Blessedness

BLESSEDNESS.—Though the word ‘blessedness’ itself is never found in the recorded utterances of our Lord nor in the pages of the Gospels, the idea conveyed by it is very frequent. The adjective ‘blessed’ occurs in many contexts, and may, indeed, be termed a characteristic epithet on Christ’s lips. The thought expressed by it was inherited, like so many others, from the Old Testament. It is one of the dominant notes of the Psalter (Heb. אַשְׁרֵי ‘O the happiness of’), and constitutes one of the clearest and most common terms whereby to denote the ideal of Israel’s highest hopes. It was natural, therefore, that Jesus should take the word to set forth the great spiritual realities of His kingdom. It is in this sense that it meets us on the earliest pages of St. Matthew’s Gospel. The famous form of the sayings there collected (see art. Beatitudes) is one of the best-known sections of the narrative. So throughout the pages of the Gospels and elsewhere in the NT we find sayings cast in the same mould. All of them are expressive of the spiritual graces to be looked for in disciples of the kingdom (.g. Mat 11:6, Luk 7:23, Mat 24:46, Act 20:35), or are indicative of high privileges open to believers in its message (.g. Mat 13:16, Luk 11:28, Joh 20:29). Spiritual gladness is not only a note of service in the kingdom, but is to accompany all its true and inalienable rewards.

When we set ourselves to discover the significance of these sayings we are struck (1) by their spiritual character. Twice (Luk 11:27; Luk 14:15) beatitudes of a material character are uttered by our Lord’s hearers, and He at once rebukes them, and shows the necessity of fixing the desires of the heart on the inward and unseen. The main qualities designated and praised are meekness, purity, tenderness of heart, peaceableness, faith, patience, contrition, qualities which have no sooner been named than we are reminded of such lists of the fruits of the Spirit as we find in Gal 5:22-23 or Eph 4:30-32. Blessedness, as Christ presented it, was therefore a condition of the mind and heart that expressed an attitude of faith and love towards God and men, and obtained the reward with certainty even if the sowing were ‘in tears’ and the ‘interest far off.’

(2) Several of these sayings are marked by the sense of the futurity of their fulfilment. It is noteworthy that in the list of Beatitudes in Matthew 5, while the majority speak of futurity, ‘shall be comforted,’ ‘shall inherit,’ etc., one or two are written in the present tense, e.g. ‘theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ In Mat 5:10 we have the unique form of expression, ‘have been persecuted … theirs is.’ In St. Luke also we find the same commingling of present and future. This reflects a state of opinion that prevails throughout the Gospels, and gives rise to some of the greatest problems of interpretation, viz. in what sense the kingdom of God is to be understood—as a present or as a future condition. The Beatitudes are not only closely related to this question—they constitute a special aspect of it. As Titius puts it, ‘Over every saying of Jesus may be written the inscription, “Concerning the kingdom of God” ’ These sayings, then, reveal the nature of the kingdom in its twofold aspect as an inward, spiritual, present reality which exists, progresses, suffers, is in perpetual conflict; and, as a great future fulfilment, when conflict shall turn to peace, failure to victory, suffering to reward, and the inward desire and the outward attainment be one in the presence of perfected power.

Blessedness may therefore be regarded as one of the forms under which our Lord presented the character of His kingdom, and so it becomes an illuminative idea whereby to read the whole Gospel narratives. They all illustrate it. They all serve to make up its content. The word and thought derived from the Old Testament receive richer significance, and may be taken as equivalent to those other great terms, such as ‘eternal life’ and ‘the kingdom of heaven,’ under which, in the pages of St. John and St. Matthew, the great purposes of God in Christ are set forth.

