Blessed are the Poor in Spirit
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Mathew 5:3
A friend of mine whom I like was scheduled to appear on TV for the first time in a while so I intentionally watched the show called “I am A Singer". My friend’s face, which I had not seen for a long time, was clearly marked with the imprints of time and he seemed to have lost much of the youthfulness and confidence he used to show before. I roughly knew the nature of the show through internet news and other sources, but after actually watching the show, I was of mixed emotions in many ways.
The show “I am A Singer”, picks seven of the best live singers and ranks them, dropping the lowest ranked singer. I felt bad that my not so young friend had to compete with other young singers, but I somewhat enjoyed the show because I felt that the reality of human history and the saints’ journey of faith were interwoven within it.
There are many singers in the world. Each of them identifies him/herself as “I am a singer”. But let’s say someone creates a fence line and picks seven people, pulls them into the fence, and rules that those many self-nominated singers outside of the fence as not singers. By putting up a fence called “I am a singer”, the other side of the fence becomes a place for lip-syncing and pretending wanna-be singers despite their claim to be a singer.
Of course, the ones inside the fence become proud, right? They must be proud as if they own their talent as a singer and they are acknowledged as such. So on the stage, each one takes out their own secret weapon and aggressively fights against the others, as if to crush them all. But a problem occurs. Even though I have such pride as a singer, I get to experience a humiliating moment when the judges from the outside decide whether or not I am worthy of being a singer. I always thought what I had was the best, but others get to decide whether or not I am a singer based on a judging standard that is different than mine.
I am clearly a singer but I have to go outside the fence if the judges call out “you are eliminated”. Then, all of sudden, I move from “I am a singer” to “I am not a singer”. I heard the interview of every singer that came out and everyone said, “All this time, I thought I was the best. But now I realize that I am not the one who is on top.” Through such an experience, they finally learned that “Ah! My being a singer is decided by the will of someone other than me, who acknowledges me.” What makes a singer a singer is by the choice of the audience, the viewers, and the public, and not by my ability or something I insist as worthy. Even though I am confident as a singer, I am not a singer anymore if the public says, “you are not a singer.” The name tag “singer” is labeled by the public.
That is the essence of our life of faith.
Saints are saved by the grace of God. Everyone remaining in Adam, having eaten the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and become like God, talks big by saying, “I don’t know about others but I must be saved because I am a king of the world”, but only a very few get invited into the fence called salvation. And there is a war inside the fence. It is a war of “I believed in Jesus” where the worth and glory of the existence of myself is lifted higher and showed off. However, as the war goes on, I come to realize that the self-worth and glory is not shining because it is something I develop and fight for and build, but it is decided and given by someone who is outside of my existence. Accordingly, saints learn first, “I am not even an existence if not by the grace of God,” before they even realize themselves being developed, advanced, and maturing through the life of faith. That is what it means to be poor in spirit. In order to be that way, they go through countless eliminations. And at every elimination, they confess in self-denial, “All this was given not by my own might but by the gift of God.” This is called being poor in spirit.
Likewise, “being poor in spirit” that the Bible talks about is “detecting and admitting and understanding my spiritual poverty”. It is admitting there is nothing but sin that can come out of me, thus realizing surely and clearly that I am someone who cannot ever enter the kingdom of God without the help from God. The reason the Lord said first, as He was talking about the beatitudes, “You who are blessed! You will be poor in spirit”, is to clearly show the saints what the essence and core of life of faith really is.
The destination of being poor in spirit is the destination a blessed saint is pushed down to get to through his life of faith. That is a destination of death of the flesh.
Despite this, many people consider being poor in spirit as a virtue of modesty. Some misunderstand being poor in spirit as forsaking one’s greed and being humble in heart. Such things can be acquired if people learn and train. And these are what other religions also diligently seek after and discipline to be. The ideology of “shunyata” of Buddhism is one of them. Shunyata ideology is that since everything in this world is in vain, one should achieve nirvana by ruling over his greed and cutting off his attachment to the materialistic world and be good to his neighbors. Being poor in spirit is not such a thing.
