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The Beatitudes: Living In Sync with the Reign of God
The Beatitudes found in Matthew 5:1-12 have often been experienced as either frustrating idealism or oppressive legalism. This book will show that they are neither. They are the result of Jesus and His gospel getting a hold on us! Readers of the book will find freedom and encouragement as they understand that in these famous words Jesus is simply describing what He is doing in the people that He calls to Himself. The eight "blessed are" Jesus speaks from a Galilean mountain are probably the most well-known of all His sayings. Rightly understood, they turn the world up-side down!
The good news of Jesus is that the long-awaited kingdom of God is breaking into the world - God is breaking into our brokenness to heal and restore. In His Beatitudes, Jesus is painting a picture of those in whom God's kingdom is breaking in - those being transformed by Him and His good news. As people steep themselves in these words, they will discover the joy of being brought into alignment with God's re-creating rule.
The good news of Jesus is that the long-awaited kingdom of God is breaking into the world - God is breaking into our brokenness to heal and restore. In His Beatitudes, Jesus is painting a picture of those in whom God's kingdom is breaking in - those being transformed by Him and His good news. As people steep themselves in these words, they will discover the joy of being brought into alignment with God's re-creating rule.
160 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2015
54 people are currently reading
88 people want to read
About the author
Darrell W. Johnson
28 books58 followersDarrell W. Johnson has been preaching Jesus Christ and His Gospel for over 50 years. He has served a number of Presbyterian congregations in California, Union Church of Manila in the Philippines, and the historic First Baptist Church in the heart of Vancouver, Canada.
He has taught preaching for Fuller Theological Seminary, Carey Theological College in Vancouver, and Regent College in Vancouver.
He has authored eight books, including The Glory of Preaching and Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey Through Revelation.
He is currently serving as a pastor at The Way Church and Canadian Church Leaders Network.
He and his wife Sharon have been married over 50 years. Together they have raised four children adopted from four different countries of the world, and now enjoy loving 11 active grandchildren!
He has taught preaching for Fuller Theological Seminary, Carey Theological College in Vancouver, and Regent College in Vancouver.
He has authored eight books, including The Glory of Preaching and Discipleship on the Edge: An Expository Journey Through Revelation.
He is currently serving as a pastor at The Way Church and Canadian Church Leaders Network.
He and his wife Sharon have been married over 50 years. Together they have raised four children adopted from four different countries of the world, and now enjoy loving 11 active grandchildren!
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 22, 2025
A really nice breakdown of the Beatitudes! I feel like the Beatitudes can sometimes be confusing, misunderstood, or simply not explain enough in their proper context, and so I enjoyed reading a book that goes into them. It’s maybe not the most theologically profound book I’ve ever read, but encouraging and helpful for sure.
February 25, 2024
“On first reading [the Sermon on the Mount] you feel that it turns everything upside down, but the second time you read it you discover that it turns everything right side up. The first time you read it you feel that it is impossible; the second time, you feel that nothing else is possible.”
An easy read that affords readers a significant window into a familiar text. Johnson's approach is a bit paradigm shifting, and there are places and points where I remain unsure about some of his assertions, but he nevertheless offers an intriguing way to read the beatitudes in light of some long standing disparities and disagreements, most of which revolve around the the theoretical differences between Matthew's addition of the Spirit and the, at least by appearances, more socially concerned nature of Luke's summation of the same teaching.
To start, Johnson alludes to the larger paradigm through which he sees the Beatitudes to be operating- the kingdom of God having arrived in Jesus. It is here, then, that he pushes back against certain normative readings which want to see the Beatitudes as saying, do this and you WILL inherit the kingdom of God. Rather, he sees the Beatitudes as the outcome of participating IN the Kingdom. The beatitudes don't exist as a set of requirements we must meet in order to be saved, they exist as part of the proclamation that Jesus has in fact done a saving work in bringing about the promised kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. And these beatitudes are expressions or markers of the character of this kingdom. "Makarios (blessing) does not refer to how you and I assess ourselves or our condition; makarios refers to how God assesses us and our condition."
It's not, do this and be blessed, it is blessed are those BECAUSE this is the character of the kingdom of God in Jesus. As Johnson notes, "if we separate His Beatitudes from the context in which He first spoke them, His words, meant to give life, become either frustrating idealism or oppressive legalism." Words that are actually, meant to imply freedom and liberation.
If, indeed, "He speaks His Beatitudes in the context of gospel," and if it is true that the call to repentance, or turning around and moving in a different direction, that proceeds from the Gospels proclamation emerges from the following:
"The gospel according to Jesus is the announcement of a great fact that impacts all other facts. The gospel according to Jesus is that in Him, and because of Him, history has reached a major crisis point—“The time is fulfilled.” We are now passing from one era into a whole new era. The gospel according to Jesus is that in Him, and because of Him, the long-awaited, glorious, re-creating reign of God is invading the world."
Then, "The clearest sign that human beings are in fact “turning around and believing” is that they are becoming “Beatitude people.” The clearest sign that human beings are in fact making a U-turn and embracing Jesus and His gospel is that they are becoming “blessed-are people.”
