Ontario (photo from trekearth.com)
At Christmas season the terms peace, joy, love, happiness, and blessed are used frequently verbally and in print. It is beyond the scope of this blog to thoroughly examine all these words Biblically, but I wish to look at one usage of the term blessed and then briefly compare the related idea of happiness to secular ideas. I will non-exhaustively look at the use of the term blessed in Matthew 5 which is according to Strong’s (3107) makarios and is a prolonged form of the poetical makar which means the same. Strong (1986: 60). The term is defined as meaning extremely blessed and by extension fortunate, well off, blessed, happy. Strong (1986: 60). Bauer defines the word as meaning blessed, fortunate, happy, usually in the sense of privileged recipient of divine favour. Bauer (1979: 486). Bauer explains that in Matthew 5: 3ff the translated idea of happiness to or hail to persons is favoured by some scholars. Bauer (1979: 486). Bauer reasons that this idea may be correct for the Aramaic original, but scarcely exhausts the context for Greek speaking Christians where the state of being blessed is brought about by ascension into heaven. Bauer (1979: 486).
Kissinger quotes Soren Kierkegaard from his 1847 work, What we Learn from the Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air. Kierkegaard notes that persons are to seek first God’s Kingdom which is the name of eternal (I would use the term everlasting) happiness which is promised to persons and before which the beauty and peace of nature do not compare. God’s Kingdom is righteousness and is to be sought first and shall endure forever. Kierkegaard (1847: 236). Kissinger writes when discussing the work of C.H. Dodd that the ideal Jesus expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, (which includes Matthew 5) would never be completely realized by humanity in this present world. Kissinger (1975: 82). H.L. Ellison writes that Matthew 5 expresses Beatitudes that are addressed to those who live lives beyond what the laws of the Hebrew Bible asked for and now live in grace. Ellison (1986: 1124).
It can be seen through the works of Strong and Bauer that the correct definition can be found in Matthew 5 by understanding what the word means in New Testament Greek, but the word’s context in each individual usage must be sought after for better understanding. Therefore, Bauer points out that a definition of the word in Matthew 5: 3ff would properly express the idea of happiness, but the context of the verses are deeper as happiness is directly related to Christian participation in the culminated Kingdom of God. Kierkegaard picks up on this point as well, and although Christians are to work for this type of blessed happiness in our present reality, it will not happen in this present realm. The establishment of perfected blessed happiness and the end of the problem of evil, my MPhil and PhD dissertation topics, are both dependent on the culmination of the Kingdom of God, which belongs to those who are regenerated and moved by God to accept salvation in Christ through his atoning and resurrection work.
Secular happiness in our present realm can be synonymous with being blessed from Matthew 5 in that persons can be extremely fortunate and happy and yet this secular concept of being blessed is very importantly different as it is without a Biblical hope in God’s culminated Kingdom. Secular based happiness is fleeting as it philosophically terminates in death. Any life that permanently terminates in death is not ultimately blessed and happy and therefore the historically based gospel offers blessed happiness that is everlasting and philosophically superior to secular happiness.
BAUER, WALTER. (1979) A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Translated by Eric H. Wahlstrom, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
ELLISON, H.L. (1986) ‘Genesis’, in F.F. Bruce (ed.), The International Bible Commentary, Grand Rapids, Zondervan.
KIERKEGAARD, SOREN (1847) 'What we Learn from the Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air', in The Sermon on the Mount: A History of Interpretation and Bibliography, The Scarecrow Press, Inc, Metuchen, New Jersey.
KISSINGER, WARREN S. (1975) The Sermon on the Mount: A History of Interpretation and Bibliography, The Scarecrow Press, Inc, Metuchen, New Jersey.
STRONG, J. (1986) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Pickering, Ontario, Welch Publishing Company.
