Matthew 5:9

‘Blessed ones, the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.'

The final description in the list is of those who seek to make peace, because they have been blessed by God. God has worked within them and given them peace, contentment and wellbeing (shalom) and so they seek in the right way to reconcile people with each other and to calm troubled waters. They are peacemakers. Their great desire is that of establishing harmony among men and women by dealing with the problems that lie between them. They are to ‘seek peace and pursue it' (Psalms 34:14; 1 Peter 3:11). They are to seek to fulfil Paul's dictum, ‘If it be possible, as much as lies in you, be at peace with all men' (Romans 12:18). Such a suggestion would not have been seen as good news by many Galileans. They had a reputation as turbulent rebels. They hated the Romans and took every opportunity to hit back at them. For it to be suggested that they should be peacemakers would thus have riled them beyond bearing. But it was an essential part of Jesus' message. He was here as the Prince of Peace.

And He wanted to remove from His disciples any idea that He might be here to make war. He wanted them to see that He had come to reconcile men to God, not to set them at each other's throats. Although having said that He was a realist. And so He also later warned them that His coming would spark off dissension and hatred (Matthew 10:34), it would set people at the throats of Christians. But that was not to be the result of the activity of the blessed, and was not in mind here. That would come about through the unblessed. At this point He was laying a foundation of peacemaking.

But even greater than the desire to make peace between men should be the desire of those whom God has blessed to bring harmony between men and God. They should love their enemies (Matthew 5:44). They should long that all men and women might find peace with God. For this is in the end what making peace and producing wellbeing is all about. In Old Testament terms to proclaim peace is to declare the Good News of salvation (Isaiah 52:7). It is to seek to bring men to God. It is therefore to proclaim the coming of the Servant of the Lord (Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12) and Prophet (Isaiah 61:1). For there can be no real permanent peace without reconciliation to God. Thus they do not try to suggest that such peace is available without repentance, saying ‘peace, peace, where there is no peace' (Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11), because they know that that would be foolish. For above all they want to bring men and women into a peace with God that is true and genuine. So they proclaim only what is true, even when that does not satisfy others. It is not peace at any price.

Such people then walk in peace and at peace, while proclaiming the whole truth. Their feet are shod with the shoes of the Good News of peace (Ephesians 6:15). And they follow the Prince of Peace and His ways (Isaiah 9:6), and require that others do also. They seek to bring men and women into the Kingly Rule of God, so making peace. They seek to break down the walls of partition between men by bringing them to Christ (Ephesians 2:14). And by this they thus reveal themselves as true sons of God, in that they are behaving like God, and like His Son, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Thus here the term ‘sons of God' would seem largely to indicate those who are declared as sharing the same aims and purposes as God, and as behaving as He does (compare Matthew 5:45).

We thus see here an attitude completely contrary to that at Qumran. There all hope was for the war that would drive out their enemies and establish God's people (themselves). They exulted in the idea. Their idea was peace for themselves and destruction for their enemy. But Jesus' attitude is revealed as the very opposite of that. His people were to seek to make peace, both between God and man, and between man and man, applying it in the end to all men who would respond. And in general it would not be a very popular idea.

But where do we find the idea of ‘sons of God' in the Old Testament, other, that is, than the bene elohim (the ‘sons of the elohim (God') who are angels? And why should the term be specifically connected with peacemakers?

One place in the Old Testament where Israel are seen as the son of God is found in Exodus 4:22, where Israel is depicted as His firstborn son, something which is in mind in Hosea 11:1, which is in turn cited in Matthew 2:15. But there the thought is of the singular ‘son'. Israel was there God's corporate son. So if Jesus had had Exodus 4 in mind He could have used the singular ‘son'. On the other hand there are other places where Israel are described in terms of being His sons. The idea is, for example, found in Deuteronomy 14:1, ‘you are the children (LXX - ‘sons) of YHWH your God', where it is an argument used for showing why they should not do undesirable things. A similar use is found in Hosea 1:10 (compare 2 Corinthians 6:18) where the restored of Israel will be called ‘sons of the living God' because they have been restored and are to be abundantly blessed in numbers as a result of their restoration to God, a verse which, in 2 Corinthians, is connected with their being set apart as pure and separated to God. All these examples demonstrate that the term ‘sons of God' denotes a people of especial holiness and purity, and this might well be seen as going along with being peacemakers.

But the place where ‘a son' is connected with peace making is in Isaiah 9:6. There the Son who is to be born will be the Prince of Peace. So Jesus' point here may well be that those who are like the Son in being peacemakers will themselves be seen to be true ‘sons of God', enjoying their sonship through Him (see Galatians 4:4; Romans 8:9). And they will thus be identified as God's sons in the everlasting Kingdom. (Compare Hosea 1:10 which is spoken of the restoration of those who had previously gone astray).

We may thus summarise the seven beatitudes as indicating the attitude wrought in men by God as a result of His work in their hearts, an attitude required by Jesus to be continued in His disciples (and us). And this work that God has brought about in them is so that they will continue to be like this, and enjoy the present blessedness and future rewards that will certainly be theirs. They describe what His disciples have become through repentance and entry into the Kingly Rule of Heaven, and give them something by which they can measure the genuineness of their own salvation. And the result will be that as they keep their minds fixed on things above they will become more and more like this, with God more and more working in their hearts to will and to do of His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13), and as a result they will be truly blessed, both in the present and in the eternal Kingdom. And all this is in the light of what God has done within them through the Holy Spirit at work through Jesus (Matthew 3:11) and because Jesus is saving them from their sins (Matthew 1:21).