your bankrupt

3. For blessed many translations use expressions of a somewhat secular nature, such as “fortunate” (AB) or “happy” (JB). These bring out the joy that is conveyed by Jesus’ word, but not its full religious content. There is more to blessedness than happiness. Bruner has “God bless,” but this sounds too much like a prayer, while Jesus is making a strong affirmation. The first of the blessed ones are the poor in spirit. This is not to be understood in the sense of “abject” or “mean spirited,” as the English might perhaps convey. Nor is it the kind of poverty against which people rebel, but rather one that the poor in spirit accept, as pointing to the reality that they can bring nothing to God. The poor in spirit in the sense of this beatitude are those who recognize that they are completely and utterly destitute in the realm of the spirit. They recognize their lack of spiritual resources and therefore their complete dependence on God (cf. Goodspeed, “those who feel their spiritual need”; NEB, “know their need of God”). It is the opposite of the Pharisaic pride in one’s own virtue with which Jesus was so often confronted (and which has all too often made its appearance in later times). “This is the man to whom I will look,” the Lord says, “he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66:2). These are the poor in spirit.

There are strong protests in modern times against “spiritualizing” and “psychologizing” interpretations of this beatitude, and it is insisted that it must be seen for what it is, a radical reversal of the world’s values. We are told that it is the poor and the distressed as such of whom Jesus speaks. But we must exercise care at this point. Jesus is not saying that poverty is a blessing in itself; to canonize a state of life in which people find themselves against their will (real poverty does not mean voluntarily choosing to live simply) and from which they would escape if they could is scarcely Christian. Now it is true that it is easy for the interpreter smugly to transform the meaning of what Jesus says into an understanding of which the interpreter approves and avoid any real contact with the poverty-stricken. A rediscovery of Jesus’ interest in the poor is long overdue. But I cannot rid myself of the feeling that much modern writing proceeds from the comfortable, people for whom poverty is an interesting subject for discussion but who have never themselves experienced what real poverty is. I have. And poverty is not a blessing, nor is powerlessness. Whatever Jesus meant, it was surely not that these states are blessed in themselves. He knew poverty, and he knew powerlessness in the face of a government that did not care. Any interpretation of his teaching that makes these things in themselves a blessing simply fails to take notice of reality. Jesus is pronouncing a blessing on those empty of any spiritual resource, poor as they often were in material things as well.

There may well be a reminiscence of Old Testament teaching on the poor, but we must bear in mind that the poor in this sense are not the poverty stricken as such, but God’s poor, people oppressed by tyrants but trusting God, people who have nothing, no resource but God. “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles” (Ps. 34:6). The Old Testament has many references to “the poor,” but we are to understand these not merely of people who lack in worldly goods but of the faithful though downtrodden poor, those who look to God for their deliverance.

Of these lowly people Jesus says, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We should understand this in the sense of consequence rather than reward. In no sense do they merit the kingdom, but being what they are they possess it. We should understand this in the sense, “theirs alone.”¹⁶ Those who are not poor in spirit can never have membership in the kingdom. In the basic sense, of course, the kingdom belongs to God, and it is often said to be his. But in another sense membership in the kingdom belongs to all the people of God, and it is something like this that is in mind here. Jesus is saying that the lowly are especially characteristic of the kingdom. The riches of the kingdom belong to them in the fullest measure. The present tense is used for the blessing pronounced on them here and again in verse 10, but in the intermediate beatitudes the tense is future. We should not press this point too far, for the full blessing in all the beatitudes is future. But this present points to a significant blessing for the poor in spirit right now.¹

This verse says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” It doesn’t tell you how to become poor in spirit; it just says,“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” In these twelve verses, our Lord used the word blessed nine times. By the way, the Psalms open with the same word: “Blessed is the man …” (Ps. 1:1). This is in contrast to the curses of the Mosaic Law. You may remember that Joshua was told that when the people of Israel were come over Jordan, they were to stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people. And then the curses were to be given from Mount Ebal. The blessings from the Sermon on the Mount are in sharp contrast to the curses from Mount Ebal, and they far exceed the blessings from Mount Gerizim, because Christ alone can bring those blessings. In our day only the saved sinner can know his poverty of spirit—“Blessed are the poor in spirit.” The Sermon on the Mount, instead of making folk poor in spirit, makes them boast—like the man I referred to. He was boasting that the Sermon on the Mount was his religion, and he was trying to kid himself and kid me into thinking that he was keeping it. He wasn’t keeping it at all; it was just making a hypocrite out of him. And there are a lot of those around.

