Blessed Is The Man Who Has Realized His Own Utter Helplessness

 For my Sabbath Thought this week, I wanted to continue reviewing Christ’s instructions to His disciples found in the Beatitudes.

Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the Poor in Spirit is a most important point to consider in light of the time we are in.

It seems a surprising way to begin talking about happiness by saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." There are two ways in which we can come at the meaning of this word poor.

As we have them the beatitudes are in Greek, and the word that is used for poor is the word ptochos. In Greek there are two words for poor. There is the word penes. Penes describes a man who has to work for his living; it is defined by the Greeks as describing the man who is autodiakonos, that is, the man who serves his own needs with his own hands. Penes describes the working man, the man who has nothing superfluous, the man who is not rich, but who is not destitute either.

But, as we have seen, it is not penes that is used in this beatitude, it is ptochos, which describes absolute and abject poverty. It is connected with the root ptossein, which means to crouch or to cower; and it describes the poverty which is beaten to its knees.

As it has been said, penes describes the man who has nothing superfluous; ptochos describes the man who has nothing at all. So, this beatitude becomes even more surprising. Blessed is the man who is abjectly and completely poverty-stricken. Blessed is the man who is absolutely destitute.

So, in Hebrew the word poor was used to describe the humble and the helpless man who put his whole trust in God. It is thus that the Psalmist uses the word, when he writes, "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles" (Ps 34:6). It is in fact true that in the Psalms the poor man, in this sense of the term, is the good man who is dear to God. "The hope of the poor shall not perish forever" (Ps 9:18). God delivers the poor (Ps 35:10). "In thy goodness, O God, thou didst provide for the needy" (Ps 68:10). "He shall defend the cause of the poor of the people" (Ps 72:4). "He raises up the needy out of affliction, and makes their families like flocks" (Ps 107:41). "I will satisfy her poor with bread" (Ps 132:15). In all these cases the poor man is the humble, helpless man who has put his trust in God.

Let us now take the two sides, the Greek and the Aramaic, and put them together.

Ptochos describes the man who is absolutely destitute, the man who has nothing at all; 'aniy and 'ebyown describe the poor, and humble, and helpless man who has put his whole trust in God. Therefore, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" means: Blessed is the man who has realized his own utter helplessness, and who has put his whole trust in God.

If a man has realized his own utter helplessness, and has put his whole trust in God, there will enter into his life two things which are opposite sides of the same thing. He will become completely detached from things, for he will know that things have not got it in them to bring happiness or security; and he will become completely attached to God, for he will know that God alone can bring him help, and hope, and strength. The man who is poor in spirit is the man who has realized that things mean nothing, and that God means everything.

This verse is describing the Pharisaic pride in one’s own virtue with which Jesus was so often confronted and which has all too often made its appearance in later times. “This is the man to whom I will look,” the Lord says, “he that is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isa. 66;2). These are the poor in spirit.”

Christ is describing a radical reversal of the world’s values. We must be careful not to think that this beatitude calls actual material poverty a good thing. Poverty is not a good thing. Jesus would never have called blessed a state where people live in slums and have not enough to eat, and where health rots because conditions are all against it. That kind of poverty it is the aim of the Christian gospel to remove. The poverty which is blessed is the poverty of spirit, when a man realizes his own utter lack of resources to meet life, and finds his help and strength in God.

Of these lowly people Jesus says, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We should understand this in the sense of consequence rather than reward. In no sense do they merit the kingdom, but being what they are they possess it. We should understand this in the sense “theirs alone.” Those who are not poor in spirit can never have membership in the kingdom.

If we take the two petitions of the Lord's Prayer and set them together:

• Thy Kingdom come.

• Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

we get the definition: The Kingdom of God is a society where God's will is perfectly done in earth as it is in heaven. That means that only he who does God's will is a citizen of the Kingdom; and we can only do God's will when we realize our own utter helplessness, our own utter ignorance, our own utter inability to cope with life, and when we put our whole trust in God. Obedience is always founded on trust. The Kingdom of God is the possession of the poor in spirit, because the poor in spirit have realized their own utter helplessness without God, and have learned to trust and obey.

So then, the first beatitude means:

O the bliss of the man who has realized his own utter helplessness, and who has put his whole trust in God, for thus alone he can render to God that perfect obedience which will make him a citizen of the kingdom of heaven! 

(from The Daily Study Bible, by William Barclay: First Edition. Biblesoft Formatted Electronic Database Copyright © 2015 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved and The Gospel according to Matthew, by Leon Morris, Copyright 1992 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. All rights reserved.)

Enjoy the Sabbath!