There is a difference between the virtue of modesty of shunyata ideology and being poor in spirit. In the worldly virtue of modesty, the one who is practicing this gets appraised. Such an act can become a criterion of human conduct and being different from it can be criticized. Because it is a fruit achieved by human effort, the laziness of those who cannot bear such fruit can easily be criticized. However, being poor in spirit cannot feel superior in comparison to others and all the more it cannot be considered as a standard in human life because it is lamenting one’s powerlessness and seeking help from the outside.
Being poor in spirit is not achieved by deciding I should make my spirit poor. Being poor in spirit is newly discovering and realizing one’s existence itself. It is facing the limit and boundary and powerlessness of those who are apart from God. Therefore, being poor in spirit leads to calling out, “God, please help!”
The commonly spoken Humbleness, or modesty, or shunyata ideology comes from human flesh but being poor in spirit begins with the Holy Spirit. The former can be done without God. It can be thought as human reason and be suggested as a human way by human beings themselves. However, being poor in spirit is knowing that even the good deeds of these human beings cannot be counted as worthy before God. Therefore, being poor in spirit is the breaking down of one’s ego, a self-denial, and collapse of the human nature of the flesh. Without the breakdown of ego and self-denial, one’s confession of “being the most wretched of all sinners” is a mere acting in a play to show humbleness and modesty to others.
It is described well in the book of Isaiah what kind of man is a man poor in spirit.
When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the Lord will answer them;
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
18 I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
19 I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.
I will set in the desert the cypress,
the plane and the pine together,
20 that they may see and know,
may consider and understand together,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it. Isaiah 41:17-20
The poor and needy come out here. It is said that the Lord will answer them when they cry out because their tongue is parched with thirst and hunger. Why? The answer is in verse 20. It is to make them acknowledge God as the creator and know that all is made by His hand. God is making their heart poor and needy so they can admit the power and glory of the judge and sovereign and surrender before Him, knowing that “I cannot be a saint by my own might, power, or deeds, but I am just a passive existence who can or cannot be a saint by outside judgment. That is why those who are blessed by God are becoming poor in spirit. That is the starting point for all saints. God is pushing down the heart of the saints to be poor so that they can admit, “I live not by my own righteousness but by the righteousness prepared and given as a gift by God.”
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;[a]
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;[b]
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Isaiah 61:1-3
If you would look at this passage, it says that the Lord appointed him to bring good news, the gospel, to the poor. What is the reason? Please look at verse 3. It is so they praise God for His zeal as “the oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.” This means the reason God has sent down His people, whom He has blessed with spiritual blessings before the creation, into this history and make them poor in spirit, is to make them praise only God’s glory. This is the reason why the saints are endlessly pushed down to the place of being poor in spirit, to the place of being “the most wretched of all sinners” in this history. Shall we look into one more place?
All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares the Lord.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.
3 “He who slaughters an ox is like one who kills a man;
he who sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog's neck;
he who presents a grain offering, like one who offers pig's blood;
he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like one who blesses an idol.
These have chosen their own ways,
and their soul delights in their abominations; Isaiah 66:2-3
Here again, the one who is humble and contrite in heart and the one who diligently offers a sacrifice are compared, right? It is saying that the one who acknowledges that all things have been begun and completed in God’s hands is the one who is poor in heart and God saves that very poor man.
Let me give you an example of someone in the Bible who thoroughly experienced such poverty in spirit.
As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God! Psalm 40:17
Whose psalm do you think this is? This is a psalm of David, who was the king of Israel. He was the richest man in Israel. But he is calling himself poor and needy. Therefore, “poor and needy” here is not materialistic poverty, but poverty in heart. What does David cry out as he is calling himself poor in heart? He is crying out, “help me and deliver me!” From what is he crying out to be delivered? He is crying out to be delivered from sin. That is the cry of a man poor in spirit. Why did David have to cry out like this?
