2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor… I. CHRIST BECAME POOR. 1. This cannot mean that He ceased to be the owner and Lord of all things. That sort of limited ownership which the law gives me over what is mine I can renounce. Not so with the absolute ownership of God. The use of them He may lend; His own proprietorship in them He cannot alienate. Still less is it possible to strip oneself of those moral and personal qualities which make up the wealth of one's very nature. Could a Divine Person cease to carry in Himself the unsearchable riches of Divine power, or wisdom, or goodness? 2. Christ became poor in the sense of forbearing to claim His wealth or to avail Himself of it. The nobleman, e.g., who leaves behind him his estates, conceals his rank, and goes abroad to maintain himself on what he can earn by daily labour, becomes poor, not by loss indeed, but by renunciation. What motive could be purer than this, "For your sakes"? What design nobler than this, "That ye through His poverty might be rich"? So Christ's poverty was not an outward condition so much as an inward act. At the most the outward condition only mirrored the inward act. All things were not less truly His own than before; only He refused to assert His right to them, or to enjoy their benefit. And why? That He might make Himself in all things like unto us, His human and fallen brethren. (1) We are creatures who hang upon God with absolute dependence. Is not that poverty — to be derived from, sustained, and led by another? To this Christ stooped. Though inherently equal to the Father, He consented to occupy the position of a creature's inferiority: "My Father is greater than I." Though Maker of the universe, He consented to receive His ability from God: "The Son can do nothing of Himself." Of the infinite treasures which were His, He would not turn so much as a stone to bread to feed His own hunger. (2) There are restrictions under which we are bound to act — the confining bonds of law. No man is free to do whatever he likes. Against this curbing and prescribing law, whether of morals or of social custom, all men fret; and Jewish men in particular were saddled with a yoke of ancient prescriptions peculiarly vexatious. To all this Christ submitted. He became too poor to have a will of His own or be a law unto Himself, for He was "made under the law."(3) Sin has wrought for us a deeper poverty than God meant for men. There is no shame in having nothing but what our Father gives; no shame in being free only to do His will. But there is shame in wearing a life forfeit to the law through criminal transgression. This is poverty indeed. Yet Jesus walked on earth with a forfeited life because He had devoted it to the law. Here was the acme of self-impoverishment. He held not even Himself to be properly His own. On the contrary. He held Himself to be a ransom for our transgression, a price due, a Person doomed. II. IT IS THIS SPONTANEOUS ABNEGATION WHICH GIVES US THE MORAL KEY TO THAT MYSTERIOUS ATONING LIFE AND DEATH OF THE SON OF GOD. In this act there lay the perfection both of that love which gives and of that humility which stoops and veils itself. It forms the most consummate antithesis to the immoral attitude taken up by our fallen world. This world, being indeed helpless and dependent, yet renounces God, asserts itself, dreams of self-sufficiency. For an answer to such sinful folly, the Son of God, being indeed rich, becomes as poor as the world is. He stoops to show us men our true place. We shall reap no profit from this adopted poverty of His unless we learn of Him how to be poor in spirit before God. For me as for Him the pathway is one of renunciation. My would-be independence of God I must frankly abandon. God's claims I must own as Jesus Christ owned them in my name. The sentence which righteously condemns me I must accept as He accepted it for me. The sacrifice of His costly life I must regard as the due equivalent for my own life, forfeit for my guilt. Then I, too, am poor. I, too, owe everything to God. I am so poor that I am not even my own any more, but His who gave Himself for me; so poor that I do not live any more, for I died in His death; or, if I live, it is no more I, but Christ who liveth in me. III. THIS CHRIST-LIKE PATH CONDUCTS TO TRUE ENRICHMENT. Compare the Jesus whom John describes in chap. John 19 with the Jesus whom John describes in Revelation 1. On the pavement, in the praetorium, and on the Cross, He let them strip Him. Was ever man stripped so poor as this one, buried at last in a borrowed grave? Look up and see the vision of Patmos. The same Man; but His eyes are a flame of fire, etc. Has not His path through uttermost poverty been a path to boundless wealth? Ponder this comment of St. Paul, and you will know what I mean (Philippians 6:6-11). Such glory as He had with the Father before the world was, He first laid aside that He might be made like unto us, inglorious in all things. Then when He stood among us as our priestly Head on the night when He was betrayed, He asked the Father to give Him back of His grace that same glory which He would not claim by right, saying, "Now, O Father, do Thou glorify Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was!" Why does He thus stoop to be a petitioner for His own? Because He would receive it on such terms that He may share it with us. Hear Him add (as one who believes that he has what he has asked), "The glory which Thou hast given to Me, I have given to them." (J. Oswald Dykes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. |
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