Gary Smith

O the Blessedness of...

I have been going through the Gospels as part of my personal Bible study. In going through Matthew 5, 6, and 7, I came across interesting commentary from two sources: The Gospel according to Matthew by Leon Morris and The Daily Study Bible by William Barclay. I felt both sources would be worth considering as part of our Sabbath Thoughts for a few weeks.

Blessed - Various expressions are used by translators for the word blessed. Words like “fortunate” (Anchor Bible) or “happy” (Jerusalem Bible) are how the translators of those works chose to express the Greek word “makarios”. But translating Makarios as happy or fortunate is basically a human way of conveying the meaning and misses the deeper religious meaning.

Fortunate - One of the meanings of fortunate is lucky. The word lucky conveys the idea of things for no apparent reason broke your way. There is nothing to it.

Happy - A word we can understand based on the first 3 letters of the word: hap. The root “hap” which means chance. Human happiness is something which is dependent on the chances and the changes of life, something which life may give and which life may also destroy.

So what is “the deeper religious meaning”? Let’s look at 2 general facts.

(1) It can be seen that every one of the beatitudes has precisely the same form. As they are commonly printed in our Bibles, each one of them in the King James Version has the word “are” printed in italic, or sloping, type. When a word appears in italics in the King James Version it means that in the Greek, or in the Hebrew, there is no equivalent word. Therefore, the word added in italics or sloping type was added to bring out the meaning of the sentence.

This is to say that in the beatitudes there is no verb, there is no word “are”. Why should that be? Jesus did not speak the beatitudes in Greek; he spoke them in Aramaic, which was the language Hebrew people spoke in Jesus day.

Aramaic and Hebrew have a very common kind of expression, which is in fact an exclamation and which means, "O the blessedness of . . ." The expression ('ashere in the Hebrew) is very common in the Old Testament. For instance, the first Psalm begins in the Hebrew: "O the blessedness of the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly" (Ps 1:1). This is the form that Jesus first spoke in the beatitudes. The beatitudes are not simple statements; they are exclamations: "O the blessedness of the poor in spirit!"

What is most important, is that the beatitudes are not pious hopes of what shall be. They are not glowing, nebulous prophecies of some future bliss. They are congratulations on what is the blessedness which belongs to the Christian. It is not a blessedness which is postponed to some future world of glory. It is a blessedness which exists here and now. It is not something into which the Christian will enter. It is something into which he has entered.

True, it will find its fulness in the time after Christ’s return. But for Christians, it is a present reality to be enjoyed here and now.

The beatitudes in effect say, "O the bliss of being a Christian! O the joy of following Christ! O the sheer happiness of knowing Jesus Christ as Master, Savior and Lord!" The very form of the beatitudes is the statement of the joyous thrill and the radiant gladness of the Christian life.

(2) The word blessed which is used in each of the beatitudes is a very special word. It is the Greek word makarios. Makarios is the word which specially describes the gods. In Christianity there is a godlike joy.

The meaning of makarios can best be seen from one particular usage of it. The Greeks always called Cyprus he makaria which means The Happy Isle. They did so because they believed that Cyprus was so lovely, so rich, and so fertile an island that a man would never need to go beyond its coastline to find the perfectly happy life. It had such a climate, such flowers and fruits and trees, such minerals, such natural resources that it contained within itself all the materials for perfect happiness.

Makarios then describes that joy which has its secret within itself. That joy which is serene and untouchable, and self-contained. That joy which is completely independent of all the chances and the changes of life.

The English word happiness gives its own case away. It contains the root “hap” which means chance. Human happiness is something which is dependent on the chances and the changes of life; something which life may give and which life may also destroy.

The Christian blessedness is completely untouchable and unassailable. "No one," said Jesus, "will take your joy from you" (John 16:22). The beatitudes speak of that joy which helps us through our pain. That joy which sorrow, loss, pain and grief are powerless to touch. That joy which shines through tears, and which nothing in life or death can take away.

The world can win its joys, and the world can equally as well lose its joys. A change in fortune, a collapse in health, the failure of a plan, the disappointment of an ambition, even a change in the weather can take away the fickle joy the world can give. But the Christian has the serene and untouchable joy which comes from walking for ever in the company and in the presence of Jesus Christ.

The greatness of the beatitudes is that they are not wistful glimpses of some future beauty. They are not even golden promises of some distant glory. They are triumphant shouts of bliss for a permanent joy that nothing in the world can ever take away.

(From The Daily Study Bible, by William Barclay: First Edition. Biblesoft Formatted Electronic Database Copyright © 2015 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Have a pleasant Sabbath evening,

Gary Smith