The Beatitudes by Arthur W. Pink
The First Beatitude
"Blessed
are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven"
It is indeed
blessed to mark how this sermon opens. Christ began not by pronouncing maledictions
on the wicked, but by pronouncing benedictions on His people. How like Him was
this, to whom judgment is a strange work (Isa
28:21-22; cf. Joh
1:17). But how strange is the next word:
"blessed" or "happy" are the poor-" the poor in
spirit." Who, previously, had ever regarded them as the blessed ones of
earth? And who, outside believers, does so today? And how these opening words
strike the keynote of all Christ's subsequent teaching: it is not what a man
does but what he is that is most important.
"Blessed
are the poor in spirit." What is poverty of spirit? It is the opposite of
that haughty, self-assertive, and self-sufficient disposition that the world so
much admires and praises. It is the very reverse of that independent and
defiant attitude that refuses to bow to God, that determines to brave things
out, and that says with Pharaoh, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His
voice?" (Ex 5:2).
To be poor in spirit is to realize that I have nothing, am nothing, and can do
nothing, and have need of all things. Poverty of spirit is evident in a person
when he is brought into the dust before God to acknowledge his utter
helplessness. It is the first experiential evidence of a Divine work of grace
within the soul, and corresponds to the initial
awakening of the prodigal in the far country when he "began to be in
want" (Lu 15:14).