Shaun Groves
Gather ‘round nerds, I need your wisdom.
In Matthew 5, Jesus blesses the poor in spirit and says the kingdom of heaven is theirs. I’ve studied this verse and the ones right after it for more than three years now and last night I ran across something new. The thing is I’m not sure I believe it because it’s something I’ve only found in one book out of five dozen I’ve read on these verses. Makes me wonder how legit the insight is. So, if you know Greek and can back up or deny this info or tell me where to go for that I’d appreciate it. Here’s the new insight:
A guy claims that “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven” is a bad translation of the Greek original. He says it is more accurate to say “for from them” or “for through them.” As in “for through them comes the kingdom of heaven.”
He says…This is the partitive genitive idea. The possessive genitive is more widely used – “for theirs is.” But the poor in spirit do not own the kingdom of heaven. They make up the kingdom of heaven.
I’m curious if there’s anything to this. Do you know? Thanks for your input.
David Easler says:
Shaun,
Send me an email if you get a chance. I hope the following helps.
I think that he is incorrect. Granted I only had two semesters of Greek, and I don’t have my Greek tools nearby; however, αὐτῶν is a personal pronoun that shows possession. It is in the genitive, plural case = their’s. The pronoun is followed by the 3rd Present, Active, Indicative form of the “to be” verb. Therefore, rendering the translation, “their’s is.”
I believe that in this section of Scripture, we see the “already and the not yet” of possessing the promises of God that are ours in Christ.
Calvin notes: “Let us, therefore, remember, that the leading object of the discourse is to show, that those are not unhappy who are oppressed by the reproaches of the wicked, and subject to various calamities. And not only does Christ prove that they are in the wrong, who measure the happiness of man by the present state, because the distresses of the godly will soon be changed for the better; but he also exhorts his own people to patience, by holding out the hope of a reward.”
John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries: Vol. XVI: Harmony of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2003 Reprint), 260.
Shaun Groves says:
Calvin’s view on the beatitudes (particularly the delayed reward language) is not the majority view of theologians throughout history and around the world on these verses so the quote from him doesn’t do much to convince me. But the stuff on the Greek text is helpful. I’m trying to get in touch with this author to ask him more about his scholarship so thanks for giving me info to make me sound smarter than I am if we speak.
David Easler says:
Glad the bit of Greek helped. I would love to hear his argument concerning that text.
You have certainly done your research. I can’t wait to read the book. I realize what you said about Calvin’s view. As I said, I believe that the blessings are for our “kingdom life” here and now; however, with the future fullness of kingdom blessings in view.
I have been influenced considerably from Ladd’s writings about the kingdom:
“As a new creature, the servant of God’s rule will experience a real and evident measure of the righteousness of God’s Kingdom in this evil Age. This is not stated but is assumed in the Sermon on the Mount. The righteousness of the Kingdom is a manifestation of the life of the Kingdom. Just as the fullness of life, which belongs to The Age to Come, has become a present blessing, so the righteousness of the Kingdom belongs to The Age to Come, but has been imparted to the sons of the Kingdom through Christ and the Holy Spirit.”
George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1959), 94.
I think that Willimon and Hauerwas are spot on:
“The Sermon is the inauguration manifesto of how the world looks now that God in Christ has taken matters in hand. And essential to the way that God has taken matters in hand is an invitation to all people to become citizens of a new Kingdom, a messianic community where the world God is creating takes visible, practical form.”
Stanley Hauerwas, and William H. Willimon. Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1989), 87.
Shaun Groves says:
I quote Resident Aliens in the Kingdom chapter. Good stuff. My goal – and it’s so good to have one for this book since for so long I didn’t – is to take all this theological wordy stuff about Jesus and his kingdom and make it as clear as Max Lucado without dumbing it down a bit. I want this message to get out into the pews and it hasn’t in all these years partially because the scholars are just talking to each other about it. Would you agree?
David Easler says:
I would certainly agree with you. There needs to be more ‘kingdom talk’ amongst the people in the pew. It is a shame that most pastors do not fully proclaim the very thing that Jesus talked about, namely, the “gospel of the kingdom.” (Matthew 4:23, 9:35) Clearly it was central within the early church, as witnessed in the New Testament. I think that one helpful thing to come from the emergent church is a growing discussion about the kingdom of God.
Have you seen the book entitled Jesus and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges Between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology, by Daniel Harrington and James Keenan? It may be of help to you. You can search it on google books.
Shaun Groves says:
I haven’t. I’ll go buy that right now. I don’t even fully understand the title though. Will I be able to understand IT?
