Matthew 5:9 · Passage · Peace
Blessed Are the Peacemakers
Matthew 5:9 is the seventh of the eight blessings with which Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount.
This is the only beatitude whose promise is a name.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
- The passage
- Matthew 5:9, Matthew 5:3 to 10
- Book
- Matthew
- Hold in memory
- Matthew 5:9, Psalm 34:14
Summary
Jesus pronounces God's blessing on those who make peace and promises them the name of sons of God. Teachers of the church have asked whether the blessing first means peace kept in one's own heart or peace brought between others. Jerome, as the Catena Aurea gives him, put peace within the heart first and peace between brethren second.
- The Greek word eirenopoioi, peacemakers, stands in the New Testament only in Matthew 5:9.
- Its verb stands once, in Colossians 1:20, where Christ makes peace through the blood of His cross.
- Abram, Isaac and Abigail each ended a quarrel in the Old Testament (Genesis 13, Genesis 26 and 1 Samuel 25).
The Seventh Blessing
The verse has three parts, a word of blessing, the people blessed and the name promised to them.
Blessed Are the Peacemakers studies Matthew 5:9 and the people Jesus calls happy for the peace they bring. It belongs to the value of peace, because it turns peace from a gift received into a work God's people do among others.
The question the study answers is whom Jesus calls peacemakers and why they are called sons of God. It also asks how teachers from the fourth century to the eighteenth have read the blessing, and how two sayings of Jesus that seem to pull apart are held together.
Matthew's word joins eirene, peace, to the verb to make.
and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.The verse shows the peacemaking verb used of Christ Himself, so the blessing has its pattern in Him.
The promise of Matthew 5:9 is in the future tense and the passive voice, klethesontai, they will be called. The same word of blessing, makarioi, opens each of the eight sayings in Matthew 5:3 to 10.
The Eight Blessings of Matthew 5
The peacemakers stand seventh in a run of eight blessings, each joined to its own promise.
Each blessing of Matthew 5:3 to 10 pairs a kind of person with a promise, and the Psalms and James give the command and the harvest of the seventh.
| Row | Blessing or text | Promise or words | Verse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Blessed are the poor in spirit | for theirs is the kingdom of heaven | Matthew 5:3 |
| 2 | Blessed are those who mourn | for they will be comforted | Matthew 5:4 |
| 3 | Blessed are the meek | for they will inherit the earth | Matthew 5:5 |
| 4 | Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness | for they will be filled | Matthew 5:6 |
| 5 | Blessed are the merciful | for they will be shown mercy | Matthew 5:7 |
| 6 | Blessed are the pure in heart | for they will see God | Matthew 5:8 |
| 7 | Blessed are the peacemakers | for they will be called sons of God | Matthew 5:9 |
| 7a | The command of Psalm 34:14 | "Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it." | Psalm 34:14 |
| 7b | The harvest of James 3:18 | "Peacemakers who sow in peace reap the fruit of righteousness." | James 3:18 |
| 8 | Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness | for theirs is the kingdom of heaven | Matthew 5:10 |
7, 7a, 7b, 8
Called Sons of God
The title returns in the same sermon, given to those who love their enemies.
that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.Here sonship is shown as likeness to the Father, who is good to the evil and the good alike.
In both verses the Greek word is huioi, sons.
Matthew 5:43 to 48 is taught in a study of its own.
Making Peace in Practice
Jesus, Paul and the letter to the Hebrews turn the blessing into commands for daily life.
So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.Later in the same sermon Jesus puts reconciliation with a brother before an offering at the altar.
If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.Paul sets a limit on the duty, since peace depends on both sides, and asks the believer to do his own part in full.
So then, let us pursue what leads to peace and to mutual edification.Paul applies the pursuit of peace to quarrels inside the church over food and holy days.
John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), wrote on Romans 14:19 that "Peace and edification are closely joined."
Pursue peace with everyone, as well as holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.The letter joins the pursuit of peace with everyone to the pursuit of holiness.
The work of reconciliation, between God and people and between people, is taught in full in its own study, and the command to turn the other cheek in another.
Romans 14:19, Hebrews 12:14
Peacemakers in the Old Testament
Genesis and 1 Samuel show three people who ended a quarrel by giving way or by going between.
