Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
For They Will Be Filled
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6 (NIV)
What Does it Mean to Hunger for Righteousness?
Jesus wants us to know that people of faith who hunger and thirst for righteousness are living under God’s blessing. The promise that Jesus offers is that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled.
Personally, I know what it means to hunger and thirst for tacos and coffee, but what does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness?
I like the simplicity of Nijay Gupta’s definition, taken from his book 15 New Testament Words of Life: A New Testament Theology for Real Life:
“To be righteous is to live and behave according to a standard of what is good and right toward the other.”
According to Gupta, righteousness is doing right by God (the vertical dimension of our discipleship) and by other people (the horizontal dimension). Am I doing what is expected of me? Have I violated the written or unwritten expectations in this relationship? Am I on good terms with God and my neighbors? In that sense, righteousness has a direct connection to the greatest commands of loving God and loving our neighbors.
What the Bible Dictionary Says
If you look up the original Greek word for righteousness that Jesus uses in Matthew 5:6 (dikaiosúne, pronounced dee-kay-oh-SOO-nay), you’ll discover that it can mean a lot of things depending on the context. It’s one of those Bible words that is multifaceted, not one-dimensional.
For example, one dictionary of Bible words indicates that the word is used in three main ways:
Judicial Responsibility — A person who is fair, just, and impartial. Leviticus 19:5 emphasizes this aspect of righteousness when it calls upon us not to show partiality or favoritism, but to judge fairly.
Juridicial Correctness — Someone who is in good standing with the law, in a relationship or contractual agreement. Often the emphasis is on God’s gracious plan to declare us or make us righteous through his actions, rather than our efforts, as we see in Genesis 15:6.
Upright Behavior — Someone who displays good morals, character, and obedience to God’s laws. This is the typical way the Israelites would have thought about righteousness, which we see in passages like Deuteronomy 6:25: “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
Legal, Moral, and Social Righteousness
In his book The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, John Stott explains how righteousness involves a legal, moral, and social dimension.
Legal — Justification or a right standing with God.
Moral — Character and conduct that flows from the heart.
Social — Pursuing justice and peace in our relationships, families, and communities.
One thing I appreciate about Stott’s commentary is that it emphasizes the social dimension of our faith. While it’s absolutely true that a major part of righteousness is a devotion to living by God’s standards, the other side of the coin is a commitment to being salt and light in our communities by blessing the world around us. As John Stott further explains,
“Biblical righteousness is more than a private and personal affair; it includes social righteousness as well. And social righteousness, as we learn from the law and the prophets, is concerned with seeking humanity’s liberation from oppression, together with the promotion of civil rights, responsible care for the planet, justice in the law courts, integrity in business dealings and honour in home and family affairs. Christians are committed to hunger for righteousness in the whole human community as something pleasing to a righteous God.”
Stott is right — righteousness is not just something we do in private as we focus on loving God; it’s also something we do in public as we focus on loving our neighbors. After all, the word righteousness could just as easily be translated justice in our Bibles, like the New Living Translation does in this beatitude: “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.”
In the NIV Application Commentary on Matthew, Michael Wilkins explains the concept of righteousness in a similar three-part fashion:
Justice — For those who have been victimized by an unjust world.
Ethical Righteousness — For those who want to live a moral life based on God’s Word.
Redemptive (or Salvific)— For those who know they are sinners whose only hope of salvation is the grace of God.
Here’s how I would summarize these various descriptions of righteousness in the Bible:
It’s something we can practice privately in our walk with God— Think moral living, obedience, etc.
It’s something we can practice publicly in our communities by pursuing justice, and showing compassion.
It’s a key aspect of God’s character — he is firm, just, and impartial.
It’s something God bestows on us through the power of the cross and our faith in Christ.
The Key Point About Being Righteous
We all want to be considered righteous in God’s eyes, which is to say that we want to be in good standing with him. But the harsh truth is that without Jesus, that’s never going to be possible.
Without a saving faith in Jesus Christ, we can never do enough good deeds (moral or social righteousness) to earn a right standing with God (judicial righteousness) because God is a just and righteous God who judges us impartially. That means the only way we can be considered righteous is through something God does — not us.
In Romans 3:21-26, Paul explores these concepts and explains how Jesus’ death and resurrection is the key to all of this.
God wants to declare us righteous, but as a fair, just, and impartial God, he can’t do that with integrity because of the sin in our lives.
For a time, God did not punish people’s sins as they deserve, so in order to maintain his righteousness as a God of justice he will eventually need to hold people accountable for their sins.
One potential solution is for people to atone for their own sins and start living such morally righteous lives that they maintain their good standing with God on their own. However, human nature and history prove that to be an impossible task.
In light of that, God needed a way to be a fair and just God when it comes to sin, but a good and gracious Father when it comes to our salvation — and that’s where the cross comes in. Through the cross, God was able to solve the problem of sin without condemning the sinners who committed them.
Through the cross, God demonstrated multiple aspects of righteousness. He was fair and impartial, he was gracious with his gift, and the cross calls us to a life of moral living.
Application
Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness as an all-encompassing term. And he promises that our desire to be made right with God, to see justice prevail in the world around us, and to strive to be fair and impartial will be rewarded.
Reflection Question:
What is one aspect of righteousness or justice that you want to focus on in your walk with God today?