Preached on the Lord's Day nearest Christmas, Martin addresses the full spectrum of congregational conviction about the holiday before directing all attention to 2 Corinthians 8:9 as one of the most profound statements of the incarnation in all of Scripture. He expounds the text's precise Greek rendering - 'being rich he became poor' - to establish that Christ's divine wealth was never surrendered but remained concurrent with his voluntary humiliation, distinguishing Christ's poverty from the permanent dispossession of a deposed king by the analogy of a rightful king who willingly dons beggars' garments while retaining full title to his throne. The four constituent elements of Christ's poverty are set out: the assumption of post-fall humanity, the relinquishment of the exercise (not possession) of divine prerogatives, the voluntary identification as surety and substitute, and the veiling of his glory. The purpose of that poverty is then declared - the enriching of poor sinners with righteousness, pardon, sonship, the Spirit, and eternal life - and the whole mystery is shown to be the supreme revelation of grace, the spontaneous, unmerited love of Christ toward those who deserved nothing.
Primary Texts
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2 Corinthians 8:9The primary text: the grace of Christ who, being rich, became poor for our sakes, that we through his poverty might become rich. The entire sermon is an exposition of what this poverty consisted of, why Christ entered it, and what it reveals about grace.
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Philippians 2:5-9Cited as parallel language confirming that the incarnation was addition without subtraction - being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant, and was then given the name above every name.
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Romans 14:5-6Paul's teaching on liberty of conscience regarding days - the pastoral and contextual framework for the sermon's Christmas setting and the congregation's diversity of practice.
Introduction: The Christmas Spectrum and the Preacher's Dilemma0:03
Text and Setting: 2 Corinthians 8:9 in Context10:21
The Eternal Wealth of Our Lord17:35
The Temporary Poverty of Our Lord23:47
The Purpose of the Poverty: Enriching Poor Sinners39:24
The Grace Revealed: Spontaneous, Unmerited Love47:52
Closing Prayer53:56
Key Quotes
“if you and I see no more than an unusual birth resulting in an unusual life issuing in an unusual death of an unusual man we've missed the whole message of the incarnation.”
“He is in every sense an undiminished king who, being rich, becomes poor.”
“You got it? Whatever was added at Bethlehem, nothing was subtracted.”
“Grace, the spontaneous, unmerited love of the Savior to sinners.”
“I have sat at my desk and shaked my head and prayed and cried to God for grace and ability somehow to state the truth in a carefully guarded and yet as much as possible simple way.”
“He did all of this for the enriching of poor sinners. He did all of this for the enriching, of poor sinners.”
“I trust the Holy Ghost will give us such a sight as will ravish our hearts and make him precious to us.”
Applications
All listeners
Christians who differ in their convictions about observing Christmas as a holiday should hold their convictions before the Lord without binding the consciences of their brothers and sisters, following the principle of Romans 14.
When a Christian finds himself on either extreme of a contested issue, the test of maturity is whether he can receive the exposition of Scripture even when it refuses to validate his tribal position.
Preachers should not allow the practical context of a passage to prevent them from expounding the profound doctrinal jewels embedded within it - 2 Corinthians 8:9 is one of Scripture's greatest statements of the incarnation precisely because it appears in a passage about giving.
The doctrines of God's immutability and Christ's eternal deity must be held together: because God cannot change, the riches of the Son were never surrendered in the incarnation, only voluntarily veiled. Any doctrine of kenosis that requires Christ to have ceased being God is incompatible with divine immutability.
Believers should distinguish between Christ voluntarily relinquishing the exercise of his divine prerogatives (which he did) and surrendering possession of those prerogatives (which he never did) - this distinction guards against both docetism and Arianism in thinking about the humiliation.
The doctrine of substitutionary atonement requires the full identification of Christ with his people: what he does for them is reckoned by God as done by them, and what he suffers under the law's curse is reckoned as their death to the law. This identification is what the poverty of Christ secures.
Every professing Christian should examine whether they actually possess what only the poverty of Jesus could purchase - right standing with God, peace, forgiveness, the Spirit, eternal life. Assurance comes not from religious activity but from possessing these things by faith.