Mike Bishop says:
Shaun, I can’t comment on the greek, but I would point you (for the second time, if you read my response to you on my blog) to Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy. His angle is interesting, that the Beatitudes are not “commendable” attributes, but rather a description of the kinds of people who the Kingdom is actually really good news.
Here’s a quote from pg. 116:
“They [the Beatitudes] serve to clarify Jesus’ fundamental message: the free availability of God’s rule and righteousness to all of humanity through reliance upon Jesus himself, the person now loose in the world among us. They do this simply by taking those who, from the human point of view, are regarded as most hopeless, most beyond all possibility of God’s blessing or even interest, and exhibiting them as enjoying God’s touch and abundant provision from the heavens.”
Shaun Groves says:
Got that, Mike. Thanks for that. There are three main theories on the beatitudes that I’ve found: 1)This is how we get happy (Schuller, MacArthur) 2)This is how we get to heaven (Luther) 3)This is who is satisfied by the coming of the kingdom to earth, the ones affected by it (Willard)
I don’t buy #1 or #2. But I’d add #4 now which is #3 made wider: These are the ones whom the kingdom touches, yes, but also they are the ones whom the kingdom comes through to the world. The poor in spirit (all of us), the mourning, the peace makers, the merciful etc. HE uses these attributes to make the kingdom on earth and in so doing people with these attributes are comforted, filled, shown mercy, see God – they are blessed by the experience of being used and by the coming of the kingdom.
The greek would help establish #4 more solidly for me. But I don’t want to force scripture to say this just because it jives with a theory of my own.
I love Willard’s writing. Very clear for me.
David Easler says:
Shaun,
It is quite a title, but it was written by a couple of Roman Catholics. So, there you go.
I have not read all of it, but from what I understand it is a very good treatment on the subject.
Jared says:
Shaun, been reading your blog and enjoying it greatly for a few weeks. First time commenter.
You wrote:
These are the ones whom the kingdom touches, yes, but also they are the ones whom the kingdom comes through to the world. The poor in spirit (all of us), the mourning, the peace makers, the merciful etc. HE uses these attributes to make the kingdom on earth and in so doing people with these attributes are comforted, filled, shown mercy, see God – they are blessed by the experience of being used and by the coming of the kingdom.
I think you’re dead-on right, but I don’t think you need that particular answer to your particular Matthew 5 translational question to prove it.
I have no idea whether the translation you are questioning is right or wrong, but I don’t think it necessarily affects your view of the kingdom. Certainly we have plenty of Jesus’ other teachings, and Paul’s further illuminating expansion of those teachings, to tell us that the kingdom isn’t just for the “poor in spirit” but that it is proclaimed and made manifest by the poor in spirit.
Paul’s stuff on suffering (power made perfect in weakness) speaks to that.
Anyways . . . my 2 cents.
Shaun Groves says:
I just got off the phone with Brad H. Young, the scholar/author in question. I found this info in his book Jesus, the Jewish Theologian. He was very kind, spoke to me for almost an hour about this and other problems I’ve had with the beatitudes because I only have a surface knowledge of Greek and Hebrew and none of Aramaic.
What he says is he didn’t always think this way about this verse, he argued against this way actually. He says that seminaries generally don’t teach beyond surface Greek, they teach the basics but there’s no time for the nuance. And there’s definitely no time for understanding how to go from the Greek to a good guess at what the Aramaic or Hebrew may have been even before the Greek version of the bible was created. All this was said very humbly, truly not attacking at all.
Anyway, what he said about this kingdom verse, in a nutshell, was that in this beatitude it’s not a possessive genitive being used. It’s not “theirs” but it’s “of them” or “from them.” It’s partitive, which he says is used in this case to speak of “members of a group.” The poor are members of the kingdom – they are parts of it’s whole. The kingdom is OF them and they are OF it.
And, yes, Jared, Mr. Young made the same point to me and encouraged me to go ahead and write this with or without his argument because even without it it’s sound. We are participating in the bringing of the kingdom. It is made by us by God.
Thanks for all the cents. I learned a lot today and for me that’s a great day.
thecachinnator says:
I know I’m late to the party, but I’m not sure about Young’s emphasis. I don’t disagree with his Greek, adding a different significance than we typically see seems unwarranted.
I know it would be easy to stretch this into foreign territory, but what is the essential difference between the kingdom belonging to them and the kingdom being made up of them? If the kingdom is present and future, ethereal and tangible, can’t they be one and the same?