The other aspect Johnson challenges is the notion that the Beatitudes are describing different kinds of peope. "Jesus is not describing eight different persons, but is describing eight different qualities of the same person."
Further, and this is what he will flesh out in the rest of the book as he walks through each beatitude, "one Beatitude flows into the next." He see in the construction of the Beatitudes a clear, literary design, anchored on one side by the "poor in spirit", and the proclamation of the promised kingdom of God on the other.
Meaning, if you have one then you have them all, as each one is predicated on the other by their nature. One of the reasons he insists on this reading is because, any other approach creates division and turns things like poverty into virtues. More than that, the minute we seprrate them is the minute we find ourselves stumbling over the disparate nature that a descriptive like poor and a qualification like meekness or pure in heart creates. Rather, he says that poor means the same thing in both Matthew's and Luke's Gospel, underscoring this simple truth about the beatitudes- the proclamation of the kingdom breaking in begins with the truth that there is an enslaved creation this kingdom needs to break in to. We live in a world enslaved to Sin and Death, therefore we need Jesus to liberate it from this enslavement. Poor (in spirit), a phrase that denotes a lack of something, or a position defined by a lack of something, must be the natural starting point for the blessed life to take root. Blessings emerge not because of the poverty but in response to it. Which allows us then to mourn, not because mourning is a virtue, but because the blessing shines a light on the current state of things. Which creates meekness (or gentleness), a hunger and thirst for what is wrong to be made right, which flows through mercy and the pure of heart. All things which ultimately represent the upside down nature of the kingdom, which faces resistance from that which oppresses the world,
In the beatitudes we find the great evangelical Word that the Gospel brings to all people in all times- the kingdom has arrived, therefore the blessed (right side up) life is now, even in the midst of the poverty it is responding to.
This does afford the beatitudes a nice narrative punch. And it seems to make sense, even if it feels like some elements of this reading don't quite feel convincing (certainly when it comes to bringing a social context into the picture). I feel like one reading that makes sense to me is paralleling the beatitudes with the ten commandments, which has a natural break in terms of the two summations- love God and love others. Johnson's approach has definitely challenged my own percieved paradigms, though, and that's certainly what one would hope for from any worthwhile read.
An easy read that affords readers a significant window into a familiar text. Johnson's approach is a bit paradigm shifting, and there are places and points where I remain unsure about some of his assertions, but he nevertheless offers an intriguing way to read the beatitudes in light of some long standing disparities and disagreements, most of which revolve around the the theoretical differences between Matthew's addition of the Spirit and the, at least by appearances, more socially concerned nature of Luke's summation of the same teaching.
To start, Johnson alludes to the larger paradigm through which he sees the Beatitudes to be operating- the kingdom of God having arrived in Jesus. It is here, then, that he pushes back against certain normative readings which want to see the Beatitudes as saying, do this and you WILL inherit the kingdom of God. Rather, he sees the Beatitudes as the outcome of participating IN the Kingdom. The beatitudes don't exist as a set of requirements we must meet in order to be saved, they exist as part of the proclamation that Jesus has in fact done a saving work in bringing about the promised kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. And these beatitudes are expressions or markers of the character of this kingdom. "Makarios (blessing) does not refer to how you and I assess ourselves or our condition; makarios refers to how God assesses us and our condition."
It's not, do this and be blessed, it is blessed are those BECAUSE this is the character of the kingdom of God in Jesus. As Johnson notes, "if we separate His Beatitudes from the context in which He first spoke them, His words, meant to give life, become either frustrating idealism or oppressive legalism." Words that are actually, meant to imply freedom and liberation.
If, indeed, "He speaks His Beatitudes in the context of gospel," and if it is true that the call to repentance, or turning around and moving in a different direction, that proceeds from the Gospels proclamation emerges from the following:
"The gospel according to Jesus is the announcement of a great fact that impacts all other facts. The gospel according to Jesus is that in Him, and because of Him, history has reached a major crisis point—“The time is fulfilled.” We are now passing from one era into a whole new era. The gospel according to Jesus is that in Him, and because of Him, the long-awaited, glorious, re-creating reign of God is invading the world."
Then, "The clearest sign that human beings are in fact “turning around and believing” is that they are becoming “Beatitude people.” The clearest sign that human beings are in fact making a U-turn and embracing Jesus and His gospel is that they are becoming “blessed-are people.”
The other aspect Johnson challenges is the notion that the Beatitudes are describing different kinds of peope. "Jesus is not describing eight different persons, but is describing eight different qualities of the same person."
Further, and this is what he will flesh out in the rest of the book as he walks through each beatitude, "one Beatitude flows into the next." He see in the construction of the Beatitudes a clear, literary design, anchored on one side by the "poor in spirit", and the proclamation of the promised kingdom of God on the other.
