44. The Beatitudes - The Poor in Spirit (Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20, 24)*
The last word of the Book of the Old Covenant is the word
“curse”. Jesus began his appeal to Israel with the command:
“Repent!” He began the formal instruction of his disciples with:
“Blessed” - but then proceeded to pronounce this blessedness upon a
set of excellences which the world despises. There are eight of them, not
because this exhausts the life of fine spiritual qualities which he esteems (for
these are only samples of the kind of virtues which he desires more than
sacrifice) but because eight is the beginning of a new seven, it is the number
of the New Creation.
The first blessedness, and the key to all the others, is to be
“poor in spirit”. This should not be taken to mean a craven
gutlessness, but a true sense of proportion towards life’s problems and
towards anything achieved through one’s own abilities or endeavours. It
signifies not a complete lack of confidence in self but a complete lack of
satisfaction with self. And with this must necessarily go an utter
dependence on God, a positive even more difficult to achieve than the negative
just enunciated. Laodicea, spiritually rich and increased in the goods of
godliness and in need of nothing, thou knowest not that thou art wretched and
miserable and poor and blind and naked-because thou knowest not how to be poor
in spirit. Then spend all your fine resources to buy of Me...!
“Poor and Needy”
The two facets of this virtue are set side by side in many a
place in the Book of Psalms: “I am poor and needy: yet the Lord thinketh
upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God”
(40:17 and 70:5). “But I am poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God,
set me up on high” (69:29). “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me:
for I am poor and needy” (86:1). “Do thou for me, O God the Lord,
for thy name’s sake... for I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded
within me” (109:21, 22).
Here is the first lesson one has to learn in the school of
Christ-that all which a man has by inheritance or which he has acquired by his
own effort is worth little or nothing before God. Birth into a particular nation
or segment of society, colour of skin, inherited brains, sweetness of
disposition, capacity for hard work, superior education or technical
qualifications, social status, personal elegance or charm, nimble wit or
brilliant memory, high sense of duty or exceptional patience of spirit-none of
these, except in so far that they have been nurtured in a man by the grace of
Christ, are of any consequence whatever. Anything whatever which allows of
self-esteem is fit only for the Lord’s rag-bag.
But he who learns to be truly poor in spirit has the kingdom
of heaven also, and he who has the kingdom has all the rest that Christ can
Abraham, seeing no way through the impasse, leaned hard
on God. “My son, God will provide himself a lamb”, he said, not
knowing what he said-but he learned within the hour, and also had the promise,
on oath of God, of a heavenly kingdom.
Moses showed to the destitute of spirit how to be poor in
spirit when he cried: “Stand still, and see the glory of
Joshua, made leader of the most turbulent people in all the
world, and quaking in his sandals at the responsibilities laid upon him, was
bidden a dozen times over: “Fear not, be strong and of a good
courage.” He had to learn the lesson for himself and teach it to the
Barak, honest humble fellow, confessed his lack of bravery to
a woman: “If thou wilt go with me, then I will go. But if thou wilt not go
with me, then I will not go.” Only the providence of God could bring
success in the risky project he was putting his hand to.
Gideon desperately craved the deliverance of his people, but
there was no preening of himself because the angel of the Lord came to him
of all people: “Oh my lord, wherewith shall / save Israel? Behold, my
family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s
house.” and this poor spirit wrought an epoch-making “day of
Midian” foreshadowing Messiah’s greater victory.
“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief”, was
the piteous cry of a man out of whom bitter afflication and sorely-taxed
emotions had wrung the last dregs of self-reliance.
“Sir, come down ere my child die”, was the
pathetic imperative of a man of worldly consequence, now ground small by the
mills of God’s gracious tribulation.
“Poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My
word”-this was what God asked for through His prophet (Is. 66:2). Here in
a phrase is all that Scripture has to say on this blessedness to which no man
aspires with his whole soul.
