He is a poor man

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"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3

This spiritual poverty no man possesses by nature. But like the Laodicean church, every man thinks himself rich and increased in goods, and in need of nothing. But when God teaches him that he is "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked," then he is brought to feel himself really poor—that is, completely empty, totally destitute of all that deserves the name of riches.

For he now learns that in God's account nothing deserves the name of riches but that which makes a soul rich for eternity—the treasures that are in Christ for the poor and needy—and that he who is not possessed of these riches, in God's sight is nothing, and has nothing but poverty and rags.

As, then, the Lord the Spirit works upon a sinner's conscience, He—opens up to him his evil heart—shows him his exceeding transgressions—lays bare the depths of iniquity that are in his corrupt nature—discovers to him what God requires in His holy law—and thus makes him feel how completely empty and destitute he is by nature of all good.

Now, when a man is brought to see himself a poor, vile, lost, undone wretch, having nothing, and being nothing but a mass of filth and corruption, completely destitute of everything that God can look down upon with acceptance—he comes under the expression in the text—he is a poor man spiritually.

He is now brought down—he is effectually laid low—he is made to feel real poverty of spirit before God.