It shows clearly in Psalm 51 how David’s spirit had become poor and needy.
(To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.)
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. Psalm 51:1-3
This is a psalm of David you know very well. It is a psalm in which David asks God for help and cries out after the prophet Nathan came and exposed his sin of committing adultery and living without guilt, even after having a child with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah.
In between verses 1 and 3, the Hebrew words “hattah” and “pesha” are used alternately and both these words mean “sin”. However, “hattah” is plural and “pasha” is singular. Also, words like “chet” and “avon” also alternately come out as words meaning “sin” and these are used as both singular and plural. David is talking about sin, separating the “sins” that have actualized and come out externally and the essential “sin” which is the root of those “sins”. David is aching for the “transgressions” of committing adultery with Bathsheba and killing his loyal servant Uriah, but he is facing the essential “sin”, which is filling up his substance and attributes and fearing it more.
In verse 2, David is asking, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” and the word here used for “iniquity” and “sin” are all singular. And the word “transgressions” are plural and the word “sin” in “my sin is ever before me” is singular. That means this: through the sins that actualized and came out in his life, he has come to face his essential and attributive sin, his essential being as a sinner, and now is crying out to God to resolve the problem of that essential sin. That is poverty in spirit. David’s crime is used as a tool for this purpose.
If you read on to verse 4, it writes he sinned only against the Lord, and the word used here also is singular. That means this: the symptoms of the sin which are actualized and come out from us are between men and thus it is possible to look for a solution by giving excuses or apologies or regretting. For real, David did not actually kill Uriah but he was killed by the sword of the Ammonites, and David could have blamed Bathsheba for the bathing incident. If neither, he could possibly just apologize saying he gravely sinned and give out an appropriate compensation to resolve the matter. These are “sins” But there is an essential “sin” before God. That sin refers to all actions and ownership for his own glory by a creature who should live for the glory of God. In fact, “sins” come out of the “sin”. God makes His people see the essence of “sin” by having them face the “sins” that come out from themselves. So the people of God, who know the essence of sin, as they face their “sins”, which are the symptoms or items of the “sin”, come to know the true identity of the essential “sin” and cry out, “Deliver me!” as they lay the “sin” down before God. That is why David is saying “I sinned only against God.”
This does not mean David did not feel guilty towards Bathsheba and Uriah. That is a given. David saw the “sin” that was more fearful than those “sins” and is confessing that he is a sin factory, a sin vending machine, a frightful being made of the elements of sin and admitting that he is powerless before the “sin”.
In verse 6, David all of sudden says that the Lord “delights in truth in the inward being.”
Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Psalm 51:6
Here the Hebrew word “emet” is translated as “truth, faith”. This means that what God wants from sinful David is a truthful confession of “I am a sinner” and faith based on that confession. He is not asking David for a solution to the sin he committed but that he admit his sin and believe in the only God who can resolve that sin. That is why the Passover lamb is appearing right after that.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Psalm 51:7-8
David is saying that nothing other than hyssop can purify him. What was hyssop used for?
Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. 23 For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. Exodus 12:22-23
Hyssop was something that spread the blood of the lamb. "Purge me with hyssop" means the same as "purify me with the blood of Jesus". Hyssop was like a brush that was used to purify what was unclean even after the exodus. David is talking about that hyssop and the readers of the Bible should be able to connect the hyssop to Jesus the lamb. And he is asking to let the bones the Lord has broken to rejoice, right? The broken bones here represent Jesus Christ who was broken in place of us, but it also represents the broken saints who are crying out in utter guilt and shame as they confront their sins. But it is connoting that this kind of painful confession brings a result that would make them rejoice. It means that the breaking of the ego of the flesh in saints is definitely accompanied on the road of salvation.
Doesn’t it look like God is using all of David’s sin, the exposing of his sin, and his pain and shame due to that sin in the salvation of David?
