18 minute read
The Beatitudes: Rags to Riches (Matthew 5:3)
We love to hear rags to riches stories. A junk collector stumbles upon a buried treasure of priceless artifacts. A server waiting tables in a rundown diner is discovered by a director and chosen to star in a blockbuster movie, leading to fame and fortune. A homeless person digging through the garbage finds a winning lottery ticket and becomes a millionaire.
We often think of poverty as a problem and wealth as a blessing. I suspect that people have always felt that way. But as Jesus spoke on a hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee almost 2,000 years ago, he challenged that perspective. He connected poverty with blessing. Matthew 5:3 tells us that he said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
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This is the first of the Beatitudes, a series of eight statements that Jesus made at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount to describe the path to blessing. He begins each one by identifying a characteristic of someone who is blessed. Then he describes the blessing that they will experience. We will work through these statements one at a time, but we need to understand that they go together. They are inseparable. Jesus is describing one group of blessed people who are marked by all these characteristics, and they will experience all these aspects of God’s blessing.
So, for each beatitude we will consider who the blessed are and what the blessing is, but we should also ask, “Why are these connected? And how should we respond?” Jesus did not answer those additional questions at the time, so as people read the Beatitudes today, they tend to create their own explanations. But that kind of speculation can lead to serious misunderstandings. A better approach is to read the Beatitudes in light of Jesus’ other teaching, the background we have in the Old Testament, and subsequent teaching by the apostles.
So, does the first beatitude in Matthew 5:3 contradict our rags to riches fantasies? Do we need to change our perspective on poverty and wealth? What was Jesus getting at?
The Blessed: The Poor in Spirit
Most people would agree that to be poor means that you are unable to acquire the necessities of life. Your pockets are empty. Your bank account is zero. But viewpoints diverge quickly after that. What is truly necessary for life? Are people responsible for their poverty or are they victims of others? According to Matthew, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” But our perception of economic poverty may influence our understanding of what it means to be spiritually poor. So, we must start there.
The Book of Proverbs helps us understand the background for Jesus’ words. You might be skeptical of the book’s relevance, when you consider that it was written by Solomon, a king who was one of the world’s richest men at the time. But his wisdom is from God, and his perspective is nuanced.
Several proverbs hold people responsible for their poverty. It could be caused by an avoidance of work. Proverbs 6:10-11 warns, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
Some people appear to be active, but Proverbs 14:23 says, “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.”
Destructive lifestyle habits may also contribute to the problem. Proverbs 23:20-21 tells us, “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags.”
Other proverbs, however, recognize that poverty is also caused by oppression. Proverbs 13:23 tells us, “The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.”
Proverbs 30:14 is more explicit. It says, “There are those whose teeth are swords, whose fangs are knives, to devour the poor from off the earth, the needy from among mankind.”
Sadly, such behavior is common, and the Lord condemns both those who perpetrate it and those who support it. Proverbs 17:5 tells us, “Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished.”
Proverbs 21:13 even warns us, “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.”
So, poverty does not necessarily indicate guilt or innocence. Proverbs 28:3 even presents the scenario of a poor man oppressing the poor. But several proverbs say that it is better to be poor and honest than crooked and rich. There is also one brief proverb that identifies a virtue in poverty. Proverbs 18:23 says, “The poor use entreaties, but the rich answer roughly.” There are certainly exceptions to this statement. I have interacted with people who have nothing but are rude and demanding. But we should all seek to relate to one another in the humble spirit that Solomon connects with poverty here.
This humble attitude becomes even more important in our relationship with the Lord. There are at least four occasions in the Psalms when David speaks of himself as poor. Now he may have experienced great material need when he was fleeing from King Saul, but I think that he has something else in mind in these passages. The superscript of Psalm 70 indicates that he wrote it to accompany the memorial offering. So, this was probably during his time as king when he was prosperous. Nevertheless, he concludes the psalm in verse 5 by saying, “But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!”
