The first thing to be aware is a point MLJ draws on early in this chapter: "As I have already indicated in our last study, it is not surprising that this is the first, because it is obviously, as I think we shall see, the key to all that follows. There is, beyond any question, a very definite order in these Beatitudes" (Studies, 33). We're certainly not dealing here with any randomized word placement. Just because we don't have all of Paul's (helpful) connecting "therefores" and "fors" doesn't mean that we shouldn't be keenly aware of the fact that the Lord of Glory is speaking and each word is placed in perfection. So if this is what we're exposed to first, there is a spectacular reason for it. Here's what Lloyd-Jones thinks about how these words open up to the rest of the Sermon: "This, of necessity, is the one which must come at the beginning for the good reason that there is no entry into the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, apart from it. There is no one in the kingdom of God who is not poor in spirit. . . . We cannot be filled until we are first empty" (Studies, 33).
This reality about conversion and Christian living isn't "popular." For my part, "breaking the ice" regarding sin with someone I'm sharing the gospel with isn't easy or, for the most part, a natural topic of conversation. It has to be intentionally driven at, kindly, lovingly, and tactfully. But it still has to be there. There are some folks very much aware of their sinfulness and some who have seared their consciences so terribly that they won't even acknowledge an objective morality. But somewhere on that spectrum of personal awareness, something has to be said to - at the very least - bring the point home that the person outside of Christ is a person with an account brimming over with sin. And when that account gets cashed in, they're going to collect on it in hell for an eternity. This is very bad news. But, if we come to the Sermon on the Mount, and hear what the Savior is saying here, those bankrupt in personal righteousness are nearest to knowing their need for a righteousness that comes from outside of themselves. Not doing better, not putting in more time at church, not promising to do differently. But seeing the terrible reality that we've got nothing to bring before God except a need for forgiveness, a gaping hole of righteousness that needs to be filled, and pleas for mercy to grant both - seeing that and coming to God in all of our bankruptcy, that's the early goings of a miracle that sees dead men brought to life.
Knowing that the Sermon on the Mount begins with this kind of pronouncement should sober us to what follows. We're not dealing here with calls for pulling ourselves up by the old moral bootstraps. Instead, the Sermon on the Mount "comes to us and says, 'There is the mountain that you have to scale, the heights you have to climb; and the first thing you must realize, as you look at that mountain which you are told you must ascend, is that you cannot do it, that you are utterly incapable in and of yourself, and that any attempt to do it in your own strength is proof positive that you have not understood it.' It condemns at the very outset the view which regards it as a programme for man to put into operation immediately, just as he is" (Studies, 34). This is a call to recognize bankruptcy and come to the only one who can do anything about it - the King whose Kingdom those poor in spirit, in the real, evangelical sense of the term, are promised to inherit.
Like the tax collector who could not even lift his eyes to heaven, for shame of his sinfulness, but only beat his chest and ask God for mercy on his sinful self, the Sermon on the Mount begins by declaring that the front door to real blessedness, to real happiness, to the very Kingdom of God, involves seeing our own desperate estate. Lloyd-Jones gives us a helpful definition here to think about "poverty of spirit": "It means a consciousness that we are nothing in the presence of God. It is nothing, then, that we can produce; it is nothing that we can do in ourselves. It is just this tremendous awareness of our utter nothingness as we come face-to-face with God. . . . It is, I say, to experience to some extent what Isaiah experienced when, having seen the vision [take a look at Isaiah 6], he said, 'Woe is me! . . . I am a man of unclean lips' - that is 'poverty of spirit'" (Studies, 40-41).
At this point, I think one thing is very clear that the previous chapters have made clear, for good reason: what we find in the Sermon on the Mount is not a mere roadmap for "moral living." Some may say they know a nice, upstanding guy who proves you don't need to "go to church" to be a good person. How does he relate to this - poverty of spirit? I'll venture to say that some of the hardest hearts in the world belong to those who see no need for a perfect righteousness, because they think theirs is pretty acceptable. The poor in spirit inherit the Kingdom not because they wallow about, but because they know where their account stands. True poverty of spirit is evangelical - that is, it has everything to do with the Gospel and what the Gospel does to us.
Let me close with these practical remarks from Lloyd-Jones. How do you become poor in spirit? MLJ: "The answer is that you do not look at yourself or begin by trying to do things to yourself. That was the whole error of monasticism [where we got "monks" from]. . . . The way to become poor in spirit is to look at God. Read this Book [the Bible] about Him, read His law, look at what he expects from us, contemplate standing before Him. It is also to look at the Lord Jesus Christ and to view Him as we see Him in the Gospels. . . . Look at Him; and the more we look at Him, the more hopeless shall we feel by ourselves, and in and of ourselves, and the more shall we become 'poor in spirit'" (Studies, 41-42). This reminds me a lot of one of the most helpful sermon take-aways I can remember, dealing with the issue of humility. Instead of answering the question "Are you humble?" with a proud "Yes" or a deceitful "No," John Piper directs us to declare this: Christ is all. Humility does away with the mirror and looks to God, in all of His glory and greatness, and forgets about self-importance. True humility is concerned to glorify God. And true poverty of spirit is brought about graciously by God in the hearts of His people. It is God-glorifying, through and through.
Poverty of spirit is not a one-time event - it's a characteristic that keeps with us, in greater or lesser degrees, throughout our Christian life. It's not wallowing in self-pity, navel-gazing, or any other self-centered kind of business. It is, as Lloyd-Jones said, a matter of beholding God, beholding His holiness and goodness and righteousness. It's seeing, at the first, that our unholiness and sinfulness and wickedness has earned us only wrath. But let me say this - after coming to know Christ, it means seeing that God's holiness and goodness and righteousness are all disposed to you for your good, as God has claimed you as His own and bought you - sinful me and you! - with the blood of the Son of God. It is seeing the depths of our undeservedness and the sin that still dwells so closely within our hearts and feeling how utterly empty our hands are to bring anything but Christ as our Righteousness, clinging to Him, and finding that our poverty has been alleviated and our emptiness has been filled by Him. As MLJ closes this chapter, "Then you say to Him,
Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling.
Empty, hopeless, naked, vile. But He is the all-sufficient One -
Yea, all I need, in Thee to find,
O Lamb of God, I come" (Studies, 42).
Lord willing, we'll move to the second Beatitude - concerning the blessedness of "mourning" and what that means - in the next couple days. May you rest all the more in Christ's sufficiency to satisfy.
To God Alone Be the Glory,
-Chris
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