“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3)
I would like to take a short detour in one sense and yet continue to deal with the Beatitudes as. I will be dealing with the theological and practical ramifications of the concept of being poor in spirit. Last week I tried to set out that a person that came to the stunning realization of the reality of his or her spiritual condition is a person that has been confronted with the reality of his or her spiritual condition. The person that is poor in spirit has had his eyes opened to the reality of sin by the Holy Spirit and sees that he is an impoverished beggar in the spiritual realm with no way of obtaining anything in and of himself. This person in the spiritual realm is like the Lazarus in Scripture that was a beggar and yet had to be carried to locations to even beg. This type of person that has no righteousness or strength in self is the only kind of person that can trust in Christ and His righteousness alone.
The detour that I mentioned is to look at a statement of Luther in his Bondage of the Will and show how this beatitude fits with Luther’s view of man and sin. So in one sense this is a detour, but in another it is just showing how this applies to the nature of man. It might not be obvious at first glance to see how this text relates to the depravity of man and the bondage of man’s will. I hope to show how this is true.
God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will, and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation.
(p. 100 of the Packer & Johnson translation).
Last time I tried to point out that the pronoun “theirs” points to the fact that only those that are poor in spirit are blessed and have the kingdom of heaven. This is a corollary with God having promised His grace to the humbled. Luther finishes his first sentence by showing us what he means by humbled. He says that is “to those who mourn over and despair of themselves.” Interesting how the next beatitude is the blessing on those who mourn. However, what we want to see at the moment is that Luther’s idea of despairing of self is surely the concept of being poor in spirit. The person that has recognized that he is truly impoverished in spirit and has no means of obtaining anything for himself is one that despairs of self in terms of righteousness and salvation.
Luther goes on to say that “a man cannot be thoroughly humbled until he realizes his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will, and works.” This is simply the description of a man that has recognized and arrived at the reality of his own poorness in spirit. A man does not become a spiritual beggar that is totally impoverished until he arrives at the point of realizing that salvation is utterly beyond all that he has or can do. What Luther is describing, I think, is the person that is poor in spirit. In one sense Luther has described what the person believes about himself, but then he goes on to say that the person must understand that salvation “depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone.” Now how does that fit with what he said previously? It seems to be clear that until a person depends absolutely on God and His work alone, that person has not been humbled of his own ability and worth and so is not in despair of himself.
Luther then adds another qualification: “As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God.” A person that is impoverished of spirit is utterly destitute of any righteousness in and of himself and has nothing to help himself. There can be no confidence in self at all and as long as a person thinks that he can contribute the smallest amount to salvation he is not humbled and broken before God and so does not look to grace alone. A person like that wants Christ to do virtually everything, but not absolutely everything. A person like that wants grace for virtually everything, but not absolutely everything. He is not poor in spirit.
We see in our day a lack of belief in the doctrine of the total depravity of man. May believe that man has been influenced by sin, but not many see that man is dead in sin. While some hold to the doctrine of total depravity in creed and intellect, it has yet to make its way into the practices and methods of evangelism and sanctification. But if Matthew 5:3 is understood as the person that is poor in spirit is a person that is utterly destitute of any righteousness or ability to help himself, then we must think through much of what passes as evangelism and sanctification today. If a man is so depraved that he cannot do any good at all, then that has a major impact on how we are to evangelize. If a person is only blessed if they reach the point of realizing and acquiescing to this, then we had better change our methods. If a man must utterly despair of helping himself and is not thoroughly humbled until he realizes that salvation is beyond his powers and abilities, even totally beyond his own abilities and powers, then the beatitudes instruct us of how to teach people the way to blessedness and salvation.
If we look at the Beatitudes for a moment and how they correlate with the Sermon on the Mount (SOM), we can see how Jesus strove to break men from confidence and trust in themselves. In one sense the Beatitudes can be looked at as a method to be followed in evangelism and Jesus certainly tried to break men from any hope in themselves. In the SOM Jesus was certainly preaching to people that needed to be converted. The following is a list of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who mourn, Blessed are the gentle, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure in heart, and Blessed are the peacemakers. All of these require that a person be poor in spirit.
As we look at the Beatitudes, we should see that these describe people that are converted and blessed. Surely, then, this should inform us in the method of evangelism. We see that those who are poor in spirit are blessed. We should strive to help people see how utterly bankrupt they are spiritually so that they will despair of any hope in themselves. Then we should want to see them mourn over their own sins. We would want to see them meek and gentle before God as broken people should be. A person that despairs of self, mourns for his sins, and is then broken to the point of meekness by them is a person that begins to hunger and thirst for righteousness. A person that begins to hunger and thirst for righteousness in truth is one that is pursuing a pure heart and desires to see men have peace with each other and then with God. This is exactly what Christ did in the SOM. Men are not converted until they reach that point of despair in themselves and then look to God alone to save them.
The Gospel is set out in the doctrine of justification by faith alone or by faith without works. The teaching of the first beatitude is that the blessed person is poor in spirit. That is exactly what justification by faith alone teaches. It teaches that a man must turn from anything that he can do or offer in order to trust in Christ alone. It is for man to be delivered from works or anything he is or does. It is to look to God alone for salvation through Christ alone and that by grace alone. The person that is poor in spirit does not look to anyone or anything but God to be saved and to no one or nothing but Christ as His Savior. The person that is poor in spirit does not have anything but grace to look to and offers no resistance to or anything to assist grace in salvation. As Luther put it, “But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will, and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone.” Depending on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of another are things that the person that is poor in spirit does. That is why a person must be poor in spirit to be blessed and to have the kingdom of heaven.
The Beatitudes are not usually thought of in terms of the Gospel. But that really needs to be thought through some more. If a person is only blessed by having the kingdom of heaven if s/he is poor in spirit, then this must be considered with the Gospel in mind. The kingdom of heaven is entered by the new birth (John 3:3-8) and it appears that it grows as a person grows in the faith. Yet Jesus taught that the kingdom was within. How glorious is the teaching that shows us what we must have in order to be blessed of God and what A true blessing really is. Since the kingdom of heaven is within us we can know that the inner man is vital to this teaching. Isaiah 57:15 tells us the one that God dwells in and that is the contrite and lowly in spirit. God is immutable which means that He does not change. He loved to dwell in the lowly in spirit in the Old Testament and He loves to dwell in the poor in spirit today. In fact, those are the only ones that He dwells in. We must seek this and teach others to seek it as well. Salvation is not praying a prayer; it is having God dwell within us. God dwells in the poor in spirit and those alone. That is what it means to be blessed.
God Loves... Himself 
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