Blessed are the meek (Matthew 5:5)

One day Jonathan Edwards was out for a walk and as was his custom he was meditating on God. When we read his writings, we will observe that he often had profound thoughts about the Lord. Concerning this occasion he recorded: ‘And as I was walking there, and looked up on the sky and clouds, there came into my mind a sweet sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I knew not how to express. I seemed to see them both in a sweet conjunction – majesty and meekness joined together. It was a sweet, and gentle, and holy majesty, and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high and great and holy gentleness. After this, my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweetness.’ What do we make of that description of the Lord? Is it appropriate to consider that God is meek and gentle?

While it is true that each of the Beatitudes is counter-cultural, it is likely that the third of the Beatitudes stands out the most because it is generally assumed that a meek person will get very little in life. It is assumed by most that such a person will be bypassed or trampled on in the stampede up the ladder. Yet that is not the emphasis that the Bible gives concerning the meek. Rather they have a great future.

Meekness is not a common word today and usually it is understood as gentleness. One explanation of their connection is that meekness describes the attitude and gentleness describes the action. It can help us understand the importance of this concept by considering some verses that say surprising details about gentleness.

Three surprising uses of gentleness

First, David in Psalm 18, when speaking to God, says that it was God’s gentleness that made David great: ‘You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great’ (v. 35). I wonder what David meant by that affirmation. It must include the idea of condescension, that the almighty God came down to David’s level. There is also the idea of careful consideration of how best to help David in the various circumstances in which he found himself. Moreover, even in verse 35 itself, we can see the feature of patient assistance, of being held up by God in difficult circumstances. It is comforting to know that God deals with his people in such a way.

It is good for us to think of the gentleness of God. Take the way that the Holy Spirit deals with sinners when convicting them of their sins. He could overwhelm us with the awfulness of them, indeed we might assume that will be the case, but often he deals gently with sinners. I read a description of a revival in Breadalbane which described those convicted of their sins as making ‘a gentle sweet mourning heard in every corner’. Maybe that was how he worked in your life. Or we can take the chastisement of the heavenly Father – the psalmist says he does not deal with us in the way that our sin deserves. Or we can think of the numerous times when Jesus spoke gently to sinners such as the woman taken in adultery, or when he greeted Mary Magdalene after his resurrection, or when he restored Peter after his denial of a connection between them.

Second, we should note the description that is given of the greatest of the Israelites, Moses. Although he was the leader of the people, he is said to be the meekest man in all the earth (Num. 12:3). What can be said about the gentleness of Moses? It was evidence that he had become a changed man through God’s grace. When we are first introduced to him as an adult, he is not a gentle man; rather he was willing to commit murder when he killed the Egyptian official who was abusing an Israelite slave. Moreover, when we consider the decades in which he had to deal with the Israelites, one aspect of his character that is obvious is his patience despite numerous occasions of great provocation. We can suggest numerous reasons why Moses had this patient trait, but the obvious answer is that he was marked by intercessory prayer. Accompanying his patience was his meekness.

Third, the greatest description of gentleness in the Bible is found in the set of verses that state what Jesus thought about himself. He said in Matthew 11:28-30: ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

What can be said about this amazing invitation? Candlish reminds us that it ‘is not merely a general commendation of himself as a teacher or tutor, at whose feet it may be very pleasant to sit, and under whose mild eye and gentle hand it may be a privilege to be trained. It specially marks him out as fitted and qualified to be our instructor because he possesses himself the very acquirements or accomplishments that we need to learn, and because he makes us one with himself in them all. It is his own meekness, – his own lowliness in heart, – that he is to impart to us, and we are to learn of him; it is the very mind that was in him to be in us. And finally, when he says, “I will give you rest,” it is his own rest that he proposes to share with us; – for the promise left to us is the promise of entering his “rest” (Heb. 4:1).’

