Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Those who long for right character as urgently as a hungry body longs for food and a thirsty body for water are pronounced happy, and they will be fully satisfied. The right character they seek is holiness, likeness to God who is love, which is agreement with His law of love and is embodied in Christ. To receive that right character is to receive Christ Himself, the bread of life and fountain of living water who alone can satisfy every need of the soul. Such longing is itself evidence that the Holy Spirit has moved upon the heart, awakened by looking at Christ's perfection, and it is to be kept alive and made stronger by daily prayer and feeding. The earnestness of the desire is a pledge that it will be supplied, for God does not fail those who pray and struggle for it. Being filled means Christ comes in to live within and shape the life after the divine pattern, given on condition of coming to Him in contrition and faith, asking with the whole heart, and emptying the soul of pride and self-love.
Setting and Language
Christ spoke the blessing on a mountain to His disciples before the multitudes, after the apostles were ordained when He led the people from the seaside to a level place on the mountainside and sat to teach. It was given beneath trees near the Sea of Galilee, with His acts of sympathy in healing the sick having prepared the people's interest in His teaching. Though spoken with His disciples close about Him as if specially addressed to them, it was designed to reach the hearts and consciences of the mixed crowd assembled within hearing. It shows His longing to fill the world with a peace and joy like that found in heaven.
The blessing is one of the Beatitudes opening the Sermon on the Mount, stating the principles governing His kingdom of divine grace. It does not promise earthly glory and political restoration, but a kingdom of righteousness and peace established in people's hearts. It was given when at every large gathering the people expected a great display of power concerning the new kingdom, with believing Jews looking for freedom from the yoke of bondage and restoration to ancient glory. It disappointed their hopes of earthly glory and freedom and ancient glory.
It lays Jewish ambition for an earthly kingdom low in the dust, blessing a trait of character entirely opposite to the attributes the Jews were cherishing. Names and positions and titles are nothing in the kingdom it sets before men, while pure virtue and a holy character is everything in the sight of heaven, where human ambitions and earthly passions cannot find entrance. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness is one of the traits of character that must be possessed to be a subject of the heavenly kingdom. Those who possess this character are His chosen subjects, the peculiar people who will compose the royal family in the kingdom of heaven, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, united with Him in service and trading upon the Lord's gifts, sharing with Him in the blessing and the glory and the honor that will ever come to Him. It is part of His greeting of blessing to the whole human family, blessing those the world disowns and offering them refuge in His light and life, awakening hope, desire, and faith so that even people who feel fallen or despairing can through grace begin a new life and aspire to what is holy.
Hunger and thirst picture the soul's need for spiritual nourishment as the body needs food and water. Heavenly nourishment strengthens the moral life and satisfies the deepest needs of the mind and heart, to be desired as urgently as hungry people long for food and thirsty people for water. The soul must continually receive heavenly food and seek the water of life from Christ as the fountain of the pure water of life, who refreshes and satisfies it and calms the fever of worldly strife. Although every provision for eternal life has been made, people who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness leave no room in their souls for God's Spirit or Word, and this spiritual desire is directed toward receiving heaven's rich gifts and living in righteousness.
The verse is part of Christ's exposition of the law, presenting the far-reaching claims of the law of God and correcting high imaginings by exalting true sentiments. He who spoke it from the mount is He who spoke the law from Sinai, magnifying it to reveal its full claims and its spirituality to every phase of life. In the Sermon on the Mount He restated principles given through Moses and set out duties to God and other people with stronger emphasis, because disobedience had confused people about God's claims, revealing God's moral law and standard of righteousness in their true light free from human rules added by religious leaders. The chapter to which it belongs reveals the truth about the laws of God's government, showing God's law as the enduring standard of righteousness, holy, just, and good. Desiring righteousness means seeking to please God by righteousness, doing right because it is right, walking in all humility before God, and living a simple religion born of love that is always kind, courteous, just, pure and uplifting, which Christ lived in His own deeds before He preached it.
The Sermon on the Mount containing the verse is plain, simple teaching setting forth the character of His teaching together with His conflicts and victories, setting out God's principles and human duties in clear terms. It is a lesson in saving, practical godliness for believers in every age, part of the teaching His disciples were to receive carefully and pass on to others and to be put into practical life. It is to be studied for that character, to be read, believed, and practiced, for living by its teaching helps develop Christlike character and place divine principles in the heart. It is part of His soul-saving message to all who will receive it, teaching the character and blessings of His followers, and those who are humble in spirit and receive this truth from His lips will be converted, with God's rebuke for past wrongs removed.
Righteousness Defined
The righteousness to be hungered for is holiness, likeness to God, because God is love. It is conformity to the law of God, for all His commandments are righteousness and love is the fulfilling of the law. Righteousness is love, and love is the light and the life of God, embodied in Christ, and receiving righteousness comes by receiving Him. Those who intensely long for it will be filled, which means desiring the fullness of His grace and the righteousness God requires, bringing peace, quietness and lasting assurance. Hungering and thirsting is appreciating the attributes of Christ and desiring His character, while keeping defective character when He is present to take away sin shows that hunger is lacking.
To hunger and thirst is to desire right-doing, obedience to God's law whose principles were shown in Christ's life, that every thought, word and action be like His and in harmony with the law. It is a deep longing for complete conformity to God's will, perfect love, and God's working through the person by His Spirit. It means sincerely accepting Christ as personal Saviour and being actuated by earnest desire to fulfill duty to God, to keep His commandments as Christ kept them, and to represent God in character with Christ as pattern in all things. Where that righteousness is lived, oppression and injustice cease and love, harmony, joy, the revealed power of Christianity, the converting power of the Holy Spirit, and multitudes added to the church are seen. It means daily forming a character that represents Christ to the world by revealing His virtues, love and character in word and deed as lights in the world, with a heart purified from defilement, filled with His love, brought into constant conformity to the will of God in obedience to all His commandments, unopened to worldly vanities and fortified against perverting influences, the image of the earthly effaced by the impress of the heavenly, by both praying much and working out salvation with fear and trembling while God works within to will and to do of His good pleasure, deciding destiny for heaven with glad reception, happiness and entrance into the joy of the Lord.
Receiving righteousness comes by receiving Christ Himself, the bread of life and fountain of living water. He satisfies every craving belonging to Christian perfection and is all-sufficient to all who appropriate His words by faith, so no one can say his cravings cannot be met in Him. The longing for spiritual life is satisfied only in Him, for whom a heavenly banquet of rich grace was prepared at infinite cost, unrecognized by those who remain unrefreshed. Coming to Him and believing on Him by faith ends hunger and thirst and gives everlasting life with resurrection at the last day. Eating His flesh given for the life of the world and drinking His blood is eating the living bread from heaven so as not to die but live forever, which means receiving His words, which are spirit and life; drinking the water He gives quenches thirst forever by becoming a well springing up into everlasting life; abiding in Him as the branch abides in the vine makes Him the vital principle by which spiritual health, strength and righteousness are imparted and revealed in daily practice. Those who daily receive Him as the bread of life and drink from the living fountain will be filled with His righteousness and will not hunger for fame or human esteem, joined with being emptied of self and humbling the heart before God each day. Their hunger and thirst for the bread and water of life is seen in seeking acceptance with God, turning from sin, confessing wrongs, and asking for strength to overcome habits that conflict with a holy life. He provides that bread and water for all who long for righteousness that they may receive life from Him. Those who hunger for Him will be filled with His fullness, a soul hunger that comes as the Holy Spirit makes felt the need of His grace. A soul hungry for Him is filled with His fullness, and what the soul is fed upon shapes the heart, either awakening hunger or leaving no relish for heavenly instruction, since feeding on worldly entertainments instead of seeking God weakens spiritual hunger and joy.
The longing is for spiritual and divine things rather than a worldly standard. It craves knowledge of God's Word as children hunger for bread, meaning praying, believing, and receiving Christ as an indwelling Saviour, which is continual sanctification. It is a desire for truth that overcomes self-interest and leads to receiving help and light wherever God sends it. It includes desire for holiness of heart and life and for the meek and quiet spirit that is precious to God, and settling for a worldly standard falls short of it. Lack of this desire marks spiritual death, where truth is assented to without sanctifying, and slighted light, privileges and opportunities will count toward condemnation.