There is something you must know: this history is created embracing the end. Geerhardus Vos said “eschatology proceeds soteriology,” right? This is not the words of Vos, but what the Bible is saying.
Declaring the end from the beginning
and from ancient times things not yet done,
saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ Isaiah 46:10
Here the word translated as “the beginning” is the same word used in “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.” The end (aharit) was included in the beginning. And that what is not seen yet, the vision or revelation, has been known since the ancient times. This means that the heaven in the vision is completed by the covenant between the Father God and the Son. And this completed vision is opened up in the world and show why human beings cannot contribute even a little to its completion. As we live in this history, we learn why we must exist only by His grace and be happy because of Him. This is called being poor in spirit. For that our sins and mistakes are used, and our frightfulness and shortcomings contribute to our understanding of grace.
God did not stop David’s transgression and keep him so there is no fault in His people, but He allowed David to commit sin so that he may ask for God’s help, His grace, and His mercy. This is the same as how the father of the prodigal son allowed his son’s division of inheritance request and sadly watched the obvious end of his life. The father could have refused his son’s request and stopped him from his sins. Father God does not put a numerical meaning to the quantity of the sins. What He essentially wants to fix is the way the prodigal son treats the father. The father’s true goal was to clearly teach his son the reality of having to live unconditionally dependent on the father, and stopping the son’s unfilial piety, or lewdness, or extravagance was not the father’s essential goal. Some people consider Christian faith as integral faith and advocate that the core of Christianity is sanctification of the saints but if that truly is the core of Christianity, the father of the prodigal son neglected His duty. Didn’t he just look on even though he could have stopped his son from sinning? No! Father God is requiring us to show integral faith through sanctification, pushing us out to confirm our original state and depend on the Father, even if it means through our mistakes or sins.
Even so, many think that David must have clenched his teeth and overcome it when faced with the temptation of sin. "Isn’t that keeping the integrity of God’s people?" they ask. David affirms that is not the case.
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:16-17
David says there is a separate sacrifice that God delights in. The sacrifice God asks for is not a sacrifice of an animal but that of a broken spirit. Here the Hebrew words “shabar" and "taka”, used for broken and contrite mean the state of being thrusted, broken, and empty. Accordingly, a broken and contrite spirit means a needy and poor spirit resulting from the self-ego being broken and shattered. Therefore, poor spirit is not something made by human beings but a spirit which God intends and create.
What is a sacrifice? Sacrifice is symbolically showing that one must meet God on the premise of death. Unclean human beings will surely die if they see the holy God, but instead of their death, a spotless and faultless offering dies and the unclean get to come in face with God - this is the meaning of sacrifice. So strictly speaking, sacrifice must be offered up with a heart seeking God’s mercy, admitting the death of one’s existence before Him. In easier words, admitting one’s powerlessness and confessing the fairness of the denial of his existence is the attitude of someone who knows the true meaning of a sacrifice. Coming before God and upholding one’s own death is the true meaning of a sacrifice. Likewise, the premise of a sacrifice is the confession of “I surely deserve to die”, which is one’s original state.
But Israel believed that the “act” of a sacrifice would get rid of their sin. To Israel, a sacrifice was a praiseworthy deed on the side of the human beings to get rid of their sin. With this type of sacrifice, the holy effort of human beings is to collect their pride by keeping the morals, ethics and the laws and to neutralize their dirtiness. God does not want that kind of sacrifice. I am not saying such efforts are needless. The Holy Spirit makes us act with a desire placed in our heart so it is abnormal if such an effort is not there. But there is something we must know first because the human deeds that precede the understanding of grace definitely end with praising oneself. If we go to the Gospel of Luke, the content of the sermon on the mountain comes out and the last verse is very notable.
