The Christian Character
In the Beatitudes, our Lord is depicting and delineating the Christian man and the Christian character. He is obviously searching us and testing us, and it is good that we should realize that, if we take the Beatitudes as a whole, it is a kind of general test to which we are being subjected. How are we reacting to these searching tests and probing? They really tell us everything about our Christian profession. And if I dislike this kind of thing, if I am impatient with it, if I dislike this personal analysis and testing; it simply means that my position is entirely contrary to that of the New Testament man.
But if I feel, on the other hand, that though these things do search and hurt me, nevertheless they are essential and good for me, if I feel it is good for me to be humbled, and that it is a good thing for me to be held face-to-face with this mirror, which not only shows me what I am, but what I am in the light of God’s pattern for the Christian man, then I have a right to be hopeful about my state and condition.
A man who is truly Christian never objects to being humbled. The first thing that is said about him is that he should be ‘poor in spirit’, and if he objects to be shown that there is nothing in him, then he is not truly Christian.
The Beatitudes remind us of certain primary, central truths about the whole Christian position. The first is this: The Christian gospel places all its primary emphasis upon being, rather than doing. The gospel puts a greater weight upon our attitude than upon our actions.
Throughout the Sermon on the Mount our Lord is concerned about disposition: Later, He is going to talk about actions; but before He does that, He describes the true Christian’s character and disposition. We have to “BE” Christian before we can act as Christians. I am to be dominated by the truth because I have been made a Christian by the operation of the Holy Spirit within.
Again, I quote that striking statement of the Apostle Paul which surely puts it so perfectly: “I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” He is in control, not I; so that I must not think of myself as a natural man who is controlling his attitude and trying to be Christian in various ways. No. His Spirit controls me at the very center of my life, controls the very spring of my being, the source of my every activity. You cannot read these Beatitudes without coming to that conclusion.
The Christian faith is not something on the surface of a man’s life, it is not merely a kind of coating or veneer. No, it is something that has been happening in the very center of his personality. That is why the New Testament talks about rebirth and being born again, about a new creation and about receiving a new nature.
It is something that happens to a man in the very center of his being; it controls all his thoughts, all his outlook, all his imagination, and, as a result, all his actions as well.
All our activities, therefore, are the result of this new nature, this new disposition which we have received from God through the Holy Spirit. That is why these Beatitudes are so searching. They tell us, in effect, that as we live our ordinary lives, we are declaring all the time exactly what we are. That is what makes this matter so serious.
By the way we react we manifest our spirit; and it is the spirit that proclaims the man in terms of Christianity.
—Martin Lloyd Jones
In the book of Revelation, the Lord dictated a letter to the apostle John for the church at Ephesus. It begins: “I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name and have not grown weary” (Revelation 2:2, 3). That sounds really good, doesn’t it? The Lord is aware of all the good things they’re doing in his name. But Jesus didn’t stop there. He continued: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4). He goes on to remind them of that first love they had, calling them to ‘repent’ and return to it. Lloyd-Jones in this devotional thought reminds us “The Christian gospel places all its primary emphasis upon being, rather than doing.” May we be called back to love—our love for God and others—that is the work and outworking of our faith. May our “doing” flow from our “being,” and our love for God be the source of our “doing.” —DH
—David Hoskins, Founder & Care Guide, Sanctuary Clinics