Matthew 5:3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
This is the first beatitude. Christ leads with this one to establish what we might call the spatial context for all the rest—the place where all other beatitudes are offered and attained is inside the kingdom of heaven. If you do not have the kingdom, or if you are outside the kingdom, then the rest of the beatitudes cannot be yours. The kingdom of heaven is, of course, the kingdom that is from heaven—namely, the kingdom over which Christ rules and reigns that he brought to earth in his incarnation. After all, Jesus came preaching a message of repentance, because he says, the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matt. 3:2).
Participation in this kingdom comes to those who are poor in Spirit, Christ says. In what sense are the godly to be considered “poor?” Proverbs says that the wise man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children (Prov. 13:22). And Paul tells Timothy to instruct his people to be rich in good deeds (1 Tim 6:18). Whatever Christ means by “poor in Spirit,” it cannot mean that one must be materially poor, nor can it mean that one must be deprived of a wealth of grace that would spur him on to faithful living. To be “poor in Spirit” is not the same thing as being spiritually poor, or lacking the Spirit of God in your life.
As the great Puritan Thomas Watson says, “Poor in spirit, then, signifies those who are brought to the sense of their sins, and seeing no goodness in themselves, despair in themselves and sue wholly to the mercy of God in Christ.”1 The Psalmist says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart” (Ps. 51:17). To be poor in Spirit is to see nothing in yourself worthy of praise, or honor, or reward before the Lord. Whatever grace is there, whatever grace you sense, whatever strength or skill or habit or virtue you perceive in yourself, is not ultimately your doing but rather the Lord’s gift in your life. You are working, but it is the Lord working through you.
If you would pursue true blessedness, true happiness, in other words, as Christ articulates it here, you cannot do it while harboring pride in your life. The kingdom is not yours if you’re prone to boasting in your own accomplishments. Blessedness, happiness, comes when you recognize and proclaim that there is no wealth in you deserving of praise, and look to Christ to be your one great treasure and source of all life and light. It is then that we know the kingdom of heaven belongs to us.
- Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1–12 (London, 1971), 42. ↩︎
