The Beatitudes: The Biblical Pattern of Christian Experience

The Fruit of the Spirit’s Convicting Work: An Intense Yearning for Jesus Christ and His Righteousness

We explained in our previous article that Christ’s choice of words is very deliberate here. In order to graphically illustrate for His hearers what constitutes a longing after divine righteousness, He refers to the most basic of all human desires, hungering and thirsting. Oh, how the magnificent wisdom of the Prophet of all prophets shines forth here!

First of all, it will at once be evident that this hungering and thirsting is an experience and not merely an intellectual notion. It is not merely a conclusion drawn from an intellectual knowledge of divine truth. Hungering and thirsting is not something you discuss intellectually; it is a deep-felt, experiential need. Such is also true of the hungering and thirsting of all who are wrought upon by the Holy Spirit who, as the great heavenly designer, with cunning workmanship prepares the sinner for the revelation of the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. Out of a heartfelt need the poor, mourning, and meek sinner yearns for righteousness, yearns to be restored into the favor and communion of God, yes, yearns for God Himself. Such a yearning is not discussed; such a yearning is experienced and causes the soul to cry out with Job, “Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!” (Job 6:8), and with the psalmist, “I have longed for Thy salvation, O LORD” (Psa. 119:174).

Oh, how the Father longs to see the elect sinner come to His Son, for there He can meet him! There He can unveil His loving countenance to them; there He can open to them His heart filled with His infinite love, which is from everlasting to everlasting.

Secondly, hunger and thirst are human desires that must be satisfied. God in His marvellous wisdom as Creator has designed the human body in such a manner that in order to receive the nourishment and liquid it needs, it will yearn for food and drink in such a fashion that man will not cease to pursue food and drink until his hunger and thirst have been satisfied. What is true in the natural realm is equally true in the spiritual. The nature of spiritual life, which originates in the very same Creator, is therefore also such that the person who is a partaker of that life cannot rest until his hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of Jesus Christ is satisfied with the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. Such a person cannot be satisfied with the fact that he hungers and thirsts. He cannot be satisfied with the fact that he is a missing person. He cannot cease to weep and cry after God until he has obtained that which he so sorely misses—God and His favor. In other words, such a person cannot cease until he may know that Jesus is his Savior, and until His righteousness has been applied to his soul. For only then will his deepest desire have been satisfied—to be reconciled with the God he loves and after whom he yearns with his whole being. Therefore, those who have been made to hunger and thirst after righteousness know something of what Jacob expressed, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me” (Gen. 32:26).

Having sought to explain why the poor, mourning, and meek sinner cannot let go of God until the deep need of his soul has been satisfied in Jesus Christ, there is nevertheless a deeper reason why such a sinner cannot let go of God. We cannot properly understand the nature and purpose of the experience of God’s children unless we view it first and foremost from God’s perspective. What is the deepest reason why this hungering and thirsting sinner cannot let go of God? It is because God cannot and will not let go of that sinner! The panting of the elect sinner after God is the inevitable fruit of God’s eternal panting after that elect sinner. Therefore, this intense yearning after God and the righteousness of His Son flows directly out of the sovereign good pleasure of a triune God. It is the infinite love of the Father which moves Him to send forth His Spirit in the heart of His elect, having as His singular objective to draw them to His Son. Oh, how the Father longs to see the elect sinner come to His Son, for there He can meet him! There He can unveil His loving countenance to them; there He can open to them His heart filled with His infinite love, which is from everlasting to everlasting. There He can kiss them with the kisses of His mouth, and there the barrier between God and the sinner is gone as righteousness and peace have kissed each other in the Son of His good pleasure. With the deepest reverence we may say, that when God and His child in the exercise of faith meet in the person of Jesus Christ, and when God may embrace that sinner in the arms of His eternal love, God’s eternal desire is fulfilled—namely, to manifest His love to that sinner whom He has loved with an everlasting love.

There we have the deepest reason why the hungering and thirsting of a seeking sinner must and shall be satisfied, for the Father will not cease to draw that sinner by His Spirit until he comes to His Son. That drawing work of the Father cannot miscarry, and therefore Jesus could declare emphatically, “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me” (John 6:37).

How blessed are you therefore indeed if you may know something of that hungering and thirsting after Jesus Christ and His righteousness! For that is at bottom the best and only reliable evidence that the Father Himself is teaching you, and that He has begun His good work in you. That yearning and panting after God Himself, so frequently expressed in the Psalms, is the unmistakable evidence of God’s yearning after you. That is why He is drawing you, and that is why His drawing is irresistible, for that drawing proceeds from His very heart. Therefore, by the operation of the Spirit of Christ, the Father makes His Son so irresistible to you—so irresistible that from the bottom of your heart you cry out, “Give me this Jesus, for else I die!”

It now ought to be self-evident why Jesus states that such hungry and thirsty souls shall be filled; it is His Father’s eternal desire and good pleasure. It is His eternal desire to fill with His love those whom He has loved with an everlasting love. That is the very promise of the covenant of grace, “I will abundantly bless her provision: I will satisfy her poor with bread” (Psa. 132:15). This promise cannot fail for then the Father would deny Himself. The Father has forever bound Himself, by oath, to that covenant, the Mediator of that covenant, and the members of that covenant—the citizens of His kingdom.

Therefore, you who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, keep courage, for thus “saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word” (Isa. 66:2). This Jehovah who has had eternal thoughts of peace towards you shall most certainly also satisfy you with bread.

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

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