Obviously, Jesus is patient with his people as he works in their lives. He does not deal with them as their sins deserve. We can also deduce another three consequences of his words. One is that the intended outcome is inevitable – the gentle teacher will produce gentle disciples. The second is that gentleness is a clear expression of Christlikeness. And the third consequence is that gentleness and restfulness are closely linked in Christian experience.

Some comments about gentleness

First, gentleness is part of the fruit of the Spirit. We are familiar with the list of graces that Paul mentions in Galatians 5, and which together make up the fruit of the Spirit. This means that every Christian should be a gentle person. Gentleness will mark his words and his actions. It is a great contradiction for a Christian not to be gentle.

Second, it was the opinion of one author that ‘Perhaps no grace is less prayed for, or less cultivated, than gentleness.’ Maybe it is worth asking ourselves whether we have ever prayed to God to make us gentle, or whether when we know we are about to meet someone that we have given thought to ensure that we will be gentle when the meeting takes place.

Third, heavenly wisdom reveals itself in a gentle manner. James mentions this detail when he contrasts heavenly and earthly wisdom. He says that ‘the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere’ (Jas. 3:17).

Fourth, Paul when writing the Book of Ephesians follows his usual pattern of writing first about doctrine and then about practice. In the first three chapters he describes wonderful doctrines and Christian blessings. Then from chapters 4-6 he calls his readers to Christian living and in those chapters he writes about service, use of gifts, life in the home, and spiritual warfare. But what does Paul say is the link between those two sections of doctrine and practice? At the beginning of chapter four he writes: ‘I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Eph. 4:1-3). The apostle indicates that an essential and ongoing feature of a right Christian response is gentleness, whether towards God for his grace or towards other believers with whom we interact.

Fifth, Paul loved a genuine witness of divine grace in the lives of the members of the churches that he planted and looked after. One church that seems to have made constant progress in the spiritual life was the congregation in Philippi. What did Paul say about its witness? Of course, he said several things in the letter he wrote to them, and one of them was to ‘let your gentleness be known to everyone’ (Phil. 4:5). The word used by Paul means reasonableness, but they possess it because they are gentle in character. That is how gentleness reveals itself in interactions with others.

Sixth, meekness or gentleness seems to be composed of several features. One of them is acceptance of the authority of God’s Word over the behaviour of his people. A second is acceptance of God’s providence in their lives, which varies from person to person. A third is

The promised blessing

The promise that Christians will inherit the earth seems to be taken from Psalm 37:11: ‘But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.’ When that psalm was composed, God’s people in Israel lived in their inheritance in Canaan, but often they did not have peace, with the outcome that often their enjoyment of the inheritance was prevented. They looked forward to a time when the inheritance would be so secure that they would have permanent peace. That would happen when the Messiah came.

As we look at this promise, we can see that it is connected to Christians being heirs of God. They become that when they believe in Jesus and become joint-heirs with him. Jesus here informs his disciples that their inheritance is not some land in the Middle East. Rather, it will be the earth and all of them will have it. What does the Saviour have in mind? What will be involved in receiving this inheritance?

Elsewhere in the New Testament, we find answers to those questions. Peter, in his second letter, mentioned how he and his readers were looking for a new heaven and new earth. Paul says more about this future state in Romans 8 where he wrote that the whole creation is stretching out its neck in anticipation of the glory that is going to be given to the people of God. The creation was cursed because of man’s sin, but the last Adam (Jesus) through his life, death and resurrection has recovered the prospect for his people. They will receive it together, which is why even those who have gone to heaven have not yet received it. But one day we will hear Jesus say, ‘Behold, I make all things new,’ and when he says those words, the new heaven and new earth will appear.

The gentle are marked by patience, as we have seen in the way God dealt with David, how Jesus deals with his people, how the Holy Spirit works in their lives, how Moses interacted with the Israelites, how believers live by wisdom, how they clothe themselves with gentleness as they witness, and by how they wait for the promised inheritance. Because that is the case, they can be content because they know that the best is yet to be.