The blessing is for forming righteous characters by living the life of the Life-giver through faith. Hunger and thirst express earnest longing for the righteous character God delights to see, with promise that the longing will be fulfilled. Its standard applies to every age and class, and everyone can reach it through faith in Christ with lifelong effort. The Sermon on the Mount presents the perfect character required of disciples, and the standard is not beyond reach, for celestial aid is provided to those who seek by faith to share the divine nature and be complete in Christ. Its principles retain their power for every age and class.
Hunger Described
Hunger and thirst after righteousness is a sense of need in the soul, and that very sense of need is evidence that Christ has already worked upon the heart to create it. It is wrought through the endowment of the Holy Spirit, who quickens spiritual desire in prayer, so that Christ will be sought to do for the person what is impossible to do alone. That thirst need not be quenched at shallow streams, for the great fountain is just above, and its abundant waters may be drunk freely by rising a little higher in the pathway of faith. Prior holiness is not the condition for receiving mercy; knowing oneself to be a sinner is sufficient reason to ask, longing for mercy, counsel and love and asking in faith to be cleansed from sin and purified from iniquity. To the repentant sinner’s deep desire the Holy Spirit answers by revealing Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The hunger is created by beholding the perfection and excellence of Christ. Contemplating the Saviour’s pure character, looking to Jesus and dwelling on His virtues and mercy, awakens desire to possess His righteousness, develops deep abhorrence of evil, and creates longing to become like Him and be transformed into His image. As Jesus is seen more clearly defects are recognized, to be confessed with true contrition while cooperating with the Holy Spirit to overcome evil. This comes only at the altar of God, where divine light reveals the littleness and incompetence of human ability and gives clear, distinct views of Christ. There the hunger is expressed in earnest prayer in humility and simplicity, as a little child asks an earthly parent for some good thing, asking God to grant the heart’s desire for righteousness, and such prayer is heard and answered, fitting those who so hunger for ministering on the earth.
The desire is to be actively cultivated like a keen appetite. It is to be continual as bodily hunger, a continual longing for righteousness and for communion with Christ, for a little taste of spiritual life is not enough and the soul should keep thirsting for the water of life and seeking Christ. It comes to the soul that turns to God in daily, earnest prayer for strength, support and power, giving noble aspirations, clear perception of truth and of duty, and lofty purposes of action. Maintaining that connection fills the heart with light, peace and serenity to diffuse to others through daily association and sets an example of unwavering fidelity as a witness for Christ. It grows more and more as the soul is fed and separates from the world, with the best prospects and healthful religious experience lying ahead rather than behind, precious glimmerings already seen being only a foretaste of what is to come, never satisfied with past attainment but pressing onward.
Each person must hunger and thirst for himself in the struggle for eternal life. The bread of life must be eaten individually, so that soul, body and mind are revived and strengthened by its transforming power and become assimilated to the mind and character of Jesus Christ. God must be made first and last and best in everything, and trusting in one’s own wisdom and strength or leaning upon the wisdom and strength of fellow men is dangerous to spiritual life. Even when those in whom confidence is placed are honest and true and serve the Lord with all diligence, anyone endeavoring to walk in the footsteps of Christ can follow Him as well as those admired for consistent, humble lives. This righteousness must be the whole being’s deepest desire, to be drawn to God and brought into perfect conformity to His will, a personal panting for God like thirst for water that pleads earnestly for grace and Spirit and is shown in earnest desire to trust God with increasing faith and confidence in Jesus. As the desire is met by grace and love the cold, hard heart is melted and God works through the person, for self hinders the work and when self is emptied and abased God supplies what is needed.
The hunger begins with feeling spiritual need, poverty, weakness and failure of self-sufficiency. Meekness and lowliness of heart precede this hunger, which also seeks true holiness, purity, goodness, nobleness, sanctification and Christlikeness through faith and surrender to God. Those who are one with Christ do not boast of wisdom or capabilities, for they feel their inefficiency and weakness, and this feeling leads them to hunger and thirst after righteousness. This hunger is need for help and deep experience of God, not merely outward religious form, and Jesus reveals Himself to the longing soul as the one in whom all fullness dwells. With eyes anointed to discern the enemy and lives hid with Christ in God, linked to a new supernatural divine life, they are kept from being overcome and from going into strange paths, trusting in One mighty to save to the uttermost all who come to Him.
Filling Promised
Those who deeply desire righteousness are blessed, and they will be filled and have that longing satisfied. This is one of Christ's plainly stated blessings in Matthew 5, placed among the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. The promised blessing belongs to the faithful, and the longing is a characteristic of Christ's blessed followers to be practiced in work and service. It is a virtue believers can seek through faith, prayer, and earnest study of Scripture.
The intensity of the desire is itself a pledge that the needed supply will be given, for God's promises of heavenly grace belong to those who long for righteousness. There is no failure with God, there is forgiveness with Him for all imperfections, and earnest prayerful struggles will not be in vain. Feeling that hunger and thirst is therefore no cause for discouragement or despair, and anyone who feels it may claim the promise of being filled personally. The filling is certain, God is willing to bestow a gracious outpouring of His Spirit and blessing to meet present need now, and it is received by seeking the Lord with the whole heart, with ministers to lead out in that seeking.
Being filled means the Lord alone gives the bread and water of life, for Christ Himself satisfies every craving that belongs to Christian perfection. He is all-sufficient, the bread of life to all who appropriate His words by faith, so no one can say his cravings cannot be met in Him, and He supplies day by day the need to know and trust God when souls come to Him for spiritual help. Christ comes in to abide and supply the vacuum, reigning in the heart emptied of self-love, selfish desires and ambitions, making the person a partaker of the divine nature and a coworker with Him. Hungering is hungering for the bread of life, the word of God, and drinking the water Christ gives, which becomes within the person a well of water springing up into everlasting life, sought as Christ within. This fullness is the glory Christ has given His disciples, a character fashioned after the divine similitude, bringing assimilation to the divine image and sanctification and righteousness of soul through faith in the word leading to obedience and fruit to God's glory.
The filling brings present blessedness, bringing cheerfulness, peace, and joy into the work here below. The work of righteousness brings peace, quietness, and lasting assurance, through desiring the fullness of Christ's grace and the righteousness God requires. Trusting Christ fully and claiming the salvation He provides belongs to rejoicing in Him as Savior and receiving the benefits of His perfect life. The desire is lived out by seeking God's kingdom and righteousness now during probation in the struggle to overcome unconsecrated self. Being filled is full possession of the great and glorious salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, so faith must reach higher and not settle satisfied with what is already received. God satisfies those who hunger by supplying His righteousness and filling their souls with joy, and His blessings satisfy without becoming stale or wearisome, their value continuing to grow through eternity.
Even a deep longing that appears unsatisfied, joined with feeling unable to begin, is not rejected by Christ and is no reason for discouragement. Their condition moves Him, He welcomes it and is cheered by the sight of those who hunger in this way. He sees their great need as an opportunity to help them where they are, meeting them with hope and help. Those who feel unable to begin or have little confidence are thus welcomed, and their longing with compassion for people in misery makes them fit to serve those in need, as Christ helps them and teaches them how to do so.
Receiving the Filling
The promise is conditional and must be met by coming to God with a contrite spirit, and as soon as He is sought in earnest He will fill. Putting self-indulgence aside and seeking God with sincere, wholehearted desire is part of that hunger for righteousness and for the Lord's presence. The condition for receiving mercy is not prior holiness but longing for His mercy, counsel and love and asking in faith, with the knowledge of being a sinner sufficient reason to ask for mercy and compassion, to be cleansed from sin and purified from iniquity. Jesus receives and blesses those who recognize their sin and need of a Saviour, who need not first reform themselves nor despair of their case. Receiving the blessing requires the heart opened to the Spirit's influence, and prayer expresses that hunger arising from a heart aware of its need and seeking God's help.
