Matthew 5:2-5
And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
ANTHONY FARINDON (1596-1658): Meekness is one of the principal and chiefest parts of holiness.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Meekness is, “in the sight of God, of great price,” 1 Peter 3:4.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): Well then, what is meekness?
H. A. IRONSIDE (1876-1951): The root of the original word really means “humility”―a spirit that never takes personal offense.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): It is inseparably connected and associated with gentleness: “the meekness and gentleness of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:1. To be meek and gentle, patient and kind—in a word, to be Christ-like—is a task altogether beyond our powers.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): Meekness is to be considered, not as a moral virtue, but as a Christian grace, a fruit of the Spirit of God, which was eminently in Christ.
THOMAS GOODWIN (1600-1679): Meekness will proceed, not from softness of nature, but from a heart humbled, tamed, sweetened with the apprehension of thy injuries done to Christ, which now thou findest forgiven, and from this ground thy spirit is calmed and subdued.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): The Beatitudes rise one above the other and spring out of one another and that those which come before are always necessary to those that follow after. This third Beatitude, “Blessed are the meek,” could not have stood first—it would have been quite out of place there. When a man is converted, the first operation of the grace of God within his soul is to give him true poverty of spirit, so the first Beatitude is, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The Lord first makes us know our emptiness and so humbles us. Then next He makes us mourn over the deficiencies that are so manifest in us. Then comes the second Beatitude, “Blessed are they that mourn.” First, then, is a true knowledge of ourselves and then a sacred grief arising out of that knowledge. Now, no man ever becomes truly meek, in the Christian sense of that word, until he first knows himself and then begins to mourn and lament that he is so far short of what he ought to be.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Meekness is the fruit of mourning for sin, and is therefore fitly set next after it. He that can kindly melt in God’s presence, will be made thereby as meek as a lamb: and if God will forgive him his ten thousand talents, he will not think much to forgive his brother a few farthings.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Meekness is wisdom. He rightly understands himself, and his duty and interest, the infirmities of human nature, and the constitution of human society, who is slow to anger, and knows how to excuse the faults of others as well as his own, how to adjourn his resentments, and moderate them, so as by no provocation to be put out of the possession of his own soul.
A. W. PINK: Meekness is yieldedness―a pliability and meltedness of heart, which makes me submissive and responsive to God’s will.
C. H. SPURGEON: It is only the grace of God, as it works in us by the Holy Spirit, that can make us thus meek. To reach this rung of the ladder of the Light of God he must first set his feet upon the other two. There must be poverty of spirit and mourning of heart before there will come that gracious meekness of which our text speaks. Note too, that this third Beatitude is of a higher order than the other two.
ANTHONY FARINDON: So what is meekness more than any other virtues?
C. H. SPURGEON: There is something positive in it as to virtue. The first two are rather expressive of deficiency, but here there is a something supplied. A man is poor in spirit—that is, he feels that he lacks a thousand things that he ought to possess. The man mourns—that is, he laments over his state of spiritual poverty. But now there is something really given to him by the Grace of God—not a negative quality, but a positive proof of the work of the Holy Spirit within his soul so that he has become meek. The first two characteristics that receive a benediction appear to be wrapped up in themselves. The man is poor in spirit—that relates to himself. His mourning is his own personal mourning which ends when he is comforted. But meekness has to do with other people. It is true that it has a relationship to God, but a man’s meekness is especially towards his fellow men. He is not simply meek within himself—his meekness is manifest in his dealings with others―the only way you could prove whether he was meek would be to put him with those who would try his temper. So this meekness is a virtue—larger, more expansive, working in a wider sphere.
STEPHEN CHARNOCK (1628-1680): Meekness is seen in pardoning of injuries, not keeping them in memory, to beget and cherish revenge. Now, the greater the provocation, the more transcendent is that meekness to pass it by.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): From these words we may gather what it is not. Meekness is set in opposition to pride and vain ostentation, and also to excessive zeal.
C. H. SPURGEON: Self-righteousness is never meek. The man who is proud of himself will be quite sure to be hard-hearted in his dealings with others. Blessed are the meek. Not your high-spirited, quick-tempered men who will put up with no insults—your hectoring, lofty ones who are always ready to resent any real or imagined disrespect.
A. W. PINK: Thus we may say that “meekness” is the opposite of self-will and self-assertiveness. Meekness is not only the antithesis of pride, but of stubbornness, fierceness, vengefulness…Meekness is the opposite of self-will towards God and of ill-will towards men.
C. H. SPURGEON: By many, to return evil for evil has been judged to be the more manly course.
A. W. PINK: Meekness must not be confounded with weakness. So far from being weakness―as the world supposes―meekness is the strength of the man who can rule his own spirit under provocation, subduing his resentment under wrong, refusing to retaliate.
H. A. IRONSIDE: The world will never understand the value of this―Theodore Roosevelt said once, “I hate a meek man.” He probably did not realize that the boldest man, the most utterly unafraid man ever seen on earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, was in the fullest sense a meek man. Meekness is not inconsistent with bravery, and enables one to suffer and be strong when the world would “turn aside the way of the meek,” Amos 2:7.
THOMAS GOODWIN: “Learn of me,” says Christ, “for I am lowly and meek,” Matthew 11:29. The civilest, the meekest men by nature, must learn of Christ to be meek and humble.
C. H. SPURGEON: Let us be meek and lowly in heart as the Saviour was, for herein lay His strength and dignity.