When the herdsmen of Abram and Lot fought over pasture, Abram said, "Please let there be no contention between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen. After all, we are brothers" (Genesis 13:8). He gave Lot the first choice of the land.
The herdsmen of Gerar claimed two wells that Isaac's servants had dug, and Isaac moved on. At the third well "they did not quarrel over it" (Genesis 26:22), and later he made a feast for the men who came from Gerar, and "they left him in peace" (Genesis 26:31).
Abigail went out to meet David while he was on his way to kill every male of her husband's household (1 Samuel 25:34). David blessed her because "today you kept me from bloodshed and from avenging myself by my own hand" (1 Samuel 25:33). He sent her away with the words "Go home in peace" (1 Samuel 25:35).
Voices on the Peacemakers
One voice speaks to the promise of the blessing and one to the practice of peace.
died 367 · Hilary of Poitiers
Hilary stands here for the promise of the blessing, the name the peacemakers receive.
Read the page on Hilary of Poitiers
“The blessedness of the peacemakers is the reward of adoption, they shall be called the sons of God. For God is our common parent, and no other way can we pass into His family than by living in brotherly love together.”
Hilary of Poitiers · Catena Aurea by Aquinas · on Matthew 5:9Patristic
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Henry stands here for the practice, the peace Hebrews 12:14 tells believers to pursue.
Read the page on Matthew Henry
“Secondly, Peace and holiness are connected together; there can be no true peace without holiness. There may be prudence and discreet forbearance, and a show of friendship and good-will to all; but this true Christian peaceableness is never found separate from holiness.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Hebrews 12:14Puritan
Who Are the Peacemakers, and What Is the Sword?
Teachers of the church have divided over who the peacemakers are and over a later saying of Jesus about a sword.
The first question is whether the word means a person at peace within or a person who reconciles others.
Peace kept in one's own heart firstJerome; Thomas à Kempis
Jerome, quoted in the Catena Aurea, called blessed those "who make peace first within their own hearts, then between brethren at variance". The Imitation of Christ (fifteenth century, book 2, chapter 3) gives the same order and tells the reader to keep himself in peace first, so as to "be a peacemaker towards others".
The objection: the word Jesus chose describes the making of peace, which is an act toward others.
Peace brought between people at strifeJohn Chrysostom
John Chrysostom, in his fifteenth homily on Matthew, said that Jesus here asks more than an end to our own quarrels, "namely, that we should set at one again others, who are at strife".
The objection: the blessing stands among blessings on the inner life, the poor in spirit, the meek and the pure in heart, which suggests a disposition before an activity.
The second question sets Matthew 5:9 beside a later saying of Jesus: "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). Where Matthew has a sword, Luke has "No, I tell you, but division" (Luke 12:51).
The sword as the division that follows the gospelAlbert Barnes
Albert Barnes, in his Notes, Explanatory and Practical (1832 to 1869), wrote that Christ did not mean "that the object of his coming was to produce discord and contention". He meant "that such would be one of the effects of his coming".
The objection: Jesus says that He has come to bring the sword, which reads as His purpose and more than a result.
The sword as Christ's own wordHilary of Poitiers
Hilary of Poitiers read the sword as the word of God, "His preaching poured into the heart of man".
The objection: the verses after the saying speak of a household turned against itself (Matthew 10:35 to 36), and Luke's parallel names the sword division.
He Himself Is Our Peace
Paul names Christ as the peace between Jew and Gentile, the peace His sons are sent to make.
For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He extinguished their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.Paul shows Christ as the first peacemaker, who tore down the wall of hostility and preached peace to the far and the near.
Whether the peace of the Sermon on the Mount forbids a Christian to bear arms is a separate debate with its own study.
The Hebrew and Greek words for peace, with their counts across the Bible, have their own word study.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament, the tagged Greek text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible TBESG lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, based on Abbott-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922)
- Jerome on Matthew 5:9, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, English translation (Oxford, 1841)
- Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, book 2, chapter 3, translated by William Benham.
- John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 15, on Matthew 5:9 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 10)
- John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Romans 14:19.
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869), on Matthew 10:34.
- Hilary of Poitiers on Matthew 5:9, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, English translation (Oxford, 1841)
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Hebrews 12:14.
- Hilary of Poitiers on Matthew 10:34, in Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, English translation (Oxford, 1841)
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