First Beatitude: Lifelong felicity (birthday cake word for daily happiness) and fortune (spiritual, sometimes physical, more so eternal) belong to those bold enough to brave the compartments of their lives, which cry not just for attention but careful improvement.
Happiness is in God's promise to us as we attend to the neglected areas in our lives and in others' too; this happiness rises on the comfort God bestows for our having the audacity to preen the dirt out of our life spaces.
4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted—This "mourning" must not be taken loosely for that feeling which is wrung from men under pressure of the ills of life, nor yet strictly for sorrow on account of committed sins. Evidently it is that entire feeling which the sense of our spiritual poverty begets; and so the second beatitude is but the complement of the first. Jameison Fausset Brown Bible Commentary
Taking an honest inquiry into where we truly are in our private lives can be painfully revealing-it can make for tears and sorrow, which run deep. Many times we may feel beyond repair in those areas, where we need to grow. But as our position is one of repentance, we can know assured that God values our inclination to improve. His is strength to be more; his is comfort as we follow through on cleaning house in our lives.
The mourning here is primarily the spiritual kind over sin in us and others but can apply to mourning we meet in loss and affliction as well. Loss and suffering can leave quite the stain.
Sin and its stain do leave indelible blotch marks in our lives; but Christ's comfort and happiness give power to rise and thrive again.
Comfort (counsel), pardon, peace, purity, and freedom is ours in our Paraclete the indwelling Spirit as we mourn our neglect and sin.
They shall be comforted.—The pronoun is emphatic. The promise implies the special comfort (including counsel) which the mourner needs; “comforted” he shall be with the sense of pardon and peace, of restored purity and freedom. We cannot separate the promise from the word which Christendom has chosen (we need not now discuss its accuracy) to express the work of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, still less from the yearning expectation that then prevailed among such of our Lord’s hearers as were looking for the “consolation”—i.e., the “comfort”—of Israel (Luke 2:25). Ellicot's Commentary for English Readers
Matthew 5:4. Blessed [or happy] are they that mourn — Namely, for their own sins and those of other men, and are steadily and habitually serious, watchful, and circumspect; for they shall be comforted — Even in this world, with the consolation that arises from a sense of the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, clear discoveries of his favour, and well-grounded, lively hopes of the heavenly inheritance, and with the full enjoyment of that inheritance itself in the world to come. Benson Commentary
Heaven is the joy of our Lord; a mountain of joy, to which our way is through a vale of tears. Such mourners shall be comforted by their God. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
Blessed are they that mourn - This is capable of two meanings: either, that those are blessed who are afflicted with the loss of friends or possessions, or that they who mourn over sin are blessed. As Christ came to preach repentance, to induce people to mourn over their sins and to forsake them, it is probable that he had the latter particularly in view. Compare 2 Corinthians 7:10. At the same time, it is true that the gospel only can give true comfort to those in affliction, Isaiah 61:1-3; Luke 4:18. Other sources of consolation do not reach the deep sorrows of the soul. They may blunt the sensibilities of the mind; they may produce a sullen and reluctant submission to what we cannot help: but they do not point to the true source of comfort. In the God of mercy only; in the Saviour; in the peace that flows from the hope of a better world, and there only, is there consolation, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 5:1. Those that mourn thus shall be comforted. So those that grieve over sin; that sorrow that they have committed it, and are afflicted and wounded that they have offended God, shall find comfort in the gospel. Through the merciful Saviour those sins may be forgiven. In him the weary and heavy-ladened soul shall find peace Matthew 11:28-30; and the presence of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, shall sustain them here John 14:26-27, and in heaven all their tears shall be wiped away, Revelation 21:4. Barnes Notes on the New Testament
I remember too well my time as a counselor on the Mercy Ships vessel Logos, where a lady, who had just experienced the pain and stain of a divorce took solace in the comfort of this passage. Every divorce has two guilty parties. Bewailing her sin and those of her husband; she lay hold on the promise in Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV with passion.
The world is mistaken in accounting the jocund and merry companions the only happy men; their mirth is madness, and their joy will be like crackling of thorns under a pot: but those are rather the happy men, who mourn; yea, such are most certainly happy, who mourn out of duty in the sense of their own sins, or of the sins of others, or who mourn out of choice rather to suffer afflictions and persecutions with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season. Though such sufferings do excite in them natural passions, yet it is a blessed mourning, for those are the blessed tears which God will wipe at last from his people’s eyes, and such are these. Matthew Poole's Commentary
Second Beautitude: He is pardon, purity, peace, and new-found freedom to live and love fully. Though we'll be stymied by sin and suffering we and others face; He is our strength (com-fort) to live happily.
