2 Corinthians 8:9

2Co_8:9

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich.

What we know through knowing the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

I. How do we know it. Ye know.

1. There are records which establish the fact--the gospels, epistles, etc., the burden of all of which is, He was rich, yet for your sakes, etc. The contents may be classified thus--

(1) Earthly facts in the realm of history (Act_10:38).

(2) Antecedent facts in the realm of testimony (Joh_16:28).

(3) The meaning of the facts in the realm of inspiration (1Ti_1:15).

(4) The after issues of the facts in the realm of experience (Eph_2:13).

2. There are the fathers who accepted and expounded the fact.

3. Through all the entanglements of controversy in the history of the Church this fact and doctrine remains undisturbed.

4. The continuity of the Church has no other solution but this. He was rich, etc.

II. What is the fact which we know.

1. The person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

2. His pre-existence (Joh_17:5)--rich in the Fathers love and in the plenitude of power.

3. His incarnation (Joh_1:14). He became poor. He descended into the lowest rank amongst created intelligences, and in that rank was the poorest of the poor.

4. The purpose. That we might be made rich. He descended from His throne that we might ascend to it.

5. This was all prompted by grace. Infinite love finds its highest joy in giving itself to enrich others.

III. What do we come to know through knowing this? There are many truths which are valuable, not merely in themselves, but also on account of the further knowledge we acquire through them--e.g., to know how to secure the best microscope is of value in this sense, so with the telescope. There are four fields of knowledge opened up by our knowledge of the grace of Christ.

1. The infinite love of God (Rom_5:8).

2. The value of man in the eye of Heaven.

3. The Divine consecration of self-sacrifice.

4. The Divine lever by which God would lift the world.

IV. This addition to our knowledge ought to be the means of greater fulness in our life. Knowing this fact our response should be--

1. Loyalty.

2. Joy.

3. Elevation and holiness.

4. Earnestness in commending it to others. (C. Clemance, D. D.)

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ

I. The original greatness of Christ. He was rich. When? Not during His life upon the earth. It could not be said that He was born rich. Neither did He acquire wealth. It must have been then at some other time. We take, therefore, the term rich to designate the glory which Christ had with the Father before the world was. Not His Godhead, but its manifested splendour. When Peter the Great wrought as a common shipwright he did not cease to be the autocrat of Russia, but his royalty was veiled. So the Lord did not lay aside His deity, but the advantages of it.

II. The lowliness of His after lot. Marvellous condescension!

III. His purpose. Three things are implied--

1. That men are poor in respect of the spiritual riches. Intellectually the mind of the sinner may be well furnished, but he has no knowledge of God, no peace with God, no portion in God.

2. Christ became poor in order to enrich men, to bring us pardon, purity, peace, and happiness.

3. These riches come to us through the poverty which Christ endured. He could not have enriched us if He had not thus emptied Himself, for our poverty had its root in our sin, and that sin had to be atoned for before we could be blessed (cf. 2Co_5:21)

. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

The grace of Christ

I. A fact stated. That Christ being rich became poor.

1. He was rich in the possession of the ineffable glory which He had with the Father before all worlds (Joh_17:5; Joh_1:1; Heb_2:14-16). Though He could not change the attributes of His nature, He suspended their glorious manifestation. This was a voluntary act; He existed in such a mode that He had the power to lay aside His effulgence.

2. He was rich not only in glory but in virtue. He was the object of supreme complacency with the Father for His immaculate perfection. This character could not be put off, yet His relative position to law was altered. Though He could not become poor in the sense of being a sinner, He did in the sense of being treated like one. He was regarded by the law as a debtor, and His life was the forfeit of such moral poverty.

II. The design to be accomplished. That we through His poverty might be made rich.

1. We were poor--

(1) In having lost the glory and dignity with which we were originally invested.

(2) In being sunk in positive and practical sin.

(3) In the sense that we had nothing to pay. We were bankrupts as well as debtors. We could not answer the demands of law.

2. Christ became poor, and so made us rich--

(1) By laying the foundation for our pardon in His sacrificial and vicarious death.

(2) By affording a ground in virtue of which the Holy Spirit is dispensed, by whom we are renewed in righteousness and true holiness after the image of Him who created us.

(3) By giving us a hope of being richer in the next world than we can be in this. We now know something of the riches of His grace, but we read also of His riches in glory.

III. The knowledge which you are supposed to possess of all this. Ye know.

1. You know it is true. This is an appeal to judgment and reason, guided by evidence in support of the truth.

2. You know it in yourselves, as enriching you now. You have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

3. You know it as the ground on which all your hopes are built for futurity, the source from which you derive grace upon earth, and to which you feel yourselves to be indebted for all the honour and glory which eternity will disclose.

This is an appeal to Christian consistency, for it is only the consistent Christian that can feel the confidence that he is standing upon this rock, who can look forward now in time to what eternity will disclose. In conclusion, learn--

1. The importance which it becomes us to attach to all matters which are matters of pure revelation, of which this subject is one.

2. The actual necessity that there is for the doctrines of the Cross to give coherency and consistency to the whole system of revealed truth.

3. How grace is exercised towards us; and then you learn the claims which Christ has upon our affections and our gratitude.

4. The necessity that there is for your examining into the extent, the accuracy, and the influence of your knowledge of religious truth. What a shame it would be if, when the language were addressed to you, You know this, you were to reply, No, I do not know it; I have never read nor thought of it.

5. That Christian morality is animated and sustained by purely Christian motives. It is very observable how Paul associates almost every moral virtue, in some way or other, with our obligations to Christ.

6. That the riches of the Church throughout eternity wilt bear a proportion to the poverty by which they were obtained. The Church shall be lifted so high, and her riches shall be so transcendent, as the poverty of Christ was extreme and aggravated. (T. Binney.)

Poverty and riches

It can scarcely be needful that I should bid you give your attention to these words. For we prick up our ears the moment we catch the slightest sound that seems to hold out a promise of making us rich. Will any of you tell me that you have no wish to be richer than you are? Happy are you. You must be truly rich; and you must have gained your riches in the only way in which true riches can be gained, through the grace and the poverty of Christ.

I. Christ was rich

1. When He was with God, even from the beginning, sharing in the Divine power and wisdom and glory, and showing forth all this in creating the worlds.

2. When He said, Let there be light. The light which has been streaming ever since in such a rich, inexhaustible flood, was merely a part of His riches.

3. When He bade the earth bring forth its innumerable varieties of herbs and plants and trees, and peopled it with living creatures, equally numerous.

4. When He made man, and gave him the wonderful gifts of feelings, affections, thought, speech, etc., when He gave him the power of knowing Him who was the Author of all things, and of doing His will. This was the crowning work in which Christ showed forth His riches; and yet in this very work before long we find a mark of poverty. For man, though made to be rich, made himself poor. He made himself poor in that he, to whom God had given the dominion over every creature, made himself subject to the creature, and chained his soul to the earth, as a dog is chained to its kennel; in that, instead of opening his soul to receive the heavenly riches wherewith God had purposed to fill it, he closed it against that riches, while he gave himself up to acquiring what he deemed far more valuable; in that, instead of lifting up and spreading out his heart and soul in adoration to God, he dwarfed and cramped them by twisting and curling all his thoughts and feelings around the puny idol, self.

II. He became poor. How? In the very act of taking our nature upon Him, in subjecting Himself to the laws of mortality, to the bonds of time and space, to the weaknesses of the flesh, to earthly life and death. Even if He had come to reign over the whole earth He would have descended from the summit of power and riches to that which in comparison would have been miserable poverty. But then He would not have set us an example how we too are to become rich. Therefore He to whom the highest height of earthly riches would have been poverty, vouchsafed to descend to the lowest depths of earthly poverty. And at His death He vouchsafed to descend into the nethermost pit of earthly degradation, to a death whereby He was numbered among the transgressors.

III. He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich. Note that our poverty was twofold--that which haunted us through life in consequence of our seeking false riches, whereby we are sure to lose true riches; and that to which we become subject in death, an eternal poverty, which awaits all such as have not laid up treasure in heaven. Now--

1. The example of Christs life, if we understand it and receive its blessings into our hearts, will deliver us from that poverty which arises from our seeking after false riches. For that poverty results in no small measure from the mist which is over our eyes which keeps us from discerning the true value of things, and deludes us by outward shows. It results from our supposing that riches consists in our having worldly wealth. Yet what is the real value of this under any grievous trial? Assuredly we may say to the things of this world, Miserable comforters are ye all. Therefore had it been possible for our Lord to be deluded by the bribe of the tempter, He would only have sunk thereby into far lower poverty than before. For He would thereby have lost that heavenly riches which lay in cleaving to the Divine word, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, etc. He would have lost the riches and the power of that word which was mightier than all the kingdoms of the earth; for it made the devil depart from Him, and angels come and minister to Him, which all the armies of all the kingdoms of the earth could not have done. This, our Lord teaches us, is true riches. Moreover our Lords example teaches us that true riches, while it does not consist in what we have of the things of this world, does consist in what we give. Nor is this to be measured by the amount given, but by the heart which gives it. The poor widow was rich in some measure after the pattern of our Saviour Himself. She had the riches of love, of freedom from care, of a full trust in Him who feeds the fowls of the air, and clothes the grass of the field. Here you may see plainly how the poorest of you may become rich through Christs poverty.

2. By the sacrifice of His death. One of His first declarations was, that the poor are blessed because theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now they who have an inheritance in this are rich not for a few days or years, but to eternity. But something more is needed in order to attain it beside the mere fact of being poor. For we do not enter into that kingdom through our own poverty, but through Christs. But when we remember Christs poverty, when we feel that He died in order that we might live, when we know that through His precious sacrifice we are reconciled to the Father, and that, poor as we are in ourselves, and destitute of every grace, He has obtained the power of the Spirit for us, and through Him will give us grace for grace--then for the first time we find out that in Him we are truly rich. When we consider ourselves apart from Christ we are always poor--in strength, in grace, in hope. But when we have been brought by His Spirit to feel ourselves at one with Him, when we think, and pray, and act, not in our own strength, but in His, then we become partakers of those infinite riches He came to bestow. (Archdeacon Hare.)

The riches and poverty of Christ

I. The native riches of Christ. They are the riches of God. Whatever God is, and has, the Only-begotten of the Father possesses.

1. These riches were first displayed in the things which He made (Joh_1:2; Col_1:15-17). He is the hidden spring, the open river, and the ocean fulness of universal life and being.

2. But, whilst He is the presupposition of all things, He is also the prophecy of all things. All things look to, move towards, and only rest in Him. Creatures have latent powers that they cannot exercise, desires that they never satisfy. Man is felt and seen to be the crown of nature. But among the sons of men there is no complete man. When the Word became flesh, human nature first became complete and crowned.

3. What then must His riches be who is the wealth of God? Riches among men are distributed. To one is given genius; to another force of character; to another social eminence; to another worldly abundance. But the native riches of our Lord is the wealth of all wealth. In Him it pleases the whole fulness of God to dwell. Consider first the earth in all its wealth of land and ocean; its production of life in all its forms; the riches of its hidden wisdom in the prevailing order of its silent forces; and the wealth of goodness displayed in the designed beneficence that constrains all things to subserve the well-being of all creatures. Then call to mind the wealth which flows in the stream of human life. From the earth we must rise to the starry heavens, and thence to the infinite unseen beyond, before we can begin to estimate the native riches of Him of whose grace our text speaks; the unsearchable riches which He had with the Father before all worlds, by the possession of which it became His great work to cause all to see, etc. (Eph_3:9-10), The riches of our Lord will only be seen in the end.

II. The poverty He chose. To be poor, never having been anything else, can scarcely be regarded as an evil; but to become poor--how great a calamity! Yet He who was rich in all the wealth of God became poor. Consider the poverty of--

1. His nature. The Word became flesh, the frailest and most corruptible of all the forms of life. He who had life in Himself became dependent for life, and breath, and all things. He whom angels worshipped was made so much lower than they as to welcome their ministrations. He who was the bread of God became dependent upon the bread of the world. He, the Eternal Son, having life in Himself, became partaker of a life subject to all the laws of developed existence. He who was the Wisdom of God grew in knowledge. He who was possessed of all power craves the sustaining fellowship of men. And He to whom all pray became Himself a man of prayer, whose prayers were agonies unto blood-sweating.

2. His circumstances.

(1) The time of His birth was poor--when the degradation of His nation was complete, when Judaea wore a foreign yoke.

(2) The place of His birth was in keeping with the time.

(3) As He was born in poverty, so in poverty He was brought up, and in poverty He lived and died.

3. His experience. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Now there is nothing makes us feel how utterly poor we are like sorrow. We only weep when we are at our wits end, and our last resource has been exhausted. Jesus was stricken, smitten of God and afflicted; He was numbered with transgressors.

III. The wealth of His poverty. It is through His poverty that we are made rich. His riches flow to us, and become ours, through His poverty. His riches require poverty as the medium through which alone they can be given to the poor. Note--

1. Its voluntariness. He became poor. By His own act He became poor, the act of His eager love and obedience (Heb_10:5-7). No one took from off His brow the crown of heaven, He laid it aside; no one stripped Him of His royal robes, He unrobed Himself; no one paralysed the arm of His power, of Himself He chose our weakness; He laid down the life of heaven for the life of earth, as He laid down the life of earth for the life of heaven.

2. Its vicariousness. His riches were not laid aside for the sons of light; or for the angels who kept not their first estate, but for the dust-clothed and sinful children of earth. Had our circumstances and condition, calling for His help, been the result of misfortune or ignorance, His pity were not so strange. But He became poor for sinners, for rebels, hard and unrelenting in their rebellion. Hereby perceive we the love of God, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Through such poverty flow riches enough to quicken the dead in trespasses and sins.

3. The beneficence of its purpose. He does not contemplate our deliverance merely, nor our restoration to mans primitive state. He became poor that we may be rich in all the filial correspondences of the Fathers wealth. My God shall supply all your need, etc.

4. The fittingness of His poverty for the communication of His riches. We must become that which we would bless. The father makes himself a child that he may win the childs heart; the teacher makes himself one with his scholars that he may the better teach them. We must weep with those who weep if we would comfort them, and lie under the sins of sinners if we would save them from their sins. The riches of Christs grace could only be communicated through the poverty which brought Him under our condition. He who was rich became poor, was compassed with our infirmity, touched with our feeling, tempted in all points as we are, that we might find grace to help in every time of need, and that He might become our eternal salvation.

5. The capacity for wealth contained in poverty. Only a nature capable of great riches can be subject to great poverty. But the depth of poverty measures the experience of the riches which deliver from its destitution. Only a creature made in the image of God, and constituted a partaker of the Divine nature, could suffer the loss of God and be without hope in the world. And only on those who have suffered from the want of God could there be the display of His innermost riches. The deepest wants in man are met by the innermost needs be in God. Sin opens up and explores in the creature solemn and awful depths, but the awful depths of sin become filled with Gods mercy towards sinners. (W. Pulsford, D. D.)

The great renunciation

Here we are reminded of the manifestation of the Divine love in Jesus Christ, and of the grand design of that manifestation.

1. Christ became poor in character. In the past eternity He dwelt in a holy universe; was circled about with holy hosts; He was Himself the light in which there was no darkness at all. But He became poor. He condescended to dwell with sinners; to become the substitute and representative of a guilty race. He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. Here is the heart of the text. He was made sin for us who knew no sin. We all heard a few years ago of the island in the South Seas called Leper Island; all who became infected with the terrible disease in any of the adjoining islands were banished to Leper Island, and there ultimately they miserably perished. And then we were told of a priest who out of pure pity went to live in the plague spot. He was not a leper, but he cut himself off from civilisation, and was willing to share the lot of the sufferers so that he might minister to them, living with them, being buried with them. The conduct of that missionary was a reflection of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Catholic missionary consenting to live with the leprous community could not communicate his health to them--that was utterly beyond his design and power; the fact is the priest became infected with the leprosy himself and died of it. But Christ came to heal us of our direful malady, to make us share His strong and beautiful life, to touch our lips with cleansing, to banish our corruptions, to send heavenly health through all our veins, to give to our whole being the vitality and bloom of righteousness. What is more clear than the fact that Christ has enriched the race with a new, a higher, a more powerful righteousness? When the incarnation came the world was poor enough in character. The nations had wasted their substance in riotous living, and Jew and Greek were alike hopeless and corrupt. But let us not lose ourselves in generalities. For your sakes. The apostle individualises. Let us personally claim that grace, and although we are poor and blind and naked and defiled, He shall cleanse us from every spot, and make our raiment to be of gold and fine needlework.

2. Christ became poor in dominion. In the eternity of the past Christ sat on the throne. He was the Creator, Ruler, Heir of all things. But for our sakes He became poor. The fact of His poverty is seen in that it was possible for Him to be tempted. He took upon Himself the form of a slave and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. That we might become rich. That, slaves as we were, the lost kingship might be restored to us. Christ restores us to self-government. This crown of self-government has fallen from our head. We are tyrannised over by vile passions--intemperance, anger, pride, avarice--all these vices triumph over us, and make a show of us openly. Christ once more puts the fallen crown upon our head. He restores in us the government of God. Christ gives to us self-mastery--first and grandest of coronations. Christ restores to us the government of nature. In the beginning man was the vicegerent of God. But that dominion has been broken, and instead of man ruling nature, nature has ruled man, affrighted him, crushed him. But as man recovers self-rule he mysteriously acquires power over all things. Do we not see this in the progress of our Christian civilisation? As men master themselves their relation to nature is changed, they lift themselves out of the stream of physical forces, and attain a wider freedom. Science is only possible through character, and as Christ makes us free from the power of evil we lay our hand on the sea, direct the lightning, and inherit the riches of the world. Christ restores us to an abiding government in the kingdom of the future. We read much in the New Testament about the saints reigning as kings. Christ is to be King in the world of the future, and all who are loyal to Him shall share in the undisputed and everlasting sovereignty.

3. Christ became poor in blessedness. Revelation brings the Deity before us as infinitely blissful. In God is the unutterable bliss springing from perfect knowledge, absolute will, ineffable love, everlasting righteousness. Here, once more, for our sakes He became poor. And how profoundly poor! He became poor that we might become rich. What an extraordinary gladness throbbed in the apostles--everywhere in the New Testament we feel the pulsations of a mighty joy! And so it is still with all those whose lives are hid with Christ in God. In the midst of a world of sorrow and death He brings to us the blessedness of celestial worlds. A little while ago I read of a gentleman in the heart of a great city listening to a telephone, when he was surprised to hear the rich music of forest birds. It seemed that the wire passed through the country, and so some way caught the music of the far-away woods and transmitted it to the heart of the black toiling city. Christ has restored the missing chords between heaven and earth, and now in a world of care and conflict, of suffering and tears, we are delighted to catch the echoes of far-off music, to taste the joy unspeakable and full of glory which belongs to the perfect universe. Many of us are poor enough in joy, but it is not our own fault. If we would only claim more of that glorious grace which Christ gives, our peace should flow as a river, our hearts be as a watered garden whose waters fail not.

4. Christ became poor in life. He was rich in life. He only hath immortality. But for our sakes He became poor. He shared our mortality. The Rose of Sharon faded as other roses do; the Lily of the Valley withered as lilies nipped by the frost. He did not even attain the poor threescore years and ten. The text assumes the poverty of humanity. Yes, we are poor, paupers indeed. There is a deep destitution under all our displays of knowledge, power, happiness, character. The enrichment of humanity is through the humiliation of Christ. In Him the riches of eternity are poured into the bankrupt life of man. There is no other way to true riches but through Him. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Poverty and riches with Christ

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 ones 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 Christs 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 creatures 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. Gods 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. 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 (Php_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.)

The poverty of Christ the source of heavenly riches

I. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The term grace is of common use in the Scriptures, the meaning of which is determined by its connection. It sometimes implies wisdom, Let no corrupt communication, etc. (Eph_4:29). It also signifies power, My grace is sufficient for thee, etc. (2Co_12:9). But generally it imports benevolence, favour, love, or goodwill (Rom_5:20; 1Ti_1:14). This grace is--

1. Free and generous in its nature. Grace must be liberal and spontaneous, otherwise it is no more grace. Had the conduct of Christ towards man been the result of any overwhelming necessity, it could not, with any propriety, have been denominated grace. All the movements of the Deity are voluntary and free. God never acts necessarily.

2. Unsolicited and unsought on the part of man.

3. Disinterested in its character. Human beings are selfish in their actions. Self-interest sways the multitude, and it is difficult to divest ourselves of this principle: we have generally some interest in all we do, either present pleasure or the expectation of future reward. But the Lord Jesus is the supreme and eternal God, who is infinitely removed from all those low and sordid views by which man is actuated. His actions are perfectly disinterested.

4. Distinguishing in its operations. Two orders of intelligent beings offended their Maker, angels and men. But the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was displayed to man--fallen, miserable, rebellious man.

5. This grace was made known. Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. God hath gloriously displayed it. It was made known to our primitive parents almost as soon as sin entered into the world. It was revealed to Abraham, to Moses, to David, to Isaiah, and all the prophets; for to Him, namely, to Christ, give all the prophets witness (Act_10:43).

II. Consider the display of this grace. Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.

1. He possesed all the incommunicable perfections of the Deity.

2. He possessed all the moral perfections of the Deity. Now thus think upon Christ.

(1) Consider the grandeur of His abode.

(2) Consider the extent of His dominion.

(3) Consider the dignity of His titles.

(4) Consider the number and splendour of His attendants.

(5) Consider the profusion of His liberality. See how He scatters His bounty in every direction. There is not a particle of animated matter that He does not feed.

The riches of Christ are widely different from the riches which men possess.

(a) His riches are His own, exclusively and eternally. Ours are derived from others. The riches of Christ are His, not derived, not procured, but essential to His nature.

(b) Christs riches are undiminishable and inexhaustible. Ours may be squandered and exhausted.

(c) The riches of Christ are illimitable and incomprehensible.

But He became poor, that is--

1. He assumed our nature in its lowliest and most degraded state.

2. He suffered the penalty due to our sin.

III. The design for which the grace of Christ was displayed.

1. That we might be rich in grace; rich in all the fruits of righteousness.

2. Rich in glory. We shall inherit a glorious place (2Pe_1:11). We shall be associated with glorious society, and be invested with glorious privileges. These are the true riches in opposition to those of the world, which are treacherous, false, and deceitful. Satisfactory, in opposition to earthly wealth, which cannot satisfy the infinite desires of the mind (Luk_12:15). Imperishable, in opposition to those which wax old and perish in the using. They are riches attainable by all. The good things of this world are possessed by few. The connection between the poverty of Christ and the riches of the Christian may be easily discovered.

(1) By the humiliation, sufferings, and death of Christ an atonement was made for sin, and a way of access to God made plain. God is the chief good: man by sin became an alien from Him.

(2) By the atonement of Christ all the blessings of grace and glory are procured for us.

(a) From the subject before us we infer how deeply we are indebted to Christ.

(b) We see with what confidence we may come to Christ.

(c) We discover from the text that it is our privilege, no less than our duty, to know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. (R. Treffry.)

Genuine philanthropy

In the context we have three facts in relation to Christian philanthropy.

1. That true love for humanity is essentially associated with piety. Paul is speaking of the kindness which the church at Macedonia had shown to the sufferings of the mother-church at Jerusalem. The affection that binds to God will bind to the race.

2. That true love for humanity is an earnest element of character. These Macedonians seem to have been poor and afflicted, probably the subjects of persecution (verse 2). Their benevolence was not a mere sentiment.

3. That true love for man has in Christianity the highest example. Ye know the grace, etc. Note that genuine philanthropy--

I. Is identical with the love developed by Christ. This grace of Christ was--

1. All-embracing. There are some who sympathise with the physical woes of man and overlook the spiritual; some feel for a few, and are regardless of others. But Christ regards the bodies and souls of all men.

2. Perfectly disinterested.

3. Self-sacrificing.

II. Sacrifices the material for the spiritual.. He who was rich, etc.

III. Aims supremely at the promotion of spiritual wealth. That ye through His poverty might be rich. Spiritual wealth is--

1. Absolutely valuable. Material wealth is not so. In some countries and ages it is not of much value. Of what advantage would a handsome fortune be to a savage? But spiritual wealth is valuable here, everywhere, and for ever.

2. Is essentially connected with happiness. There is often great trial in the getting and the keeping of worldly wealth.

3. Is within the reach of all; earthly wealth is not. Conclusion: Observe--

(1) That to promote moral wealth requires the sacrifice of secular wealth. Let us suppose that Jesus had not become poor. What would have been the result? The material must be given up to the spiritual.

(2) That no sacrifice is too great to promote spiritual wealth. Christ gave Himself. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

On the benefits derived from the humiliation of Jesus Christ

I. Let us consider the original condition of the person here mentioned. He was rich.

II. How this illustrious person accomplished the plan of our redemption. He became poor.

III. To consider the persons for whom these sufferings were endured. For your sakes He became poor.

IV. The benefits which flow through the humiliation of Christ.

1. The view which has been taken of Divine grace should awaken your gratitude.

2. The view taken of Divine grace is calculated to beget your confidence.

3. The view taken of Divine grace should constrain you to the diligent use of all the appointed means of grace and salvation. (W. Thornton.)

Christs motive and ours

(text and Php_1:29):--

1. The true test of any action lies in its motive. Many a deed, which seems to be glorious, is really ignoble because it is done with a base intention; while other actions, which appear to be poor, are full of the glory of a noble purpose. The mainspring of a watch is the most important part of it; the spring of an action is everything.

2. The less of self in any effort, the nobler it is. A great work, undertaken from selfish motives, is much less praiseworthy than the feeble endeavour put forth to help other people.

3. We are often told that we should live for the good of others, and we ought to heed the call; but there is so little in our fellow-men to call forth the spirit of self-sacrifice, that if we have no higher motive, we should soon become tired of our efforts on their behalf. Consider--

I. The motive of Christs work. For your sakes.

1. The august person who died for your sakes. He was God. Without Him was not anything made that was made. All the powers of nature were under His control. He might truly say, If I were hungry I would not tell thee: for the world is Mine, and the fulness thereof. Hymned day without night by all the sacred choristers, He did not lack for praise. Nor did He lack for servants; legions of angels were ever ready to do His commandments. It was God who came from heaven for your sakes. It was no inferior being, no one like yourselves. If I were told that all the sons of men cared for me, that would be but a drop in a bucket compared with Jehovah Himself regarding me. If it were said that all the princes of the earth had fallen at some poor mans feet, and laid aside their dignities that they might relieve his necessities, such an act would not be worthy to be spoken of in comparison with that infinite condescension and unparalleled love which brought the Saviour from the skies.

2. The insignificant clients on whom all this wealth of affection was poured. If our whole race had been blotted out, He had but to speak the word, and myriads of creatures prompt to obey His will would have filled up the space. But we are not only insignificant, we are also iniquitous. As sinners, we deserve nothing but Gods thunderbolts. Many of us, also, were peculiarly sinful. Some of us feel inclined to dispute with Saul of Tarsus for the title, chief of sinners. It will ever remain a wonder to me that the Son of God should have condescended to die for me.

3. The wondrous work which this master-motive inspired. For your sakes the Son of God took into union with Himself our nature, without which He could not have suffered and died. He became poor. The poverty of a man is reckoned in proportion to the position of affluence from which he has come down. When the Christ of God, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, was forsaken by His Father, deserted by His friends, and left alone to suffer for your sakes, that was the direst poverty that was ever known. See your Lord beneath the olives of Gethsemane. Then see Him before Herod, Pilate, and Caiaphas. Behold Him, as they lift Him up to suffer the death of the Cross! All this Christ suffered for your sakes. What love and gratitude ought to fill your heart as you think of all that Jesus bore on your behalf! There is a story of an American gentleman who was accustomed to go frequently to a tomb and plant fresh flowers. When some one asked why he did so, he said that, when the time came for him to go to the war, he was detained by some business, and the man who lay beneath the sod became his substitute and died in the battle. Over that carefully-kept grave he had the words inscribed, He died for me! There is something melting in the thought of another dying for you; how much more melting is it when that One is the Christ of Calvary!

4. The comprehensive motive for which He wrought the wondrous work. Everything He was and did was for your sakes.

II. The motive which should inspire all our service for Him. For His sake. What are we that we should be allowed the high honour of suffering for His sake? It is a great privilege to do, or to be, or to bear anything for Him. The thought expressed in these words may be enlarged, and assume six or seven phases.

1. For righteousness sake (Mat_5:10). If a man suffers as a Christian for doing that which is right, he is suffering for Christs sake.

2. For the gospels sake (1Co_9:23). Now, if you are put to any shame for the sake of the gospel, you suffer for His sake; and if you labour to spread the gospel you are doing something for His sake.

3. For His bodys sake, which is the Church (Col_1:24). We ought to do much more than we do for Gods people.

4. For the elects sakes (1Ti_9:10), i.e., not only those who are in the Church as yet, but those who are to be. Happy is that man who spends his time in seeking out poor wanderers, that he may bring in Gods elect.

5. The kingdom of Gods sake (Luk_18:29). No one who has left aught for it shall fail of present and eternal reward.

6. For the truths sake, which dwelleth in us (2Jn_1:2). It is not merely the gospel we are to defend, but that living seed which the Holy Ghost has put into us, that truth which we have tasted, and handled, and felt; that theology which is not that of the Book only, but that which is written on the fleshy tablets of our hearts. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Now, therefore, perform the doing of it.--

Performances

There is an eloquence of promise in many men. In the commercial world they excel in promissory notes. In the social world they are the generous distributors of vague invitations guiltless of date. Men stop as pilgrims at the inn of Good Intent, and their position is that of almost Christians. Notice promises--

I. In relation to the kingdom of evil. Men do not like to lose sight of the City of God. There is a purpose to be true to Christ some day. They mean well. Mean well! What slave of vice does not do that? But let the soul be brought face to face with the necessity of endeavour, and then De Quincey, when an opium eater, is not more powerless. There is no hope in, Ill think about it, in a convenient season, in the promise, when I change my neighbourhood. Now, perform the resolution like a man, for Now is the accepted time.

II. In relation to responsibilities.

1. Of gift. I would give if I were rich. No; if you do not yield God a fair measure of your income now you would not then. It is as easy to be miserly with a hundred a-year as it is with a thousand. God performs. He promised that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpents head, and we see the triumph over evil in the Cross. Christ has promised a prepared place, and our departed ones are now confessing that it was all true.

2. Of service. Service is of many kinds, but there is always a now about it. Moreover, performance once honestly commenced tempts out more and more of loyal effort. It is compensative, too, and brings surely its own blest reward. Never mind the initial difficulties. All great men have found them and have mastered them. Begin.

III. In relation to the example of Christ (verse 9). In His incarnation He performed the promise made to our forefathers. His life was one long performance. He performs still. Be ye imitators of Him.

IV. In relation to the bountifulness of God. Meditating on our redemption we sing, Love so amazing, etc. Perform, then, the doing of it.

V. In relation to influences. Actions speak louder than words. (W. M. Statham.)

The laws of Christian liberality

I. Readiness, or a willing mind. What is given must be given freely; it must be a gracious offering, not a tax. This is fundamental. The O. T. law is re-enacted. Of every man whose heart maketh him willing shall ye take the Lords offering. What we spend in piety and charity is not tribute paid to a tyrant, but the response of gratitude to our Redeemer, and if it has not this character He does not want it. If there be first a willing mind, the rest is easy; if not, there is no need to go on.

II. According as a man has. Readiness is the acceptable thing, not this or that proof of it. If we cannot give much, then a ready mind makes even a little acceptable. Only let us remember this, that readiness always gives all that is in its power. The readiness of the Macedonians was in the depths of poverty, but they gave themselves to the Lord; yet this moving appeal of the apostle has been profaned times innumerable to cloak the meanest selfishness.

III. Reciprocity. Paul does not write that the Jews may be released and the Corinthians burdened, but on the principle of equality. At this crisis the superfluity of the Corinthians is to make up what is wanting to the Jews, and at some other the situation will be exactly reversed. Brotherhood cannot be one-sided; it must be mutual, and in the interchange of services equality is the result. This answers to Gods design in regard to worldly goods, as that design is indicated in the story of the manna. To be selfish is not the way to get more than your share; you may cheat your neighbour by that policy, but you will not get the better of God. In all probability men are far more nearly on an equality in respect of what their worldly possessions yield, than the rich in their pride, or the poor in their envious discontent would readily believe; but when the inequality is patent and painful--a glaring violation of the Divine intention here suggested--there is a call for charity to redress the balance. Those who give to the poor are cooperating with God, and the more a community is Christianised, the more will that state be realised in which each has what he needs. (J. Denney, B. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 8:9. For ye know — And this knowledge is the true source of love; the grace — The most sincere, most free, and most abundant love; of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich — (1st,) In the glories of the divine nature, for, (Joh 1:1,) the Word was God, and subsisted in the form of God, (Php 2:6,) in the most perfect and indissoluble union with his eternal Father, with whom he had glory before the world was, Joh 17:5; and by whom he was beloved, as the only-begotten Son, before the foundation of the world, 2Co 8:24. (2d,) In the possession of the whole creation of God, which, as it was made by him, (Joh 1:3,) so was made for him, (Col 1:16,) and he was the heir and owner of it all, Heb 1:2. (3d,) In dominion over all creatures; he that cometh from above, (said the Baptist, Joh 3:31,) is above all; Lord of all, Act 10:36; over all, God blessed for ever, Rom 9:5. All things being upheld were also governed by him, Col 1:17; Heb 1:3. (4th,) In receiving glory from them all; all creatures being made, upheld, and governed by him, manifested the wisdom, power, and goodness, the holiness, justice, and grace of him, their great and glorious Creator, Preserver, and Ruler. (5th,) In receiving adoration and praise from the intelligent part of the creation, Psa 97:7; Heb 1:6.

For your sakes he became poor — Namely, in his incarnation: not, observe, in ceasing to be what he was, the Wisdom, Word, and Son of God, and God, in union with his Father and the Holy Spirit; but in becoming what before he was not, namely, man; in assuming the human nature into an indissoluble and eternal union with the divine, Joh 1:14; Heb 2:14; Heb 2:16. In doing this he became poor, 1st, In putting off the form of God, and taking the form of a servant, appearing no longer as the Creator, but as a creature, veiling his perfections with our flesh, and concealing his glories from human eyes. 2d, In taking the form of a mean creature, not of an archangel or angel, (Heb 2:16,) but of a man; a creature formed out of the dust of the earth, and in consequence of sin returning to it; and becoming a servant to the meanest of them. I am among you, (said he;) among whom? — Among princes? No; but among fishermen; as one that serveth. 3d, In taking the form even of a sinful creature, being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, Rom 8:3. For, though without sin, he appeared as a sinner, and was treated as such. And this likeness he assumed, 4th, Not in a state of wealth, and honour, and felicity, but in a state of extreme poverty, and infamy, and suffering. 5th, In this state our sins and sorrows were imputed to him, and laid upon him, and his honour, his liberty, and his life, were taken away, in ignominy and torture.

That ye through his poverty might be made rich — It is implied here that we were poor, and could not otherwise be made rich, but may in this way. When man was first formed, he was rich in the possession of God, and of this whole visible creation. 1st, In the favour and friendship, the protection, care, and bounty of his Creator; in the knowledge, love, and enjoyment of him. All this was lost by the fall. Man became ignorant, sinful, guilty, and a child of wrath, Eph 2:3; deprived of the favour, exposed to the displeasure of his God, and subjected to the tyranny of his lusts and passions, and of the powers of darkness. 2d, When first made, man was the lord of this lower world; all things on this earth being put under his feet, and made subservient to his happiness. This is not the case now. The creature was made subject to vanity, and does not satisfy or make him happy while he has it, and is constantly liable to be torn from him, and in the end he is certainly stripped of all. 3d, Man has even lost himself; he is so poor as not to retain possession of his health, or strength, or body, or soul. He has contracted an immense debt, and is liable to be himself arrested and thrown into the prison of eternal destruction. His body is due to sickness, pain, and death; and his soul to the wrath of God, and is liable to be seized by Satan, the executioner of the divine wrath. Such is our natural poverty! Having forfeited all, we have nothing left, neither the Creator nor his creatures, nor even ourselves. But the Son of God came, that, having assumed our nature, taken our sins and sufferings, and paid our forfeit, we might yet be rich. 1st, In the favour of God, and all the blessed effects thereof, in time and in eternity. 2d, In being adopted into his family, born of his Spirit, and constituted his children and his heirs. 3d, In being restored to his image, and endued with the gifts and graces of his Spirit. 4th, In being admitted to an intimate union and fellowship with him. 5th, In having the use of God’s creatures restored to us, blessed and sanctified, even all things needful for life as well as godliness. 6th, In being unspeakably happy with Jesus in paradise, in the intermediate state between death and judgment. 7th, In having our bodies restored, and conformed to Christ’s glorious body, at his second coming. 8th, In being associated with all the company of heaven in the new world which the Lord will make, admitted to the vision and enjoyment of God, and the possession of all things, Rev 21:7; — riches, honour, and felicity, unsearchable in degree, and eternal in duration! And all this we have through his poverty, through his incarnation, life, death, his resurrection, ascension, and intercession; whereby, having expiated sin, and abolished death, he hath obtained all these unspeakable blessings for such as will accept of them in the way which he hath prescribed; which is, that we acknowledge our poverty in true repentance and humiliation of soul before God, and accept of these unsearchable riches in faith, gratitude, love, and new obedience.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2 Corinthians

RICH YET POOR

2Co 8:9

The Apostle has been speaking about a matter which, to us, seems very small, but to him was very great viz., a gathering of pecuniary help from the Gentile churches for the poor church in Jerusalem. Large issues, in his estimation, attended that exhibition of Christian unity, and, be it great or small, he applies the highest of all motives to this matter. ‘For ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for your sakes He became poor.’ The trivial things of life are to be guided and shaped by reference to the highest of all things, the example of Jesus Christ; and that in the whole depth of His humiliation, and even in regard to His cross and passion. We have here set forth, as the pattern to which the Christian life is to be conformed, the deepest conception of what our Lord’s career on earth was.

The whole Christian Church is about to celebrate the nativity of our Lord at this time. This text gives us the true point of view from which to regard it. We have here the work of Christ in its deepest motive, ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus.’ We have it in its transcendent self-impoverishment, ‘Though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor.’ We have it in its highest issue, ‘That ye through His poverty might become rich.’ Let us look at those points.

I. Here we have the deepest motive which underlies the whole work of Christ, unveiled to us.

‘Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Every word here is significant. It is very unusual in the New Testament to find that expression ‘grace’ applied to Jesus Christ. Except in the familiar benediction, I think there are only one or two instances of such a collocation of words. It is ‘the grace of God’ which, throughout the New Testament, is the prevailing expression. But here ‘grace is attributed to Jesus’; that is to say, the love of the Divine heart is, without qualification or hesitation, ascribed to Him. And what do we mean by grace? We mean love in exercise to inferiors. It is infinite condescension in Jesus to love. His love stoops when it embraces us. Very significant, therefore, is the employment here of the solemn full title, ‘the Lord Jesus Christ,’ which enhances the condescension by making prominent the height from which it bent. The ‘grace’ is all the more wonderful because of the majesty and sovereignty, to say the least of it, which are expressed in that title, the Lord. The highest stoops and stands upon the level of the lowest. ‘Grace’ is love that expresses itself to those who deserve something else. And the deepest motive, which is the very key to the whole phenomena of the life of Jesus Christ, is that it is all the exhibition, as it is the consequence, of a love that, stooping, forgives. ‘Grace’ is love that, stooping and forgiving, communicates its whole self to unworthy and transgressing recipients. And the key to the life of Jesus is that we have set forth in its operation a love which is not content to speak only the ordinary language of human affection, or to do its ordinary deeds, but is self-impelled to impart what transcends all other gifts of human tenderness, and to give its very self. And so a love that condescends, a love that passes by unworthiness, is turned away by no sin, is unmoved to any kind of anger, and never allows its cheek to flush or its heart to beat faster, because of any provocation and a love that is content with nothing short of entire surrender and self-impartation underlies all that precious life from Bethlehem to Calvary.

But there is another word in our text that may well be here taken into consideration. ‘For your sakes,’ says the Apostle to that Corinthian church, made up of people, not one of whom had ever seen or been seen by Jesus. And yet the regard to them was part of the motive that moved the Lord to His life, and His death. That is to say, to generalise the thought, this grace, thus stooping and forgiving and self-imparting, is a love that gathers into its embrace and to its heart all mankind; and is universal because it is individualising. Just as each planet in the heavens, and each tiny plant upon the earth, are embraced by, and separately receive, the benediction of that all-encompassing arch of the heaven, so that grace enfolds all, because it takes account of each. Whilst it is love for a sinful world, every soul of us may say: ‘He loved me, and’--therefore--’gave Himself for me.’ Unless we see beneath the sweet story of the earthly life this deep-lying source of it all, we fail to understand that life itself. We may bring criticism to bear upon it; we may apprehend it in diverse affecting, elevating, educating aspects; but, oh! brethren, we miss the blazing centre of the light, the warm heart of the fire, unless we see pulsating through all the individual facts of the life this one, all-shaping, all-vitalising motive; the grace--the stooping, the pardoning, the self-communicating, the individualising, and the universal love of Jesus Christ.

So then, we have here set before us the work of Christ in its--

II. Most mysterious and unique self-impoverishment.

‘He was . . . He became,’ there is one strange contrast. ‘He was _rich_ . . . He became _poor_,’ there is another. ‘He was . . . He became.’ What does that say? Well, it says that if you want to understand Bethlehem, you must go back to a time before Bethlehem. The meaning of Christ’s birth is only understood when we turn to that Evangelist who does not narrate it. For the meaning of it is here; ‘the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.’ The surface of the fact is the smallest part of the fact. They say that there is seven times as much of an iceberg under water as there is above the surface. And the deepest and most important fact about the nativity of our Lord is that it was not only the birth of an Infant, but the Incarnation of the Word. ‘He was . . . He became.’ We have to travel back and recognise that that life did not begin in the manger. We have to travel back and recognise the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh.

And these two words ‘He was . . . He became,’ imply another thing, and that is, that Jesus Christ who died because He chose, was not passive in His being born, but as at the end of His earthly life, so at its beginning exercised His volition, and was born because He willed, and willed because of ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus.’

Now in this connection it is very remarkable, and well worth our pondering, that throughout the whole of the Gospels, when Jesus speaks of His coming into the world, He never uses the word ‘born’ but once, and that was before the Roman governor, who would not have understood or cared for anything further, to whom He did say,’To this end was I born.’ But even when speaking to him His consciousness that that word did not express the whole truth was so strong that He could not help adding--though He knew that the hard Roman procurator would pay no attention to the apparent tautology--the expression which more truly corresponded to the fact, ‘and for this cause came I into the world.’ The two phrases are not parallel. They are by no means synonymous. One expresses the outward fact; the other expresses that which underlay it. ‘To this end was I born.’ Yes! ‘And for this cause came I.’ He Himself put it still more definitely when He said, ‘I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go unto the Father.’ So the two extremities of the earthly manifestation are neither of them ends; but before the one, and behind the other, there stretches an identity or oneness of Being and condition. The one as the other, the birth and the death, may be regarded as, in deepest reality, not only what He passively endured, but what He actively did. He was born, and He died, that in all points He might be ‘like unto His brethren.’ He ‘came’ into the world, and He ‘went’ to the Father. The end circled round to the beginning, and in both He acted because He chose, and chose because He loved.

So much, then, lies in the one of these two antitheses of my text; and the other is no less profound and significant. ‘He was rich; He became poor.’ In this connection ‘rich’ can only mean possessed of the Divine fulness and independence; and ‘poor’ can only mean possessed of human infirmity, dependence, and emptiness. And so to Jesus of Nazareth, to be born was impoverishment. If there is nothing more in His birth than in the birth of each of us, the words are grotesquely inappropriate to the facts of the case. For as between nothingness, which is the alternative, and the possession of conscious being, there is surely a contrast the very reverse of that expressed here. For us, to be born is to be endowed with capacities, with the wealth of intelligent, responsible, voluntary being; but to Jesus Christ, if we accept the New Testament teaching, to be born was a step, an infinite step, downwards, and He, alone of all men, might have been ‘ashamed to call men brethren.’ But this denudation of Himself, into the particulars of which I do not care to enter now, was the result of that stooping grace which ‘counted it not a thing to be clutched hold of, to be equal with God; but He made Himself of no reputation, and was found in fashion as a man, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.’

And so, dear friends, we know the measure of the stooping love of Jesus only when we read the history by the light of this thought, that ‘though He was rich’ with all the fulness of that eternal Word which was ‘in the beginning with God,’ ‘He became poor,’ with the poverty, the infirmity, the liability to temptation, the weakness, that attach to humanity; ‘and was found in all points like unto His brethren,’ that He might be able to help and succour them all.

The last thing here is--

III. The work of Christ set forth in its highest issue.

‘That we through His poverty might become rich.’ Of course, the antithetical expressions must be taken to be used in the same sense, and with the same width of application, in both of the clauses. And if so, just think reverently, wonderingly, thankfully, of the infinite vista of glorious possibility that is open to us here. Christ was rich in the possession of that Divine glory which Had had with the Father before the world was. ‘He became poor,’ in assuming the weakness of the manhood that you and I carry, that we, in the human poverty which is like His poverty, may become rich with wealth that is like His riches, and that as He stooped to earth veiling the Divine with the human, we may rise to heaven, clothing the human with the Divine.

For surely there is nothing more plainly taught in Scriptures, and I am bold to say nothing to which any deep and vital Christian experience even here gives more surely an anticipatory confirmation, than the fact that Christ became like unto us, that each of us may become like unto Him. The divine and the human natures are similar, and the fact of the Incarnation, on the one hand, and of the man’s glorification by possession of the divine nature on the other, equally rest upon that fundamental resemblance between the divine nature and the human nature which God has made in His own image. If that which in each of us is unlike God is cleared away, as it can be cleared away, through faith in that dear Lord, then the likeness as a matter of course, comes into force.

The law of all elevation is that whosoever desires to lift must stoop; and the end of all stooping is to lift the lowly to the place from which the love hath bent itself. And this is at once the law for the Incarnation of the Christ, and for the elevation of the Christian. ‘We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.’ And the great love, the stooping, forgiving, self-communicating love, doth not reach its ultimate issue, nor effect fully the purposes to which it ever is tending, unless and until all who have received it are ‘changed from glory to glory even into the image of the Lord.’ We do not understand Jesus, His cradle, or His Cross, unless on the one hand we see in them His emptying Himself that He might fill us, and, on the other hand, see, as the only result which warrants them and satisfies Him, our complete conformity to His image, and our participation in that glory which He has at the right hand of God. That is the prospect for humanity, and it is possible for each of us.

I do not dwell upon other aspects of this great self-emptying of our Lord’s, such as the revelation in it to us of the very heart of God, and of the divinest thing in the divine nature, which is love, or such as the sympathy which is made possible thereby to Him, and which is not only the pity of a God, but the compassion of a Brother. Nor do I touch upon many other aspects which are full of strengthening and teaching. That grand thought that Jesus has shared our human poverty that we may share His divine riches is the very apex of the New Testament teaching, and of the Christian hope. We have within us, notwithstanding all our transgressions, what the old divines used to call a ‘deiform nature,’ capable of being lifted up into the participation of divinity, capable of being cleansed from all the spots and stains which make us so unlike Him in whose likeness we were made.

Brethren, let us not forget that this stooping, and pardoning, and self-imparting love, has for its main instrument to appeal to our hearts, not the cradle but the Cross. We are being told by many people to-day that the centre of Christianity lies in the thought of an Incarnation. Yes. But our Lord Himself has told us what that was for.

‘The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.’ It is only when we look to that Lord in His death, and see there the very lowest point to which He stooped, and the supreme manifestation of His grace, that we shall be drawn to yield our hearts and lives to Him in thankfulness, in trust, and in imitation: and shall set Him before us as the pattern for our conduct, as well as the Object of our trust.

Brethren, my text was spoken originally as presenting the motive and the example for a little piece of pecuniary liability. Do you take the cradle and the Cross as the law of your lives? For depend upon it, the same necessity which obliged Jesus to come down to our level, if He would lift us to His; to live our life and die our death, if He would make us partakers of His immortal life, and deliver us from death; makes it absolutely necessary that if we are to live for anything nobler than our own poor, transitory self-aggrandisement, we too must learn to stoop to forgive, to impart ourselves, and must die by self-surrender and sacrifice, if we are ever to communicate any life, or good of life, to others. He has loved us, and given Himself for us. He has set us therein an example which He commends to us by His own word when He tells us that ‘if a corn of wheat’ is to bring forth ‘much fruit’ it must die, else it ‘abideth alone.’ Unless we die, we never truly live; unless we die to ourselves for others, and like Jesus, we live alone in the solitude of a self-enclosed self-regard. So living, we are dead whilst we live.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

8:9 The model for generous giving is the Lord himself, who was rich in the Father’s presence (John 17:5, 24) yet became poor by accepting a human existence and death on the cross (see Phil 2:6-11). By that self-giving sacrifice, he could make people rich with the blessings of salvation.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Co 8:9. Γινώσκετε γὰρ, for ye know) by that knowledge, which ought to include love.—χάριν, the grace) love most sincere, abundant, and free.—ἐπτώχευσε, He became poor) He bore the burden of poverty; and yet this is not demanded from you: 2Co 8:14.—ἐκείνου, of Him, His) This intimates the previous greatness of the Lord.—πτωχείᾳ πλουτήσητε, through His poverty ye might be rich) So through the instrumentality of all those things, which the Lord has suffered, the contrary benefits have been procured for us, 1Pe 2:24, end of ver.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co_8:9. Parenthesis which states what holy reason he has for speaking to them, not κατʼ ἐπιταγήν, but in the way just mentioned, that of testing their love. For you know, indeed (γινώσκετε not imperative, as Chrysostom and others think), what a high pattern of gracious kindness you have experienced in yourselves from Jesus Christ. So the testing, which I have in view among you, will only be imitation of Christ. Olshausen rejects here the conception of pattern, and finds the proof of possibility: Since Christ by His becoming poor has made you rich, you also may communicate of your riches; He has placed you in a position to do so. The outward giving, namely, presupposes the disposition to give as an internal motive, without which it would not take place. But in this view πλουτήσητε would of necessity apply to riches in loving dispositions, which, however, is not suggested at all in the context, since in point of fact the consciousness of every believing reader led him to think of the whole fulness of the Messianic blessings as the aim of Christs humiliation, and to place in that the riches meant by πλουτήσητε.

ὅτι διʼ ὑμᾶς κ.τ.λ.] that He for your sakes, etc., epexegetical of τὴν χάριν τ. κυρ. ἡμ. Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. The emphatic διʼ ὑμᾶς brings home to the believing consciousness of the readers individually the aim, which in itself was universa.

ἐπτώχευσε] inasmuch as He by His humiliation to become incarnate emptied Himself of the participation, which He had in His pre-existent state, of Gods glory, dominion, and blessedness (πλούσιος ὤν), Php_2:6. On the meaning of the word, comp. LXX. Jdg_6:6; Jdg_14:15; Psa_34:10; Psa_79:8; Pro_23:21; Tob_4:21; Antiphanes in Beckers Anecd. 112. 24. The aorist denotes the once-occurring entrance into the condition of being poor, and therefore certainly the having become poor (although πτωχεύειν, as also the classical πενέσθαι, does not mean to become poor, but to be[271] poor), and not the whole life led by Christ in poverty and lowliness, during which He was nevertheless rich in grace, rich in inward blessings; so Baur[272] and Köstlin, Lehrbegr. d. Joh. p. 310, also Beyschlag, Christol. p. 237. On the other hand, see Raebiger, Christol. Paul. p. 38 f.; Neander, ed. 4, p. 801 f.; Lechler, Apost. Zeit. p. 50 f.; Weiss, Bibl. Theol. pp. 312, 318.

ὤν] is the imperfect participle: when He was rich, and does not denote the abiding possession (Estius, Rückert); for, according to the context, the apostle is not speaking of what Christ is, but of what He was,[273] before He became man, and ceased to be on His self-exinanition in becoming man (Gal_4:4; this also in opposition to Philippi, Glaubensl. IV. p. 447). So also ὑπάρχων, Php_2:6.

ἽΝΑ ὙΜΕῖς … ΠΛΟΥΤΉΣΗΤΕ] in order that you through His poverty might become rich. These riches are the reconciliation, justification, illumination, sanctification, peace, joy, certainty of eternal life, and thereafter this life itself, in short, the whole sum of spiritual and heavenly blessings (comp. Chrysostom) which Christ has obtained for believers by His humiliation even to the death of the cross. Πλουτεῖν means with the Greek writers, and in the N. T. (Rom_10:12; Luk_12:21), to be rich; but the aorist (1Co_4:8) is to be taken as with ἐπτώχευσε. Ἐκείνου, instead of the simple ΑὐΤΟῦ (Krüger, ad Xen. Anab. iv. 3. 30; Dissen, ad Dem. de cor. p. 276, 148), has great emphasis: magnitudinem Domini innuit, Bengel.

In opposition to the interpretation of our passage, by which ἐπτώχ. falls into the historical life, so that πλούσιος ὤν is taken potentialiter as denoting the power to take to Himself riches and dominion, which, however, Jesus has renounced and has subjected Himself to poverty and self-denial (so Grotius and de Wette), see on Php_2:6.

[271] As e.g. βασιλεύειν, to be king, but ἐβασίλευσα: I have become king. Comp. 1Co_4:8; and see in general, Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 1. 18; also Ernesti, Urspr. d. Sünde, I. p. 245.

[272] Comp. his neut. Theol. p. 193: though in Himself as respects His right rich, He lived poor.

[273] Comp. Rich. Schmidt, Paul. Christol. p. 144.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Co 8:9 . γινώσκετε γὰρ κ . τ . λ .: for ye know the grace, i.e. , the act of grace, of our Lord Jesus Christ, that being rich, sc. , in His pre-existent state before the Incarnation, yet for your sakes ( cf. Rom 15:3 ) He became poor, sc. , in that κένωσις which the Incarnation involved (Phi 2:5-6 ), (the aor. marks a def. point of time, “He became poor,” not “He was poor”), in order that ye by His poverty, i.e. , His assumption of man’s nature, might be rich, i.e. , in the manifold graces of the Incarnation ( cf. 1Co 1:5 ). This verse is parenthetical, introduced to give the highest example of love and self-sacrifice for others; there is nowhere in St. Paul a more definite statement of his belief in the pre-existence of Christ before His Incarnation ( cf. Joh 17:5 ). It has been thought that ἐπτώχευσε carries an allusion to the poverty of the Lord’s earthly life (Mat 8:20 ); but the primary reference cannot be to this, for the πτωχεία of Jesus Christ by which we are “made rich” is not the mere hardship and penury of His outward lot, but the state which He assumed in becoming man.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The fourth argument taken from the example of Christ.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

ye know the grace--the act of gratuitous love whereby the Lord emptied Himself of His previous heavenly glory (Phi 2:6-7) for your sakes.

became poor--Yet this is not demanded of you (Co2 8:14); but merely that, without impoverishing yourselves, you should relieve others with your abundance. If the Lord did so much more, and at so much heavier a cost, for your sakes; much more may you do an act of love to your brethren at so little a sacrifice of self.

might be rich--in the heavenly glory which constitutes His riches, and all other things, so far as is really good for us (compare Co1 3:21-22).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ] This was the strongest argument of all; and it is urged home by the apostle with admirable address.

Ye know] Ye are acquainted with God's ineffable love in sending Jesus Christ into the world; and ye know the grace-the infinite benevolence of Christ himself.

That, though he was rich] The possessor, as he was the creator, of the heavens and the earth; for your sakes he became poor-he emptied himself, and made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross; that ye, through his poverty-through his humiliation and death, might be rich-might regain your forfeited inheritance, and be enriched with every grace of his Holy Spirit, and brought at last to his eternal glory.

If Jesus Christ, as some contend, were only a mere man, in what sense could he be said to be rich? His family was poor in Bethlehem; his parents were very poor also; he himself never possessed any property among men from the stable to the cross; nor had he any thing to bequeath at his death but his peace. And in what way could the poverty of one man make a multitude rich? These are questions which, on the Socinian scheme, can never be satisfactorily answered.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. For ye know the grace. Having made mention of love, he adduces Christ as an all perfect and singular pattern of it. “Though he was rich,” says he, “he resigned the possession of all blessings, that he might enrich us by his poverty.” He does not afterwards state for what purpose he makes mention of this, but leaves it to be considered by them; for no one can but perceive, that we are by this example stirred up to beneficence, that we may not spare ourselves, when help is to be afforded to our brethren.

Christ was rich, because he was God, under whose power and authority all things are; and farther, even in our human nature, which he put on, as the Apostle bears witness, (Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 2:8,) he was the heir of all things, inasmuch as he was placed by his Father over all creatures, and all things were placed under his feet. He nevertheless became poor, because he refrained from possessing, and thus he gave up his right for a time. We see, what destitution and penury as to all things awaited him immediately on his coming from his mother’s womb. We hear what he says himself, (Luke 9:58,)

The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests: the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.

Hence he has consecrated poverty in his own person, that believers may no longer regard it with horror. By his poverty he has enriched us all for this purpose — that we may not feel it hard to take from our abundance what we may lay out upon our brethren.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(9) Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.—The meaning of the word “grace” appears slightly modified by the context. The theological sense of the word, so to speak, falls into the background, and that of an act of liberality becomes prominent.

That, though he was rich, . . . he became poor.—Better, that, being rich . . . The thought is the same as that expressed in Php_2:6-7, especially in the words which ought to be translated He emptied Himself. He was rich in the ineffable glory of the divine attributes, and these He renounced for a time in the mystery of the Incarnation, and took our nature in all its poverty. This is doubtless the chief thought expressed, but we can scarcely doubt that the words refer also to the outward aspect of our Lord’s life. He chose the lot of the poor, almost of the beggar (the Greek word “poor” is so translated, and rightly, in Luk_16:20-22), as Francis of Assisi and others have done in seeking to follow in His steps. And this He did that men might by that spectacle of a life of self-surrender be sharers with Him in the eternal wealth of the Spirit, and find their treasure not in earth but heaven. As regards the outward mendicant aspect of our Lord’s life, and that of His disciples, see Notes on Mat_10:10; Luk_8:1-3; Joh_12:6.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ] In St Paul’s eyes “Christ is the reference for everything. To Christ’s life and Christ’s Spirit St Paul refers all questions, both practical and speculative, for solution.” Robertson. For grace see above, 2Co_8:4; 2Co_8:6. Tyndale and some of the other versions render it here by liberality, and Estius interprets by beneficentia.

though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor] Rather, being rich (cf. Joh_3:13 in the Greek and ch. 2Co_11:31). There is no was in the original. Jesus Christ did not cease to be rich when He made Himself poor. He did not cease to be God when He became Man. For became poor we should perhaps translate, made Himself a beggar. The aorist refers to the moment when He became Man; and the word translated poor seems rather to require a stronger word. (“Apostolus non dixit pauper sed egenus. Plus est egenum esse quam pauperem.” Estius.) The word (which seems “to have almost superseded the common word for poverty in the N.T.” Stanley) is connected with the root to fly, to fall, and yet more closely with the idea of cowering, and seems to indicate a more abject condition than mere poverty. For the word, see Mat_5:3, also ch. 2Co_6:10, and 2Co_8:2 of this chapter. For the idea cf. Mat_8:20; Php_2:6-8.

that ye through his poverty might be rich] We could only attain to God by His bringing Himself down to our level. See Joh_1:9-14; Joh_1:18; Joh_12:45; Joh_14:9; Col_1:15; Heb_1:3. And by thus putting Himself on an equality with us He enriched us with all the treasures that dwell in Him. Cf. Eph_1:7-8; Eph_2:5-7; Eph_3:16-19; Col_2:2-3, &c., as well as Php_2:6-8 just cited.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus,.... This is a new argument, and a very forcible one to engage to liberality, taken from the wonderful grace and love of Christ, displayed in his state of humiliation towards his people; which is well known to all them that have truly believed in Christ; of this they are not and cannot be ignorant, his love, good will, and favour are so manifest; there are such glaring proofs of it in his incarnation, sufferings, and death, that leave no room for any to doubt of it:

that though he was rich; in the perfections of his divine nature, having the fulness of the Godhead in him, all that the Father has, and so equal to him; such as eternity, immutability, infinity and immensity, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, &c. in the works of his hands, which reach to everything that is made, the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that in them are, things visible and invisible; in his universal empire and dominion over all creature; and in those large revenues of glory, which are due to him from them all; which riches of his are underived from another, incommunicable to another, and cannot be lost:

yet for your sakes he became poor; by assuming human nature, with all its weaknesses and imperfections excepting sin; he appeared in it not as a lord, but in the form of a servant; he endured in it a great deal of reproach and shame, and at last death itself; not that by becoming man he ceased to be God, or lost his divine perfections, thought these were much hid and covered from the view of man; and in his human nature he became the reverse of what he is in his divine nature, namely, finite and circumscriptible, weak and infirm, ignorant of some things, and mortal; in which nature also he was exposed to much meanness and outward poverty; he was born of poor parents, had no liberal education, was brought up to a trade, had not where to lay his head, was ministered to by others of their substance, and had nothing to bequeath his mother at his death, but commits her to the care of one of his disciples; all which fulfilled the prophecies of him, that he should be and "poor" and "low", Psa 41:1. The persons for whom he became so, were not the angels, but elect men; who were sinners and ungodly persons, and were thereby become bankrupts and beggars: the end for which he became poor for them was,

that they through his poverty might be rich; not in temporals, but in spirituals; and by his obedience, sufferings, and death in his low estate, he has paid all their debts, wrought out a robe of righteousness, rich and adorned with jewels, with which he clothes them, and through his blood and sacrifice has made them kings and priests unto God. They are enriched by him with the graces of his Spirit; with the truths of the Gospel, comparable to gold, silver, and precious stones; with himself and all that he has; with the riches of grace here, and of glory hereafter. These are communicable from him, though unsearchable, and are solid and substantial, satisfying, lasting, and for ever. Now if this grace of Christ will not engage to liberality with cheerfulness, nothing will.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

9 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.

Ver. 9. He became poor] Not having where to lay his head, nor wherewith to pay tribute, till he had sent to sea for it. Lo, he that was heir of all things, Heb 1:2, was scarcely owner of anything, but disenriched and disrobed himself of all, that through his poverty he might crown us with the inestimable riches of heavenly glory; this is such a motive to mercifulness as may melt the most flinty heart that is. Riches imply two things: 1. Plenty of that which is precious. 2. Propriety; they must be good things that are our own; and so, those only are rich that have interest in Christ’s purchase.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye know ... - The apostle Paul was accustomed to illustrate every subject, and to enforce every duty where it could be done, by a reference to the life and sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. The design of this verse is apparent. It is, to show the duty of giving liberally to the objects of benevolence, from the fact that the Lord Jesus was willing to become poor in order that he might benefit others. The idea is, that he who was Lord and proprietor of the universe, and who possessed all things, was willing to leave his exalted station in the bosom of the Father and to become poor, in order that we might become rich in the blessings of the gospel, in the means of grace, and as heirs of all things; and that we who are thus benefitted, and who have such an example, should be willing to part with our earthly possessions in order that we may benefit others.

The grace - The benignity, kindness, mercy, goodness. His coming in this manner was a proof of the highest benevolence.

Though he was rich - The riches of the Redeemer here referred to, stand opposed to that poverty which he assumed and manifested when he dwelt among people. It implies:

(1) His pre-existence, because he became poor. He had been rich. Yet not in this world. He did not lay aside wealth here on earth after he had possessed it, for he had none. He was not first rich and then poor on earth, for he had no earthly wealth. The Socinian interpretation is, that he was “rich in power and in the Holy Spirit;” but it was not true that he laid these aside, and that he became poor in either of them. He had power, even in his poverty, to still the waves, and to raise the dead, and he was always full of the Holy Spirit. His family was poor; and his parents were poor; and he was himself poor all his life. This then must refer to a state of antecedent riches before his assumption of human nature; and the expression is strikingly parallel to that in Phi 2:6 ff. “Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,” etc.

(2) He was rich as the Lord and proprietor of all things. He was the Creator of all Joh 1:3; Col 1:16, and as Creator he had a right to all things, and the disposal of all things. The most absolute right which can exist is that acquired by the act of creation; and this right the Son of God possessed over all gold, and silver, and diamonds, and pearls; over all earth and lands; over all the treasures of the ocean, and over all worlds. The extent and amount of his riches, therefore, is to be measured by the extent of his dominion over the universe; and to estimate his riches, therefore, we are to conceive of the scepter which he sways over the distant worlds. What wealth has man that can compare with the riches of the Creator and Proprietor of all? How poor and worthless appears all the gold that man can accumulate compared with the wealth of him whose are the silver, and the gold, and the cattle upon a thousand hills?

Yet for your sakes - That is, for your sakes as a part of the great family that was to be redeemed. In what respect it was for their sake, the apostle immediately adds when he says, it was that they might be made rich. It was not for his own sake, but it was for ours.

He became poor - In the following respects:

(1) He chose a condition of poverty, a rank of life that was usually that of poverty. He “took upon himself the form of a servant;” Phi 2:7.

(2) He was connected with a poor family. Though of the family and lineage of David Luk 2:4, yet the family had fallen into decay, and was poor. In the Old Testament he is beautifully represented as a shoot or sucker that starts up from the root of a decayed tree; see my note on Isa 11:1.

(3) His whole life was a life of poverty. He had no home; Luk 9:58. He chose to be dependent on the charity of the few friends that he drew around him, rather than to create food for the abundant supply of his own needs. He had no farms or plantations; he had no splendid palaces; he had no money hoarded in useless coffers or in banks; he had no property to distribute to his friends. His mother he commended when he died to the charitable attention of one of his disciples Joh 19:27, and all his personal property seems to have been the raiment which he wore, and which was divided among the soldiers that crucified him. Nothing is more remarkable than the difference between the plans of the Lord Jesus and those of many of his followers and professed friends. He formed no plan for becoming rich, and he always spoke with the deepest earnestness of the dangers which attend an effort to accumulate property. He was among the most poor of the sons of people in his life; and few have been the people on earth who have not had as much as he had to leave to surviving friends, or to excite the cupidity of those who should fall heirs to their property when dead.

(4) He died poor. He made no will in regard to his property, for he had none to dispose of. He knew well enough the effect which would follow if he had amassed wealth, and had left it to be divided among his followers. They were very imperfect; and even around the cross there might have been anxious discussion, and perhaps strife about it, as there is often now over the coffin and the unclosed grave of a rich and foolish father who has died. Jesus intended that his disciples should never be turned away from the great work to which he called them by any wealth which he would leave them; and he left them not even a keepsake as a memorial of his name. All this is the more remarkable from two considerations:

(a) That he had it in his power to choose the manner in which he would come. He might have come in the condition of a splendid prince. He might have rode in a chariot of ease, or have dwelt in a magnificent palace. He might have lived with more than the magnificence of an oriental prince, and might have bequeathed treasures greater than those of Croesus or Solomon to his followers. But he chose not to do it.

(b) It would have been as right and proper for him to have amassed wealth, and to have sought princely possessions, as for any of his followers. What is right for them would have been right for him. People often mistake on this subject; and though it cannot be demonstrated that all his followers should aim to be as poor as he was, yet it is undoubtedly true that he meant that his example should operate constantly to check their desire of amassing wealth. In him it was voluntary; in us there should be always a readiness to be poor if such be the will of God; nay, there should he rather a preference to be in moderate circumstances that we may thus be like the Redeemer.

That ye through his poverty might be rich - That is, might have durable and eternal riches, the riches of God’s everlasting favor. This includes:

(1) The present possession of an interest in the Redeemer himself. “Do you see these extended fields?” said the owner of a vast plantation to a friend. “They are mine. All this is mine.” “Do you see yonder poor cottage?” was the reply of the friend as he directed his attention to the abode of a poor widow. “She has more than all this. She has Christ as her portion; and that is more than all.” He who has an interest in the Redeemer has a possession that is of more value than all that princes can bestow.

(2) The heirship of an eternal inheritance, the prospect of immortal glory; Rom 8:17.

(3) Everlasting treasures in heaven. Thus, the Saviour compares the heavenly blessings to treasures; Mat 6:20. Eternal and illimitable wealth is theirs in heaven; and to raise us to that blessed inheritance was the design of the Redeemer in consenting to become poor. This, the apostle says, was to he secured by his poverty. This includes probably the two following things, namely,

(a) That it was to be by the moral influence of the fact that he was poor that people were to be blessed he designed by his example to counteract the effect of wealth; to teach people that this was not the thing to be aimed at; that there were more important purposes of life than to obtain money; and to furnish a perpetual reproof of those who are aiming to amass riches. The example of the Redeemer thus stands before the whole church and the world as a living and constant memorial of the truth that people need other things than wealth; and that there are objects that demand their time and influence other than the accumulation of property. It is well to have such an example; well to have before us the example of one who never formed any plan for gain, and who constantly lived above the world. In a world where gain is the great object, where all people are forming plans for it, it is well to have one great model that shall continually demonstrate the folly of it, and that shall point to better things.

(b) The word “poverty” here may include more than a mere lack of property. It may mean all the circumstances of his low estate and humble condition; his sufferings and his woes. The whole train of his privations was included in this; and the idea is, that he gave himself to this lowly condition in order that by his sufferings he might procure for us a part in the kingdom of heaven. His poverty was a part of the sufferings included in the work of the atonement. For it was not the sufferings of the garden merely, or the pangs of the cross, that constituted the atonement; it was the series of sorrows and painful acts of humiliation which so thickly crowded his life. By all these he designed that we should be made rich; and in view of all these the argument of the apostle is, we should be willing to deny ourselves to do good to others.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; call to mind the free love of your Lord and Master Jesus Christ, which you know, believing the gospel, which gives you a true account of it, and having in your own souls experienced the blessed effects of it:

He was rich, being the Heir of all things, the Lord of the whole creation, Heb 1:2, all things were put under his feet.

Yet for your sakes he became poor; yet that he might accomplish the work of your redemption, and purchase his Father’s love for you, he took upon him the form of a servant, stripped himself of his robes of glory, and clothed himself with the rags of flesh, denied himself in the use of his creatures, had not where to lay down his head, was maintained from alms, people ministering to him of their substance.

That ye through his poverty might be rich; and all this that you might be made rich, with the riches of grace and glory; rich in the love of God, and in the habits of Divine grace; which was all effected by his poverty, by his making himself of no reputation, and humbling himself. If after your knowledge of this, by receiving and believing the gospel, and experiencing this, in those riches of spiritual gifts and graces and hopes of glory which you have, you shall yet be found strait hearted in compassionating the poverty and afflicted state of his poor members, or strait-handed in ministering unto them, how will you in any measure answer this great love, or conform to this great example?

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. For—Inasmuch as, being Christians, you assume Christ as your supreme example.

Ye know—For though no gospel was as yet written, the life of Christ was known to every trained Christian.

Rich—With that glory which he had before the world was. Joh_17:5.

Became poor—By the assumption of a despised and distressed humanity.

Rich—With an eternal glory after this world has passed away. Herein is a divine model for human imitation. This text implies Christ’s existence before his assumption of humanity.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word "grace," as in vers. 4, 6, 7, here means "gracious beneficence." Though he was rich (Joh_16:15; Eph_3:8) Became poor. The aorist implies the concentration of his self-sacrifice in a single act. By his poverty. The word "his" in the Greek implies the greatness of Christ. The word for "poverty" would, in classical Greek, mean "pauperism" or "mendicancy." Dean Stanley (referring to Milman"s "Latin Christianity," 5. bk. 12. c. 6) points out how large a place this verse occupied in the mediaeval controversies between the moderate and the extreme members of the mendicant orders. William of Ockham and others, taking the word "poverty" in its extremest sense, maintained that the Franciscans ought to possess nothing; but Pope John XXII, with the Dominicans, took a more rational view of the sense and of the historic facts.

The condescension of Christ.

According to the teaching of the New Testament, human kindness should be based upon Divine benevolence. Such is the import of this wonderful parenthesis a jewel which the inspired writer drops by the way and passes on.

I CHRIST"S NATIVE RICHES CONTRASTED WITH HIS VOLUNTARY POVERTY,

1. His proper rightful wealth is apparent, not only from his nature as theSon of God, but from his evident command, during his earthly ministry, of all the resources of nature. Bread, wine, money, he could multiply or create; the earth and the sea obeyed his will; diseases and demons fled at his bidding.

2. His poverty was not compulsory; it was a "grace." We see it in hisincarnation, in which he emptied himself of his glory; in his ministry, passed in a lowly and all but destitute condition of life; in his refusal to use his power for selfish ends; in his cheerful submission to a shameful death. Compare the glory which he claimed to have had with the Father before the world was, with the homelessness and poverty of his life and the desertion and ignominy of his death, and his "grace" appeals to every just mind, to every sensitive heart.

II OUR NATIVE SPIRITUAL POVERTY CONTRASTED WITH OUR ACQUIRED SPIRITUAL WEALTH.

1. Our natural destitution is undeniable; by sin we have lost ourpossessions, our inheritance, our powers of acquisition, and are left resourceless and friendless. Apart from the interposition of Christ, and where Christianity is unknown, such is still the state of man.

2. Christ"s humiliation was for the sake of man"s spiritual enrichment. Onlyby condescension, compassion, and sacrifice could man be reached. Thus he drew near to us, and imparted to us of his own true and Divine riches, of knowledge, of righteousness, of favour, and of glory.

3. By Christ"s mediation all things are ours, God, giving Christ, gives withhim all good things. "I have all things and abound," is the testimony of every right-minded and appreciative disciple of Christ. The history of the Church is the history of the enrichment of the race; and this in turn is the pledge and promise of the inestimable and inexhaustible riches of eternity. T.

The great Example of benevolence.

Consider

I HOW RICH THE SON OF GOD WAS.

1. In possessions. All things were made by him. All things were his. Not this world only, but all worlds. Not one race of creatures, but all races and orders.

2. In power. Omnipotence untrammelled and unrepressed.

3. In homage.

The adoration of the heavenly hosts; and their perfect obedience to every command and wish.

4. In the love and fellowship of the Father.

5. In purest happiness.

II HOW POOR HE BECAME.

1. In condition.

1. The Godhead veiled in humanity.

2. The Divine power restricted.

3. The God of joy transformed into the Man of sorrows.

2. In circumstances.

(1) At his birth. His cradle a manger. An outcast; no room for him in the inn; a foreshadowing of the whole earthly life.

(2) At Nazareth an artisan, earning bread by the sweat of his brow, standing thus so closely to fallen Adam.

(3) As a preacher, dependent upon casual charity.

(4) As a traveller, journeying in penury.

(5) For his triumphal entry, dependent upon strangers.

(6) As a prisoner, stripped of the little he possessed. "They parted my garments.

(7) His dying bed, a cross; his last resting place, a borrowed tomb.

3. In surroundings.

(1) Instead of homage, mockery and insult.

(2) Few friends. One of these a traitor, and the remnant faithless at the supreme moment.

(3) Heaven darkened to him. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

III THIS MARVELLOUS TRANSFORMATION AND ITS CAUSE.

1. It was purely voluntary. He gave himself. "No man taketh it from me ... I lay down my life". (Joh_10:18, Joh_10:15)

2. It was prompted by love. "Ye know the grace," the spontaneous, unmerited love. The compulsion was the compulsion of compassion and affection.

3. It had for its object the enrichment of men.

(1) Men were poor.

(a) Always dependent.

(b) Through sin, had forfeited all title to things bestowed by God, all title to the Divine favour, all title to brighter prospects.

(c) Thus were poor deservedly.

(2) Through Christ"s poverty men are made rich. Those who are redeemed by Christ lose the poverty which is inseparable from sin, and:

(a) Gain holiness.

(b) Become partakers of the Divine nature.

(c) Receive the adoption of children and become heirs of God.

(d) Become inheritors of the heavenly kingdom.

(e) Obtain present and future joy.

(f) Become sharers in the glory which Christ for a while set aside. "The glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them". (Joh_17:22)

IV CHRIST IS HERE OUR EXAMPLE.

1. If Christ did this for us, how ready we should be to do what lies in ourpower for others! In doing it to them, we show our love to him.

2. How small our sacrifice must be compared to his!

3. Self-sacrifice makes us like Christ. He not only said, "It is more blessedto give than to receive;" he himself tasted this blessedness. And he gave what? He gave himself for us. H.

Amazing love.

The insertion of this compact statement of our Saviour"s love and self-devotion for our sakes into an exhortation to love and liberality in the Church, illustrates the habit of St. Paul"s mind to revert often to central truths, and take his motives and arguments directly from Christ and the cross. "Ye know the grace of our Lord." But consider what you know, that it may influence your disposition and conduct; for nothing is more common than to hold known truth so loosely and carelessly in the mind that it is as though it had never been known or were quite forgotten.

I THE SAVIOUR"S WEALTH. Of the riches of his pre-existent glory who can adequately speak? Who can tell the wealth of Divine power and dignity and love in the Word which was with God and was God all the angels of God his servants, all the works of God full of his praise? But this is not a subject on which to dilate. It is above the reach of our comments and illustrations. Read Joh 1 Col 1 Heb 1.

II THE SAVIOUR"S IMPOVERISHMENT.. (comp. Php_2:5-11) Our Lord"s participation of the Divine essence was not, could not, be surrendered. But the form of God could be and was laid aside. The form cannot be without the being and nature; but the being and nature may dispense with the form. So the Son of God in his grace toward us assumed the form of a man, and that in low estate the form of a servant. He accepted a lowly human rank, with no attendants on his person but such as followed him in love, and no house of his own wherein to lay his head at night. In wisdom, indeed, and all that constitutes moral wealth and dignity, Jesus of Nazareth was rich; but in earthly station and treasure he was poor, and poor by choice. See him in youth in the carpenter"s house, eating the bread of the working man with cheerfulness. In the little town there must have been many a piece of furniture, and on the farms and vineyards around many a tool, which had been under the human hands of the Son of God. See him on foot on the rough roads of Palestine, while others rode past on horses and mules. See him in the days of his ministry dependent on any who pleased to minister to his necessities; at last deserted by his friends and insulted by his foes despised and rejected of men. Truly he became poor.

III THE SAVIOUR"S GRACE. "For your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be enriched." In this short statement the whole work of substitution and redemption is implied. You are enriched through his poverty, blessed because of his suffering, accepted by reason of his rejection, reconciled through his death. It is evident that the riches thus secured to those that believe are not treasures of this world, but of the same order with the riches which the Saviour laid aside for a season. They receive the privilege of sonship with God, and therefore also the heirship of all things with Christ Jesus. The Son of God became man, and a poor man, that they, being men, and poor men, might be owned as sons of God. Dwell upon the riches in redemption, regeneration, forgiveness, justification, adoption, sanctification, comfort, patience, the earnest of the inheritance now, and the inheritance itself at his coming. And all because he became poor for your sakes. You get sweetness out of sorrow, glory out of shame, strength from weakness, wealth through poverty, and life through death.

IV THE PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF CONSIDERING THE SAVIOUR"S GRACE.

1. Not to raise a foolish admiration of poverty for its own sake. At onetime this text was cited in support of lazy beggary. The mendicant friars quoted it, insisting that the Lord himself was a mendicant, and that this must be the most holy and Christ-like state. Great schoolmen debated this, and papal bulls dealt with this notion. Such questions we can no longer discuss with seriousness. Property is not to be abandoned by Christians, but wisely administered. The rich and the poor are to continue together in the Church, each condition having its own duties and its own attendant temptations.

2. To set our hearts on the true riches faith and good works, a calmconscience, and affections set on things above. He is rich who has a patient spirit, a pure heart, a heavenly mind, and a hope of glory.

3. To live and give that others may be blessed. Be generous in service andgifts to the Church and the poor. Be willing to communicate, ready to distribute. Otherwise do not allege that you have the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have not felt the constraint of his love or the beauty of his example. F.

The poverty that made others rich.

The question is often asked Which gives most pleasure to us the faculty of memory, which vivifies the past, or anticipation, which brightens the future? The answers we make at once depend upon, and become revelations of, character. The apostle in this passage is using the faculty of memory; he is recalling what is known respecting the Lord Jesus Christ. He is treating of the grace of self-sacrificing liberality and generosity; and of this Christ is the most illustrious and glorious example. We hold the memory of a twofold exchange on the part of the Lord Jesus

(1) from riches to poverty;

(2) from poverty to riches;

but here the apostle contrasts Christ"s exchange from riches to poverty with our exchange, through Christ, from poverty to riches, and this is the double exchange on which we propose to dwell.

I THE FIRST EXCHANGE. Christ from riches to poverty. Christ"s riches may be treated under the headings

(1) rank;

(2) wealth;

(3) pleasure.

Or we may say that he was rich

(1) in his Divine nature;

(2) in the infinite love and acceptance of the Father;

(3) in the adoration of all holy beings;

(4) in possession of all the wealth and joy of heaven.

Christ"s poverty, which was a comparative thing, may be brought out by presenting such contrasts as

(1) God man;

(2) son servant;

(3) at home homeless;

(4) rich empty;

(5) happy suffering.

He became poor by

(1) giving up the wealth of heaven;

(2) in his birth as a poor man"s child;

(3) in his lowly station as one of the common people;

(4) in his death time of sorest humiliation.

Such a condescension in incarnation had never before been conceived. It surpasses thought. It is the exceeding great mystery which the eternal ages will not fathom. It is "so great love;" it is "what manner of love

II THE SECOND EXCHANGE. We from poverty to riches. By our poverty we need not understand our earthly conditions, seeing that poverty is but a relative thing, and depends upon the degree in which a man matches his circumstances. The man who has little and wants little is not poor; the man who has little and wants much is the man who can alone be called "poor." Our real poverties are the conditions to which we have reduced ourselves by our sins. See how much we have thus lost, so that we are become poor indeed.

(1) Lost harmony with the world;

(2) lost peace within;

(3) lost brotherhood with men;

(4) lost fellowship with God.

Then what are the riches we attain through Christ Jesus? They are riches for the souls, which are our real selves; they are not any mere riches of circumstances. They consist in

(1) the smile and favour of God;

(2) the love of a living and Divine Friend;

(3) the prospect of an eternal glory.

Or we may say that we become rich

(1) in the hope that Jesus brought;

(2) in the words that Jesus spoke;

(3) in the love to us that Jesus showed;

(4) and in the salvation that Jesus secured.

But no human words can exhaust our riches in Christ Jesus.

III THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THESE TWO EXCHANGES. For your sakes." The one exchange was made in order to accomplish the other. To bless us Christ must condescend to become one of us. Illustrate by the missionary making himself a Chinaman, and living all alone among the people that he might reach them with the gospel message. Or by the Moravian missionary, giving up friendship, love, and hope, to enter the lazar-house and try to teach and save the lepers. And what did Christ do for us when he had thus humbled himself to take our nature on him? It is said that "he went about doing good," and that was his way of making everybody rich with

(1) blessings;

(2) truth; and

(3) salvation.

And St. Paul appeals to the Corinthians and. to us, saying, "Ye know the grace." But do we know? Have we felt the persuasion and attraction that are in such "love Divine, all love excelling"? R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

For ye know - And this knowledge is the true source of love. The grace - The most sincere, most free, and most abundant love. He became poor - In becoming man, in all his life; in his death. Rich - In the favour and image of God.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Here we have the grand motive used by the apostle to excite their charity, namely, the example of Christ, who impoverished himself to enrich us, and emptied himself to fill us; therefore should we be ready to administer unto others: Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ &c.

Observe hence, 1. A description of Christ in his divine nature, as God: He was originally, essentially, and eternally rich; that is, in his God-head. All the riches that Christ now has in his state of exaltation, he had from all eternity; before his humiliation, with respect to his divine nature, he was rich.

Observe, 2. A description of Christ in his human nature, he became poor; that is, in the day of his incarnation, when he assumed our flesh, and was made manifest in our nature, he impoverished himself though he was rich, yet he became poor.

Observe, 3. The persons for whose sake he did thus impoverish himself: For our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might be rich.

Observe, 4. The moving, impelling, or impulsive cause of this condescension in Christ, and that was the graciousness of his nature: Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Observe, 5. The use and improvement which the apostle makes of this gracious dignation and condescension in Jesus Christ, and that was by way of argument, to excite the believing Corinthians to exercise their charity towards the poor saints which were at Jerusalem.

Learn from hence, That the extensive charity and wonderful compassion of Christ towards us sinners, has both the force of an argument to excite us to, and also the nature of a rule to direct us in, the exercise of our charity towards all our fellow-brethren and members of Christ; Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 become rich . [In making liberality the test of love, Paul is reminded of that supreme love of Christ and the test which it endured. The grace of liberality in Jesus caused him to lay aside his glory, and those other attributes of his divinity which were not compatible with his being made flesh, and took upon him our poor and despised humanity, that he might enrich it with all that he had surrendered. The words here should be compared with Phi_2:5-11 . What Christ gave up for us becomes to us a criterion for giving. The love which promoted such a sacrifice should constrain us to sacrifice for others.]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the chiefest of motives to giving. Our Lord gave up all for us. He became poor that we might be rich in heavenly riches. If he gave himself for us, what shall we give for him? Compare Phil. 2:7. Christ parted with riches and took poverty; with glory and took humiliation; with bliss and took suffering, all for our sakes. The passage compares Christ's pre-existent state with that he had on earth.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

9. After Ἰησοῦ B omits Χριστοῦ.

9. The reason why he does not command. There is no need; they know why they ought to give. There is a higher example than that of the Macedonians.

γινώσκετε. Almost certainly indic., although Chrysostom and Theodoret take it as imperat.

τοῦ κυρίου ἡμιδν Ἰησοῦ [χριστοῦ]. See critical note. The full title has point and solemnity. Such an example makes a strong appeal.

διʼ ὑμᾶς. Another point, and a further inducement.

ἐπτώχευσεν. The aorist refers to the crisis of the Incarnation. Previous to that He was rich in the glory of the Godhead. After it He was poor in the humiliation of His Manhood. At the moment of the Incarnation He ‘became poor’; egenus factus est, cum esset dives (Vulg.). Paupertatem enim assumpsit, et divitias non amisit. Intus dives, foris pauper. Latens Deus in divitiis, apparens homo in paupertate (Herveius Burgidol.). See Ambrose on Luk 2:41; also Briggs, The Messiah of the Apostles, p. 121.

πλουτήσητε. Might become rich. Comp. Eph 1:7-8.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9.] Explanation of ‘trying the genuineness of your love,’ by upholding His example in the matter, Whom we ought to resemble.

τ. χάριν, the (act of) grace:—the beneficence.

ὅτι] consisting in this, that …

πλ. ὤν] The participle refers to the time when the historic act implied in the aorist ἐπτώχευσεν took place. He, being rich, became poor:—not, as De W., merely by His renunciation of human riches during His life on earth, but by His exinanition of His glory (Php 2:6, Php 2:7), when, as Athanas. (contra Apol. ii. 11, vol. ii. (Migne), p. 757), τὴν πτωχεύσασαν φύσιν ἐν ἑαυτῷ ἀνελάβετο.

The stress is on διʼ ὑμᾶς, to raise the motive of gratitude the more effectually in them.

τῇ ἐκ. πτωχ. πλουτήσητε] that by His poverty (as the efficient cause) ye might become rich: viz. with the same wealth in which He was rich,—the kingdom and glory of Heaven, including τὰ μυρία ἅπερ παρέσχεν ἡμῖν ἀγαθά as Chrys. (Hom. xvii. p. 559): who had just before said, εἰ μὴ πιστεύεις, ὅτι ἡ πτωχεία πλούτου ἐστὶ ποιητική, ἐννόησόν σου τὸν δεσπότην, καὶ οὐκέτι ἀμφιβάλῃς (al. -λεῖς). See the various possible meanings discussed in Stanley’s note.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

9. γινώσκετε γάρ. The γάρ introduces the reason why he issues no orders; there is no need. The Corinthians have their own loyal affection; they have the example of the Macedonians; and, if that were absent, they have the far more constraining example of Christ. The γάρ in itself is almost proof that γινώσκετε is indicative, which is probable on other grounds. Scitis enim gratiam (Vulg.).

τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ [Χριστοῦ]. B omits Χριστοῦ, but it is probably original. The full title adds to the impressiveness of the appeal; Domini nostri Jesu Christi (Vulg.); ‘the free gift of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

διʼ ὑμᾶς. Placed first with great emphasis. There is not only the example of a self-sacrificing life, but of a sacrifice made on behalf of the Corinthians. Christ not only claimed obedience by declaring Himself to be the Legislator of a new Church and the Supreme judge of all mankind, He also inspired intense affection and devotion by laying men under an immense obligation. He was One whom it was impossible for men to benefit by conferring on Him earthly advantages, and yet, being so great and rich, He sacrificed for over thirty years more than men can at all comprehend, in order to do them good; Ecce Homo, ch. v. sub fin. The pre-existence of Christ is plainly taught here, as in Gal 4:4 (see Lightfoot). See on Rom 8:3, Rom 8:4 and Col 2:9 f.; also on 1Co 10:4.

ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος ὤν. Egenus factus est, cum esset dives (Vulg.). The ὤν is imperf. part., and the aor. points to the moment of the Incarnation. Previous to that He was rich (Joh 17:5); at that crisis He became poor. That was the immeasurable impoverishment (Php 2:6-8). That for years He lived the life of a carpenter, and that when He left His Mother’s house He had not where to lay His head, is of small account, and would be a very inadequate interpretation of ἐπτώχενσεν. He was not like Moses, who renounced the luxury of the palace in order to serve his brethren; He never had any earthly riches to renounce. “His riches were prior to His earthly life in a pre-existent life with God. He became poor when He entered the world, with a definite purpose to enrich His disciples, not in earthly goods, but in the same riches He Himself originally possessed in the heavenly world” (Briggs, The Messiah of the Apostles, p. 121). * Here is the supreme incentive to benevolence; to being willing, nay, eager, to give up a great deal in order to help others. ‘This ineffable surrender was made for you.’

ἵνα ὑμεῖς τῇ ἐκείνου πτωχείᾳ πλουτήσητε. Both pronouns are emphatic; ‘that you, through His poverty, might become rich,’ viz. with the heavenly riches of union with God in Christ and the assurance of eternal life. Meum ergo paupertas illa patrimonium est, et infirmitas Domini mea est virtus; maluit sibi indigere, ut omnibus abundaret (Ambrose on Luk 2:41). Perhaps the main lesson of the verse is that Christ gave Himself, and in all genuine liberality something of self must be given. Cf. Joh 17:22, Joh 17:24; Rom 8:30; 2Ti 2:11, 2Ti 2:12.

This motive for liberality is remarkable as being made so incidentally, as if there was no need to do more than mention it. It was so well known, and it was so unanswerable. Perhaps we ought hardly to call it a parenthesis; but such a description is only a slight exaggeration. The Apostle at once returns to the point about which he is nervously anxious. He is not giving commands as an authority who must be obeyed; that would spoil everything. He is laying his own views before them, and they must act of their own free will.

We have again the common confusion between ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς. Read δι ὐμᾶς (א B D F G L P, Latt. Syrr. Copt, Goth.) rather than δι ἡμᾶς (C K), which makes sense, but very inferior sense. To read ἡμετέρας (some cursives) in v. 8 spoils the sense.

9. 1 For, in the first place, with regard to the ministration to the poor Christians at Jerusalem, it is really superfluous for me to be writing to you: 2 for I know your readiness, about which I am always boasting on your behalf to the Macedonians. ‘Achaia,’ I tell them, ‘has been ready since last year.’ And your zeal has been a stimulus to most of them. 3 And, in the second place, I am sending Titus and his two colleagues to make sure that my boasting about you is not stultified in this matter of the relief-fund; that you might be quite ready, as I used to tell the Macedonians that you were. 4 For it would be disastrous if Macedonians were to come with me and find you unprepared. That would bring utter shame to me—to say nothing of you—for having expressed this great confidence in you. 5 To avoid this possible discredit I thought it absolutely necessary to entreat these three brethren to go to you before me, and get into order before I come the bounty which you promised before, so that all may be ready in good time as really a bounty and not as a grudging and niggardly contribution.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He became poor [επτωχευσεν] . Only here in the New Testament. Primarily of abject poverty, beggary (see on Mt 5:3), though used of poverty generally. "Became poor" is correct, though some render "was poor," and explain that Christ was both rich and poor simultaneously; combining divine power and excellence with human weakness and suffering. But this idea is foreign to the general drift of the passage. The other explanation falls in better with the key - note - an act of self - devotion - in ver. 5. The aorist tense denotes the entrance into the condition of poverty, and the whole accords with the magnificent passage, Phi 2:6 - 8. Stanley has some interesting remarks on the influence of this passage in giving rise to the orders of mendicant friars. See Dante, "Paradiso," 11, 40 - 139; 12, 130 sqq.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.