of the hero. Nor do the Gospels resemble Hellenistic narratives that merely celebrate the real or supposed acts of ancient miracle-workers. There is much more than narration of miracles in the Gospels. Nor do the Gospels present us with simple memoirs; rather, they give us proclamation and instruction written from theological standpoints. (A Survey of the New Testament, 150)

The Gospels, though certainly historical, belong to a category of literature altogether their own because they are not interested in simply presenting history. Instead, there is a didactic component to them. They aim to teach us who Jesus is, what He said, and what He did. And, as their titles suggest, they are certainly proclamations. Gospel, after all, means good news, and it is a word for describing the kind of proclamation that herald who brings news to the city that the invading army has retreated away might shout. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John similarly wrote their accounts of Jesus to proclaim the good news of Himself.

Indeed, having a fourfold presentation of the gospel is a historical testament to the truth of Christ, and each being written within the same generation as Christ’s life is unimaginable historically. For example, if you want to study the life of Caesar Augustus who was the first Roman emperor, you only have three main primary sources to read: The Deeds of the Divine Augustus (which Caesar himself wrote), The Annals of Tacitus (which begins with Augustus’ death), and Suetonius’ biography (who, like Tacitus, was born after the death of the third emperor). And those are our main sources of information about the divi filius (the son of a god) who controlled the known world. Yet for Jesus, the itinerant preacher who spent thirty years of His life in obscurity in Nazareth and then ministered chiefly in Galilee, we have the fourfold Gospel records.

This, therefore, brings us to a crucial point that we must make about the four Gospels:

These early titles [i.e. “The Gospel According to Matthew”] capture the important fact that while there are four canonical Gospels, there is only one gospel of Jesus Christ, and, accordingly, the canonical Gospels, properly understood, are not four separate, independent presentations of Jesus Christ. They are four complementary perspectives or versions of the one gospel of Jesus Christ. (Köstenberger, Kellum, & Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown, 117)

As marvelously complementary as the Gospels are, we have four of them because they each reveal something distinct yet cohesive of who Jesus is. If we attempt to smash them together into one great biography of Jesus, we destroy the very beauty and power of their fourfold witness.

I say all of that because, as an epilogue to our study of the Beatitudes, I thought it of value to study Luke’s complementary passage in 6:20-27. After all, what better time to consider the similarities and differences between the two teachings than following our detailed walk through one of them?

SERMON ON THE PLAIN OR MOUNT?

Whenever I am preparing to study a book that I have not yet studied, I peruse Keith Mathison’s commentary recommendations on Ligonier. However, two names are missing from each of his posts: John Calvin and Matthew Henry. But that is not an accidental omission. Rather, Mathison says, “every student of Scripture should consult John Calvin, who wrote commentaries on almost every book of the Bible… Second, students should not skip Matthew Henry’s older commentary… With every top 5 list below, John Calvin and Matthew Henry should simply be assumed.”

I have certainly found that to be the case as well. Calvin and Henry are always worth considering, and it is no small matter that they both consider Luke 6 to be a summary of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Henry states:

Some think that this was preached at some other time and place, and there are other instances of Christ’s preaching the same things, or to the same purport, at different times; but it is probable that this is only the evangelist’s abridgment of that sermon, and perhaps that in Matthew too is but an abridgment; the beginning and the conclusion are much the same; and the story of the cure of the centurion’s servant follows presently upon it, both there and here…

Calvin, in his manner of lucid brevity, writes plainly that “those who think that Christ’s sermon, which is here related [Matthew 5-7], is different from the sermon contained in the sixth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, rest their opinion on a very light and frivolous argument.”

Unfortunately, I am going to make that “light and frivolous argument,” for it does not seem to me that these Matthew and Luke are recording the same sermon. Let us consider the differences.

Matthew 4:24-5:2 records the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount:

So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

Now here is the build up to Jesus’ sermon in Luke:

And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:

Notice that both emphasize the great crowds that were following Jesus, and both highlight how Jesus healed a wide variety of their ailments. Luke, however, notes that they also wanted to hear Jesus’ teaching and that the whole crowd was desperate simply to touch Jesus.

