The Beatitudes: The Biblical Pattern of Christian Experience

Beatitude #4: Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness (2)

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

-Matthew 5:6

Introduction

In Hebrews 11:6 we read, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him.” These words declare plainly that faith and its exercise are of fundamental importance, the exercise of faith being the very heartbeat of spiritual life and Christian experience. As a matter of fact, the writer of Hebrews clearly implies that the absence of faith displeases the Lord. The truth of these words is confirmed in the lives of all God’s children. What strife and darkness they must endure when unbelief has the upper hand—a darkness when all the beasts of the forest come forth and when Satan seems to have free play! The most grievous consequence of unbelief, however, is the hiding of God’s loving countenance, a countenance which they so delight to behold. How bitter is the price they must pay for unbelief! God’s children are therefore experien-tially acquainted with the truth of these words, namely, that without faith they cannot please the Lord.

However, they may also know from experience how pleasing it is to the Lord when they do exercise faith—when they flee to His Son for refuge and take hold of His righteousness. Then they may behold the friendly countenance of God unveiled in the Lord Jesus Christ, and taste something of His unfathomable love for them. Then they may experience that nothing so honors and pleases the Lord as when sinners by faith make use of His beloved Son. How richly the Lord rewards those sinners, for He will fill their souls to overflowing with His love and will satisfy them with His goodness! Not only does the exercise of faith open the door to the very heart of God, but in Christ God draws near to His child, embraces him in the arms of His everlasting love, and kisses him with the kisses of His mouth. With the deepest reverence we may say that in the exercise of faith God and His elect may embrace each other in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This explains at once why Christ has assigned a pivotal and central position to the beatitude we are currently considering. As we observed in our previous article, this hungering and thirsting after righteousness is Christ’s definition of the initial phase of the exercise of faith—an experience which will culminate in being filled to overflowing with the love of God which passes all understanding. And thus Christ, as the Author of all true experience teaches us explicitly, by way of the beatitudes, that all Spirit-wrought experience revolves around the exercise of faith. By His Spirit He makes room for the exercise of faith, exercises faith, and brings forth the fruits of faith. Or to use the words of the beatitudes: poor, mourning, and meek sinners will hunger and thirst after the righteousness of Christ, and having been filled with the love of God they shall manifest the fruits of being merciful, pure in heart, and of being peacemakers.

Since this beatitude represents the very core of Christian experience, its words are of cardinal importance. In our previous article we observed that these words are expressive of the experience of the sinner, who having been fully stripped of his own righteousness by the discovering ministry of God’s Spirit, longs with an intense yearning for the righteousness of Christ. We concluded furthermore that this yearning is ultimately the elect sinner’s yearning after God Himself—a yearning to be in right relationship with Him again and to live rightly before Him in true holiness.

Let us now enlarge upon some of the initial conclusions we have drawn concerning the exercise of faith, and seek to glean what Christ is teaching us here about the chief activity of the Spirit’s saving work.

The Sole Objective of the Spirit’s Convicting Work: The Exercise of Faith in Jesus Christ

The first truth which presents itself to us is that the exercise of saving faith cannot and will not occur unless there is experiential acquaintance with the first three beatitudes. No sinner will ever need Jesus in truth unless he is in some measure experientially acquainted with his spiritual poverty, grieves over his sin, and in meekness has learned to own his guilt in light of the attributes of God. In other words, the experience of deliverance will always be preceded by the experience of our misery. Sinners who hunger and thirst after Jesus know whythey hunger and thirst after Him. They yearn for Him and He is so exceedingly precious to them precisely because He fully meets the deep need of their soul—a need made known to them by the discovering work of God’s Spirit. This is the singular method God employs in the hearts of all His people, a method to which the Lord clearly alludes in Isaiah 66:2: “But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor (poor in spirit)and of a contrite spirit (who mourns),and trembleth at My word (who is meek).”

Secondly, it is evident that righteousness is the objective of the exercise of faith. In light of our previous article I can be very brief here. The elect sinner, wrought upon by God’s Spirit, does not primarily flee to Jesus to obtain the forgiveness of sin and the blotting out of his guilt, but rather he flees to Him and hungers and thirsts for Him because, on the basis of forgiven sin, he can be righteous again—that is, the breach between God and his soul can be filled. That is the critical issue in saving experience! The soul who is drawn to Jesus by God’s Spirit yearns to be restored in God’s favor and fellowship. Thus we may say that God’s children need Jesus because they need God—they need to have Him as their portion again, to be in a right relationship with Him, and to serve Him aright. Therefore they yearn for righteousness, a righteousness which is the rich benefit annexed to saving faith. Scripture bears witness to this throughout its contents: “And he believedin the LORD; and He counted it to him for righteousness”(Gen. 15:6); “But to him that…believeth…his faithis counted for righteousness…eventhe righteousness which is of faith” (Rom 4:5; 9:30); “For with the heart man believethunto righteousness”(Rom 10:10).

We must furthermore conclude that as essential and crucial as the saving experience of our misery is as a preparation for the exercise of faith, it is not the goal and substance of saving experience. The saving knowledge of our misery is the way by which the Spirit leads the sinner to Christ and causes him to experience salvation, but it is not salvation itself. Any acquaintance with our misery which does not culminate in the exercise of faith is not the fruit of the Spirit’s saving work. The Spirit’s work is progressive and He will therefore not rest until He leads the sinner, whose heart He has prepared for Christ, to Christ. It is only this coming to Christ as a poor, undone sinner which truly validates our experience as being the work of God. God’s Spirit does not only lay the foundation for the exercise of faith, but He will never fail to proceed to work faith itself; He will never do a half work. What we read in Zechariah 4:9 is also applicable to the experience of God’s children, namely, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it” (Zech 4:9). This is clearly underlined in the following passages as well: “Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the LORD” (Isa. 66:9); “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).

And thus the critical question for us is not so much whether I am acquainted with my misery, but whether my acquaintance with my misery leads me to hunger and thirst after the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Then alone will there be evidence that I am truly taught of God, for “Every man…that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, Cometh unto Me”(John 6:45). How evident is the harmony between this passage and the beatitudes! Both clearly teach how the Lord leads His people. The question, “How does the Lord lead His people?” is answered most explicitly for us: The Lord always, without exception, leads His people to Christ!The Father’s drawing work by His Spirit will never fail to bring the sinner to the Son. That and that alone is the hallmark of the Father’s instruction in the hearts of all His people; He draws them to Christ. Therefore, even though we may perhaps have a hope that the Lord has begun a good work in us, we have no basis for any measure of assurance that God’s Spirit is truly savingly at work in us unless we know something of this coming to Christ—something of being irresistibly drawn by the Father to His irresistible Son—something of this hungering and thirsting after the Person of Jesus Christ and His impeccable righteousness.

Bartel Elshout is presently on leave of absence as evangelist, and is translating W. Brakel’sThe Christian’s Reasonable Service (Redelijke Godsdienst).

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