Sermon On The Mount

The Merciful

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 03- 25

Genre:

Track: 03

Dictation Name: Sermon on the Mount - 03

Location/Venue:

Year: 1980

Almighty God our heavenly Father we gather again to praise Thee, to rejoice in Thy word and to give thanks unto Thee that the government is upon Thy shoulders. Enable us in this day to stand in the confidence that these powers of darkness shall be overthrown, that the heathen rage in vain, that it is Thy kingdom and Thy government that shall prevail. Bless us now as we give ourselves to the study of Thy word and grant that we behold wondrous things out of Thy law. Be with those of our number who are ill and heal them of their infirmities. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Our scripture today is Matthew 5:7 and our subject is: The Merciful. We have been going through the Sermon on the Mount and we are now going back to analyze particular verses or words in order to understand the full meaning of the Sermon on the Mount. In this case the word that is our concern is mercy and merciful. Matthew 5:7.

“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.”

The Greek word for mercy is ‘eleos’. We have that in an old fashioned English word ‘[unknown] which means charitable. An [unknown] organization is a charitable organization. The Greek word eleos means compassion or mercy. However, the way it is used in the New Testament has very little reference to the Greek meaning. We know that because in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word eleos is used as the translation for a Hebrew word [unknown], mercy, but there is a difference between the Hebrew word and the Greek word and we know that in Israel, in the bible, and in our Lord’s day the meaning of the Greek word eleos was totally alien to the thinking of the time.

Rather it was the Hebrew word, [unknown]. Now, that word can be translated in a number of ways as piety, as beauty, as favor, as loving kindness, as mercy, as pity and much more. But whatever the translation it always is based on a legal concept. It has reference to the covenant. Now when we think of the word mercy it has no legal meaning for us. When we think of someone being merciful we feel that in a sudden outburst of human feelings they act charitably and generously towards another person. But the biblical concept is very, very different. Mercy is an act within a covenant fellowship or a family circle and it is inseparable in the biblical meaning from grace and truth. It refers to the covenant relationship of man to man, of friend to friend, of people to leader, of servants to employers, of neighbor to neighbor, of a covenant man to a stranger, to the poor and to the unfortunate. But in every case that involves a legal relationship, a covenant relationship. Now what is a covenant? Well a covenant is a treaty, it is a legal relationship where two people agree to do all things necessary to help the other, to give their life for the other person. It is a total relationship. It makes them a blood brother, with this difference: you can break with your brother by birth but you can never break with a blood brother. Mercy has reference to the covenant. The modern definition of mercy associates it with humanitarianism. The biblical has reference to holy peoples, covenant men and women.

Even a liberal scholar like [unknown] has said and I quote:

“Mercy given to man was homage rendered to the Lord.” Unquote.

Now to understand the meaning of blessed are the merciful let’s look back into pagan times at man’s relationship to god in paganism, or to the gods, literally. It was a contractual relationship rather than a covenant relationship. God’s covenant with man is a covenant of mercy and of law, a covenant of grace. For man to try to add anything to God’s covenant whether it be a law or anything else is to insist that he is on an equality with God. Now Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest Hebrew scholar of our time and a professor at a rabbinical school, a liberal also, none the less gives us the truth concerning the meaning of mercy and he says that it presupposed relationships, relationships of six kinds. First, a relationship by blood, marriage, tribe, or clan. Second, the relationship between a host and a guest. In the world of those days and up until fairly recent times in many parts of the world if you allowed a person to eat at your table then you had a relationship because eating together was seen as communion, as the bible does. You could not thereafter have anything but a covenant relationship with that man. I think I told some of you some time ago, a couple of years ago, of a case of the American who was the successful man in bringing Arabian horses to this country. For generations people had tried to get Arabian horses unsuccessfully. No one in Arabia would sell them.

A hundred years ago an American went over there determined to get some Arabian horses and bring them back and breed them. He was a man of some patience and he simply did nothing except to make friends until finally a prominent sheikh invited him to have a meal with him and with that he was in and he could ask for some Arabian horses and it was granted. In fact, because there was the bond of salt as it is called there between himself and that sheikh, when sometime later in another part of Arabia a man cheated this American the sheikh made a special trip over there to whip the man publicly. His honor required it. Now, mercy presupposes a relationship, first as we said between blood relatives, relatives by marriage, by clan or tribe, second between a host and a guest, third between allies and their relatives, fourth between friends, fifth between a ruler and subjects, and sixth between those who render help to someone in need and the persons whom that help then places under obligation. There is mutuality, a reprocity in the whole concept of mercy. Loyalty and duty are closely related to mercy. We encounter the word mercy hundreds of times in the Old Testament, sometimes it is translated as kindness, as when Boaz tells Ruth ‘blessed be thou of the Lord my daughter, for thou hast shown more kindness in the latter end then in the beginning. In as much as thou followest not young man whether poor or rich.’ Mercy is thus a legal concept in the bible, it means that there is a bond, a common life. That to extend mercy to someone means that you are going to establish a bond between yourself and them even though they be a total stranger.