But most notably, Matthew records Jesus going up a mountain to teach the crowds, which is why we call the teaching the Sermon on the Mount. In Luke, however, Jesus comes down from a mountain and stands “on a level place” or a plain, which is why many call it the Sermon on the Plain. While it is possible that Jesus did not fully come down the mountain but only found a level place from which to teach, there remains the difference in Jesus’ movement.

Then we have the difference in audience. In both passages, Jesus was surrounded by His disciples and a great crowd. In Matthew, Jesus appears to explicitly teach to both, which is why arguments for the Sermon on the Mount being exclusively to believers or nonbelievers both run aground. The Sermon on the Mount presents what citizenship in the kingdom of heaven looks like, and it is meant to be an evaluation for both Christians and non-Christians alike. But Luke notes that Jesus teaches directly to His disciples: and he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said… Thus, while Jesus very likely intended for the crowds to listen in, He was speaking primarily and directly to His disciples.

Thus, when we come to the teachings themselves, we should consider their differences in light of their intended audiences. Obviously, the Sermon on the Plain is much, much shorter than the Sermon on the Mount, but much of the content is similar, particularly when compared to Matthew 7. But Beatitudes are our specific focus, and it is here that the teachings most differ. I will let Kent Hughes summarize the differences for us:

Luke’s beatitudes do not focus on the positives as do some of Matthew’s—“blessed are the pure in heart” and so on. The sermon in Luke only includes the negatives such as poverty and hunger. Also, the woes that follow Luke’s beatitudes have no parallel in Matthew’s sermon. And Luke’s beatitudes are given in the more personal second person (you) rather than in Matthew’s third person (they). Lastly, the language that Luke records is much more stark and physical than Matthew’s account. For example, Matthew says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” while Luke simply says, “Blessed are you who are poor.” So I conclude that Luke presents a separate sermon, preached on a separate occasion, with a distinct theological intention. (Luke, 220)

And I agree with Hughes’ conclusion. Indeed, if the disciples heard this theme of blessing on at least two separate occasions, it highlights the importance of what Jesus is teaching to us.

Indeed, as Hughes’ mentioned, notice the structural difference between these Beatitudes and those found in Matthew. There are eight beatitudes in Matthew, but there are only four here in Luke. Yet Luke does include four corresponding woes, which brings the total number of statements to eight.

Now, as we have been saying, the purpose of the beatitudes in Matthew is to describe the character of the Christian. They give us a portrait of the citizen of Christ’s kingdom, and we are meant to evaluate our hearts accordingly. But if these blessings and woes in Luke were given on a distinctly different occasion, how does their purpose also differ from Matthew’s beatitudes? That is the big question that I desire to answer.

BLESSINGS

As we begin our brisk walk through this text, keep these words from G. Campbell Morgan in mind:

Observe the perfect balance of all this. Blessed, woe; poverty, riches; hunger, repletion; mourning, laughter; persecution, popularity. (Luke, 91)

The beginning is familiar enough: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. The first difference that we are likely to notice is what is absent: the phrase “in spirit.” Matthew’s version is explicitly about spiritual poverty, but since Luke does not include that qualifier, we should be hesitant to read the same meaning here. Instead, it fits with the overall themes of Luke’s Gospel that Jesus would be speaking of physical poverty.

But if that is the case, is Jesus pronouncing a blessing upon all the poor simply because of their poverty? Not at all. While many are poor because of circumstances that are beyond their control, some a poor through their own actions (or, rather, inactions). As R. C. Sproul notes:

They are those who are poor as a result of slothfulness. They simply will not work. They despise the creation mandate to be fruitful and to labor. Paul speaks candidly on this point: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10)… He says there is no dole for someone who is trying to live at the expense of his neighbor’s labor. Today in the United States of America, we have people voting to have the government take from one group and give it to them without their working. That is sinful. You as a Christian must never ask the government to take from somebody else and give his possessions to you. That’s evil. That’s legal theft. (182)

So, no, poverty does not immediately qualify a person as blessed. Instead, remember that Jesus is speaking directly to His disciples. The disciples are already blessed because they belong to Christ and have favor with the Father through Him. Thus, Jesus is not telling them that they are blessed because they are poor. Rather, He is saying that they are blessed in spite of their poverty. Why? For yours is the kingdom of God. Notice again how personally Jesus speaks to us. Even the poorest Christian can raise his or her head in joy because God’s kingdom is theirs.

