This post is an assigned response
to Blessed
Are the Poor in Spirit—Not Those with Spiritual Bravado, by Paul Louis
Metzger.
Let’s start by considering two
very different passages of scripture, one from the Old Testament written by a
king, and the other from the New Testament proclaimed as the message of the
kingdom of heaven.
Psalm 26:1-3
1 Vindicate
me, O Lord,
for I have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
2 Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and my mind.
3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in your faithfulness.
for I have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
2 Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and my mind.
3 For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in your faithfulness.
Matthew 5:1-3
“Seeing
the crowds, he went up on the mountain,
and
when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he
opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.’”
How can we walk as King David claimed “in our integrity” and
still be blessed as the “poor in spirit” or the “spiritually bankrupt” at the
same time? Is it even possible for both to be true in us, or are these
attitudes mutually exclusive? Or perhaps we just chalk it up to the differences
due to progressive revelation from the mid-Old Testament to the early New
Testament as is so often done and walk on by such issues.
Let’s be honest, sometimes King David’s claims in the Psalms
seem almost arrogant and self-righteous at first glance…especially given our
knowledge of his own personal and public failures. Certainly, he was gifted with
a completely honest approach to communicating with God, and thus some of his
statements may offend our more nuanced religious sensibilities. But before we
are too hard on David, we need to get the log of self-promotion out of at least
one of our own eyes. How often do we mentally make the same argument as David…that
we deserve better? That we are not like “them”? That we have integrity in
ourselves?
Let me say, in a stage-whisper aside, that it is in our corrupted
nature to compare ourselves favorably with others. [Even those who despise themselves and compare
themselves unfavorably to others do so with the thought that they should be better
or have better in a kind of backward
pride—for if they really despised themselves then they would be happy that
their life is miserable.]
David’s request for God to “vindicate” him was actually a
statement of humility. It demonstrates that he knew that he needed to be vindicated (to justify, maintain,
support, defend, uphold, prove correct or right) and couldn't deliver himself.
In the Expositors’ Bible Commentary Vol. 5, Willem A. VanGemeren
writes, “Vindication is where the act of God whereby he declares his servant to
be innocent and avenges himself of the wicked (false accusers, enemies).”[1]
Note that vindication here is “the act of God” not the act of self-righteous humanity.
The integrity, to which David clung, was faithfully dependent
upon the steadfast love and mercy of God (v.3). His integrity is seen in the coherence
between his inner life of faith and his outward walk of faithfulness. He shunned
everything that smacked of a lie or deceitfulness. He chooses not to enjoy the
temporal benefits of those who oppress others. He has weighed the cost of following
the Lord and does so with equal parts enthusiastic abandon and steadfast endurance.
So we see that to “walk in integrity”
demands not perfection, but requires the honesty and humility to admit that we
desperately need a gracious redeemer!
It has been said that “a life of faith” serves
a dream/mission so big that it requires God to miraculously bring it to pass or
it is not a life of faith. If, in our integrity, we know that we need God to
vindicate and redeem us and we put our whole-hearted hope in his doing so, then
perhaps we are living by faith indeed as the “poor in spirit”.
Psalm 26, from which these verses are taken, is described as
a psalm of entrance…that might have been used by the worshipper entering into
the temple complex seeking both the clean hands and pure heart necessary to
come before the presence of the Lord. The psalmist asked God to search and test
him, not because of an elevated sense of self-righteousness, but from the
response of a heart captured by the steadfast love of the Lord! He wanted to be able to stand in the
presence of God.
He consciously distanced himself from the oppressor and
drew near to God in whom true freedom was found. For, as Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters, for
either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the
one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
This psalm testifies that the psalmist
was a “one master” kind of guy. To quote VanGemeren again, “The psalmist's
concern with integrity, acts of devotion, and words of praise flows out of a
heart filled with love for the Lord and for God's house. It is motivated by a
zeal for the Lord.”[2]
So can I say the same thing about myself? A couple of years
ago, in commenting on this same passage, I wrote,
I hope that one day I will be able
to look back and say with the psalmist that “I
have trusted the Lord without wavering.” Yet I am not so sure that I want
to ask the questions of God that David asked in verse two. But I wonder if it is
possible to experience unwavering trust (v.1) without asking God to test us
(v.2). Maybe the key is in verse 3…where I keep God’s steadfast love before my
eyes (which makes it a lot easier to trust) and I live in his perfect
faithfulness (not my own).
So we see that David’s integrity caused him to cry out to
the Lord for redemption, vindication, and relational access to the Lord. Perhaps
David is actually a pretty good case study in the blessedness of being poor in
spirit.
What do you think?
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