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THE FIRST BEATITUDE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 8, 1877

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 49, No. 6.

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THE FIRST BEATITUDE.

BLESSED are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Matt. 5: 3.
A ladder, if it is of any use, must have its first step near the ground, or feeble climbers will never be able to mount. It would have been a grievous discouragement to struggling faith if the first blessing had been given to the pure in heart, for to that excellence the young beginner makes no claim, while to poverty of spirit he can reach without going beyond his line. Had the Saviour said, “Blessed are the rich in grace,” very few of us could have derived consolation therefrom. Our divine instructor begins at the beginning, with the very A B C of experience, and so enables the babes in grace to learn of him; had he commenced with higher attainments, he must have left the little ones behind. A gigantic step at the bottom of these sacred stairs would have effectually prevented many from essaying to ascend, but encouraged by the lowly step, which bears the inscription, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” thousands are encouraged to attempt the heavenly way. To be spiritually poor is the condition of all men; to be poor in spirit, or to know our spiritual poverty, is an attainment specially granted to the called and chosen.
The kings among mankind, the happiest, and most powerful, the most honorable, will one day be seen to be, not the Alexanders, Cæsars, and Napoleons, but the men akin to him who washed the disciples’ feet, those who in quietness lived for God and their fellow-men, unostentatious because conscious of their failures; unselfish because self was held in low esteem; humble and devout because their own spiritual poverty drove them out of themselves, and led them to rest alone upon the Lord. The time shall come when glitter and gew-gaw will go for what they are worth, and then shall the poor in spirit be seen to have the kingdom.
The dominion awarded by this beatitude to the poor in spirit is no common one; it is the kingdom of heaven, a heavenly dominion, far excelling anything which can be obtained this side the stars. An ungodly world may reckon the poor in spirit to be contemptible, but God writes them down among peers and princes, and his judgment is true and far more to be esteemed than the opinions of men.
“Poor in spirit!” The words sound as if they described the owners of nothing, and yet they describe the inheritors of all things. Happy poverty! Millionaires sink into insignificance, the treasures of the Indies evaporate in smoke, while to the poor in spirit remains a boundless, endless, faultless kingdom, which renders them blessed in the esteem of him who is God over all, blessed forever. And what must be their blessedness when they shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father, and in them shall be fulfilled the promise of their Master and Lord, “To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne?” —Christian Weekly.