Literature.—The articles ‘Blessedness’ and, in particular, ‘Sermon on the Mount’ in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible ; the articles in this Dictionary on Beatitudes, Kingdom of God, Eternal Life, Parables, etc.; the Commentaries on Matthew 5 and Luke 6, and on the other verses quoted, especially, for practical purposes, Morison, Bruce [in Expos. Gr. Test.]; Trench, The Sermon on the Mount. The most recent full commentary on Matthew is that of Zahn (in German). Books on the Kingdom of God should also be consulted, and, in particular, A. Titius, Die NT Lehre von der Seligkeit, etc., erster Teil, 1895; and Bousset, Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum. See also N. Smyth, Christian Ethics, 118ff.; J. B. Lightfoot, Sermons in St. Paul’s, 178; T. G. Selby, The Imperfect Angel, 25.

G. Currie Martin.

BLESSEDNESS.—The substantive does not occur either in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] or RV [Note: Revised Version.] of the OT, and has rightly been expunged from the RV [Note: Revised Version.] of Rom 4:6; Rom 4:9, Gal 4:15, where alone it had place in the AV [Note: Authorized Version.] of the NT. ‘Blessed’ and ‘happy’ are found in both Testaments as a varying translation of the same Heb. or Gr. word; ‘blessed’ greatly pre-ponderating. The Biblical blessedness represents a conception of happiness in which the religious relation is taken into account, with its emotions and its issues. In the OT these issues sometimes lie rather in material prosperity—life, long life, wealth, children, outward peace—but it is recognized that the conditions of these are spiritual (Psa 1:1-6), and in not a few instances the inward and spiritual is itself represented as the content of true happiness (e.g. Psa 32:1-11 [but see Psa 32:10], Pro 4:7 [but see Pro 3:2; Pro 3:10]).

In the NT the stress is decisively shifted to the spiritual content of blessedness, which may consist with the most adverse earthly conditions (Mat 5:10-11, Luk 6:22, Jas 1:12). The thought of compensation in future reward is not absent, even from the ‘Beatitudes’ (esp. in their Lukan form, Luk 6:20-26); but the reward is clearly only the consummation of a blessedness already attained by the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, etc. In the teaching of Jesus the summum bonum appears now as place in the Kingdom of God, now as eternal life (e.g. Mat 25:34, Mar 10:17; Mar 10:23, Joh 3:3-5; Joh 4:14), and both are described as a present possession (Luk 17:20-21, Joh 3:36).

Finally, in the Johannine writings the religious relation, already in the OT an essential condition of blessedness (e.g. Psa 2:12; Psa 33:12), is made supreme and in itself all-sufficing. Eternal life is personal union with Christ, revealer of the Father, by trust and fellowship (e.g. Joh 5:24; Joh 6:54; Joh 17:3, 1Jn 5:11-20). For so man becomes partaker of the life of Him who is Himself the ‘blessed God’ (1Ti 1:11; 1Ti 6:15).

S. W. Green.

bles´ed-nes: This translation of μακαρισμός, makarismós (a word signifying “beatification” or “the ascription of blessing”), is used but three times, in Rom 4:6, Rom 4:9, and Gal 4:15, in the King James Version only. In the first two instances it refers to the happy state or condition of a man to whom Christ’s righteousness is imputed by faith, and in the last to a man’s experience of that condition. See HAPPINESS.

This word occurs three times in the Authorized Version (Rom_4:8-9, Gal_4:15), but rightly disappears in the Revised Version ,* [Note: In the two passages in Rom. the RV substitutes ‘blessing,’ in Gal. ‘gratulation.’] for the Gr. word ìáêáñéóìüò means not blessedness itself, but a pronouncement that some one is blessed. ‘Blessedness’ is simply a convenient generalization, expressing the meaning which NT writers convey by the adjectives translated ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ (ìáêÜñéïò, åὐëïãçôüò) and the participle åὐëïãçìÝíïò, ‘blessed’ (practically an adjective); cf. the verb ἐíåõëïãÝïìáé (Act_3:25, Gal_3:8) and ìáêáñßæù (Luk_1:48, Jam_5:11). The various forms of åὐëïãÝïìáé refer, literally, to being ‘well spoken of,’ and apparently always contain at least the latent thought of praise being conferred or happiness ascribed; ìáêÜñéïò, however, expresses simply the possession of a quality, and for the ascription of this by others the verb ìáêáñßæù is needed.

