ABSTRACT
The Lord's teaching contradicted a prevalent belief based on the general tenour of the Old Testament promises, namely, that suffering or calamity was God's method of punishing sin. If the Jews had known better what the will of God was, they would have fulfilled better all that was implicit in that First Great Commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart'. No one who hates can be a child of the Heavenly Father: it is the peacemakers who have the privilege of being called the children of God. Those who imagined that the mere punctilious observance of outward injunctions was fulfilling the will of God knew nothing of that inward holiness of which the Beatitudes spoke. The Lord wished to correct the Genesis account of Creation which implied that God's creative action had lasted six days and then ceased.