Hungering and thirsting means continually yielding self to God's requirements, conforming to His will and obeying His law from the heart, with the intensity of the desire itself a pledge that the blessing will be given. It is a state of heart that regulates life and character, having the spirit of God's law within and being impressed with its far-reaching principles as taught in the sermon on the mount, without which instruction in the claims of the law fails, while the filling brings present cheerfulness, peace and joy. Those who hunger purify their souls through obeying the truth, and by beholding are changed into Christ's likeness, by looking unto Jesus, talking with Jesus and fashioning the life after His example becoming fit for the inheritance of the saints in light with taste perfected for heaven's purity. It is a daily experience taught by Christ Himself to followers who cooperate with Him, wear His yoke and learn His meekness and lowliness, thereby forming faultless character in the sight of God and Christ that prepares for future destiny and salvation, with angels welcoming and ministering in every phase of life until judgment according to deeds written in the books.
Filling comes when the soul turns from cravings for selfish gratification and is emptied of self-love, selfish desires and ambitions, opening the door to Christ as He knocks. Then Christ comes in to abide and supply the vacuum, reigns in the emptied heart, makes the person a partaker of the divine nature and coworker with Him, gives unfailing ardor, earnestness and perseverance, and causes living streams to flow forth to revive souls ready to perish. Receiving Christ's word as the bread of life means dying to self and widening concern beyond narrow selfish interests, with divine help pledged to those who surrender the whole heart and with trials serving to create longing to be cleansed and made purer and holier. Righteousness must be the whole being's deepest desire to be drawn to God into perfect conformity to His will, and as grace and love meet it the cold hard heart is melted and God works through the person, for self hinders the work and when self is emptied and abased God supplies what is needed.
Those who hunger crave knowledge of God's Word as children hunger for bread, which means praying, believing and receiving Christ as an indwelling Saviour in continual sanctification, with desire for truth overcoming self-interest and leading to receive help and light wherever God sends it. Hungering is hungering for the bread of life, the word of God, and drinking the water Christ gives that becomes a well springing up into everlasting life, by searching the Scriptures and living by every word proceeding from God's mouth, letting the word be as God's voice saying this is the way, walk in it, unto assimilation to the divine image and sanctification through faith leading to obedience and fruit to God's glory refreshing others. God's words are wellsprings of the water of life, and when received and obeyed in sincerity they reproduce and multiply themselves in the mind, for Christ's words are spirit and life, the same words He spoke from the pillar of cloud in the wilderness as in the sermon on the mount, which in His human life He lived by in continual dependence, for the Word was made flesh. The soul humbly searching the Scriptures is impressed by God's words and not overcome by skepticism, and those who sincerely believe God's word hunger to know His will, seek understanding, and are enlightened by God the author of truth with power to grasp revealed truths.
Merely wishing for goodness and holiness is not enough without resolute effort, for Christ has made ample provision to satisfy the soul's desire and the desire must be persistent and acted on through resolute will. The longing must not be left as a good wish but pursued with determined effort, seeking God's kingdom and righteousness with the zeal given to earthly aims, growing in grace and experiential knowledge of Christ, while pure love enlarges the soul and awakens desire for greater knowledge satisfied only by fullness. Gaining genuine Christian experience requires earnest effort because the desire is tested by Satan's temptations. Longing is real soul hunger expressed in earnest prayer for what is needed rather than in empty forms or customary words.
Christ Spirit and Doctrine
Those who long for righteousness receive Christ's righteousness abundantly credited to them. That hungering is hungering for a tested, lived knowledge of justification by faith. Justification by faith brings peace with God through Jesus Christ and freedom from the law's condemnation, while the faith involved works by love and purifies the soul. The bread and water of life thus received satisfies every longing of the soul and governs temper and disposition by principle, whereas the word heard without faith mixed in does no good, and indulging the opposite appetite for faultfinding, evil thinking and evil speaking brings death to spirituality.
A sense of unworthiness awakens this hunger, and the desire awakened will be fulfilled. Those who make room for Jesus and long to reflect God's character will be satisfied, for the Holy Spirit shows them the things of Christ and, as they keep looking to Him, keeps transforming them into His likeness. Christ's love enlarges the soul's capacity for growth and knowledge of heavenly things, so it keeps longing for more rather than stopping short of fullness. As the beholder looks to Jesus, the Spirit changes spirit, purposes and character to become more like Christ, increasing affection for God and forming Christ within. By beholding they are changed into Christ's likeness, and by looking to Jesus, talking with Jesus, purifying the soul through obeying truth, and fashioning the life after His example, they become fitted for the inheritance of the saints in light with taste perfected for the purity of heaven.
Those who seek holiness keep longing for righteousness amid daily temptations and victory over sinful tendencies, rather than taking strong or happy feelings as proof of sanctification. Those who deeply desire righteousness and the fullness of Christ's grace will be filled, for God supplies power to become like Him and to reach perfection through Christ, and receiving Christ makes them God's children able to share the divine nature. Truly sanctified hungering souls feel their own weakness, imperfection, need and continual inefficiency, and therefore go to Jesus for light, grace and strength and live in entire dependence on God, in whom alone all fullness dwells to supply their wants. Conscious of imperfection they seek to become more like Christ and to live in conformity to God's will and the principles of His holy law, rather than merely professing and teaching the word while self-confidently claiming to be sinless and rich and in need of nothing. For every hungering soul of this character the treasures of heaven are opened to supply wants, God's Spirit is exemplified in them, and they have assurance of one day beholding the glory of the kingdom.
The desire includes longing for the Holy Spirit, the means by which believers receive power. The measure received is proportioned to desire, faith, and the use made of the light and knowledge given, and light and truth are given according to the soul's desire. So long as the church is satisfied with small things it will fail to receive the great things of God. This hunger is expressed by talking of the Spirit, praying for it, and preaching concerning it. The Lord is more willing to give the Holy Spirit than parents are to give good gifts to their children, so those who hunger and thirst will receive. Hungering and thirsting means turning from exalting men and human ideas of education to seek God Himself and look to greater heights, and the Lord waits to bestow His Spirit on all who do so.[n85a] The needs of all who hunger are supplied by the golden oil, the Holy Spirit communicated to God's servants by the two anointed ones standing by the Lord of the whole earth, coming not by might nor by power but by God's Spirit, and not received without preparation by self-examination and prayer.
This longing is continual sanctification. It craves knowledge of God's Word as children hunger for bread, meaning praying, believing, and receiving Christ as an indwelling Saviour, with desire for truth that overcomes self-interest and leads to receiving help and light wherever God sends them. Christ's Sermon on the Mount defines true sanctification: His holy life shows what His followers are to be, crucified and buried with Him, then made alive by His Spirit and filled with His life. Hungering means daily forming a character that represents Christ to the world by revealing His virtues, love and character in word and deed as lights in the world. It requires a heart purified from all defilement, filled with Christ's love, brought into constant conformity to God's will in obedience to all His commandments, closed to the vanities of the world and fortified against perverting influences, with the image of the earthly effaced by the impress of the heavenly, by both praying much and working out salvation with fear and trembling while God works within to will and to do of His good pleasure. Those who so hunger decide their future destiny for heaven, receive a glad reception in the heavenly courts, and receive happiness and the commendation to enter into the joy of the Lord.
Hungering also means seeking the Lord with brokenness of heart and yearning requests for righteousness until the fetters of sin are broken and the request is answered. Those thus filled are never cold and spiritless but realize they have a part in soul-saving and watch and pray and work for souls. Molded by the Holy Spirit they gain depth, breadth, stability of Christian character and enduring spiritual happiness, and walking in Christ's footsteps they become identified with Him in self-sacrificing plans, with hearts filled with unselfish love for sinners, putting away worldly ambition and self-seeking, becoming more like their Saviour through contact with the deep things of God, exulting in His triumphs, filled with His joy, and growing day by day into the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus. This hunger appears as hunger and thirst for truth, which the honest eagerly receive and prize above life. The hungry are those held back from hearing truth by husbands, parents or others yet longing for it; when they hear it proclaimed in great power they eagerly lay hold of it, all fear of relatives is gone, and truth alone is exalted as dearer and more precious than life. Their filling comes through the latter rain, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord and the loud cry of the third angel.