Those who seek true wealth in sensual pleasure or intellectual achievement are in reality paupers. True wealth consists only in what Christ's poverty procured: righteousness, pardon, sonship, the Spirit, and eternal life.
Hearers who feel the impulse to push away the gospel question should resist that impulse and answer it honestly: 'Do you possess that which only the poverty of Jesus could purchase? Is it yours?'
The incarnation should not be contemplated as a cold historical event but as the supreme revelation of what grace is - God's unmerited, unsought, undeserved love in Christ. Believers who know this grace experimentally should feel themselves held and motivated by it.
Those who know the grace revealed in the incarnation should demonstrate their sense of indebtedness through lives of loving obedience, not merely through theological understanding of the doctrine.
A full transcript is available on the
tab. 103 paragraphs, roughly 57 minutes.
Machine transcription
Introduction: The Christmas Spectrum and the Preacher's Dilemma
Whether we welcome it with joy and with keen anticipation, or whether we view its approach with dread and irritation, the so-called Christmas season is upon us, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's here.
And in all likelihood, there is no congregation of God's people in which there exists a wider spectrum of conviction and practice with respect to the celebration of Christmas as a holiday. On one end of the spectrum, there are sitting here this morning, and I could name names if necessary, though I'm sure not all the names, those who have a deep-seated conviction that the so-called Christmas holidays and the day called Christmas ought to be shunned and ignored entirely because they are not the same as the Christmas season. They are not the same as the Christmas season. by an intelligent, devoted Christian.
Those who have that conviction assert that there is no evidence whatsoever from the scriptures or secular history that Christ was born in December, let alone December 25th. There is, to the very casual observer, such a worldly and wicked abuse of the holiday with everything from irresponsible waste and materialism to treachery and drunkenness that they would place the very holiday in the category of those things described in Ephesians by the apostle when he says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Then on the other hand, we have on the total end of the spectrum, way, way out in the other direction, those who have a deeply rooted conviction and deep conviction that they are not the same as the apostles. They have deep feelings about the sacredness of the day called Christmas. While gladly acknowledging that they see no evidence in the Bible that Jesus was born on December 25th, they see in their Bibles abundant evidence that the Holy Ghost is recorded, the details of his conception and his birth, and in connection with those details, some of the richest truths of the gospel are announced. Furthermore,
their experience, past and present, has shown them that Christ becomes more precious to them as they concentrate upon his incarnation at this season. Loved ones and family become more dear to them, and the whole holiday has such positive social and spiritual connotations that they feel before God that with good conscience, not only can they celebrate, but they ought to celebrate the day. Now, between those two ends of the spectrum, we have a great variety both of conviction and of practice represented by the people gathered here this morning. Now, frankly, I glory in that diversity. I glory in the fact that there is a body of God's people who represent conviction and feeling and practice across that whole spectrum with regard to this day. For it reflects to some degree that you as a congregation understand the teaching of Romans 14, which says, One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike.
Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He that regards the day regards it unto the Lord. He that eateth, eateth unto. Unto the Lord and giveth God thanks.
He that eateth not unto the Lord, he eateth not and giveth God thanks. So we rejoice. We are not embarrassed when people come and say, What is your church's position on Christmas? I say, Which member of the church are you inquiring about?
Which family are you asking about? And I rejoice to tell people that that spectrum exists and we are able to find it. We are able to find its function within it. But now though I rejoice in that reality, it creates a tremendous problem for me each year.
Because on the Lord's Day preceding, or on which the actual holiday actually falls occasionally, I think every seven years, what am I to do as the Lord's servant? I am not only the servant of the Lord, but in a true sense a servant of the people of God. Paul said, We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus is Lord, and ourselves your slaves for Jesus' sake. Now on the one end of the spectrum are those who would love to have me stand and give an anti-Christmas harangue.
And you would be the self-appointed amen corner. And everything that was said about the crass materialism and about the drunkenness and the debauchery and the wickedness and all the rest, you would find a response that was very vigorous and enthusiastic because I was trumping your cause. On the other hand, there are those who would love to have the entire worship service structured around the so-called Christmas theme and have Christmas carols in place of psalms and hymns of praise. And they would love to have the ministry directed in such a way as to make it unmistakable, that Christmas had a central place in the congregation. So I say that creates a problem. And then in between, there are varying degrees of conviction which would represent various expressions of desire. Well, what does one do?