David models what it means to be poor in spirit. He is humble, not demanding. He comes to the Lord with a sense of dependence and desperation. Earlier in this psalm, he speaks of needing God’s help to overcome his enemies. But in other places like Psalm 51, he expresses his desperate need for God’s mercy. He acknowledges that he is a sinner by circumstance and by choice. He says that he was conceived in sin, but he also claims responsibility for doing what was evil in God’s sight. So, he asks the Lord to forgive him and to cleanse him of his sins.
No matter how much money you have, you can still be poor in spirit. Wealth can make it harder to recognize, but we all stand in desperate need before the Lord both materially and spiritually. The blessed ones of the Beatitudes are marked by this sense of humble dependence. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
The Blessing: The Kingdom is Theirs
I have read that castles are often up for sale in various parts of Europe. Could there be a better way to impress your friends and family? Haven’t you always wanted a drawbridge to keep out certain people? But owning a castle does not make you royalty. In fact, the cost of maintaining one is so high that it can leave you broke. That is why the previous owners want to get rid of them.
Jesus speaks of a blessing that is far better than a disintegrating castle. He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But what is this kingdom, and what does it mean to have it as yours? To understand this concept, we must begin in the Old Testament.
The Lord’s design for a kingdom is revealed from the outset of creation. Genesis 1:26 tells us,
Adam and Eve were to rule as God’s representatives over a perfect little kingdom. There was no poverty. They had an abundant supply of food in Eden. They had access to the tree of life so that they could live forever. But when they succumbed to the serpent’s temptation, they initiated an earthly rebellion against the Lord that continues to this day. God still reigns in his sovereignty, but he allows people to continue in sin and to experience consequences such as scarcity, conflict, and death. This world is a disintegrating castle!
In his mercy, however, the Lord initiated a plan to rebuild his kingdom on earth. He chose to work through a man named Abraham and his descendants. They multiply and become a nation, the people of Israel. Exodus 19:5-6 says that after the Lord rescues them from slavery in Egypt, he tells Moses,
The Lord gives them his Law to guide them, and he is present with them in the Tabernacle. But they continue to rebel against him and his word. When they ask for a king, he raises up David and promises that one of his descendants will always be upon the throne. But the nation continues to disobey and to experience painful consequences for their sin.
The prophets, however, proclaim the coming of a Davidic king who will completely transform the world through his reign. For instance, Isaiah 9:6-7 says,
Matthew and the other Gospels identify Jesus as this coming king. But Christians disagree over the nature of his kingdom. Some say that it refers to his spiritual reign in the hearts of believers. The first beatitude speaks of the kingdom as a present possession. On other occasions Jesus says that the kingdom is at hand. He also calls it the kingdom of heaven, which seems to suggest that it is not earthly. Later he tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world (Jn 18:36).
While this spiritual aspect of the kingdom is real, I don’t think that it satisfies the full scope of God’s Old Testament promises or the analogy that Jesus is making. The blessing for those who grasp their poverty now will be the true wealth of having a place in the Messiah’s future earthly kingdom. This beatitude tells a rags to riches story. The poor in spirit are not there yet, but they possess the kingdom now in the sense that they have become citizens. They have hope. They can rest assured that when Jesus returns to judge, they will not be shut out. Later Jesus presents this scenario in Matthew 25:31-46. He says that he will separate people like sheep and goats, welcoming one group into his kingdom, but banishing the other to eternal punishment.
Entering that kingdom will not mean leaving earth behind to spend eternity in heaven. Christ’s followers will reign with him until the full connection between heaven and earth is restored. Revelation 21 and 22 describe life in a new heaven and earth where all the consequences of sin will have been completely wiped away. It will be even better than Eden. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But why?
The Reason: The Grace of God
Some people read the first beatitude as a great reversal, a tipping of the scales. The rich become poor, and the poor become rich. Some might even reason that the poor deserve a reward for their suffering. People have told me, “I deserve heaven because I’m living through hell now.” But those understandings are not consistent with what we have learned from this beatitude or with teaching we find elsewhere in the Bible.