Opposite Desires Warned
The blessing falls on longing for a higher righteousness, and those who hunger only for worldly advantage and honor do not seek it, while self-exaltation that regards itself as already perfectly righteous, as the Pharisees did, shuts out the longing altogether. It lays low ambition for earthly standing because in Christ's kingdom names and positions and titles are nothing and pure virtue and holy character are everything, so rank and titles have no place beside true desire for righteousness. The same contrast exposes the claim to be spiritually rich and in need of nothing, for such self-satisfaction is the opposite of hungering, which is marked by poverty of spirit and laying aside self-righteousness to seek the righteousness that comes through faith. As an exposition of the law it corrects high imaginings and exalts true character, showing a kingdom into which human ambitions and earthly passions cannot enter.
Against this stands a perverted hunger and thirst that craves earthly excitement, amusements, feverish desire for pleasure, and tainted and corrupted ambitions, hungering for selfish indulgences until all the powers are perverted. Those who yield to it give their whole life to the service of Satan and drop into their graves without an experimental knowledge of God. The same perversion turns hunger away from righteousness, holiness, and God's presence toward a cherished indulgence, when tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, or liquor deaden the natural sensibilities of body and mind and leave the person less open to the Holy Spirit. Exciting amusements cannot satisfy the soul's hunger, for those who drink the living water lose thirst for frivolous sensual entertainment, and religious principle strengthens the mind and removes the taste for such pleasures. Without genuine hunger for righteousness and thirst for the waters of life the soul turns to passing excitement and pleasure, and religion then rests on changing feelings rather than a firm foundation.
Desiring praise from others is the opposite of this hunger and is offensive to God, and the promise to those who hunger and thirst does not commend striving for prominence or praise. Where the hunger is not learned the heart instead thirsts for human appreciation and honor, and receiving that honor only injures it, so the heart must be guarded with perpetual vigilance lest it be estranged from God by living to please self and courting praise. Children and youth as well as older members must be taught to hunger for righteousness rather than crave human appreciation and honor, which would harm them if received. God's servants likewise must seek purity, integrity, and nobility rather than hunger for the highest positions or for status and authority, which bring great temptation.
Lack of this desire explains why people are not blessed, for the promise is for all who feel their need and come with weakness and imperfection to repent and ask in faith, and lack of spiritual strength comes from not feeling the need and not hungering. That lack marks spiritual death, where people may assent to truth without being sanctified by it, and the light, privileges, and opportunities they have slighted will count toward their condemnation. Mere agreement with truth is not hunger, for revealed truth must have a lasting effect and sanctify the life. Few truly desire righteousness in the sense of earnestly seeking to know and do God's will, because attachment to the world and self-interest crowd out concern for eternal things, a want seen even among the youth who scarcely know the Spirit as reprover or comforter.
Life Mission and Application
Hungering and thirsting after righteousness fits people for ministering on the earth, for the hunger created by beholding Christ's perfection is satisfied only when the Lord gives the bread and water of life and imparts a character fashioned after the divine similitude, and those who feel that soul hunger are blessed with satisfaction, forgiveness for imperfection, and unfailing help as soon as they seek God with a contrite spirit in earnest. Workers for God must themselves possess this longing in order to become a light and strength to others, for it is a grace of Christ's Spirit to be exhibited in character as the practical lesson of being lights of the world, carrying truth to those in moral darkness who do not know the way of life and salvation. Those who labor to win souls feel the hunger more deeply, pleading with God with stronger faith and deeper experience, driven by trials and opposition to Scripture and prayer to grow in grace and knowledge. Restoration to spiritual life requires accepting the light Christ imparts and exercising the noblest faculties of the soul in obedience, following where He leads without going astray, and making life pleasant and useful to others. Loving concern for people in misery, even when confidence is small and a beginning seems impossible, makes the longing soul fit to serve those in need, and Christ teaches how to help them through self-denying effort for those outside Him.
In Germany the word of God awakened a hunger and thirst for righteousness as a longing for spiritual progress unknown for ages, testing every doctrine by the word of God. Living faith took the place of dead formalism, with loss of confidence in superstition, giving way of prejudice, and turning of eyes long directed to human rites and earthly mediators in penitence and faith to Christ and Him crucified. The flock of God hunger and thirst for truth, which is righteousness, and are filled when a called shepherd feeds them by careful study and faithful preaching resting on the authority of the Sacred Scriptures alone and not on human sayings and doctrines.
The Samaritan woman shows what this hunger is, for despite a sinful life she was eager for instruction, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and ready to accept the Saviour when revealed. Those in that condition are in a more favorable condition to become heirs of the kingdom than those who make exalted professions of piety yet trust salvation to outward forms and ceremonies and feel they need no Saviour and no teacher. Jesus does not explain His character to proud and skeptical rulers, but declares Himself to humble persons ready to believe. Many in Israel who had long waited for redemption came to Him as the expected Teacher with hungering souls and feasted on the bounteous grace of a merciful Saviour in precious lessons of divine knowledge, while many others living under the full splendor of His light did not comprehend it and turned away in indifference or unbelief.
The same hunger appears in every social class, for many wealthy and influential people are spiritually hungry for nourishment ordinary teaching has not given, and their apparent indifference does not remove their need for personal effort and earnest care. Old men and old women hunger for a better knowledge of spiritual things and are to be given that knowledge right where they are. Sanitarium patients who inquire about faith hunger and thirst for truth and are filled by finding it when the institution gives them knowledge, opens their eyes, and leads souls to a right course. Children's souls hunger and thirst for what will shape and nourish them, and parents are to feed that need with Christlike example and teaching. People in the darkness of error are calling and praying for light, hungering for the bread of life, the water of salvation, and the word of truth, and they are to be sought out and included rather than left out. God has men of opportunity ready to go forth with the warning message when the way is opened, so means should be invested to send them and let light shine now before probation closes, in great cities and different countries where hearts long for light and truth.
Understanding Bible truth depends not chiefly on intellectual power but on singleness of purpose, a humble teachable spirit, and an earnest longing for righteousness. That hunger includes desire for Bible knowledge, purity of heart, and holiness of life, without which the essential principles of godliness are not understood and truth loses its power to guide and shape the mind. Those who hunger find comfort and instruction in portions of Scripture which learned men pronounce a mystery or pass over as unimportant, while theologians who close their eyes to truths they do not wish to practice gain no clearer understanding. Self-reliance and satisfaction with one's own wisdom leave no room for heavenly grace, for spiritual hunger involves humility and willingness to learn and earnestly seek to know the Lord's way.
Those who deeply desire righteousness and heart purity will be filled, for God answers the longing with fellowship of His Spirit, teaching the soul to pray, watch, guard the heart, and learn meekness and lowliness from Christ so character and conduct are shaped by Him. The longing is to become Christlike, assimilated to His image, keeping the way of the Lord and doing justice and judgment, cultivating earnest desire for His attributes, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness with all else subordinated, and refusing cheap common things. Seeing affliction, suffering, and prevailing iniquity leaves the heart sick and dissatisfied with bringing only wood, hay, and stubble to the foundation, and in trouble the soul longs intensely for God's love and power, assurance, hope, faith, pardon, peace, and the righteousness of Christ, even longing for changed circumstances lest trials expose it to temptation. The hunger is satisfied when the heart is emptied of pride, vanity, and selfishness, when faith appropriates the promises and Christ supplies the vacuum and abides within, giving a new heart and a new song from His fullness, grace for grace, revealing Himself to the longing soul as the one in whom all fullness dwells. This practical obedience taught from the Mount of Blessing remains binding after type met antitype in Christ's death, as greater light with Moses' instruction to strictly distinguish the sacred from the common and respect what God has set apart. God's grace through the Spirit produces good and righteous actions which heaven accounts as blessings bringing true happiness, which worldly possessions, fame, honor, and human praise cannot give.