Also, trying to reconstruct the Aramaic is a bit of a fool’s errand since it’s not possible. And if it’s not possible, speculation usually isn’t useful and can often lead us to add shades of meaning that aren’t in the Greek.
Rock on… bro…
Halpin says:
It’s been over half a year since I’ve been in Greek class, and I don’t mean to question Mr. Young seeing as he’s apparently a Greek scholar and I am clearly not, but my understanding of the Greek is that the partitive and possessive genitives are very difficult to ascertain. In other words, you have to rely heavily on context to figure out if it’s showing possession or something different. Again, I may be wrong. All I’m saying is that there’s dissension on the verse for a reason – it’s almost impossible to know for sure. Either reading, it seems to me, makes sense in this case.
Marshall says:
From A T Robertson, Word Studies in the Greek N.T.:
Matthew 5:3 Blessed (makarioi). The English word “blessed” is more exactly represented by the Greek verbal eulogētoi as in Luke 1:68 of God by Zacharias, or the perfect passive participle eulogēmenos as in Luke 1:42 of Mary by Elizabeth and in Matthew 21:9. Both forms come from eulogeō, to speak well of (eu, logos). The Greek word here (makarioi) is an adjective that means “happy” which in English etymology goes back to hap, chance, good-luck as seen in our words haply, hapless, happily, happiness. “Blessedness is, of course, an infinitely higher and better thing than mere happiness” (Weymouth). English has thus ennobled “blessed” to a higher rank than “happy.” But “happy” is what Jesus said and the Braid Scots New Testament dares to say “Happy” each time here as does the Improved Edition of the American Bible Union Version. The Greek word is as old as Homer and Pindar and was used of the Greek gods and also of men, but largely of outward prosperity. Then it is applied to the dead who died in the Lord as in Revelation 14:13. Already in the Old Testament the Septuagint uses it of moral quality. “Shaking itself loose from all thoughts of outward good, it becomes the express symbol of a happiness identified with pure character. Behind it lies the clear cognition of sin as the fountain-head of all misery, and of holiness as the final and effectual cure for every woe. For knowledge as the basis of virtue, and therefore of happiness, it substitutes faith and love” (Vincent). Jesus takes this word “happy” and puts it in this rich environment. “This is one of the words which have been transformed and ennobled by New Testament use; by association, as in the Beatitudes, with unusual conditions, accounted by the world miserable, or with rare and difficult” (Bruce). It is a pity that we have not kept the word “happy” to the high and holy plane where Jesus placed it. “If you know these things, happy (makarioi) are you if you do them” (John 13:17). “Happy (makarioi) are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). And Paul applies this adjective to God, “according to the gospel of the glory of the happy (makariou) God” (1 Timothy 1:11. Cf. also Titus 2:13). The term “Beatitudes” (Latin beatus) comes close to the meaning of Christ here by makarioi. It will repay one to make a careful study of all the “beatitudes” in the New Testament where this word is employed. It occurs nine times here (3-11), though the beatitudes in verses 10 and 11 are very much alike. The copula is not expressed in either of these nine beatitudes. In each case a reason is given for the beatitude, “for” (hoti), that shows the spiritual quality involved. Some of the phrases employed by Jesus here occur in the Psalms, some even in the Talmud (itself later than the New Testament, though of separate origin). That is of small moment. “The originality of Jesus lies in putting the due value on these thoughts, collecting them, and making them as prominent as the Ten Commandments. No greater service can be rendered to mankind than to rescue from obscurity neglected moral commonplaces “ (Bruce). Jesus repeated his sayings many times as all great teachers and preachers do, but this sermon has unity, progress, and consummation. It does not contain all that Jesus taught by any means, but it stands out as the greatest single sermon of all time, in its penetration, pungency, and power. The poor in spirit (hoi ptōchoi tōi pneumati). Luke has only “the poor,” but he means the same by it as this form in Matthew, “the pious in Israel, for the most part poor, whom the worldly rich despised and persecuted” (McNeile). The word used here (ptōchoi) is applied to the beggar Lazarus in Luke 16:20, 22 and suggests spiritual destitution (from ptōssō to crouch, to cower). The other word penēs is from penomai, to work for one’s daily bread and so means one who works for his living. The word ptōchos is more frequent in the New Testament and implies deeper poverty than penēs. “The kingdom of heaven” here means the reign of God in the heart and life. This is the summum bonum and is what matters most.
drug addiction says:
I don’t know much Greek, but I can surely tell you that it hasn’t to do at all with what you are saying. You are being mislead, that’s all.