With these examples contrast Jacob before he became Israel. He
was a better man than any of his adversaries. He had more godliness than Esau,
more cleverness than Laban, greater strength of character than Isaac, more
cunning than Rebekah, better judgement of affairs than his sons-all these
qualities, and more, were his. And he knew it, and through many years
gloried in it. But then he came to Jabbok, and all this tough self-dependence,
which the world prizes highly as one of the finest of fine virtues, drained out
of him, and for the rest of his life he limped ungainly on, leaning thankfully
on the angel of the Lord who redeemed him from all evil, and most of all from
the evil in himself. It was this-and not that-which gave him title to the
kingdom of heaven.
Jesus poor in spirit
Where in Jesus is this high Christian virtue? With him it was
normal to speak with authority, and to face all situations in tranquil
confidence, but it was not confidence in himself. “I can of mine own self
do nothing.” And how he underlined this truth when on his knees in
Gethsemane! Poor in spirit-utterly outpoured!
He is King of the kingdom of heaven.
The Blessing of Poverty
In Luke there is no qualifying phrase. “Blessed are the
poor.” Thus in its first declaration this “Manifesto of the
King” turns the world’s assessment of real good upside down. For men
esteem wealth as one of the highest blessings of life. Not so, says Jesus. He
does not curse the well-off, but he pities them: “Woe unto you that are
rich”. You poor people, what a load of temptation you carry through
But you who are financially poor are really best off. Not that
all poor people are necessarily blessed by being chronically hard-up-for the
simple reason that nearly all who suffer poverty covet money instead of
contentment. But if Jesus is to be believed (and in this respect practically
everybody thinks that he didn’t know what he was talking about!), being
poor means opportunities for faith and dependence on God such as the rich have
to find in other ways.
In moments of real honesty even the prosperous man will
acknowledge the truth of this. But there is comfort in his next thought that
after all he isn’t really rich. A man has to have twice as much as he now
has before he considers himself in that category. Thus, always, human nature
holds at arm’s length the challenge of Christ: “The Lord is talking
to the other man, not tome”.
It is specially noteworthy that this first beatitude and also
the last are unlike the rest in expressing an identical reward (if that is what
it is) in the present tense: “theirs is the kingdom of
heaven.” All the rest say “shall”.
At different times there has been a good deal of fuss amongst
believers about what has been called “belief in present possession of
eternal life” -- an unnecessary concern generated largely by an
unwillingness to let the Bible interpret itself.
Here, palpably, “theirs is the kingdom” is almost
meaningless as long as “kingdom” is restricted to the Messianic Age.
Nor will it do to cope with the difficulty which that present tense offers by a
glib out-of-context quoting of “calling those things which be not as
though they were”, for there is then the immediate question: Why should
that principle come in here and not in “Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth”?
It is simpler to recognize that there is a sense in which the
kingdom can be seen as not wholly future. Ancient Israel was already “a
kingdom of priests and an holy nation” when the covenant was made at
Sinai, even though the Promised Land was not yet theirs. So a similar use of
language is surely not inappropriate regarding the New Israel. Not a few of the
parables use similar phrasing (e.g.
13:24, 31, 33, 44, 45, 47; 20:1; 22:2; 25:1). Serious error
comes in, of course, when men blithely assert that the Kingdom is here and now,
and not in the future.
Notes: Matthew 5:3; Luke 6:20, 24
- Eight the number of the New Creation. The day of the Lord’s
resurrection, and of his appearing to his disciples (Jn. 20:26). Eight persons
in the ark. Eight gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:28). Zacharias belonged to the
eighth order of priests. The number of the Lamb is 888. But why Rev. 21:8?
- Jacob is not the only man who learned the hard way. Abraham dissembling in
Egypt (Gen. 12:13), David brilliantly playing the lunatic to save his own skin
(1 Sam. 21:13; Ps. 34:6), Hezekiah preening himself on a fine political alliance
and then with stark sense suddenly circling back into spiritual sanity (ls.
39)-all of these were God’s great men. There is much comfort in such
- “The kingdom of heaven” in Mt. 8:11; 11:11; 13:11 is
“the kingdom of God” in gospel parallels,
- Luke’s four
Blessings and four woes (not curses!) have their counterpart in Dt. 28:3-6,
16-19 on a different level. But the word “woe” means woe.
- “Ye have received” (Lk. 6:24). As in Mt. 6:2, 5, 16, Lk. 16:25
the past tense is very emphatic. Most of Ps.49 is on this sorry