[March 3d, 1861.]
The great question when Christ was on earth was, to whom did the kingdom of heaven belong? Who were to enjoy its prerogatives and blessings? By the kingdom of heaven is meant the Messianic kingdom, that which Christ came to establish.
Its blessings were not of this world, nor temporal, as consisting in wealth, honor, or power; but justification, adoption, sanctification and eternal life. These were the (mellonta agatha) which Christ came to secure and to bestow. To whom did they belong? Who were to receive them?
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Not the Jews as Jews. Not all the descendants of Abraham.
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Not the rich and prosperous, the wise, the noble, as a class.
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Not the poor as poor and because poor. Poverty is not the condition of membership in this kingdom. Its blessings are not bestowed as a recompense for the evils of poverty.
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Not those who are voluntarily poor. The Romanists may so interpret the passage in favor of monastical vows.
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Not those who, although rich in this world’s goods, feel themselves to be poor. That is, those who buy and yet possess not. Not those who do not make riches their portion and trust.
But the poverty intended is a poverty as to the spirit. This of course is not to be understood as something derogatory. Poor-spirited is a term of reproach. It expresses the absence of manly virtue, of courage, strength of conviction and of will.
The poor in spirit are those who are conscious of their spiritual poverty. They stand opposed to those who falsely assume and assert that they are rich and know not that they are wretched and miserable, and poor and blind and naked.
Poorness in spirit includes therefore,
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A sense of ignorance and a willingness to be taught. It stands opposed to pride of intellect and to confidence in the conclusions of our own understandings. Where this state of mind prevails, this intellectual blindness is the consequence. Those who profess themselves to be wise become fools. It is only those who are sensible of their ignorance and of their insufficiency to discover truth and who are converted so as to be as little children, who have the Holy Ghost, who is the source of all true knowledge and one of the great blessings of the kingdom of God.
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A sense of unworthiness, as opposed to a spirit of self-righteousness. It is a consciousness of guilt and ill-desert in the sight of God which leads the soul to cry, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. So long as a man thinks that the law of God does not condemn him who cherishes the persuasion that he has never done anything worthy of death, so long is he left in his delusion. But when he is made sensible of the enormity of his guilt, and when he trembles at the wrath of God and renounces his own righteousness, then he receives the righteousness of Christ and becomes rich indeed.
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A sense of pollution, as opposed to self-complacency or a disposition to admire our own excellence and to regard ourselves as attractive in the sight of others. To this is opposed a sense of vileness, which leads us to abhor ourselves and lay our mouths in the dust before God. To those who are thus poor in spirit, the Spirit comes and adorns them with all his heavenly grace.
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A sense of helplessness. This is opposed to the conceit of our own power to change our hearts, to subdue sin, to secure holiness of heart and life. Those who have this conceit God leaves to their own resources, either to perish in their delusion or to convince themselves of their utter impotence, because then they are endued with power from on high.
So when they think they have power in themselves to accomplish any good work in the Church, God leaves them to try. It is only those who are poor in spirit whom He helps.
- Poverty of spirit is a sense of wretchedness, i.e., of the utter incompetency of the world to fill the desires of the soul. Those who think themselves rich because possessed of this world’s sources of happiness, and desire nothing more, God leaves in their contentment. But those who are sensible of their poverty, who hunger and thirst after God, He fills with Himself.