Well, this is what I have done, and I'll confess to you my train of thought. I'm convinced that if you're a true child of God, you are never disturbed under any circumstance when the Word of God is expounded. Every Christian loves the Word of God. And he loves all of the Word of God, for Jesus said, My sheep hear My voice.
And wherever the voice of Christ is found in the Scriptures, and the Scriptures are His voice, so His voice is everywhere where Scripture is, the heart of a Christian rejoices. Furthermore, in no portions of the Word of God does the Christian rejoice, more fervently than in those which concentrate upon some aspect of the glory of Christ in His person and in His work. So then, those of you who are on the one end of the spectrum and would love to see the day utterly obliterated, you can have no quarrel that during this day our concentration will be, upon the person of Jesus Christ, something of the glory of His person as the incarnate God. Those of you on the other end of the spectrum, that which makes the day delightful to you is that above all else, you have remembrances of Christ that make Him more precious, and therefore you will have no complaint that I cut through some of the sentimental connotations of the day and concentrate, upon the theological and practical implications of the incarnation. And I hope in this way
to please all those at both ends of the spectrum and everyone in between. Now that's a very broad ambition, but on the basis that I've already declared, I hope that ambition will be realized. There will only be two people disappointed this day, and in that disappointment I glory. Those of you who want to, who bind the consciences of your brethren to your personal convictions will be very disappointed because you will hear nothing that will give you any fuel to bind the conscience of any brother or sister either to the observance or the non-observance of the day.
For if I sought to bind your conscience, I would violate my function as a servant of Jesus Christ. And then the second class that will be disappointed is those who only find delight in slushy sentiments. Those who find their great delight in some nebulous notion that everything of meanness and ugliness and wretchedness is suspended for a few days when the so-called Christmas spirit descends upon the world. That sheer sentimental rubbish, nothing more, nothing less.
And if you've come to expect any of that, you'll be disappointed. But for all whose hearts long to be disappointed, to have the word of God opened and to have a sight of Christ, I trust the Holy Ghost will give us such a sight as will ravish our hearts and make him precious to us. So my proposal then is this morning to direct your attention to a portion of the word of God which sets forth the incarnation in its objective reality. That is what constitutes the incarnation or the enfleshment of the second person of the Godhead and why was that enfleshment brought to pass.
Text and Setting: 2 Corinthians 8:9 in Context
And then tonight we'll consider together from Philippians 2 the incarnation in its practical or ethical demands. The fact that there is an incarnation makes tremendous demands upon the people of God. Now our text this morning is found in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. 2 Corinthians chapter 8.
Our text is verse 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 become rich. Now by way of introduction let me say just a word about the setting of this passage. As many of you know Paul is in the midst of a rather lengthy section dealing with this subject of the collection for the poor saints in Judea.
There was a famine in Judea and the people of God were not exempt from the results of that famine. And as an expression of the fellowship that exists beyond individual local churches the apostle and his companions were taking up a collection among the Gentile churches for the poor saints in Judea. And in the first eight verses of 2 Corinthians 8 this chapter along with chapter 9 comprising that broad subject of the giving of the Gentile churches he has done basically two things. He has given an account of the generosity of the Macedonian Christians setting forth that account as an example of the spirit of true giving and then he has given an exhortation to the Corinthians that they would abound in the very grace that was exemplified in the Macedonians. So in the first eight verses that's essentially what you have. A record of the grace of giving as exemplified in the Macedonians then an exhortation to the Corinthians that they abound in that same grace. Then in verse 10 he begins to give some specific directions about the practical details of how to complete that collection and to prepare it for its delivery
at Jerusalem. So in the midst now of this record of the grace of giving in the Macedonians the exhortation to the Corinthians to abound in that grace and practical directions about the implementations of that grace is something that is sandwiched one of the most profound and glorious statements of the incarnation to be found anywhere in the word of God. It is in the midst of that very practical concern of the apostle that he says for ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor. As one has said at this point in his treatment the apostle addresses or adduces the supreme argument for Christian liberality the self-giving and self-impoverishment of the Son of God on man's behalf. And then having just mentioned that word briefly about the setting of the passage now more briefly a word about its primary subject. You will notice that the entire text is speaking about the Lord.