Meaning, if you have one then you have them all, as each one is predicated on the other by their nature. One of the reasons he insists on this reading is because, any other approach creates division and turns things like poverty into virtues. More than that, the minute we seprrate them is the minute we find ourselves stumbling over the disparate nature that a descriptive like poor and a qualification like meekness or pure in heart creates. Rather, he says that poor means the same thing in both Matthew's and Luke's Gospel, underscoring this simple truth about the beatitudes- the proclamation of the kingdom breaking in begins with the truth that there is an enslaved creation this kingdom needs to break in to. We live in a world enslaved to Sin and Death, therefore we need Jesus to liberate it from this enslavement. Poor (in spirit), a phrase that denotes a lack of something, or a position defined by a lack of something, must be the natural starting point for the blessed life to take root. Blessings emerge not because of the poverty but in response to it. Which allows us then to mourn, not because mourning is a virtue, but because the blessing shines a light on the current state of things. Which creates meekness (or gentleness), a hunger and thirst for what is wrong to be made right, which flows through mercy and the pure of heart. All things which ultimately represent the upside down nature of the kingdom, which faces resistance from that which oppresses the world,
In the beatitudes we find the great evangelical Word that the Gospel brings to all people in all times- the kingdom has arrived, therefore the blessed (right side up) life is now, even in the midst of the poverty it is responding to.
This does afford the beatitudes a nice narrative punch. And it seems to make sense, even if it feels like some elements of this reading don't quite feel convincing (certainly when it comes to bringing a social context into the picture). I feel like one reading that makes sense to me is paralleling the beatitudes with the ten commandments, which has a natural break in terms of the two summations- love God and love others. Johnson's approach has definitely challenged my own percieved paradigms, though, and that's certainly what one would hope for from any worthwhile read.
August 16, 2024
A solid practical examination of The Beatitudes found in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. The book is very short, but Johnson manages to fit a lot into the 140ish pages. Johnson sees all eight beatitudes as describing what a follower of Jesus is aiming for, which is very practical, but I would tend to lean towards the view that Jesus is less describing the characteristics of an ideal follower, and instead primarily describing different individuals in the crowd on the mountain listening to him on that day (and Jesus then closes the list with an encouragement specifically to his followers who will face future persecution). While I don't share Johnson's primary interpretational lense, I can see why he takes it. In the end, I still found the book to be very encouraging and inspiring and true to God's desire for his church.
July 7, 2025
I love Darrel Johnson and yet again has he helped comfort my heart. Darrel emphasis is Jesus inviting us into relationship with him and that the beatitudes isn’t a list of dos but the evidence that the Kingdom has entered into our hearts and world.
This is how people in the kingdom move. It should not discourage us. Relationship in Jesus produces a life of being what the beatitudes are.
Great short read. Definitely would recommend. I see myself using this as a return to devotional in the future for sure.
This is how people in the kingdom move. It should not discourage us. Relationship in Jesus produces a life of being what the beatitudes are.
Great short read. Definitely would recommend. I see myself using this as a return to devotional in the future for sure.
November 17, 2022
Super great book! Easy to understand with lots of great thoughts and ideas. I learned a lot from this book. It was a bit repetitive at times. However, the author was quoting only one of the multiple sections from The Sermon on The Mount, it must have been difficult to avoid repeating certain things over and over again. I would recommend if you are interested in learning more about The Beatitudes as a whole. However, maybe not the best book for a deeper understanding of the passage!
June 16, 2021
A friend gifted me this book. To be honest, if it hadn't been for my friend I never would have given this book a second look. I never heard of Johnson before. Wow, what I would have missed out on. His perspective on the Beatitudes was so refreshing, challenging, and relevant. I highly recommend this short but thought-provoking and lifestyle-altering book.
April 20, 2023
I found it helpful as a devotional resource both individually and going through it together with a small group. Johnson's interpretation of the beatitudes is mostly taken for granted and jives with his Reformed theology. His focus is more on elaborating and applying this interpretation. He gives some justification for it, but one must look elsewhere to evaluate the exegesis.
December 4, 2023
Breakthrough understanding of the beatitudes
The Beatitudes are a picture of the heart that has been changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are not something to grasp for but rather the result of an encounter with the cross.
The Beatitudes are a picture of the heart that has been changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are not something to grasp for but rather the result of an encounter with the cross.
July 1, 2024
What a beautiful book on a topic that I’ve always just read but never let it get into my spirit.
“Jesus is saying that each person grabbed hold of by Him and His gospel becomes poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and pure in heart”
A must read for every Christian I believe.
“Jesus is saying that each person grabbed hold of by Him and His gospel becomes poor in spirit, meek, merciful, and pure in heart”
A must read for every Christian I believe.
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January 2, 2021Won this book from Darrell in his Preaching class at Regent.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 13, 2024
Great insight into the beatitudes, extremely humbling and gives me something to strive for, as Jesus sanctifies me more into a beatitude man of God.
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September 4, 2024So good
September 26, 2024
I found a lot of great insight and material, but some sections had bits that felt forced or padded. Totally worth reading! Push through the weak bits and hold onto the rest!
January 14, 2025
A great book unpacking the beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Darrell is always full of gold and wisdom!
November 23, 2025
This book completely changed and enriched how I read the beatitudes. Rarely do I call a book life changing. This book is one of those rare times.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews