“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” Matthew 5:11
We come to the Lord’s last statement in the Beatitudes. There is
some debate whether this is the 9th beatitude or a continuation of
the 8th one. Personally, I see this as the Lord’s invitation to the listeners. He has stated the criteria to enter the kingdom, now he asks each person hearing His words to commit.
Blessed are you In the 8th beatitude the Lord says blessed are those who are persecuted. Here He says “you”. It is an offer to the audience – join those who with bowed and humble hearts will enter God’s kingdom. All may come.
When men shall revile you The Lord says when, not if. When a person chooses to come in God’s way to God’s kingdom they will be reviled by those who reject God’s kingdom. The word reviled means to bare (in a snarl) one’s teeth to others, to mock or curse, to insult, cast blame (create shame). It implies the person is already guilty and therefore deserving of punishment. This happens daily to the Lord in His ministry.
And persecute you Persecute is the same word used in the 8th Beatitude. It means to chase or pursue. The Lord offers his audience entrance into His kingdom. The entrance into Messiah’s kingdom requires humbling one’s self. It requires brokenness and mourning over our personal sin against God. It requires meekly accepting what God says is true. It results inliving a life of God’s purity in this world which is guaranteed to produce relentless persecution from the enemy, Satan’s family, who seeks to destroy.
And shall say all manner of evil against you The enemy will say (use biting words) all manner (every kind of evil). The word evil means bad, wicked, malicious, and slothful. It stresses the agonies and misery that always go with pure evil. This is the proverbial “gnashing of teeth” as an attacker attempts to destroy the accused.
Falsely The word means to lie or misrepresent. It is the telling of a story with the intent to deceive others. When these untruths are told believers will be stunned at what is being said about them. Their motives and intentions will be attacked but nothing said will be truth. The early church learned the truth of this. They were accused of incest for talking about loving one another – their brothers and sisters in Christ. They were accused of being self-righteous and proud since the believed they would go to heaven and others would not. They were accused of cannibalism because they ate the Lord’s Supper, commemorating the broken body and shed blood of Christ. There were many other accusations but the point is clear. Facts were distorted in order to make false accusations that would scare others from accepting God’s truth and silence those who did.
For my sake In the last three words of the Beatitudes the Lord lowers the boom. For Christ’s sake – He is God! If the audience was stunned by the Lord’s other comments, they are floored when they hear this. This is what they hoped for, a Messiah who would deliver them from their bondage. His message however is not what they anticipated. Instead of ushering them into world rule as the nation of God, the Lord states that those will enter His kingdom are only the broken, not the proud. Following this Messiah leads to being persecuted not being exalted and glorified. This rabbi is like no other! Following Him means taking up His cross.