Those who long for right character as urgently as a hungry body longs for food and a thirsty body for water are pronounced happy, and they will be fully satisfied. The right character they seek is holiness, likeness to God who is love, which is agreement with His law of love and is embodied in Christ. To receive that right character is to receive Christ Himself, the bread of life and fountain of living water who alone can satisfy every need of the soul. Such longing is itself evidence that the Holy Spirit has moved upon the heart, awakened by looking at Christ's perfection, and it is to be kept alive and made stronger by daily prayer and feeding. The earnestness of the desire is a pledge that it will be supplied, for God does not fail those who pray and struggle for it. Being filled means Christ comes in to live within and shape the life after the divine pattern, given on condition of coming to Him in contrition and faith, asking with the whole heart, and emptying the soul of pride and self-love.
Setting and Language
Christ spoke the blessing on a mountain to His disciples before the multitudes, after the apostles were ordained when He led the people from the seaside to a level place on the mountainside and sat to teach. It was given beneath trees near the Sea of Galilee, with His acts of sympathy in healing the sick having prepared the people's interest in His teaching. Though spoken with His disciples close about Him as if specially addressed to them, it was designed to reach the hearts and consciences of the mixed crowd assembled within hearing. It shows His longing to fill the world with a peace and joy like that found in heaven.
The blessing is one of the Beatitudes opening the Sermon on the Mount, stating the principles governing His kingdom of divine grace. It does not promise earthly glory and political restoration, but a kingdom of righteousness and peace established in people's hearts. It was given when at every large gathering the people expected a great display of power concerning the new kingdom, with believing Jews looking for freedom from the yoke of bondage and restoration to ancient glory. It disappointed their hopes of earthly glory and freedom and ancient glory.
It lays Jewish ambition for an earthly kingdom low in the dust, blessing a trait of character entirely opposite to the attributes the Jews were cherishing. Names and positions and titles are nothing in the kingdom it sets before men, while pure virtue and a holy character is everything in the sight of heaven, where human ambitions and earthly passions cannot find entrance. Hungering and thirsting after righteousness is one of the traits of character that must be possessed to be a subject of the heavenly kingdom. Those who possess this character are His chosen subjects, the peculiar people who will compose the royal family in the kingdom of heaven, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, united with Him in service and trading upon the Lord's gifts, sharing with Him in the blessing and the glory and the honor that will ever come to Him. It is part of His greeting of blessing to the whole human family, blessing those the world disowns and offering them refuge in His light and life, awakening hope, desire, and faith so that even people who feel fallen or despairing can through grace begin a new life and aspire to what is holy.
Hunger and thirst picture the soul's need for spiritual nourishment as the body needs food and water. Heavenly nourishment strengthens the moral life and satisfies the deepest needs of the mind and heart, to be desired as urgently as hungry people long for food and thirsty people for water. The soul must continually receive heavenly food and seek the water of life from Christ as the fountain of the pure water of life, who refreshes and satisfies it and calms the fever of worldly strife. Although every provision for eternal life has been made, people who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness leave no room in their souls for God's Spirit or Word, and this spiritual desire is directed toward receiving heaven's rich gifts and living in righteousness.
The verse is part of Christ's exposition of the law, presenting the far-reaching claims of the law of God and correcting high imaginings by exalting true sentiments. He who spoke it from the mount is He who spoke the law from Sinai, magnifying it to reveal its full claims and its spirituality to every phase of life. In the Sermon on the Mount He restated principles given through Moses and set out duties to God and other people with stronger emphasis, because disobedience had confused people about God's claims, revealing God's moral law and standard of righteousness in their true light free from human rules added by religious leaders. The chapter to which it belongs reveals the truth about the laws of God's government, showing God's law as the enduring standard of righteousness, holy, just, and good. Desiring righteousness means seeking to please God by righteousness, doing right because it is right, walking in all humility before God, and living a simple religion born of love that is always kind, courteous, just, pure and uplifting, which Christ lived in His own deeds before He preached it.
The Sermon on the Mount containing the verse is plain, simple teaching setting forth the character of His teaching together with His conflicts and victories, setting out God's principles and human duties in clear terms. It is a lesson in saving, practical godliness for believers in every age, part of the teaching His disciples were to receive carefully and pass on to others and to be put into practical life. It is to be studied for that character, to be read, believed, and practiced, for living by its teaching helps develop Christlike character and place divine principles in the heart. It is part of His soul-saving message to all who will receive it, teaching the character and blessings of His followers, and those who are humble in spirit and receive this truth from His lips will be converted, with God's rebuke for past wrongs removed.
Righteousness Defined
The righteousness to be hungered for is holiness, likeness to God, because God is love. It is conformity to the law of God, for all His commandments are righteousness and love is the fulfilling of the law. Righteousness is love, and love is the light and the life of God, embodied in Christ, and receiving righteousness comes by receiving Him. Those who intensely long for it will be filled, which means desiring the fullness of His grace and the righteousness God requires, bringing peace, quietness and lasting assurance. Hungering and thirsting is appreciating the attributes of Christ and desiring His character, while keeping defective character when He is present to take away sin shows that hunger is lacking.
To hunger and thirst is to desire right-doing, obedience to God's law whose principles were shown in Christ's life, that every thought, word and action be like His and in harmony with the law. It is a deep longing for complete conformity to God's will, perfect love, and God's working through the person by His Spirit. It means sincerely accepting Christ as personal Saviour and being actuated by earnest desire to fulfill duty to God, to keep His commandments as Christ kept them, and to represent God in character with Christ as pattern in all things. Where that righteousness is lived, oppression and injustice cease and love, harmony, joy, the revealed power of Christianity, the converting power of the Holy Spirit, and multitudes added to the church are seen. It means daily forming a character that represents Christ to the world by revealing His virtues, love and character in word and deed as lights in the world, with a heart purified from defilement, filled with His love, brought into constant conformity to the will of God in obedience to all His commandments, unopened to worldly vanities and fortified against perverting influences, the image of the earthly effaced by the impress of the heavenly, by both praying much and working out salvation with fear and trembling while God works within to will and to do of His good pleasure, deciding destiny for heaven with glad reception, happiness and entrance into the joy of the Lord.
Receiving righteousness comes by receiving Christ Himself, the bread of life and fountain of living water. He satisfies every craving belonging to Christian perfection and is all-sufficient to all who appropriate His words by faith, so no one can say his cravings cannot be met in Him. The longing for spiritual life is satisfied only in Him, for whom a heavenly banquet of rich grace was prepared at infinite cost, unrecognized by those who remain unrefreshed. Coming to Him and believing on Him by faith ends hunger and thirst and gives everlasting life with resurrection at the last day. Eating His flesh given for the life of the world and drinking His blood is eating the living bread from heaven so as not to die but live forever, which means receiving His words, which are spirit and life; drinking the water He gives quenches thirst forever by becoming a well springing up into everlasting life; abiding in Him as the branch abides in the vine makes Him the vital principle by which spiritual health, strength and righteousness are imparted and revealed in daily practice. Those who daily receive Him as the bread of life and drink from the living fountain will be filled with His righteousness and will not hunger for fame or human esteem, joined with being emptied of self and humbling the heart before God each day. Their hunger and thirst for the bread and water of life is seen in seeking acceptance with God, turning from sin, confessing wrongs, and asking for strength to overcome habits that conflict with a holy life. He provides that bread and water for all who long for righteousness that they may receive life from Him. Those who hunger for Him will be filled with His fullness, a soul hunger that comes as the Holy Spirit makes felt the need of His grace. A soul hungry for Him is filled with His fullness, and what the soul is fed upon shapes the heart, either awakening hunger or leaving no relish for heavenly instruction, since feeding on worldly entertainments instead of seeking God weakens spiritual hunger and joy.
The longing is for spiritual and divine things rather than a worldly standard. It craves knowledge of God's Word as children hunger for bread, meaning praying, believing, and receiving Christ as an indwelling Saviour, which is continual sanctification. It is a desire for truth that overcomes self-interest and leads to receiving help and light wherever God sends it. It includes desire for holiness of heart and life and for the meek and quiet spirit that is precious to God, and settling for a worldly standard falls short of it. Lack of this desire marks spiritual death, where truth is assented to without sanctifying, and slighted light, privileges and opportunities will count toward condemnation.