That they are now under obligation to you and know it. And you are under a continuing obligation to them, having helped them. In other words, mercy as [unknown] said and I quoted him earlier involves in the bible a legal bond. Now this to us in our day and age seems cold, strange. We want to think of mercy as something emotional, having nothing to do with the law. This is partly because for us law has ceased to mean the word of God and it means something like the IRS or Sacramento, or Congress. A lot of laws that make no sense, have no relationship to truth. All the regulations that are issued by various federal and state agencies have no relationship to truth. I have often used the illustration of how in 1930 if you had walked down the street with a bar of gold and a bottle of whiskey you could have been arrested for having the bottle of whiskey. In 1960, thirty years later, you would have been arrested for having the bar of gold! But not the whiskey. Each in term was at one time or another illegal! But neither law had any relationship to truth. And the overwhelming majority of laws on the books of counties, states and federal agencies and governments have no relationship to truth. This is why for us law is a cold impersonal and a kind of dead thing. But not so in the scripture. Law has relationship to scripture, to God’s word from cover to cover it is His law and we are to understand this as a law book. Whatever God says is binding and therefore it is law. And what God’s word is is also grace, it is His mercy to us. So that in the bible mercy is not something we give and pass by, it establishes a relationship or it presupposes one and therefore it is closely related to law.

It is interesting that the Hebrew word for law, torah, can mean instruction. It can also have the connotation of love…when we instruct our children we love them. We’re laying down the law to our child but it is because we love our child! So when the Bible speaks about God’s torah, His law, it has the meaning of instruction but also of love and of kindness and God’s torah, His law, is mercy and we are to manifest that same mercy. He has by His grace established a bond with us and by our mercy we establish bonds one to another. This is why the Bible commands us to show mutual forbearance. What does forbearance mean? Why it means that we realize we’re not perfect, that our friends are not perfect and we expect mercy for our faults and we give mercy for their faults, it’s a mutual thing, there is reciprocity. In other words, in the Bible, mercy is an aspect of the tie that binds our hearts in love and our Lord says blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy, reciprocity. When we are merciful one to another we not only receive mercy from others but from God which is most important, and so it is that we cannot sentimentalize mercy or modernize the concept, it is set in the framework of law. Law in the Bible is not antinomian, not anti-law. To illustrate the one point further the word mercy is often translated as kindness and this is equality, [unknown], kindness, that is often spoken about in the bible in terms of marriage. Now, marriage is not an easy relationship. It’s the most difficult relationship in life as well as in some respects the easiest and the most blessed because for two people with their faults, frailties and sins to live in the close contact or communism that marriage is, the only form of communism that can work, requires a great deal of kindness, mercy, reciprocity.

It’s a legal relationship too; it is not one you can walk away from readily. We see there the unity of mercy and of law, of kindness, of reciprocity, thus when our Lord pronounces the blessedness that is upon the merciful this is the meaning that the Bible conveys to us when we understand what the word is. Let us pray.

Almighty God our heavenly Father we thank Thee that Thou hast been merciful to us. That in Jesus Christ Thy mercy has been made manifest and that Thou hast established a relationship with us and in Thy mercy made us Thy children by the adoption of grace. Make us merciful one to another, joyful in our relationship and filled in all things with loving kindness and forbearance. This we ask, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson, first of all? Yes?

[Question] Sometimes church people get really mad at their children and totally disown them, you know like they’re dead, now if this is true they wouldn’t be able to do that, would they?

[Rushdoony] Well yes, if a person despises love and mercy then they are, the bible says, for certain offenses to be cut off.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes exactly. In terms of that Old Testament requirement that for certain offenses where they show no reciprocity, no mutuality, no faith, it says they are to be cut off. The Hebrews and the orthodox Jews to this day read the serve of the dead over a child who is totally lawless and delinquent and not unless in the future he repents and come back and makes restitution is he treated as again alive. He has cut himself off from mercy deliberately.

Any other questions? On any other subjects?

Along the same line when our Lord was asked by Peter how often shall my brother be forgiven, and our Lord said seventy times seven, now that’s a good illustration of what we’re talking about because the Lord forgive means charges dropped because satisfaction has been rendered, you see, it again has a legal reference in terms of the biblical law restitution. If somebody does wrong to me and then makes restitution then I have to forgive them. But you don’t forgive them if they don’t. In criminal matters it means that if a person steals a hundred dollars, restores the hundred dollars plus a hundred, which is what the bible requires restitution has to be two fold to fivefold depending on the type of offense, they have to be forgiven seventy times seven. But of course if you have to make restitution double to fivefold you are not going to sin that many times, it is too expensive. It was in terms of the law of restitution which was once the law in this country and still is in certain federal offenses. But the proverb says crime does not pay, it certainly does not if you are required to make restitution. Forgive could mean and once in the Bible does mean charges deferred for the time being. The word on the cross, father forgive them, these Roman soldiers, defer the charges for the time being, for they know not what they do. We sentimentalize so much of the language of the Bible. Well if there are no further questions we will close our meeting and meet again two weeks from hence.