And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
Luke 6:20-16
As you can see, the beatitudes are listed and in the end, the rich and the full are compared to the blessed. You know better that it is not just talking about materialistic richness. Being rich here means trusting the power and values of this world, which they live by as their strength, considering human deeds worthy. What kind of people are they? They are the kind of people that all people speak well of.
On the other hand, people despise and deride anyone living a poor, mournful, and persecuted life. On top of that, your life itself may be condemned and judged, saying it is so because you are cursed by God. But the Lord is saying such people are blessed people. This means the saints are the people who will not be praised for their modesty or humbleness.
Imagine if children went to their grandpa to wish him a happy new year and if the grandpa gives his blessings to the kids saying, “Mourn a lot, be persecuted and be poor much this year!” how many will take this as a blessing? Like this, we do not know what blessing really is even though we say we believe in Jesus. Even we do not want to acknowledge that the spirit of those who mourn, who are persecuted, and who are needy is the poor spirit and true blessing. But the sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit, the poor spirit.
We can see what kind of heart is the poor heart if we look at Psalm 40.
In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted,
but you have given me an open ear.[a]
Burnt offering and sin offering
you have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me: Psalm 40:6-7
As we read shortly before, the end of this Psalm is David’s confession of “I am poor and needy.” What about David’s poor and needy heart is written here? David says here that God does not delight in sacrifice and offering and is introducing someone in the place of a broken spirit that God requires? Who is it? It is someone who is written of in the scroll. The broken spirit in Psalm 51 is being connected to this. Who is this person? The writer of Hebrews reveals with clarity who this person written of in the scroll is, coming out in Psalms 51 and 40.
For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5 Consequently, when Christ[a] came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
6 in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
7 Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”
8 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Hebrews 10:4-10
He is explaining the true sacrifice, who is Jesus Christ, referring to Psalms 51 and 40. If so, a broken spirit is admitting that my act of offering a sacrifice is worthless while holding tightly onto the sacrifice of the cross of Jesus, who is the true sacrifice, right?
But what caused David to have a poor heart that trusts the hyssop and the Lamb of God? His transgression made him realize the identity of its root, which is sin, and there David made a confession of a broken spirit saying that “I am rightfully the most wretched of all sinners. I have been a sinner since being in my mother’s womb. So God help me please!”
David expresses it this way in Psalm 51:
Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God,
O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. Psalm 51:14
David is trusting and praising God’s righteousness and not his own righteousness. That is the very broken spirit and a poor heart. Shall we take a look how Paul is outspreading this?
For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in[b] him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” Romans 4:2-8
Here in verse 6, the Greek phrase “koris ergon”, translated as “apart from works”, means “having nothing to do with works”. It means the righteousness is given regardless of works. In verse 6, Paul is saying such a person is a happy person, a blessed person. Thus it is saying that the blessed are those who receive and bite into the righteousness called Jesus, which has been prepared by God apart from their works. This is the very poor spirit, a broken spirit. David’s Psalm is again quoted in verses 7 and 8. It is a phrase quoted from Psalm 32.
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up[b] as by the heat of summer. Selah
5 I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
6 Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him. Psalms 32:1, 3-6
David suffered in pain, groaning all day long with his bones wasting away, when he was hiding his sin and not confessing. But God exposed David’s transgression and made him confess his true identity. Once he asked for God’s help, he confessed his true identity, having become poor in heart. In other words, God helped him and made praises break out from his lips. David even examined Bathsheba if her menstruation was done or if she was unclean even when committing adultery. And even in that situation, he fasted and acted sensitive to the laws. He tried to be a praiseworthy person before God with his sacrifices called the law. But it was hard. It was painful. Then he realized the meaning of the priceless righteousness God prepared. Once he did that he became free. Praises broke out.
Now we will look into how the poor heart of “I am the most wretched of all sinners. Therefore I trust only the covenant of God” becomes the evidence of our salvation.
