The Beatitudes – The poor in spirit (part 2)

Jesus opened his Sermon on the Mount with a lesson on true blessedness. He gave us eight declarations of what true blessedness is, each starting with the words: “Blessed are…” The first of these, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3) is rather surprising. As we noted last week, we do not usually see poverty and blessing mentioned in the same breath. Yet this was the first characteristic Jesus highlighted when he spoke on true blessedness.

Clearly, the kind of poverty that Jesus describes here is not material in nature. He was speaking of a poverty that is felt deeply in the inner man. That is what “spirit” refers to in this context. This is what the Lord referred to when he said to Samuel: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” (1 Sam. 16:7).

What does a truly blessed inner man or spirit look like? We are told the truly blessed heart is a poor one. When the New Testament uses the word “poor” it often refers to those who are in abject poverty. In Luke 14:21 the poor are listed with the crippled, the blind, and the lame. These were people who had no means of caring for themselves – they were beggars. The poor in spirit understand themselves to be spiritual beggars.

Listen to how John Brown describes the poor in spirit: “He knows himself to be an entirely dependent being; he knows himself to be an inexcusable sinner; he knows himself to be a righteously condemned criminal; he knows that ‘in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good thing’; he knows that he has, that he can have, no hope, but in the sovereign mercy of God”.

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus told a parable in which a Pharisee and a tax collector were in the temple praying. The Pharisee looked down on the tax collector. His prayer was filled with condescension and boasting. But the tax collector, we are told “would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'” (v. 13). He was justified, not the Pharisee. He was truly blessed.

Psalm 34:18 says: “The Lord is good to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit”. The Lord loves the poor in spirit. We are told that he will look to “he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2). The Lord does not shun our poverty of spirit, but draws near to it. 

​Augustus Toplady’s famous him, Rock of Ages, expressed it well: 

Nothing in my hands I bring, 
Simply to thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Saviour, or I die.

Why are the poor in spirit considered blessed? The final phrase in Matt. 5:3 explain that “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. The grace that God promised to those who humble themselves under his mighty hand (Jam. 4:6), is that they will posses the kingdom of heaven. You may not have noticed this, but the phrase is in the present tense, not future tense. Future tense would have made sense, if Jesus was just referring to his future kingdom. The new heavens and the new earth, the heavenly Jerusalem descending... this kingdom is considered their present possession. They are already citizens of it. Deserving nothing, in Christ the poor in spirit have everything.

Because of Christ,
Pieter