Happiness is in God's promise to us as we attend to the neglected areas in our lives and in others' too; this happiness rises on the comfort God bestows for our having the audacity to preen the dirt out of our life spaces.
4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted—This "mourning" must not be taken loosely for that feeling which is wrung from men under pressure of the ills of life, nor yet strictly for sorrow on account of committed sins. Evidently it is that entire feeling which the sense of our spiritual poverty begets; and so the second beatitude is but the complement of the first. Jameison Fausset Brown Bible Commentary
Taking an honest inquiry into where we truly are in our private lives can be painfully revealing-it can make for tears and sorrow, which run deep. Many times we may feel beyond repair in those areas, where we need to grow. But as our position is one of repentance, we can know assured that God values our inclination to improve. His is strength to be more; his is comfort as we follow through on cleaning house in our lives.
The mourning here is primarily the spiritual kind over sin in us and others but can apply to mourning we meet in loss and affliction as well. Loss and suffering can leave quite the stain.
Sin and its stain do leave indelible blotch marks in our lives; but Christ's comfort and happiness give power to rise and thrive again.
Comfort (counsel), pardon, peace, purity, and freedom is ours in our Paraclete the indwelling Spirit as we mourn our neglect and sin.
They shall be comforted.—The pronoun is emphatic. The promise implies the special comfort (including counsel) which the mourner needs; “comforted” he shall be with the sense of pardon and peace, of restored purity and freedom. We cannot separate the promise from the word which Christendom has chosen (we need not now discuss its accuracy) to express the work of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, still less from the yearning expectation that then prevailed among such of our Lord’s hearers as were looking for the “consolation”—i.e., the “comfort”—of Israel (Luke 2:25). Ellicot's Commentary for English Readers
Matthew 5:4. Blessed [or happy] are they that mourn — Namely, for their own sins and those of other men, and are steadily and habitually serious, watchful, and circumspect; for they shall be comforted — Even in this world, with the consolation that arises from a sense of the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, clear discoveries of his favour, and well-grounded, lively hopes of the heavenly inheritance, and with the full enjoyment of that inheritance itself in the world to come. Benson Commentary
Heaven is the joy of our Lord; a mountain of joy, to which our way is through a vale of tears. Such mourners shall be comforted by their God. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
Blessed are they that mourn - This is capable of two meanings: either, that those are blessed who are afflicted with the loss of friends or possessions, or that they who mourn over sin are blessed. As Christ came to preach repentance, to induce people to mourn over their sins and to forsake them, it is probable that he had the latter particularly in view. Compare 2 Corinthians 7:10. At the same time, it is true that the gospel only can give true comfort to those in affliction, Isaiah 61:1-3; Luke 4:18. Other sources of consolation do not reach the deep sorrows of the soul. They may blunt the sensibilities of the mind; they may produce a sullen and reluctant submission to what we cannot help: but they do not point to the true source of comfort. In the God of mercy only; in the Saviour; in the peace that flows from the hope of a better world, and there only, is there consolation, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 5:1. Those that mourn thus shall be comforted. So those that grieve over sin; that sorrow that they have committed it, and are afflicted and wounded that they have offended God, shall find comfort in the gospel. Through the merciful Saviour those sins may be forgiven. In him the weary and heavy-ladened soul shall find peace Matthew 11:28-30; and the presence of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, shall sustain them here John 14:26-27, and in heaven all their tears shall be wiped away, Revelation 21:4. Barnes Notes on the New Testament
I remember too well my time as a counselor on the Mercy Ships vessel Logos, where a lady, who had just experienced the pain and stain of a divorce took solace in the comfort of this passage. Every divorce has two guilty parties. Bewailing her sin and those of her husband; she lay hold on the promise in Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV with passion.
1The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,a
2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
3and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord
for the display of his splendor.
The world is mistaken in accounting the jocund and merry companions the only happy men; their mirth is madness, and their joy will be like crackling of thorns under a pot: but those are rather the happy men, who mourn; yea, such are most certainly happy, who mourn out of duty in the sense of their own sins, or of the sins of others, or who mourn out of choice rather to suffer afflictions and persecutions with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season. Though such sufferings do excite in them natural passions, yet it is a blessed mourning, for those are the blessed tears which God will wipe at last from his people’s eyes, and such are these. Matthew Poole's Commentary
Second Beautitude: He is pardon, purity, peace, and new-found freedom to live and love fully. Though we'll be stymied by sin and suffering we and others face; He is our strength (com-fort) to live happily.
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