I believe we ought to view the second beatitude the same way: Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. While there is certainly application to be made for spiritual hunger, it seems best to also read this plainly as physical hunger, which is Henry’s reading as well. Indeed, the word now is highly significant. As with poverty, Jesus is warning His disciples that they very well may face hunger in this life. He does not promise to relieve all of our physical suffering and discomforts. Instead, He tells us to be happy whenever we are hungry, for that hunger should remind us that you shall be satisfied. Earthly need is not permanent but fleeting, for the day will come when hunger is erased forever.

The third beatitude is similar: Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Again, Jesus is not saying that weeping is inherently more spiritual than laughing. Otherwise, why would He promise future laughter to us? No, the reality is simply that we will encounter plenty of reasons for weeping in this life. We will weep over our own sins, as the parallel beatitude in Matthew shows, and we will weep for the general effects of sin upon the world. Indeed, weeping is a sign that the world is not as it ought to be, that it is broken and in need of repair. For those who reject Christ, eternality will be one of weeping and gnashing teeth, but for the Christian, this life contains all the weeping that we shall know. Life everlasting will be all laughter and no more tears, pain, or weeping.

The fourth beatitude is similar to the Eighth Beatitude in Matthew:

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

As with the corresponding beatitude in Matthew and the three other beatitudes here, this is an evil and a hardship to be endured, not a good to be sought. And yet just like the prophets, Christians will find themselves persecuted on account of the Son of Man, which is Christ. Yet notice that Jesus does not actually use the word persecuted here. Instead, He gives four descriptions of being rejected: hatred, exclusion, reviling, and spurning your name as evil. Each of these have fallen upon Christians throughout history (as well as the prophets in the Old Testament), and we should not be surprised when they fall upon us today. Of course, we do see the irrational hatred of Christians today, but perhaps the most common both today and throughout history is simply being excluded, whether from community, decisions, or whatever else.

Thom Schreiner writes:

If we are loathed because of our identification with Jesus, we should respond with joy and exultation (Acts 5:41; 1 Pet. 4:13), since this loathing is a sign we belong to God. The prophets (2 Chron. 36:16; Neh. 9:26; Jer. 2:30), who spoke in God’s name to Israel, were treated in the same way. Furthermore, a great reward, a heavenly reward, is promised to those who are rejected and hated for Jesus’ sake (cf. 1 Pet. 4:14). (ESV Expository Commentary, Vol 8, 814)

Indeed, Paul gives us a wonderful example of this in 2 Corinthians 8:1-5, where he reflects on the trials and joys of the Macedonian Christians:

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. (ESV)

WOES

After this, Jesus moves into four corresponding woes. We spent an entire sermon at the beginning of this series discussing the meaning of the word blessed (μακάριος), which we said meant something along the lines of true, eternal, and unshakeable happiness that comes from having the favor of God upon us.

But what then is a woe? Because Jesus places them opposite of being blessed, we might naturally assume that it means being cursed. But that is not the case. Jesus is speaking to His disciples, and He is not pronouncing a curse upon every Christian who is rich, full, laughing, and thought well of. Indeed, J. C. Ryle comments:

We are not to suppose that the possession of riches, and a rejoicing spirit, and the good word of man — are necessarily proofs that people are not Christ’s disciples. Abraham and Job were rich. David and Paul had their seasons of rejoicing. Timothy was one who “had a good report from those that were outside.” All these, we know — were true servants of God. All these were blessed in this life — and shall receive the blessing of the Lord in the day of His appearing.

Instead, woes “forecast what will happen if one does not repent and turn to God” (Shreiner, 815). A woe is a warning to flee coming judgment. But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. While being rich is not a sinful condition, it is ripe with danger, which Jesus highlights in places like the story of the rich man and Lazarus or in His encounter with the young ruler. With riches comes the tendency and temptation to trust in them and be satisfied in them rather than in God. We who live in the United States are, by default, more wealthy than many others in the world, so we would do well to consider thoughtfully the follow statements and questions from Hughes:

• We rich are constantly assaulted with the temptation to rely on riches. Can we not rely upon them and yet have them?
• We rich are dulled to our need by our plenty. Can we have plenty and feel our need?
• We rich tend to be proud of what we have done, to take credit for our comforts. Can we live a humble life?

