Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
Peacemakers are not those who reconcile God and man, Christ alone does that, but those of peaceable disposition who compose differences between fellow creatures and Christians. The Jews themselves held peace-making among the highest virtues, reckoning it profitable in this world and the next, and such persons manifest they are God's children by adoption through the fruits of their regeneration.
AI summary
Purity of heart and peaceableness of life accompany one another; there is no inward purity without endeavor after outward peace. Labor not merely to be peaceable yourself, but to be a maker of peace among others, and you shall be dignified with the privileges of God's children, grace here and glory hereafter.
AI summary
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