Luke 6:20 - Meaning and Application

Here begins a practical teaching of Christ, which continues to the end of the chapter. Most of it is found in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5 and 7. Some think he preached these words at another time and place, and that Jesus repeated the same teaching, or teaching much like it, on different occasions. But it is more likely that Luke gives a shorter form of that sermon, and perhaps Matthew does as well. The opening and closing parts are much the same, and the story of the healing of the centurion’s servant follows right after it in both Gospels, but that is not important.

In these verses, we have blessings spoken over suffering believers, as happy people, though the world pities them (Luke 6:20). Jesus lifted up his eyes on his disciples, not only the twelve, but the whole group of followers with them (Luke 6:17), and directed his words to them. After healing the sick on the plain, he went back up the mountain to preach. There he sat, as one who had authority, and the people came to him (Matthew 5:1). He spoke to them and applied his teaching to them, teaching them to apply it to themselves. When he had already said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” he added, “Blessed are you poor.” All believers who take the gospel’s commands for themselves and live by them may also take its promises for themselves and live on them.

This application seems aimed especially at encouraging the disciples about the hardships they would meet in following Christ. “You are poor. You have left all to follow me. You are willing to live on help while with me, and you should not expect any worldly advancement in my service. You must work hard and live simply, as poor people do. But your poverty does not lessen your happiness. More than that, you are blessed because of it. Every loss will be fully made up to you, for yours is the kingdom of God, all the comforts and graces of his kingdom now, and all its glory and joy later. It is yours, and it already belongs to you.” Christ’s poor are rich in faith (James 2:5).

“You hunger now” (Luke 6:21). You are not fully supplied as others are. You often wake up hungry, and your food is limited. Or you are so busy with your work that you do not even have time to eat. You are glad to pick a few heads of grain for a meal. You hunger now in this world, but in the world to come you will be filled. You will hunger no more, and thirst no more.

“You weep now.” You are often in tears, tears of repentance and tears of sympathy. You are among those who mourn in Zion. But you are blessed. Your present sorrows will not hurt your future joy, they are preparing you for it. You will laugh. You have joy stored up ahead of you. Right now, you are sowing in tears, and soon you will reap in joy (Psalm 126:5-6). Those who now sorrow in a godly way are gathering comfort for themselves, or rather, God is gathering comfort for them. The day is coming when their mouths will be filled with laughter and their lips with rejoicing (Job 8:21).

“You now face the world’s hatred. For Christ’s sake, you must expect every kind of harsh treatment that a hostile world can give. Wicked people will hate you because your teaching and your life expose and condemn them. Those who hold church authority will separate you, or force you to separate yourselves, and then remove you from fellowship and punish you with the harshest judgments. They will pronounce curses on you as though you were scandalous and unchangeable offenders. They will do it with every show of seriousness, ceremony, and appeals to heaven, so that the world, and perhaps even you yourselves, may think it is confirmed in heaven. In this way they will try to make you hated by others and afraid yourselves.” This seems to be the proper meaning of aphorisōsin humas, “they will put you out of their synagogues.” If others do not have that power, they will still show their hatred as far as they can. They will insult you, accuse you of the worst crimes, even when you are completely innocent, and give you the worst names, which you do not deserve. They will cast out your name as evil, your name as Christians and apostles, and do all they can to make those names hateful. This is the application of the eighth blessing in Matthew 5:10-12.

Such treatment may seem hard, but blessed are you when you are treated this way. Far from taking away your happiness, it greatly increases it. It is an honor, as it is for a brave soldier to serve his king in war. So rejoice in that day, and leap for joy (Luke 6:23). Do not only endure it, but celebrate it. You are honored in the kingdom of grace, because you are treated as the prophets were treated before you. So you should not be ashamed, but rejoice, because this shows that you walk in the same Spirit, in the same steps, in the same cause, and in the same work as they did. And in the kingdom of glory you will be richly rewarded. Not only your service for Christ, but your suffering for him will be counted. Your reward is great in heaven. Go into suffering with full confidence that the glory of heaven will more than make up for all these hardships. Though you may lose for Christ’s sake, you will not lose by him in the end.

Then comes a woe against prosperous sinners, as miserable people, though the world envies them. These woes do not appear in Matthew. The best way to understand them, along with the blessings before them, is to think of the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus had the blessing of those who are poor, hungry, and weeping now, for in Abraham’s bosom all the promises made to such people were fulfilled in him. But the rich man had the woes that follow here, because he fit the description of those under these warnings.

There is a woe for those who are rich, that is, those who trust in riches and have plenty of this world’s goods, and instead of using them for God, use them for their own desires. Woe to them, for they have already received their comfort, the very thing they set their hearts on and were willing to take as their portion (Luke 6:24). In their lifetime they received their good things, which, in their own view, were the best things, and all the good things they are likely ever to receive from God. You who are rich are in danger of setting your hearts on a smiling world and saying, “Soul, take your ease in it. This is my rest forever; here I will live.” Then woe to you. The folly of worldly people is that they make the things of this world their comfort, when those things were meant only for their use.

People often enjoy these things, take pride in them, and treat them as their heaven on earth. For them, God’s comforts seem small and unimportant. Their real misery is that these worldly things become their only comfort. Let them understand, to their fear, that when they are separated from these things, all their comfort ends. Nothing remains for them except endless misery and torment.

Here is a woe to those who are full (Luke 6:25), who have more than they can want or use (Psalm 73:7). Their stomachs are filled with the hidden treasures of this world (Psalm 17:14). When they have plenty, they feel satisfied and think they need nothing more. They say, “Now we are full, now we are rich” (1 Corinthians 4:8), and they become full of themselves, without God and Christ. Woe to such people, because they will hunger. Soon they will be stripped and emptied of everything they are proud of. When they leave this world, they will carry with them desires that the next world will never satisfy. The pleasures of the body, which now fill them so much, will be denied in hell and replaced in heaven.

Here is a woe to those who laugh now, those who are always lighthearted and always find something to enjoy. They know no joy except bodily and worldly pleasure. They use God’s gifts only to feed that kind of joy, and they push aside sorrow, even godly sorrow, from their hearts. They are always following the empty laughter of the fool. Woe to such people, because their laughter lasts only for a little while. Soon they will mourn and weep, and they will mourn and weep forever, in a place where there is only endless, helpless, and unrelieved sorrow.

Here is a woe to those whom everyone speaks well of, meaning those who care most about gaining human praise and approval (Luke 6:26). “Woe to you,” because it would be a bad sign if you were not faithful to your calling and to the souls of people, and so preached in a way that nobody was offended. Your work is to tell people their faults, and if you do that properly, you will receive the dislike that truth often brings. The false prophets, who flattered your fathers in their sinful ways and spoke smooth things to them, were praised and treated kindly. So if you are praised in the same way, people may fairly suspect that you are acting as deceitfully as they did.

We should want the approval of wise and good people, and we should not be careless about what others say about us. But just as we should not be troubled by the insults of fools in Israel, so we should also not be moved by their praise.