Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Christ crowns His sermon with blessings because He came to bless us, and His pronouncement makes us truly blessed. The world is wrong about happiness: it calls the rich and powerful blessed, but He calls the poor in spirit blessed instead, overturning every carnal notion of what makes a man happy.
AI summary
Commenting on Matthew 5:3-12
Sorrow over sin is chiefly in view here, for Christ came to call men to repentance. The gospel alone gives true comfort to such mourning; worldly consolations only dull the mind or produce grudging submission. In God's mercy, the Saviour, and the hope of a better world lies the only real comfort.
AI summary
They mourn for indwelling sin, for unbelief, for the profaneness rampant in the world, for the declensions of professors whose lives dishonor Christ. These are blessed because God, Christ the Comforter, and the Spirit Himself will comfort them through the Gospel and its promises.
AI summary