R.C. Sproul

Nor is this describing somebody who is mean-spirit.

But rather to be poor in spirit in biblical terms means that they have a poverty of arrogance.

These people are the polar opposite of the scribes and Pharisees who boasted of their riches in virtue.

They boasted of their own righteousness.

And those people do not enter the kingdom of God.

I can't believe how often the myth persists even in our culture that people get to heaven by their good works, by the righteousness that they achieve in their particular virtues.

If you, for one minute, trust in your own righteousness to get you into the kingdom of God,

you will miss the kingdom of God altogether.

To enter the kingdom of God, you must understand that in light of the perfection of God, your virtue is bankrupt.

You have no merit to offer God except for that merit earned for you

by your Savior.

And so Jesus is spelling out here a necessary condition for entering into his kingdom.

We have to be broken of our pride.

The Old Testament psalmist this way, that a broken and contrite spirit the Lord does not despise.

And as David tells us, the Lord does not require sacrifices, else would I give them.

But that the sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart before Him.

Now, it's not just that the poorest spirit who get in the kingdom and everybody else gets some other ways, being a peacemaker, being hungry or thirsty.

No, no, no.

Everybody has to be poor in spirit to receive this blessing, this supreme blessing of receiving the very kingdom of God.

Here in the book of Acts, the mode of Jesus' return is said to be parallel to the mode of His departure.