The only reason anyone will be welcomed into the kingdom is by the grace of God. Jesus makes this point in a parable recorded in Matthew 18. Verses 23-27 tell us that he begins the story by saying,
This story is not really about money. It is clear from the context that it is about sin. We owe God perfect obedience. So, when we disobey him, we are running up a debt, and the cost is huge. In the story, Jesus speaks of 10,000 talents. That is a large unit of weight. Some say that it would take a laborer 20 years to earn the value of a single talent of gold. This man is buried in debt! There is no way he could ever pay it off. All that he can do is to throw himself upon the king’s mercy. He does not deserve it, but the king takes pity upon him.
We are the man in that story. We are all deep in debt because of our sins. To be poor in spirit is to recognize our debt and to humbly confess it to God. But God does not just erase those charges from our account. Someone must pay off our negative balance and give us the wealth of perfect obedience that is needed to enter the kingdom. Jesus made that payment through his perfect obedience and his sacrificial death. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul describes what he has accomplished by saying, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
Paul says more about these riches in Ephesians 2:4-9. There he tells us,
No sinner could ever do enough good works to earn salvation and entrance to the kingdom. It can only be received as a gift. It is entirely by God’s grace. I think that is why Jesus said that it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 19:23). Wealth entices you to become self-sufficient, confident in your own abilities. But if you think that you can contribute anything of spiritual value to this divine transaction, you are wrong. You must recognize your spiritual poverty and indebtedness to receive the gift of God’s saving grace by faith in Christ
The Response: Generosity
We consider it a problem if you are filling a glass and it overflows. Water goes everywhere and makes a mess. But some containers are designed for that purpose. Think of a fountain, where the creator shapes it so that water spills from one cup to another and then another.
The Lord has a similar purpose as he pours out his blessing upon us. His grace is more than sufficient to fill our spiritual poverty. He wants it to overflow in our lives. Perhaps, the best term to describe this response is generosity, and there are at least four expressions of it.
First, we should be generous in giving praise and thanks to the Lord. In Ephesians 1:3, Paul praises God for blessing us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He identifies various aspects of those blessings in verse 4-5: election, predestination, and adoption. Then in verse 6 he describes their outcome by saying, “to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” No matter what poverty or hardship we face in the present, we can still overflow with praise for the saving grace of God.
Second, we should also be generous in our acceptance of people. James 2:1-13 confronts believers who were giving preference to the rich in their gatherings and dishonoring the poor. He says that they should show no partiality. This gracious attitude should also extend beyond the church. In Titus 3:2-3, Paul shows how awareness of our spiritual poverty should impact our relationships with unbelievers. He says,
Since we know our own spiritual poverty, we should be gracious to those enslaved by sin and even to fellow believers who sin against us. The third expression of generosity is in forgiveness. We spoke earlier of Jesus’ story about the king who forgave his servant’s enormous debt. But if you keep reading in Matthew 18:28-35, you find that the servant refuses to show grace to a servant who owes him a much smaller sum. His hardness of heart showed that he never truly embraced his king’s mercy. Paul expresses this principle in Ephesians 4:32 by saying, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
Finally, this generosity should also be expressed in how we use money. Paul makes this point in 2 Corinthians 8, when he speaks of Christ becoming poor so that you through his poverty might become rich. He wanted the believers in Corinth to contribute to an offering for believers elsewhere who were experiencing a time of famine.
The outpouring of God’s grace in our spiritual poverty should radically change our perspective on money. In 1 Timothy 6:17-19, Paul says,
When our eyes are fixed on that which is truly life, we can be generous in all these ways.
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Who is blessed? The poor in spirit. What is the blessing? The kingdom is theirs. Why? Only because of the grace of God poured out in Jesus Christ. How should we respond? By overflowing with generosity.
Have you received God’s blessing? Have you come to recognize your spiritual poverty? If not, I encourage you to do so now. Confess your indebtedness from your sin and receive the gift of salvation that Christ purchased through his death and resurrection. If you want to learn more about this amazing transaction, I encourage you to spend some time reflecting upon Ephesians 2.
If you have received God’s grace, have you drifted from being poor in spirit? Have you begun to take his grace and the hope of his kingdom for granted? What could you do to practice a spirit of humility? What could you do to reflect the generosity of God’s grace?
May the grace of God overflow in our lives!
