The Poor In Spirit
R.L. Wilson
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs (Matthew 5:3).
Luke 6:20 reads, āBlessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.ā This resonates for us, doesnāt it? We all understand being poor: āPoverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs.ā[1] In the United States the poverty line is āless than $26,200 a yearā for a family of four. In India about 60% of the population is said to āsurviveā on as little as $2-3 per day. Thereās one hunter-gatherer tribe in northern Tanzania that has essentially no income at all. They subsist entirely on the animals and birds they hunt and the wild plants and berries they gather. With that they are able to āsatisfy their basic needs.ā
But in Matthew 6, Jesus is not talking about being poor in terms of material needs. Instead, He says, āBlessed are theĀ poor in spirit.ā R.V.G. Tasker explains the āpoor in spiritā are āthose who recognize in their heart that they are āpoorā in the sense that they can do no good thing without divine assistance, and that they have no power in themselves to help them do what God requires them to do.ā[2]Ā They are those who are humble before God.
The poor in spirit āmust humble themselves before God and acknowledge that they bring nothing of their own power, possessions or merit to gain entrance.ā[3] In other words, they must repent. We must recognize there is nothing we can do, nothing we can say, that will earn us points with God. Rather, we must accept what God says about us. Romans 12:3 says, āFor by the grace given to me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.ā
It is so easy to compare ourselves with others and assume we are betterāor at least not as badāby contrast. But God says āALL have sinnedāāyes, that includes you and meāāand fall short of the glory of Godā (Romans 3:23). āFor it is by grace you have been saved, through faithāand this is not from yourself, it is the gift of Godānot by works, so that no one can boastā (Ephesians 2:8-9). The poor in spirit recognize that their only hope for salvation, their only hope for the kingdom of heaven, lies in the finished work of Christ on the cross. It is only by accepting this gift that we have āthe right to become children of Godā (John 1:12), and thereby become part of the kingdom family.
Letās go back for just a moment to the idea that being materially poverty is somehow āblessed.ā James M. Boice makes an important point here:
āIf it were true that Matthew 5:3 refers to material poverty, then it would be an unchristian thing for a Christian or any other person to seek to alleviate the burdens of the destitute and the starving. It would mean seeking to abolish that which actually brings them closer to God and to His happiness. If this were the meaning, it would not be right to attempt to relieve those who are starving in war-torn countries. It would not be right to try and provide for the refugees left homeless by natural calamities. There could be no social programs within the Christian churches. There could be no orphanages, no hospitals or inner city missions. None of these things would be Christian if this verse taught that spiritual blessedness was to be derived from material poverty.ā[4]
No, poverty alone will not bless you. Further, this beatitude does not let you off the hook of providing for āthe least of theseā when the opportunity is presented to you (Matthew 25:34-40).
Then what did Jesus mean when He spoke of the āpoor in spiritā?
āWe can see the answer to this question when we recognize thatĀ being poor in spirit is the opposite of being rich in pride. In fact, you might say that being poor in spirit is to be spiritually bankrupt before God. It is the mental state of the man who has recognized something of the righteousness and holiness of God, who has seen into the sin and corruption of his own heart, and has acknowledged his inability to please God. Such a person is poor in spirit. It is to such a person, Jesus said, that the kingdom of heaven belongs. Seen in this way, the first of the eight Beatitudes is one of the strongest statements in the Bible of the great doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ alone,Ā for it is a statement of a personās complete inability to please God by any human effort.ā[5]
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[2] R.V.G. Tasker, ed., Matthew, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1961, 1983), p. 61.
[3] Bible.org
[4] James M. Boice, The Sermon on the Mount (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), p. 22.
[5] Ibid., p. 23, emphasis added.