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. 2Corinthians 8:9
The poor heart, the broken heart, was ours in the first place. It is not that the poor heart, which admits that “I am the most wretched of all sinners,” has to be worthy in itself to be the basis of salvation. Of course, the most wretched of all sinners should die. But by Jesus taking away the heart, breaking out in a confession that “I am the most wretched of all sinners” and gifting with His riches, the broken spirit is revived. Think about it. Whose spirit in this world was truly broken? It was the spirit of Jesus. The cry of Jesus at the moment of His death, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was the cry of His breaking heart when the Father God and Jesus Christ, who had never been apart in eternity, were separated on the cross. That is a broken spirit. Jesus had the power to be freed from that place because He is God. However, the will of the Father was for Jesus to die there. So Jesus willingly became powerless and followed only the will of the Father. That is the very broken spirit, broken heart, the emptied out heart. Father God wants only that very broken spirit. Believing and trusting Jesus, who is that broken spirit, is the broken spirit of the saints. It is because believing Jesus, who became a broken spirit on the cross, in itself means the breaking down of one’s self existence. The complete self-denial of Jesus is commanding the self-denial of the saints.
The broken spirit David is speaking of is primarily the spirit of Jesus Christ that was torn into pieces on the cross, rather than our own broken spirit. That is why a broken spirit comes out in comparison to a sacrifice. The Father only accepts the cross of His Son as a true sacrifice. In the book of Revelation, God speaks to the church of Smyrna:
I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander[a] of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Revelation 2:9
The Lord says he knows the Smyrna church is poor. However, who is He denouncing in contrast to the Smyrna church? The Jews. The Lord is calling them a synagogue of Satan. It means an organization of the Devil. Who came into the first church and perturbed it? The Jewish religion. The Jewish religion infiltrated false prophets and false teachers who adroitly blended the gospel of "only by grace" with laws and works into the church. The Galatian church was the typical example of this.
O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by[a] the flesh? 4 Did you suffer[b] so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:1-5
Like this, it was the method of the false prophets and teachers to create an equation of grace + works = salvation, by mixing the works of the law with the gospel. If you do so, people applaud and commend you. But Jesus said in Luke 6 that those who people speak well of are false prophets.
The church of Laodicea was a church that lived splendidly by the power of human works and world values.
For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Revelation3:17
The Lord is declaring “you are poor!” to the Laodicean church that had many members, much money, and overflowing works. It means that there was no poverty that Jesus could take away because they were rich in heart. Thus there was no place for Jesus to pour over His richness. The life of faith is breaking this down. By doing so, the rod of iron of the grace of God makes you poor in spirit in the end. In Luke 14, the Lord explains with an example in what appearance the reality of salvation comes out.
He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers[b] or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”
Luke 14:12-14
The wedding banquet of the Lamb is a banquet that is given only to those who have no means to repay on their own. It is written that our salvation is for the glory of God. That’s why only those who cannot repay must be saved because only the glory of God is revealed this way. The directivity that comes out in the life of those who entrusted their body and mind to God, having lost their own strength, is called sanctification. On the other hand, those who try to achieve sanctification with their own might, effort, and willpower surely end up judging, condemning, and criticizing others. Such a person comes out in the letter of John:
I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. 10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. 3 John 1:9-10
There was a guy named Diotrephes and he liked to put himself first and he was condemning others as he would like. This is the kind of person who boasts of himself that he would achieve sanctification with his own strength. This kind of person never allows others to get better rated than himself.
These people may be better than others in not committing ethical, moral, and social transgressions, but it is evident that they don’t even know what is the true sin God detests.
Please do not forget that God brings out the solution to the sin thru your transgressions. We would never know if those who we are carelessly criticizing and condemning now are in fact on the road to realizing the essence of sin under the grace of God. It might be that those who point out and condemn others for their sins and clench their fists in determination saying, “We will never do that” are actually the real sinners who despise the righteousness of God. Please do not sin by trying to solve your transgressions with your own strength but rather, live a life of a blessed man by facing the sin through your transgressions and holding onto the righteousness of God because of the sin.