I played golf one day in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with a very wealthy oil man. He told me, “I went to church just like the rest of the hypocrites, and I was one of them, talking about keeping the Sermon on the Mount. Then one day I found out that I was a lost sinner on the way to hell. I turned to Jesus Christ, and He saved me!” Oh, my friend, don’t be deceived. Only the Spirit of God can reveal to you your poverty of spirit. The Lord Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount was not telling His disciples how to become citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. They already were citizens of the Kingdom.

We Christians today are actually very poor in spirit, we are spiritually bankrupt, but we have something to give which is more valuable than silver and gold. Paul expressed it this way: ‘As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:10). “As poor, yet making many rich” is referring to spiritual riches which are available to everyone who belongs to Christ.²

Our attitude toward ourselves (v. 3). To be poor in spirit means to be humble, to have a correct estimate of oneself (Rom. 12:3). It does not mean to be “poor spirited” and have no backbone at all! “Poor in spirit” is the opposite of the world’s attitudes of self-praise and self-assertion. It is not a false humility that says, “I am not worth anything, I can’t do anything!” It is honesty with ourselves: we know ourselves, accept ourselves, and try to be ourselves to the glory of God.³

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

The first step to real happiness is an acknowledgement of spiritual poverty, the recognition of the fact I do not have in myself what it takes to be the person I was created to be. This is deeper than recognising I fail, it is realising I do not have the capacity within myself to do anything else! As Paul wrote, ‘I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature’ (Rom. 7:18), more literally, ‘in my natural self’. Human beings have been so created that the Spirit of God within them is indispensable in their ability to function as intended. David wrote, ‘I said to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing” ’ (Ps. 16:2).

This does not mean there is nothing good in any of us, for it is self evident there are lots of good things. The ability to love, to do a good day’s work, to paint a picture, to play music, are all in themselves good and may be accomplished in independence of God. Then what does Paul mean when he states, ‘nothing good lives in me’?

Just imagine I had a brand new Rolls Royce parked outside my home. It is fully equipped with leather upholstery, quadraphonic sound, telephone, television in the back seat and even a bar! If you were to visit my home and look over my car you would be very impressed. But suppose my car had no engine! You would remain impressed until you asked me for a ride. Then you would discover that although there is nothing wrong with the leather upholstery, the telephone, television or sound system (all of which is fine in itself), but as far as being a car is concerned, it is incapable of functioning as a car is supposed to function. All it would be good for would be keeping chickens in—but I couldn’t go anywhere! When Paul says, ‘nothing good lives in me’, it is not that everything about him is bad! Elsewhere he lists some things about which he says he could boast (Phil. 3:4–6), but he is saying that apart from the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ, everything else which may be good about me is ultimately good for nothing. I am like a car without an engine.

It is to face this fact and acknowledge our own poverty of spirit which is the first step to real happiness. It is to this person Jesus says, ‘the kingdom of heaven is theirs’. All the riches of the kingdom of heaven are available to the person who recognises their own bankruptcy without God.⁴

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (v. 3). Matthew qualifies this first beatitude, whereas Luke does not have a qualifier. He simply says, “Blessed are you poor” (Luke 6:20). Some have drawn from this the idea that the kingdom of God belongs essentially to poor people, so all one has to do to enter the kingdom of God is to be poor in the material sense. There arose in the Middle Ages something called “poverty mysticism” in which poverty was elevated to a level of virtue that gave merit to those who were in such a state. That idea ignores the broader teaching of the Bible concerning the poor.

