Luke 6:20

μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί. ‘Blessed are the poor.’ The μακάριοι is a Hebrew expression (ashrê), (Psalms 1:1). St Matthew adds “in spirit” (comp. Isaiah 66:2, “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word”). But (1) St Luke gives the address of Christ to the poor, whose very presence shewed that they were His poor and had come to seek Him; and (2) the Evangelist seems to have been impressed with the blessings of a faithful and humble poverty in itself (comp. James 2:5; 1 Corinthians 1:26-29), and loves to record those parts of our Lord’s teaching which were especially ‘the Gospel to the poor’ (see Luke 1:53; Luke 2:7; Luke 6:20; Luke 12:15-34; Luke 16:9-25). See Introd. p. xxxv.

“Come ye who find contentment’s very core
In the light store
And daisied path
Of poverty,
And know how more
A small thing that the righteous hath
Availeth, than the ungodly’s riches great.”

COV. PATMORE.

“This is indeed an admirably sweet friendly beginning … for He does not begin like Moses … with command and threatening, but in the friendliest possible way with free, enticing, alluring and amiable promises.” Luther.

ὑμετέρα ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ. It must be obvious to common sense that ‘the poor,’ ‘the hungry,’ ‘the weeping,’ must be understood ethically. St Matthew uses the expression ‘the kingdom of the heavens.’ The main differences between St Matthew’s and St Luke’s record of the Sermon on the Mount are explained by the different objects and readers of these Gospels; but in both it is the Inaugural Discourse of the Kingdom of Heaven:—

(i) St Matthew writes for the Jews, and much that he records has special bearing on the Levitic Law (Luke 5:17-38), which St Luke naturally omits as less intelligible to Gentiles. Other parts here omitted are recorded by St Luke later on (Luke 11:9-13; Matthew 7:7-11).

(ii) St Matthew, presenting Christ as Lawgiver and King, gives the Sermon more in the form of a Code. Kurn Hattin is for him the new and more blessed Sinai; St Luke gives it more in the form of a direct homily (“yours,” &c., not “theirs,” Luke 6:20; Matthew 5:3; and compare Luke 6:46-47 with Matthew 7:21; Matthew 7:24).

(iii) Much of the Sermon in St Matthew is occupied with the contrast between the false righteousness—the pretentious orthodoxy and self-satisfied ceremonialism—of the Pharisees, and the true righteousness of the Kingdom which is mercy and love. Hence much of his report is occupied with Spirituality as the stamp of true religion, in opposition to formalism, while St Luke deals with Love in the abstract.

(iv) Thus in St Matthew we see mainly the Law of Love as the contrast between the new and the old; in St Luke the Law of Love as the central and fundamental idea of the new.
For a sketch of the Sermon on the Mount, mainly in St Matthew, I may refer to my Life of Christ, I. 259–264. The arrangement of the section in St Luke is not obvious. Some see in it the doctrine of happiness; the doctrine of justice; the doctrine of wisdom; or (1) the salutation of love (Luke 6:20-26); the precepts of love (27–38); the impulsion of love (39–49). These divisions are arbitrary. Godet more successfully arranges it thus: (1) The members of the new society (20–26; Matthew 5:1-12); (2) The fundamental principle of the new society (27–45; Matthew 5:13 to Matthew 7:12); (3) The judgment of God on which it rests (46–49; Matthew 7:13-27):—in other words (1) the appeal; (2) the principles; (3) the sanction.