The Lord Jesus Christ for ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and everything that follows focuses exclusively upon him. And the apostle is careful in this context to use his full official title to remind the Corinthians and us that he is not speaking about some nebulous little babe in a manger who has no specific identity. He is speaking of that one who is the Lord which points always to the dignity of his person and to the exaltedness of his position. The word Lord when used of Christ always gathers to itself a statement both of the dignity of his person and the exaltedness of his position. The name Jesus always gathers to itself the identity of his person and the essence of his mission. Jesus is the name given to the eternal word when he becomes incarnate in the virgin's womb. The angel says to Joseph thou shalt call his name Jesus.
And the name used for him in the days of his flesh above all others is the name Jesus. It identifies the God-man. But it also contains the essence of his mission for it means Jehovah is our salvation. Thou shalt call his name Jesus for he shall save.
Then of course the name Christ always points to the nature and the function of his office. It means the Messiah the anointed one the promised prophet priest and king who is the fulfillment of all the things and all of the prophecies of the Old Testament. For the scripture says all of the prophets from Samuel onward spoke of gospel days and they speak of the great focal point of that gospel even the anointed Messiah. So we must when we see that official title remember that for the apostle Paul it was not just a convenient little verbal handle by which to give some vague identity to this person called the son of God. It was a profound theological statement of all that Christ is in his person in his work and in his mission as the anointed one. Well with that word concerning the setting and the subject of our text now consider with me the text itself and as we examine it consider first of all what I am calling the eternal wealth of our Lord. The eternal wealth of our Lord.
The Eternal Wealth of Our Lord
The text says ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich. Now this is the way it is translated in the 1901 edition the authorized version similarly and the translation is weak because it's not weak. Because it would give the impression that his state of being rich is something in the past tense that obtains only until the state of poverty is introduced. He was rich past he became poor that the riches and the poverty are not coexisting but one precedes the other.
And I say the translation would give that impression. But the language of the text does not warrant that. A more literal rendering would be as follows. Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that for your sakes or on your account he became poor being rich so that the emphasis falls not upon a state that existed up to a certain point in time but on a state and then was replaced by another.
But it points to a condition that always existed and continued to exist right through the state of poverty and perpetually exist. And this is why I have called this aspect of the exposition the eternal wealth of our Lord. Now what's bound up in these little words? He was rich and he became poor being rich.
Well pressed into that little phrase being rich is the whole Bible doctrine concerning the essential Godhood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His riches consisted in the actual and the constant possession of all the divine attributes and all the divine prerogatives. In other words everything that is true of God as God is true eternally of Jesus Christ.
He rich. In other words we press into the words being rich. All of the truth of John chapter 1 that was read in your hearing. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
He being rich. Rich with what? All that constitutes him God. He is eternally rich with his own Godhood.
And that can never be altered or you would have a change in the Godhead and God would cease to be immutable. God would cease to be the God who says I am the Lord I change not. God can never cease to be God. Either God the Father Son the Holy Ghost in the mystery of the three in one.
God is essentially eternally unchangeably God. And so the apostle is careful to use language that in no way suggests that he was rich up to a certain point and then was divested of his riches. No, no. He was eternally God.
He is eternally God. He is fully possessed of all of the divine attributes and all of the divine prerogatives in the language of Romans 9. He is God over all blessed forever. And oh my friends if you and I see no more than an unusual birth resulting in an unusual life issuing in an unusual death of an unusual man we've missed the whole message of the incarnation.
We must conceive of everything that impinges upon our concept of the Lord Jesus Christ in terms of these words being rich he became poor not having been rich but being rich so that everything that pertains to his poverty everything that attaches itself to that which is bounded by the poverty is the voluntary impoverishment of one who is God. This is why the apostle can use even the shocking language language language of Acts 20 the church of God which he purchased with his own blood. Now in the second place notice what the text says concerning the temporary poverty of our Lord. For the text not only sets forth the eternal riches of our Lord but it sets before us his temporal or temporary poverty. We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that being rich now the apostle uses the form of the verb which means
The Temporary Poverty of Our Lord
at a certain point in time he became something that he had never been before. He became poor.