The Old Testament distinguishes among four different types of poor people. The first are those who are poor as a result of their sloth. They are poor because they are too lazy to sow their seed or to be engaged in meaningful and productive industry, and this group of the poor comes sharply under the judgment of God. This indicates that biblically there is no inherent virtue in poverty.

The second group includes those who are poor as a result of calamity through no fault of their own. They are not poor because they are lazy but because a farmer experienced a drought or a storm that destroyed his crops, or a person had a serious accident that left him in such a crippled fashion that he was unable to engage in productive labor. There is no judgment upon that group of the poor; rather, there is a mandate to make sure that this class of poor is helped by God’s people.

The third group is made up of those who are poor as a result of the exploitation of the rich and powerful, which, in biblical terms, was hardly ever the wealthy business people but the rulers who drained their people of all of their wealth. We see an example of this with Ahab, who confiscated unjustly Naboth’s vineyard.

The fourth category are those who are poor for righteousness’ sake, that is, those who willingly choose a vocation that leaves them destitute. Those in this category are concerned about things other than what the market produces. To them is promised the kindness of God, who notices their personal sacrifice.

It is important that we understand from a biblical perspective that not all poverty arises from laziness. At the same time, not all poverty is virtuous. There is no inherent merit in poverty, and there is no inherent sin in the fact of someone’s being poor. The same distinction can be made concerning the wealthy. Those who make their wealth through illegitimate means come under the judgment of God, but, at the same time, the Scriptures recognize that one can be wealthy and virtuous.

Therefore, those whom Jesus addresses here are not necessarily living in poverty, although it may include some in that state. Specifically in view here is a poverty of spirit, but not in the sense that they lack what it takes to exercise courage or industry. Matthew is also not speaking of those who are mean-spirited. To be poor in spirit in biblical terms means that someone has a poverty of arrogance. Such people are the polar opposite of the scribes and Pharisees, who boasted of their riches in virtue, their personal righteousness. Such people do not enter the kingdom of God.

The myth persists even in our culture that people can get to heaven by their good works, by the righteousness that they achieve by their particular virtues. If we trust in our own righteousness to get us into the kingdom of God, we will miss the kingdom of God altogether. To enter the kingdom of God, we must understand that, in light of the perfection of God, our virtue is bankrupt. We have no merit to offer God except for that earned for us by our Savior. Jesus spells out here a necessary condition for entering into His kingdom. We have to be broken of our pride. The psalmist writes, “A broken and contrite heart—these, O God, You will not despise” (Ps. 51:17), and just before this he writes, “For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it; … The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit” (vv. 16–19).

A friend of mine had come out of the Roman Catholic Church and become a believer. She was excited about her new-found faith and felt free from her previous church atmosphere of constant scolding. She said, “When I found that I was justified by faith and not by works, I felt that everything was all said and done, until I read your book The Holiness of God. I was upset by your book because in it you reiterate that I am a sinner. I didn’t want to hear it, but as I began to think about the character of God, I got the message that there is no righteousness in me apart from Christ.” Her experience was one of coming to poverty of spirit.

We must not think that the poor in spirit get in the kingdom by that means and others get in by some other way—by being a peacemaker or being hungry or thirsty, as we see in the other beatitudes. Everyone has to be poor in spirit to receive the supreme blessing of the kingdom of God.⁵

5:3 Blessed. The word lit. means “happy, fortunate, blissful.” Here it speaks of more than a surface emotion. Jesus was describing the divinely-bestowed well-being that belongs only to the faithful. The Beatitudes demonstrate that the way to heavenly blessedness is antithetical to the worldly path normally followed in pursuit of happiness. The worldly idea is that happiness is found in riches, merriment, abundance, leisure, and such things. The real truth is the very opposite. The Beatitudes give Jesus’ description of the character of true faith. poor in spirit. The opposite of self-sufficiency. This speaks of the deep humility of recognizing one’s utter spiritual bankruptcy apart from God. It describes those who are acutely conscious of their own lostness and hopelessness apart from divine grace (cf. 9:12; Luke 18:13). See note on 19:17. theirs is the kingdom of heaven. See note on 3:2. Notice that the truth of salvation by grace is clearly presupposed in this opening verse of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was teaching that the kingdom is a gracious gift to those who sense their own poverty of spirit.⁶

Title : MacArthur's New Testament Commentary: Matthew 1-7
Edition : First
Copyright : Copyright © 1985 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago Electronic Edition STEP Files Copyright © 1997, Parsons Technology, Inc.