As he notes, “these are questions that we must each answer for ourselves” (222-223).

Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Notice that the emphasis is again upon the contrast between now and then. The temptation when we are perpetually full is to become a people whose god becomes our belly (Philippians 3:19), driven and dictated by our appetites, or like the Laodiceans, who in their material abundance became blind to their spiritual need.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. It is fitting that the second and third beatitudes and woes are placed together under the same verses, for laughter is often found at feasts and over meals. Indeed, Juvenal said that bread and circuses were all that people needed to give up their liberties to the government over them. Again, laughter itself is not the problem; Jesus just told His disciples to rejoice in that day and leap for joy when they are rejected for His sake, and He promised laughter to come. The warning is for those who find their happiness here in this life; they will only find mourning and weeping in the life to come.

Finally, woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. Again, Jesus cannot mean that every instance of being spoken well of is wrong. In 1 Timothy 3:7, Paul says that a qualification for being an elder is that “he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” But that is not what Jesus means here. We should seek to live a peace with everyone, but the gospel will necessarily bring rejection. Kent Hughes notes:

If we are accepted and popular with people who live according to the spirit of the present evil age, we may in fact belong to that evil age and thus share in its judgment. The desire for popularity can become a self-focused spiritual aesthetic. (228)

 THE BIG IDEA

Now that we have briefly passed through the text, let us assemble what we have learned and return to our big question: What is the purposes of these beatitudes and woes in Luke?

Here are two observations before I attempt to answer that question.

First, one of the key themes in this text is the juxtaposition between now and the time to come, between our current lives and eternity. Jesus is clearly wanting His disciples to view their present circumstances through an eternal lens, to have a heavenly vision of earthly things.

Second, these seem intended to, as the old saying goes, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. The beatitudes are balms of comfort to weary and suffering Christians, while the woes are goads and prods in the side of comfortable and prosperous Christians. Both are needed because both will always be present, even within the same congregation.

Thus, both this passage and Matthew’s beatitudes are intended for reflection and prayerful evaluation. However, Luke’s text does not give us the same kind of inner characteristics that ought to make us as children of God and citizens of His kingdom. No, these blessings and woes address outward, physical and material circumstances that are often beyond our control, and Jesus gives us the blessings and woes so that we might meditate on how we are responding to those circumstances. Are we joyful in the midst of suffering and want? Are we lowly and humble in the midst of plenty and ease?

Or perhaps we can express it like this: the Beatitudes in Matthew are a portrait for evaluating how spiritual or worldly our character is; Luke’s passage gives is a lens for evaluating how spiritual or worldly our thinking is. The world, after all, only thinks about the present pleasure. Its motto is “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). But God’s people have a higher vision that transcends their present circumstances. They know that many who are consider nothing in this world will be the great ones for all eternity and that many who are considered great in this world will be brought to nothing for all eternity.

And while there are plenty of examples in Scripture of God humbling the proud and exalting the humble, Jesus is the only real example that we need. For our sake, though He is Author of life, He became poor, He endured hunger, He wept, and He was hated, excluded, reviled, and called demonic. Yet through His cross, He triumphed and is now exalted over every name in all creation. By His death, He has conquered our sin, imputed His own righteousness to us, and made us children of God, co-heirs with Him. Indeed, Christ is working all things for our good that we may be glorified with Him. But for now, we must suffer with him.

Let us conclude with some words from J. C. Ryle:

Let us leave the whole passage with honest self-inquiry and self-examination. Let us ask ourselves what we think of the wonderful declarations that it contains. Can we subscribe to what our Lord says? Are we of one mind with Him?

Do we really believe that poverty and persecution, endured for Christ’s sake — are positive blessings? Do we really believe that riches and worldly enjoyments, and popularity among men, when sought for more than salvation, or preferred to the praise of God — are a certain curse? Do we really think that the favor of Christ, with trouble and the world’s persecution — is better than having money, and merriment, and a good name among men — without Christ?

These are most serious questions, and deserve a most serious answer. The passage before us is eminently one which tests the reality of our Christianity. The truths it contains, are truths which no unconverted man can love and receive. Happy are those who have found them truths by experience, and can say “Amen!” to all of our Lord’s declarations.