And in that word he points not to his incarnation follow closely now it is not in being made a true man or in taking to himself a true humanity I'm sorry the former language is imprecise but it is in coming to a state of humiliation that his poverty consists. A period that is bounded with the incarnation and the exaltation to the right hand of the majesty on high. It is Mary's womb and the part in heavens which is which set the boundaries of his temporary poverty. For he is eternally man, but he is not now in the eternity to come from the incarnation. He is man forever, but he is not impoverished forever. So we must not identify the poverty with the humanity, but with the humanity in a state of humiliation.
Now you say, Pastor, I don't know. That's making distinctions that are hard for me to make, my friend. When we touch this that is the first mystery of godliness, all of our minds are buckled. I have sat at my desk and shaked my head and prayed and cried to God for grace and ability somehow to state the truth in a carefully guarded and yet as much as possible simple way.
And yet I have felt at every stage of preparation that one in all of us is a man of God. And yet I have felt at every stage of preparation that one in all of us is a man of God. And yet I have felt at every stage of preparation that one in all of us is a man of God. takes a voluntary position of poverty, beginning with the incarnation of Mary's womb, ending with His resurrection and exaltation to the right hand of the Father. That is the period of His poverty. But throughout that entire period, He never ceases to be rich. It is in the midst of His riches that He becomes poor.
When you say, Pastor, I can't figure that out. That doesn't make sense. Well, let me try to illustrate. Here are two kings.
One sits upon a throne up to a point that a foreign government comes in and deposes him.
He is stripped of his royal title. His family line, which was the previous legitimate royal line, is utterly repudiated. He is banished from the kingdom. No royal robes.
No royal titles. No treasury at his disposal. He is literally driven out to take the place of a beggar. Now, of that king, it could be said, he who had been rich became poor.
And there is no parallel now between his present state of poverty and his previous state of riches. He has no title to the throne. Another sits upon it. He has no right of access to the treasury of the kingdom.
He's been disinherited. He who had been rich has actually become poor. There is no parallel existence in the two states. Here's another king.
The rightful heir to the throne. He sits upon the throne. Has unlimited access to all of the richness and wealth of the kingdom. Unfettered exercise of his rights as a sovereign.
But he hears of a segment of people in his kingdom who are enmeshed in crippling poverty. And in order to sympathetically enter into their state, he voluntarily takes a leave of absence from actually sitting upon the throne. No one else comes to sit upon it. No one has deposed him.
He is still the enthroned king in the government of that kingdom. He voluntarily takes off his royal garments and puts upon himself the garments of a beggar. The royal throne. The royal throne.
The royal throne. The royal throne. The royal throne. The royal garments are still his.
No one else wears them. They are there in the closet the moment he returns to sit upon his throne again.
And he voluntarily goes to that segment of his kingdom held in the clutches of abject poverty. And there he identifies with that poverty. He puts himself in the place of a beggar who must go out and scrape and beg for a crust of bread. He is a beggar.
He becomes poor while being rich. For the throne is still his throne. The royal garments are still his garments. Royal blood still flows through his veins.
He is in every sense an undiminished king who, being rich, becomes poor.
And then the time comes when, having accomplished his goal, he leaves that state of humiliation and poverty. He goes back. To do what? Something that had been relinquished as to right or to possession, but simply to reassume a new dimension of his kingly reign and rule.
That's the teaching of this passage. There is an eternal wealth in our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the eternal Word, creator of heaven and earth, upholding all things. By the word of his power.
And when in the mystery of the incarnation there is a conception in Mary's womb and the second person of the Godhead takes to himself a human soul and body, what do we have? We have the one who is rich in marriage becoming poor.
When we behold him in his life of poverty, the Son of Man, hath not where to lay his head. When we behold him in his suffering, in his weariness, in his loneliness, in his agony, in his bloody sweat in Gethsemane, in his cruel death upon Golgotha, what are we beholding? We are beholding that one who, being rich,
became poor. In what did the poverty of our Lord consist? Well, it consisted, first of all, in the voluntary assumption of a true humanity in our sinful condition. And don't treat that as just a mouthful of words.
