Hero of Heroes

Seeing Christ in the Beatitudes

Iain M. Duguid

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2001
• ISBN:
  9781629951256
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Commento della Bibbia

The Beatitudes show how Jesus changes our concept of a hero. The Beatitudes point to a higher heroism—the character and attitudes found in the Hero of heroes.

One

The Poor In Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:3)

Jesus begins his analysis of the nature of the Christian hero by telling us that he or she is “poor in spirit.” Being poor in spirit is not quite the same as simply being poor in things. Many of us are, or have been at some time in our lives, poor in things. We know what that situation is like and it’s not much fun. But are we poor in spirit? What does that involve?

To be poor in spirit means to know that we don’t have any resources within ourselves, and therefore we have to look to God for help and to depend on him.

No Resources to Save Ourselves

The first part of being “poor in spirit” is knowing that we don’t have any means of saving ourselves. One of the first steps on the road to becoming a Christian is coming to the point in our lives when we see that our own personal goodness is not good enough to measure up to God’s standards. Indeed, we come to see that our own goodness never could be good enough even if we were one hundred times better than the best person alive today. As the apostle Paul puts it in his letter to the Ephesians, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God . . . so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:8).

Christians know that they are not saved by their own goodness and hard work. They know that even if they turned over a new leaf every day from now to the next millennium, they could never measure up. If they are to be saved, it can only be by grace—by the goodness of Jesus Christ credited to their account.

There’s a great picture of what it means to be poor in spirit in the story Jesus told about the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:10–14). Both men went up to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prayed like this:

God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.

Like so many respectable people, he stood there full of pride, thanking God that he wasn’t a nasty sinner like all those immoral commoners around him. Especially, he thanked God that he wasn’t like that awful tax collector over there, who connived with the Roman authorities to cheat and steal whatever he could from honest folk.

The tax collector, on the other hand, stood at a distance and hung his head, ashamed of what he was. He simply cried out, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” He was poor in spirit; he recognized who he was before God and so, according to Jesus, he was the one who went away justified. He was the one who received forgiveness, because he knew that he couldn’t contribute anything to that forgiveness. He knew that he didn’t have anything to give.

The Pharisee, on the other hand, received no forgiveness. In fact, he didn’t even ask for any. His problem was his pride. He was proud of his own goodness and of his performance relative to those around him. To be poor in spirit, however, means the death of all such pride. It means coming to God and saying, in the words of Augustus Toplady’s “Rock of Ages,”

Not the labors of my hands

Can fulfil thy law’s demands

Could my zeal no respite know,

Could my tears forever flow,

All for sin could not atone:

Thou must save, and thou alone.

No Resources to Live
the Christian Life

But there is more to being poor in spirit than simply knowing that we can’t save ourselves. To be poor in spirit also means knowing that even though we have been saved, we still can’t live the Christian life in our own strength. It’s very easy for us as Christians to fall down at this point. We view the Christian life as rather like learning to ride a bicycle. At first, when we were just beginning, we needed Dad or Mom to run behind us and hold the saddle while we wobbled about. But after a little while, we got the hang of it and zoomed off on our own. We say to the Heavenly Father, “Thanks for saving me, God, but from now on I’m off on my own. You just stand back and watch.”

Maybe we don’t say that in so many words, but do our actions not speak louder than our words? I know that mine do. When I pass over spending time praying in order to spend more time doing, what am I saying? I’m saying that what I do is what really counts; what God does is simply a bonus. I’m saying, “Stand back, God, and watch me go!”

Or when I try to run my own life according to what seems right to me, with no thought for what God says in his Word, what am I saying? I’m saying that I can run my own life very nicely, thank you. I’m saying “Bye, God! I’m on my own now!” How often do we act as if we know better than God and we don’t really need his help? I know that I often do. To be poor in spirit, however, means total dependence on God.

Remember the illustration Jesus gave of the vine and the branches?

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:5–8)

God wants us to bear fruit for him—much fruit. He wants to answer our prayers. But that can only happen as we remain in intimate touch with Jesus, dependent on God and his Word. Otherwise we will be about as much good as a branch that has fallen off the vine. And dried-up vine wood is not even good for making toothpicks out of. It is good for nothing except the fire.

Jesus Shows Us How to Be
Poor in Spirit

No one exemplifies what it means to be poor in spirit better than Jesus. This is, of course, no surprise. Since he is the ultimate “Christian hero,” we will see that he embodies the perfect form of all of these attitudes. He is therefore the one who shows us perfectly what being poor in spirit looks like.

Of all of us, he was the only one who did have the resources he needed for life within himself. He is the wisdom and the power of God in human form, the Perfect One. Yet when the devil came to him in the wilderness to tempt him, he didn’t answer with his own words (Matt. 4:1–11). If anyone could have done so, surely he could have! But no, he answered each of Satan’s snares by quoting from God’s Word, the Bible.

Thus when Satan said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread,” Jesus replied, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” citing Deuteronomy 8:3. When Satan took him up to the highest point of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down,” he replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test,’” citing Deuteronomy 6:16. When Satan showed him all the kingdoms of the world and said, “All this I will give you if you will bow down and worship me,” he replied, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone,’ ” citing Deuteronomy 6:13. Why did Jesus adopt this Scripture-based approach to temptation? Surely it is so that he could be our model of complete dependence on God, of what it means to be poor in spirit.

Moreover, if anyone could have afforded to get by on a minimal level of prayer, it was Jesus. If anyone knew what was the right thing to do in every situation, it was he; surely he wouldn’t have to wrestle in prayer for guidance? If anyone had the power within himself to live a victorious Christian life, he had it; surely he wouldn’t have to plead with God for strength to triumph over temptation? If anyone had the presence of God continually with him, Jesus did; surely he didn’t need to set aside special times to experience the reality of that presence?

Yet the Scriptures show us that no one was more dedicated to a life of prayer than Jesus. He got up early to pray on numerous occasions (Luke 5:16). He went away by himself to pray before crucial junctures in his ministry: before choosing the twelve disciples (Luke 4:42), at the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28), preparing himself for the cross (Luke 22:39–46). In his prayer life, with its expression of total dependence on God, Jesus was a model of what it means to be poor in spirit.

This expression of the attitude of being poor in spirit was also what led Jesus to be baptized by John at the outset of his ministry. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for sins, and therefore John sought to dissuade Jesus from being baptized when he came to him, saying that he should rather be baptized by Jesus (Matt. 3:13–14). But Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness” (v. 15). In other words, such was his identification with his people that he would even be their sin-bearer. Therefore, it was fitting that as their representative he should also undergo baptism, not for any sins of his own but for the sins of his people.

Jesus took that modeling of what it meant to be poor in spirit all the way to the cross. By nature, he didn’t have to die. He is the ever-living One. Yet the writer to the Hebrews tells us that he chose to share our flesh and blood so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:14–15). He brought himself down even to the point of death on the cross. Why? Because it was the will of God the Father to save for himself a people, and that could only happen through the death of Jesus. Jesus shows us what it means to be poor in spirit.

Being Poor in Spirit

What would our lives look like, if we began to be truly poor in spirit? To begin with, our lives, and not just our lips, would express total dependence on God. This would transform our prayer lives. Instead of the optional extra that prayer seems to us to be now, it would become the essential and central focus of our lives. We would start to act as if we really believed Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (nasb).

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