Blessedness being a personal possession, any kind of action or utterance by others is of secondary importance in regard to it. Hence the crucial word is ìáêÜñéïò, not åὐëïãÝïìáé, etc. The Revised Version has in Joh_13:17, 1Pe_3:14; 1Pe_4:14 altered the Authorized Version translation of ìáêÜñéïò from ‘happy’ to ‘blessed’; it might well have made the same alteration in Rom_14:22, 1Co_7:40. Massie would banish ‘happy’ from the NT except in Act_26:2 (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article ‘Happiness’). In the OT àַùְׁøֵé, ‘O the happiness (or blessedness) of,’ has been even more frequently translated ‘happy’ when it might have been rendered ‘blessed’ (cf. Psa_89:15 with Psa_144:15, where the Hebrew is àַùְׁøֵé in both cases). Still, ‘happy’ is more suitable in the OT than in the NT, for the rewards promised to the OT saints are of a far more material and temporal order (see Psa_1:3-6; the epilogue even of Job_42:10-17; and Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , article ‘Blessedness’). For the NT it is significant not only that ìáêÜñéïò, which occurs very frequently, represented to the Greeks the higher and even the Divine bliss, but also that the lower and more ordinary word åὐäáßìùí, with its suggestion of good luck, is entirely absent. For the use of ìáêÜñéïò in the Gospels, see article ‘Beatitude’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and in Dict. of Christ and the Gospels . This was the regular term in NT times for ‘departed’ (to the world of blessedness); cf. Germ. selig, and see Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East2, 1911, p. 166. On the whole, it bears an exceedingly lofty meaning, though it is less spiritual in Luke than in Matthew, In Mat_24:47 Matthew need not be understood as offering a coarsely material ‘blessedness’; the servant is advanced in the confidence of his master. There is no need to question the inwardness of any blessedness offered elsewhere in Matthew. In Luk_12:37; Luk_12:33 the spread table, and the flattering attentions received thereat, are somewhat prominent; but Jesus is speaking metaphorically, and elsewhere literal, materialistic views are rebuked (Luk_11:27-28 and perhaps Luk_14:15 ff.). Too much stress must not therefore he laid on Luk_6:20-21, although there the blessedness of being ‘filled’ seems to refer to food rather than, as in Matthew, to righteousness.

In the rest of the NT ìáêÜñéïò is less used than in the Gospels. St. Paul has it twice only (Rom_4:7-8), and then in an OT quotation. In 1Ti_1:11; 1Ti_6:15 (never in the Gospels) it is applied to God, but in this sense åὐëïãçôüò is usual. In regard to men, it is applied to those who give (Act_20:35), who are forgiven (Rom_4:7-8), who endure temptation (Jam_1:12), who act according to the perfect law of liberty (Jam_1:25), who die in the Lord (Rev_14:13; see also Rev_1:3; Rev_16:15; Rev_19:9; Rev_20:6; Rev_22:7; Rev_22:14). It stands for a good which is above happiness, and dwells not least with those who are counted worthy to sacrifice happiness for conscience’ sake. It is based, partly, on a character which is its own ‘better and abiding possession’ (Heb_10:34 m). While it remains itself, it is above all adequate earthly reward and beyond all earthly overthrow. Above all, it is based in the spiritual world; to the ‘pure in heart’ the highest blessedness is to ‘see God’ (Mat_5:8; cf. 1Jn_3:2-3).

For various aspects of the idea of blessedness, as expressed in the NT by quite other words, see article ‘Blessedness’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) .

Literature.-Article ‘Blessedness’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , Hastings’ Single-vol. Dictionary of the Bible , and Dict. of Christ and the Gospels ; also F. C. Kempson, The Future Life, 1907, p. 308; J. M. Hodgson, Religion-The Quest of the ideal, 1911, p. 106; T. G. Selby, The Imperfect Angel, 1888, p. 25; T. Binney, King’s Weigh-house Chapel Sermons, 1869, p. 71; J. B. Lightfoot, Sermons in St. Paul’s Cathedral, 1891, p. 178.

C. H. Watkins.