It consisted in the voluntary assumption of a true humanity in our sinful condition. For the Scripture not only teaches us that inasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same, but Romans 8 says, he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. He did not partake of our sin. He was wholly harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners.
But he did not take upon him pre-fallen Adamic humanity. He was not a man as Adam before the fall. He was as man after the fall in terms of a body susceptible, to weariness, to weakness, to sickness, loneliness, pain, and death, while all the while possessing all of the prerogatives and the inherent dignity of Godhood. That's what makes the wonder of the Incarnation such a wonder and such a mystery. Furthermore, his being poor involved the voluntary relinquishment of some of the exercise of his prerogatives. When that king who is still a king with unchallenged royal blood and heritage in his veins and in his pedigree and with unchallenged royal robes and a crown there in his closet, when he so identifies himself with the paupers in his kingdom, he voluntarily relinquishes some of the prerogatives of his richness as a king, the prerogatives of a lush banquet house
for his eating place, the prerogatives of lovely lavish clothing, the prerogatives that are his when he is there upon his throne as king. Our Lord in his poverty voluntarily relinquished some of the exercise of those prerogatives. He never relinquished the possession of them, simply the exercise of them. And occasionally there was the exercise that so manifested itself as to let, as it were, something of the glory break through upon those who were near him.
Thirdly, his being poor involved the voluntary submission to the position of surety and substitute of his people. It meant that he would become so identified with his people whom he came to save that what he does for them will be reckoned by God as being done by them. That's the mystery of the gospel again. What he does for them is reckoned by God as being done by them so that his perfect obedience to the law, as a man in our human condition, forms.
That's the basis of our perfect righteousness. What he does in dying, subject to the curse of the law, God says is our death to the law and to its curse. He becomes so identified with us. This is his poverty.
And certainly his poverty consists in his voluntary veiling of his glory. So that when men looked upon him, what did they see? Nothing but a man. Oh, there was that time upon the Mount of Transfiguration when the glory that was veiled did not come from without upon him, but it burst from him and his whole countenance and garments were changed and they saw something of the very kind of the divine presence.
That's why John could say we beheld his glory.
But for the most part there was the voluntary veiling of that glory. So that all men saw was a fellow man, so much so that those who hated him said he hath a demon, wine-bibber and a glutton, and dared to take the incarnate God and make him a laughingstock and mock him, lay stripes upon his holy back, spit upon him, pluck the beard from his face, and then impale him on a cross and then carry on their taunting and their mockery, even, further, he that saved others come down from the cross. Touch your stuff. Prove yourself.
He became poor. And his poverty is all that is involved in his humiliation. From the moment of his incarnation when he assumes to himself a true human soul and body in our sinful condition, all the way through the voluntary relinquishment of the exorcism, the exercise of his prerogatives as God, fully identified as surety and substitute of his people in that life in which his glory is voluntarily veiled, until by the resurrection he is declared Son of God with power, and then taken back to the right hand of the Majesty on high and given a name which is above every name, and now is the object of the praise in the world, worship the honor and the adoration of all the host of heaven who cry worthy as the Lamb that was slain to receive blessing and glory and honor and power. That's the temporary poverty of our Lord. But never look upon it as a poverty that replaced riches. Look upon it as riches that attach to itself poverty for a time.
That's the language of Philippians 2. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, not who having been in the form of God, but who being in the form of God, upon himself the form of a servant. Emptied himself by taking, made himself of no reputation, taking. In other words, if we may put it into a mathematical equation, whatever additions came with Bethlehem, there was no subtraction.
You got it? Whatever was added at Bethlehem, nothing was subtracted.
There are limitations which come with his humanity, but there is no dilution of his divinity and his godhood. So much then for what the text tells us of the eternal richness of our Lord, the temporary poverty of our Lord. Now the great question.
The Purpose of the Poverty: Enriching Poor Sinners
What was the purpose of all of this? Why this great mystery? Well, look at the text. And here the answer is precious to the heart of a child of God, and oh, that it will become precious to some who hitherto have looked upon it with a ho-hum attitude.
Look at the text. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and most of our translations render it something like this, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. But in the original, the emphasis falls far more heavily upon the purpose. A more literal rendering would be this.
Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he became poor, poor, being rich, but it's all prefaced with the purpose that for your sakes, on your account, he became poor, being rich. So that spread as a canopy over all this mystery of the incarnation is this great truth. He did all of this for the enriching of poor sinners. He did all of this for the enriching, of poor sinners.
Now notice then what that tells us about the nature of true riches. If Christ comes to the state of poverty, which is the period of his humiliation from the incarnation to the exaltation, if he does all of that, that he might make us rich, that he might make us possessors of true wealth, what does it tell us? It tells us that that which is true wealth can only be defiled, defined in terms of the fruit of his poverty. Now what did his poverty procure?
A perfect righteousness for sinners. The full pardon of all sin. The gift of the Spirit. The title of sonship.
The pledge of eternal life. Deliverance from the bondage to sin and slavery to lust. Everything that is procured by his poverty is of the essence of his poverty. It is the essence of true wealth.
And therefore if you do not possess what was purchased by his poverty, you are a pauper in reality. Now remember to whom he's writing. He's writing to Corinthians who thought that true wealth was to be found in sensual indulgence. Here was a city soaked in sensuality.
If you wanted to use a word to describe what it meant to be an absolute lecture, totally given over to the debauchery and filth of sensual enjoyment, you'd say, well the poor man has become Corinthianized. That was the nickname to describe it. And here were people who thought, if I'm to be wealthy, I must know what it is to have every single nerve ending in my body and all of my senses the constant receptor of this thrill and that thrill and this high and that high and this delight and that delight. And the word of God says that all those Corinthians were impoverished in their sensuality.
And that true riches come not by abandoning ourselves to hedonistic irresponsibility, but by finding that joy in the knowledge of sins forgiven, that peace with God, that new heart, that gift of the Spirit, that pledge of eternal life which alone can be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. You had other Corinthians who thought true riches were to be found in the head. The Greeks seek out the wisdom. Corinth was not only a center of sensuality, but a center of learning.
There you had the wise ones of the earth who said, ah, true riches are not in sensuality. These philosophers, they despise the sensualist of Corinth. They said, no, no, that's an ignoble, to spend one's life and to waste one's life. True riches come in the enlargement of the mind.
And Paul said to these Corinthians, God's made foolish the wisdom of this world. After that, in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom knew not God. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. No, for these Corinthians soaked in sensuality on the one hand, soaked in intellectualism and philosophy on the other, Paul is saying you were paupers until you came to possess what the poverty of Jesus alone could procure for sinners.
And oh, my friend sitting here this morning, may I ask you a very simple question. Sitting where you sit right now, do you possess that which only the poverty of Jesus could purchase? That's a simple question, isn't it? Do you right there, sitting here this morning, sitting here this morning, sitting here this morning, do you possess in your experience that which only the poverty of Jesus could purchase?
Right standing with God so that you need not tremble at the thought that you've broken the law of the God of heaven, but that before the very God of burning justice, you have a righteousness which His own eye scrutinizes and smilingly approves. Because you are accepted in the beloved one. Do you have peace with God? The forgiveness of sin?
Oh, my friend, don't push the question off. And if I'm speaking to someone this morning who is trying even now, while your eyes are upon me, to drive your mind a thousand miles away, hear me this morning, do you possess that which only the poverty of Jesus could purchase? Is it yours? If not, my friend, here's the gospel of the Incarnation.
Though being rich, he became poor. Why? For your sakes! What did he stand to gain from Mary's womb, from cold nights before the open Palestinian sky, with no place to call his own?
What did he stand to gain who had known the ungodliness and the unlimited glories of the bliss of his Father's presence, the adoring worship of seraphim and cherubim and the host of heaven? What does he stand to gain from the dark, damp confines of a little virgin's womb? What does he stand to gain through mockery, rejection, beating, scourging, death upon a cross? My friend, for your sakes, for you current Corinthians, some of you soaked in sensuality, others of you perhaps dulled by religiosity, others deceived by intellectualism and philosophy, whatever it be, my friend, he did all of this that poor needy sinners of the likes of you and me might be made rich. That's what the text says. On your account, for your sakes, that ye through his poverty might become rich. Now, one final question that the text addresses itself to.