To be poor in spirit is to recognize one’s spiritual poverty apart from God. It is to see oneself as one really is: lost, hopeless, helpless. Apart from Jesus Christ every person is spiritually destitute, no matter what his education, wealth, social status, accomplishments, or religious knowledge. That is the point of the first beatitude. The poor in spirit are those who recognize their total spiritual destitution and their complete dependence on God. They perceive that there are no saving resources in themselves and that they can only beg for mercy and grace. They know they have no spiritual merit, and they know they can earn no spiritual reward. Their pride is gone, their self-assurance is gone, and they stand empty-handed before God. In spirit also conveys the sense that the recognition of poverty is genuine, not an act. It does not refer to outwardly acting like a spiritual beggar, but to recognizing what one really is. It is true humility, not mock humility. It describes the person about whom the Lord speaks in Isaiah 66:2—“To this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” It describes the person who is “brokenhearted” and “crushed in spirit” (Ps. 34:18), who has “a broken and a contrite heart” before the Lord (Ps. 51:17).

Why Humility Is First Jesus puts this beatitude first because humility is the foundation of all other graces, a basic element in becoming a Christian (Matt. 18:3-4). Pride has no part in Christ’s kingdom, and until a person surrenders pride he cannot enter the kingdom. The door into His kingdom is low and no one who stands tall will ever go through it. We cannot be filled until we are empty; we cannot be made worthy until we recognize our unworthiness; we cannot live until we admit we are dead. We might as well expect fruit to grow without a tree as to expect the other graces of the Christian life to grow without humility. We cannot begin the Christian life without humility, and we cannot live the Christian life with pride. Yet in the church today there is little emphasis on humility, little mention of self-emptying. We see many Christian books on how to be happy, how to be successful, how to overcome problems, and on and on. But we see very few books on how to empty ourselves, how to deny ourselves, and how to take up our crosses and follow Jesus—in the way that He tells us to follow Him. Until a soul is humbled, until the inner person is poor in spirit, Christ can never become dear, because He is obscured by self. Until one knows how helpless, worthless, and sinful he is in himself, he can never see how mighty, worthy, and glorious Christ is in Himself. Until one sees how doomed he is, he cannot see what a Redeemer the Lord is. Until one sees his own poverty he cannot see God’s riches. Only when one admits to his own deadness can Christ give him His life. “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord” (Prov. 16:5). Being poor in spirit is the first beatitude because humility must precede everything else. No one can receive the kingdom until he recognizes that he is unworthy of the kingdom. The church in Laodicea said proudly, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” not knowing that she was instead “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17). Those who refuse to recognize that they are lost and helpless are like the blind Roman slave girl who insisted that she was not blind but that the world was permanently dark. Where self is exalted, Christ cannot be. Where self is king, Christ cannot be. Until the proud in spirit become poor in spirit, they cannot receive the King or inherit His kingdom. Bookmark Name Bookmark Date Bookmark Text Edit commentary text here

1 Morris, L. (1992). The Gospel according to Matthew (pp. 95–97). Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press.

2 McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Gospels (Matthew 1-13) (electronic ed., Vol. 34, pp. 73–74). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

3 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary (Vol. 1, p. 21). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

4 Price, C. (1998). Matthew: Can Anything Good Come Out of Nazareth? (pp. 63–64). Fearn, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications.

5 Sproul, R. C. (2013). Matthew (pp. 76–78). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

6 MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 1399). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.