Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
Matthew is most likely not talking about Pauline righteousness (ie, The righteousness of Christ imputed to the believer by grace through faith), though that is certainly necessary. The righteousness in view here is likely a life of practical, Christ-conforming, Christ-imaging righteousness. It is the righteousness that walks as Christ walked, the righteousness that pictures and accords with God’s own heart, the righteousness that is the white light of love for YHWH and love for neighbor refracted in a spectrum of colors through the prism of daily situations and circumstances. Essentially, Jesus seems to be pronouncing a blessing on those who have a soul-deep longing to grow in Christ-likeness.
In today’s picture, the saint’s hunger for rightoeusness is pictured as his desperate reaching for the bread and wine of Christ Himself. This communicates a few things.
First, true right-standing before God and fruitfulness to His glory is had only by our abiding union to Christ that comes from feasting by faith on the crucified and risen Christ (John 6:56, John 15:5).
Secondly, practical, outworked righteousness in our lives (the righteousness Matthew mainly has in view) will look like a living out of Christ’s climactic love to God and neighbor communicated at the cross and symbolized in the bread and wine (Matthew 22:37-40).
And thirdly, this hunger and thirst for rightoeusness can only be had when the Spirit of God regenerates a heart and causes it seek Christ and likeness to Him (John 16:14, Galatians 5:16-18).
Those who—by grace—desire conformity to their Lord with a spiritual intensity similar to the physical pangs of severe hunger and thirst ought to be deeply happy because those very pangs are an assurance that they will be satisfied…(Romans 8:29-30).