The blessing is for forming righteous characters by living the life of the Life-giver through faith. Hunger and thirst express earnest longing for the righteous character God delights to see, with promise that the longing will be fulfilled. Its standard applies to every age and class, and everyone can reach it through faith in Christ with lifelong effort. The Sermon on the Mount presents the perfect character required of disciples, and the standard is not beyond reach, for celestial aid is provided to those who seek by faith to share the divine nature and be complete in Christ. Its principles retain their power for every age and class.
Hunger Described
Hunger and thirst after righteousness is a sense of need in the soul, and that very sense of need is evidence that Christ has already worked upon the heart to create it. It is wrought through the endowment of the Holy Spirit, who quickens spiritual desire in prayer, so that Christ will be sought to do for the person what is impossible to do alone. That thirst need not be quenched at shallow streams, for the great fountain is just above, and its abundant waters may be drunk freely by rising a little higher in the pathway of faith. Prior holiness is not the condition for receiving mercy; knowing oneself to be a sinner is sufficient reason to ask, longing for mercy, counsel and love and asking in faith to be cleansed from sin and purified from iniquity. To the repentant sinner’s deep desire the Holy Spirit answers by revealing Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The hunger is created by beholding the perfection and excellence of Christ. Contemplating the Saviour’s pure character, looking to Jesus and dwelling on His virtues and mercy, awakens desire to possess His righteousness, develops deep abhorrence of evil, and creates longing to become like Him and be transformed into His image. As Jesus is seen more clearly defects are recognized, to be confessed with true contrition while cooperating with the Holy Spirit to overcome evil. This comes only at the altar of God, where divine light reveals the littleness and incompetence of human ability and gives clear, distinct views of Christ. There the hunger is expressed in earnest prayer in humility and simplicity, as a little child asks an earthly parent for some good thing, asking God to grant the heart’s desire for righteousness, and such prayer is heard and answered, fitting those who so hunger for ministering on the earth.
The desire is to be actively cultivated like a keen appetite. It is to be continual as bodily hunger, a continual longing for righteousness and for communion with Christ, for a little taste of spiritual life is not enough and the soul should keep thirsting for the water of life and seeking Christ. It comes to the soul that turns to God in daily, earnest prayer for strength, support and power, giving noble aspirations, clear perception of truth and of duty, and lofty purposes of action. Maintaining that connection fills the heart with light, peace and serenity to diffuse to others through daily association and sets an example of unwavering fidelity as a witness for Christ. It grows more and more as the soul is fed and separates from the world, with the best prospects and healthful religious experience lying ahead rather than behind, precious glimmerings already seen being only a foretaste of what is to come, never satisfied with past attainment but pressing onward.
Each person must hunger and thirst for himself in the struggle for eternal life. The bread of life must be eaten individually, so that soul, body and mind are revived and strengthened by its transforming power and become assimilated to the mind and character of Jesus Christ. God must be made first and last and best in everything, and trusting in one’s own wisdom and strength or leaning upon the wisdom and strength of fellow men is dangerous to spiritual life. Even when those in whom confidence is placed are honest and true and serve the Lord with all diligence, anyone endeavoring to walk in the footsteps of Christ can follow Him as well as those admired for consistent, humble lives. This righteousness must be the whole being’s deepest desire, to be drawn to God and brought into perfect conformity to His will, a personal panting for God like thirst for water that pleads earnestly for grace and Spirit and is shown in earnest desire to trust God with increasing faith and confidence in Jesus. As the desire is met by grace and love the cold, hard heart is melted and God works through the person, for self hinders the work and when self is emptied and abased God supplies what is needed.
The hunger begins with feeling spiritual need, poverty, weakness and failure of self-sufficiency. Meekness and lowliness of heart precede this hunger, which also seeks true holiness, purity, goodness, nobleness, sanctification and Christlikeness through faith and surrender to God. Those who are one with Christ do not boast of wisdom or capabilities, for they feel their inefficiency and weakness, and this feeling leads them to hunger and thirst after righteousness. This hunger is need for help and deep experience of God, not merely outward religious form, and Jesus reveals Himself to the longing soul as the one in whom all fullness dwells. With eyes anointed to discern the enemy and lives hid with Christ in God, linked to a new supernatural divine life, they are kept from being overcome and from going into strange paths, trusting in One mighty to save to the uttermost all who come to Him.
Filling Promised
Those who deeply desire righteousness are blessed, and they will be filled and have that longing satisfied. This is one of Christ's plainly stated blessings in Matthew 5, placed among the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. The promised blessing belongs to the faithful, and the longing is a characteristic of Christ's blessed followers to be practiced in work and service. It is a virtue believers can seek through faith, prayer, and earnest study of Scripture.
The intensity of the desire is itself a pledge that the needed supply will be given, for God's promises of heavenly grace belong to those who long for righteousness. There is no failure with God, there is forgiveness with Him for all imperfections, and earnest prayerful struggles will not be in vain. Feeling that hunger and thirst is therefore no cause for discouragement or despair, and anyone who feels it may claim the promise of being filled personally. The filling is certain, God is willing to bestow a gracious outpouring of His Spirit and blessing to meet present need now, and it is received by seeking the Lord with the whole heart, with ministers to lead out in that seeking.
Being filled means the Lord alone gives the bread and water of life, for Christ Himself satisfies every craving that belongs to Christian perfection. He is all-sufficient, the bread of life to all who appropriate His words by faith, so no one can say his cravings cannot be met in Him, and He supplies day by day the need to know and trust God when souls come to Him for spiritual help. Christ comes in to abide and supply the vacuum, reigning in the heart emptied of self-love, selfish desires and ambitions, making the person a partaker of the divine nature and a coworker with Him. Hungering is hungering for the bread of life, the word of God, and drinking the water Christ gives, which becomes within the person a well of water springing up into everlasting life, sought as Christ within. This fullness is the glory Christ has given His disciples, a character fashioned after the divine similitude, bringing assimilation to the divine image and sanctification and righteousness of soul through faith in the word leading to obedience and fruit to God's glory.
The filling brings present blessedness, bringing cheerfulness, peace, and joy into the work here below. The work of righteousness brings peace, quietness, and lasting assurance, through desiring the fullness of Christ's grace and the righteousness God requires. Trusting Christ fully and claiming the salvation He provides belongs to rejoicing in Him as Savior and receiving the benefits of His perfect life. The desire is lived out by seeking God's kingdom and righteousness now during probation in the struggle to overcome unconsecrated self. Being filled is full possession of the great and glorious salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, so faith must reach higher and not settle satisfied with what is already received. God satisfies those who hunger by supplying His righteousness and filling their souls with joy, and His blessings satisfy without becoming stale or wearisome, their value continuing to grow through eternity.
Even a deep longing that appears unsatisfied, joined with feeling unable to begin, is not rejected by Christ and is no reason for discouragement. Their condition moves Him, He welcomes it and is cheered by the sight of those who hunger in this way. He sees their great need as an opportunity to help them where they are, meeting them with hope and help. Those who feel unable to begin or have little confidence are thus welcomed, and their longing with compassion for people in misery makes them fit to serve those in need, as Christ helps them and teaches them how to do so.
Receiving the Filling
The promise is conditional and must be met by coming to God with a contrite spirit, and as soon as He is sought in earnest He will fill. Putting self-indulgence aside and seeking God with sincere, wholehearted desire is part of that hunger for righteousness and for the Lord's presence. The condition for receiving mercy is not prior holiness but longing for His mercy, counsel and love and asking in faith, with the knowledge of being a sinner sufficient reason to ask for mercy and compassion, to be cleansed from sin and purified from iniquity. Jesus receives and blesses those who recognize their sin and need of a Saviour, who need not first reform themselves nor despair of their case. Receiving the blessing requires the heart opened to the Spirit's influence, and prayer expresses that hunger arising from a heart aware of its need and seeking God's help.
Hungering and thirsting means continually yielding self to God's requirements, conforming to His will and obeying His law from the heart, with the intensity of the desire itself a pledge that the blessing will be given. It is a state of heart that regulates life and character, having the spirit of God's law within and being impressed with its far-reaching principles as taught in the sermon on the mount, without which instruction in the claims of the law fails, while the filling brings present cheerfulness, peace and joy. Those who hunger purify their souls through obeying the truth, and by beholding are changed into Christ's likeness, by looking unto Jesus, talking with Jesus and fashioning the life after His example becoming fit for the inheritance of the saints in light with taste perfected for heaven's purity. It is a daily experience taught by Christ Himself to followers who cooperate with Him, wear His yoke and learn His meekness and lowliness, thereby forming faultless character in the sight of God and Christ that prepares for future destiny and salvation, with angels welcoming and ministering in every phase of life until judgment according to deeds written in the books.
Filling comes when the soul turns from cravings for selfish gratification and is emptied of self-love, selfish desires and ambitions, opening the door to Christ as He knocks. Then Christ comes in to abide and supply the vacuum, reigns in the emptied heart, makes the person a partaker of the divine nature and coworker with Him, gives unfailing ardor, earnestness and perseverance, and causes living streams to flow forth to revive souls ready to perish. Receiving Christ's word as the bread of life means dying to self and widening concern beyond narrow selfish interests, with divine help pledged to those who surrender the whole heart and with trials serving to create longing to be cleansed and made purer and holier. Righteousness must be the whole being's deepest desire to be drawn to God into perfect conformity to His will, and as grace and love meet it the cold hard heart is melted and God works through the person, for self hinders the work and when self is emptied and abased God supplies what is needed.
Those who hunger crave knowledge of God's Word as children hunger for bread, which means praying, believing and receiving Christ as an indwelling Saviour in continual sanctification, with desire for truth overcoming self-interest and leading to receive help and light wherever God sends it. Hungering is hungering for the bread of life, the word of God, and drinking the water Christ gives that becomes a well springing up into everlasting life, by searching the Scriptures and living by every word proceeding from God's mouth, letting the word be as God's voice saying this is the way, walk in it, unto assimilation to the divine image and sanctification through faith leading to obedience and fruit to God's glory refreshing others. God's words are wellsprings of the water of life, and when received and obeyed in sincerity they reproduce and multiply themselves in the mind, for Christ's words are spirit and life, the same words He spoke from the pillar of cloud in the wilderness as in the sermon on the mount, which in His human life He lived by in continual dependence, for the Word was made flesh. The soul humbly searching the Scriptures is impressed by God's words and not overcome by skepticism, and those who sincerely believe God's word hunger to know His will, seek understanding, and are enlightened by God the author of truth with power to grasp revealed truths.
Merely wishing for goodness and holiness is not enough without resolute effort, for Christ has made ample provision to satisfy the soul's desire and the desire must be persistent and acted on through resolute will. The longing must not be left as a good wish but pursued with determined effort, seeking God's kingdom and righteousness with the zeal given to earthly aims, growing in grace and experiential knowledge of Christ, while pure love enlarges the soul and awakens desire for greater knowledge satisfied only by fullness. Gaining genuine Christian experience requires earnest effort because the desire is tested by Satan's temptations. Longing is real soul hunger expressed in earnest prayer for what is needed rather than in empty forms or customary words.
Christ Spirit and Doctrine
Those who long for righteousness receive Christ's righteousness abundantly credited to them. That hungering is hungering for a tested, lived knowledge of justification by faith. Justification by faith brings peace with God through Jesus Christ and freedom from the law's condemnation, while the faith involved works by love and purifies the soul. The bread and water of life thus received satisfies every longing of the soul and governs temper and disposition by principle, whereas the word heard without faith mixed in does no good, and indulging the opposite appetite for faultfinding, evil thinking and evil speaking brings death to spirituality.
A sense of unworthiness awakens this hunger, and the desire awakened will be fulfilled. Those who make room for Jesus and long to reflect God's character will be satisfied, for the Holy Spirit shows them the things of Christ and, as they keep looking to Him, keeps transforming them into His likeness. Christ's love enlarges the soul's capacity for growth and knowledge of heavenly things, so it keeps longing for more rather than stopping short of fullness. As the beholder looks to Jesus, the Spirit changes spirit, purposes and character to become more like Christ, increasing affection for God and forming Christ within. By beholding they are changed into Christ's likeness, and by looking to Jesus, talking with Jesus, purifying the soul through obeying truth, and fashioning the life after His example, they become fitted for the inheritance of the saints in light with taste perfected for the purity of heaven.
Those who seek holiness keep longing for righteousness amid daily temptations and victory over sinful tendencies, rather than taking strong or happy feelings as proof of sanctification. Those who deeply desire righteousness and the fullness of Christ's grace will be filled, for God supplies power to become like Him and to reach perfection through Christ, and receiving Christ makes them God's children able to share the divine nature. Truly sanctified hungering souls feel their own weakness, imperfection, need and continual inefficiency, and therefore go to Jesus for light, grace and strength and live in entire dependence on God, in whom alone all fullness dwells to supply their wants. Conscious of imperfection they seek to become more like Christ and to live in conformity to God's will and the principles of His holy law, rather than merely professing and teaching the word while self-confidently claiming to be sinless and rich and in need of nothing. For every hungering soul of this character the treasures of heaven are opened to supply wants, God's Spirit is exemplified in them, and they have assurance of one day beholding the glory of the kingdom.
The desire includes longing for the Holy Spirit, the means by which believers receive power. The measure received is proportioned to desire, faith, and the use made of the light and knowledge given, and light and truth are given according to the soul's desire. So long as the church is satisfied with small things it will fail to receive the great things of God. This hunger is expressed by talking of the Spirit, praying for it, and preaching concerning it. The Lord is more willing to give the Holy Spirit than parents are to give good gifts to their children, so those who hunger and thirst will receive. Hungering and thirsting means turning from exalting men and human ideas of education to seek God Himself and look to greater heights, and the Lord waits to bestow His Spirit on all who do so.[n85a] The needs of all who hunger are supplied by the golden oil, the Holy Spirit communicated to God's servants by the two anointed ones standing by the Lord of the whole earth, coming not by might nor by power but by God's Spirit, and not received without preparation by self-examination and prayer.
This longing is continual sanctification. It craves knowledge of God's Word as children hunger for bread, meaning praying, believing, and receiving Christ as an indwelling Saviour, with desire for truth that overcomes self-interest and leads to receiving help and light wherever God sends them. Christ's Sermon on the Mount defines true sanctification: His holy life shows what His followers are to be, crucified and buried with Him, then made alive by His Spirit and filled with His life. Hungering means daily forming a character that represents Christ to the world by revealing His virtues, love and character in word and deed as lights in the world. It requires a heart purified from all defilement, filled with Christ's love, brought into constant conformity to God's will in obedience to all His commandments, closed to the vanities of the world and fortified against perverting influences, with the image of the earthly effaced by the impress of the heavenly, by both praying much and working out salvation with fear and trembling while God works within to will and to do of His good pleasure. Those who so hunger decide their future destiny for heaven, receive a glad reception in the heavenly courts, and receive happiness and the commendation to enter into the joy of the Lord.
Hungering also means seeking the Lord with brokenness of heart and yearning requests for righteousness until the fetters of sin are broken and the request is answered. Those thus filled are never cold and spiritless but realize they have a part in soul-saving and watch and pray and work for souls. Molded by the Holy Spirit they gain depth, breadth, stability of Christian character and enduring spiritual happiness, and walking in Christ's footsteps they become identified with Him in self-sacrificing plans, with hearts filled with unselfish love for sinners, putting away worldly ambition and self-seeking, becoming more like their Saviour through contact with the deep things of God, exulting in His triumphs, filled with His joy, and growing day by day into the full stature of men and women in Christ Jesus. This hunger appears as hunger and thirst for truth, which the honest eagerly receive and prize above life. The hungry are those held back from hearing truth by husbands, parents or others yet longing for it; when they hear it proclaimed in great power they eagerly lay hold of it, all fear of relatives is gone, and truth alone is exalted as dearer and more precious than life. Their filling comes through the latter rain, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord and the loud cry of the third angel.
Opposite Desires Warned
The blessing falls on longing for a higher righteousness, and those who hunger only for worldly advantage and honor do not seek it, while self-exaltation that regards itself as already perfectly righteous, as the Pharisees did, shuts out the longing altogether. It lays low ambition for earthly standing because in Christ's kingdom names and positions and titles are nothing and pure virtue and holy character are everything, so rank and titles have no place beside true desire for righteousness. The same contrast exposes the claim to be spiritually rich and in need of nothing, for such self-satisfaction is the opposite of hungering, which is marked by poverty of spirit and laying aside self-righteousness to seek the righteousness that comes through faith. As an exposition of the law it corrects high imaginings and exalts true character, showing a kingdom into which human ambitions and earthly passions cannot enter.
Against this stands a perverted hunger and thirst that craves earthly excitement, amusements, feverish desire for pleasure, and tainted and corrupted ambitions, hungering for selfish indulgences until all the powers are perverted. Those who yield to it give their whole life to the service of Satan and drop into their graves without an experimental knowledge of God. The same perversion turns hunger away from righteousness, holiness, and God's presence toward a cherished indulgence, when tobacco, tea, coffee, opium, or liquor deaden the natural sensibilities of body and mind and leave the person less open to the Holy Spirit. Exciting amusements cannot satisfy the soul's hunger, for those who drink the living water lose thirst for frivolous sensual entertainment, and religious principle strengthens the mind and removes the taste for such pleasures. Without genuine hunger for righteousness and thirst for the waters of life the soul turns to passing excitement and pleasure, and religion then rests on changing feelings rather than a firm foundation.
Desiring praise from others is the opposite of this hunger and is offensive to God, and the promise to those who hunger and thirst does not commend striving for prominence or praise. Where the hunger is not learned the heart instead thirsts for human appreciation and honor, and receiving that honor only injures it, so the heart must be guarded with perpetual vigilance lest it be estranged from God by living to please self and courting praise. Children and youth as well as older members must be taught to hunger for righteousness rather than crave human appreciation and honor, which would harm them if received. God's servants likewise must seek purity, integrity, and nobility rather than hunger for the highest positions or for status and authority, which bring great temptation.
Lack of this desire explains why people are not blessed, for the promise is for all who feel their need and come with weakness and imperfection to repent and ask in faith, and lack of spiritual strength comes from not feeling the need and not hungering. That lack marks spiritual death, where people may assent to truth without being sanctified by it, and the light, privileges, and opportunities they have slighted will count toward their condemnation. Mere agreement with truth is not hunger, for revealed truth must have a lasting effect and sanctify the life. Few truly desire righteousness in the sense of earnestly seeking to know and do God's will, because attachment to the world and self-interest crowd out concern for eternal things, a want seen even among the youth who scarcely know the Spirit as reprover or comforter.
Life Mission and Application
Hungering and thirsting after righteousness fits people for ministering on the earth, for the hunger created by beholding Christ's perfection is satisfied only when the Lord gives the bread and water of life and imparts a character fashioned after the divine similitude, and those who feel that soul hunger are blessed with satisfaction, forgiveness for imperfection, and unfailing help as soon as they seek God with a contrite spirit in earnest. Workers for God must themselves possess this longing in order to become a light and strength to others, for it is a grace of Christ's Spirit to be exhibited in character as the practical lesson of being lights of the world, carrying truth to those in moral darkness who do not know the way of life and salvation. Those who labor to win souls feel the hunger more deeply, pleading with God with stronger faith and deeper experience, driven by trials and opposition to Scripture and prayer to grow in grace and knowledge. Restoration to spiritual life requires accepting the light Christ imparts and exercising the noblest faculties of the soul in obedience, following where He leads without going astray, and making life pleasant and useful to others. Loving concern for people in misery, even when confidence is small and a beginning seems impossible, makes the longing soul fit to serve those in need, and Christ teaches how to help them through self-denying effort for those outside Him.
In Germany the word of God awakened a hunger and thirst for righteousness as a longing for spiritual progress unknown for ages, testing every doctrine by the word of God. Living faith took the place of dead formalism, with loss of confidence in superstition, giving way of prejudice, and turning of eyes long directed to human rites and earthly mediators in penitence and faith to Christ and Him crucified. The flock of God hunger and thirst for truth, which is righteousness, and are filled when a called shepherd feeds them by careful study and faithful preaching resting on the authority of the Sacred Scriptures alone and not on human sayings and doctrines.
The Samaritan woman shows what this hunger is, for despite a sinful life she was eager for instruction, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and ready to accept the Saviour when revealed. Those in that condition are in a more favorable condition to become heirs of the kingdom than those who make exalted professions of piety yet trust salvation to outward forms and ceremonies and feel they need no Saviour and no teacher. Jesus does not explain His character to proud and skeptical rulers, but declares Himself to humble persons ready to believe. Many in Israel who had long waited for redemption came to Him as the expected Teacher with hungering souls and feasted on the bounteous grace of a merciful Saviour in precious lessons of divine knowledge, while many others living under the full splendor of His light did not comprehend it and turned away in indifference or unbelief.
The same hunger appears in every social class, for many wealthy and influential people are spiritually hungry for nourishment ordinary teaching has not given, and their apparent indifference does not remove their need for personal effort and earnest care. Old men and old women hunger for a better knowledge of spiritual things and are to be given that knowledge right where they are. Sanitarium patients who inquire about faith hunger and thirst for truth and are filled by finding it when the institution gives them knowledge, opens their eyes, and leads souls to a right course. Children's souls hunger and thirst for what will shape and nourish them, and parents are to feed that need with Christlike example and teaching. People in the darkness of error are calling and praying for light, hungering for the bread of life, the water of salvation, and the word of truth, and they are to be sought out and included rather than left out. God has men of opportunity ready to go forth with the warning message when the way is opened, so means should be invested to send them and let light shine now before probation closes, in great cities and different countries where hearts long for light and truth.
Understanding Bible truth depends not chiefly on intellectual power but on singleness of purpose, a humble teachable spirit, and an earnest longing for righteousness. That hunger includes desire for Bible knowledge, purity of heart, and holiness of life, without which the essential principles of godliness are not understood and truth loses its power to guide and shape the mind. Those who hunger find comfort and instruction in portions of Scripture which learned men pronounce a mystery or pass over as unimportant, while theologians who close their eyes to truths they do not wish to practice gain no clearer understanding. Self-reliance and satisfaction with one's own wisdom leave no room for heavenly grace, for spiritual hunger involves humility and willingness to learn and earnestly seek to know the Lord's way.
Those who deeply desire righteousness and heart purity will be filled, for God answers the longing with fellowship of His Spirit, teaching the soul to pray, watch, guard the heart, and learn meekness and lowliness from Christ so character and conduct are shaped by Him. The longing is to become Christlike, assimilated to His image, keeping the way of the Lord and doing justice and judgment, cultivating earnest desire for His attributes, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness with all else subordinated, and refusing cheap common things. Seeing affliction, suffering, and prevailing iniquity leaves the heart sick and dissatisfied with bringing only wood, hay, and stubble to the foundation, and in trouble the soul longs intensely for God's love and power, assurance, hope, faith, pardon, peace, and the righteousness of Christ, even longing for changed circumstances lest trials expose it to temptation. The hunger is satisfied when the heart is emptied of pride, vanity, and selfishness, when faith appropriates the promises and Christ supplies the vacuum and abides within, giving a new heart and a new song from His fullness, grace for grace, revealing Himself to the longing soul as the one in whom all fullness dwells. This practical obedience taught from the Mount of Blessing remains binding after type met antitype in Christ's death, as greater light with Moses' instruction to strictly distinguish the sacred from the common and respect what God has set apart. God's grace through the Spirit produces good and righteous actions which heaven accounts as blessings bringing true happiness, which worldly possessions, fame, honor, and human praise cannot give.