Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6 (NIV)
In this beatitude, Jesus was drawing a sharp line between those who were confident of their own righteousness, specifically the Pharisees and teachers of the law, and those who knew that they were nowhere near righteous, but who really wanted to be. The Pharisees called these “righteousness wannabees” the “‘am ha aretz,” or “people of the earth.” Most of these folks were just normal, ordinary people, who were too occupied with making sure there was food on the table to observe all of the fine points of the Law of Moses.
The Pharisees and teachers of the law (scribes) of Jesus’ day were self-consciously righteous. They knew all 613 laws in the Pentateuch, and had memorized volumes of commentary on them. Jesus had them pegged when he talked about their practice of giving a tenth of all of their spices – “mint, dill, and cummin” (Matthew 23:23) – meticulously counting out each seed or leaf to ensure that they got 9 out of every 10, and God got 1. These folks were meticulous about observing the assigned hours of prayer, all of the sabbath regulations, and all of the dietary rules. These days we have a kind of jaundiced view of the Pharisees especially, but to the people of their day they were the most holy people you could imagine. And I believe that probably the vast majority of them were really sincere, being driven in their obedience by wanting to please God.
That being said, they still had a problem: spiritual pride, or what we would call “self-righteousness.” They were good at keeping the rules, and they knew it. They sincerely believed that they were loved by God because of their obedience, and that the “people of the earth” were hated by God because they weren’t as good at keeping the rules as they were. This is what Paul was referring to in Philippians 3:6, where he referred to his own ability to keep the law as “faultless.” And this is where Jesus really blasted them, in parables such as that of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) and in the seven woes in Matthew 23. These people were confident of their own righteousness, so there was really nothing God could do for them – they would never ask for a higher or more genuine level of righteousness than what they were able to achieve on their own.
On the other hand, the people of the earth, those Jewish people who really would have loved to study the Law and give the same kind of fine-scale obedience to God’s Law if it were not for their having to spend so much time and energy working just to keep food on the table, to these Jesus had a word of hope: If they really wanted to be righteous, so much so that they hungered and thirsted for it, and were willing to seek God for it, then He would fill them with it! The poster child for this is the tax collector in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:9-14), who was so convicted of his own unrighteousness that he was unwilling even to look up to heaven at the temple. Instead, he beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!” Jesus tells us that HE went away justified, and the self-righteous Pharisee did not.
But the way to true righteousness, truly living a life that is right in God’s sight, turns out to NOT be trying harder or memorizing long lists of rules. True righteousness actually flows effortlessly out of a heart that God changes and makes holy. Jesus frequently used the analogy of a tree and its fruit: if a tree is good, the fruit will be good; if a tree is bad, the fruit will be bad. He was clearly pointing to the fact that a good heart will result in a life of righteous actions and attitudes, and a bad heart will result in actions and attitudes that are not righeous. So if your life is not righteous, then it is a heart problem, pure and simple. God told us this as far back as the prophet Ezekiel, who looked forward to a new age, when God would actually change the hearts of the people so that they really could be righteous, and be able to follow Him wholeheartedly:
“‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
Ezekiel 36:24-27 (NIV)
When Jesus died on the cross, rose again, and ascended into heaven, He actually unleased the power of the Holy Spirit, who can fulfill this prophecy, removing from those who seek God whole-heartedly their stony hearts, and giving them instead a soft, good heart of flesh that will be instantly responsive to God’s commands. The Holy Spirit Himself becomes the “new Spirit” that is put into God’s people. And He will move us to follow all of God’s commands, not as slaves who must obey, but as children who want with all their hearts to delight their Father with their obedience.
The life of holiness, or righteousness as Jesus calls it in this beatitude, is a life of joy and peace. Moved by a changed heart, there is no longer any trace of self-righteousness; those truly made holy understand that it is God that has done the work, and God who keeps them holy and righteous. It is a life of joy in obedience, without any trace of the drudgery and sense of obligation of the self-righteous.
But, as Jesus indicates, this life is not available to those who are satisfied with the righteousness that they have achieved in their own strength and power. It is only available to those who understand their own inability to live up to God’s standards of righteousness, but who long to please Him to the point where they really do hunger and thirst for his righteousness, and who stand with open mouths waiting for God Himself to do the filling.