The Grace Revealed: Spontaneous, Unmerited Love
What does all this reveal? How did it get introduced in the first place? Well, look at the text. He says to the Corinthians as he's seeking to motivate them to generosity and giving, he says, For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, he started out the chapter by saying, I want to tell you about the grace that has been manifested in the Macedonians as they gave so freely out of their poverty. Then he said in verse 7, As you abound in everything else, I want you to abound in this grace. And it's as though people say, Well, what's the measure of that grace? How is grace to be defined and described?
He says, You know the answer to that question, you Corinthians, if you're Christians. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that being rich, he became poor. You see, this whole matter of the enriched Christ adding to his riches temporary poverty, the poverty of his humiliation, it's a revelation of what grace is. Grace, the spontaneous, unmerited love of the Savior to sinners.
That's what's revealed in his poverty. Ye know, you Corinthians, you know it in the proclamation of the gospel. You Corinthians, you know it in your experience. It's not a matter of philosophical speculation.
It's not a matter of a mere intellectual concept. He says, You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. My friends, this is what it should reveal to you. This is what it should reveal to us as we contemplate this morning the mystery of the incarnation.
What does it say to us? It says this is what grace is. Unmerited, unsought, undeserved love from Christ that causes him voluntarily to enter that state of poverty. You remember the language of Hebrews taken from the Old Testament.
God has no pleasure in sacrifice in burnt offering. A body thou hast prepared me. Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. I like to think of those words as the last words our Lord spoke.
We use temporal terms and spatial terms. We're bound by them. When he left heaven, he didn't leave. He could say the Son of Man who is in heaven while he stood on earth.
But speaking now in the language that relates to us, What were his last words when he left heaven? His words to his father were, A body thou hast prepared me. Why? That we might know what grace is.
And in that body he said, I do always the things that please my father. Even when in Gethsemane the father holds that cup full of his own fury and wrath against the sins of men. And before that cup our Lord's humanity quakes and quails and trembles. And he says, O my father, not my will, but thine be done.
O my friend, what does this show us? It shows us what grace is. This is what grace is. To sinners like you and me, whose only concern was what the world calls riches.
Popularity, pleasure, prestige, knowledge, influence. And you mean he would do all of this for the likes of us? Why? Because of grace.
Unquestionable. Caused undeserved, spontaneous favor flowing from his own heart. So if you sit here today and can answer the question that I've asked in the affirmative, yes, I have that which the poverty of Christ alone could purchase. I no longer sit in the rags and tatters of my own righteousness, but I'm clothed in the glorious robes of the very righteousness of the Son of God.
I no longer sit with my clinking, clanging chains, binding me to my sins and to the serfdom of the devil. But I'm Christ free man, liberated by the power of the Son of God. I no longer am full of despair, but I live in hope. I am no longer filled with emptiness, but I have the confidence of the life that now is, and that which is to come.
Oh, my friend, how much you should feel yourself bound by the cords of the grace of God. Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know it? Experimentally.
Then God grant that knowing it, we may be utterly and continually held in the grip of the motivating power of that grace revealed in the incarnation, the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ as His entrance upon the state of humiliation for us men, and our salvation. And if your heart is full of that confidence this morning, then surely it will be no burden for you to sing, with the people of God, as our closing hymn of praise John Newton's great hymn, Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, saved me through the poverty of Christ, that I might share in his riches, hymn number 402, hymn number 402.
Closing Prayer
And standing as we pray together,
Our Father, we confess that we feel so keenly the narrowness of our minds, our frailty in even seeking to grasp, as it were, the edges of your ways. Oh, how we praise you, blessed Lord Jesus Christ, that being rich you became poor. We cannot fathom what would ever have moved you to take to yourself a true humanity in our sinful condition.
We stand amazed before such grace. We praise you that in your poverty we have been made rich. Oh, we would rejoice this morning, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the riches of grace, full and free pardon of all sin, the imputation of a perfect righteousness, the title of sons and daughters, the gift of the Spirit, the spirit of adoption, an intercessor and an advocate who pleads our cause, the pledge and promise of eternal life, the earnest of the Spirit. Oh, God, surely our assets are beyond that which our minds can conceive. And we bless you this morning that they can all be traced back to the poverty of our blessed Redeemer. Accept the feeble, inarticulate praise that we seek to bring, and help us to show by lives of loving obedience our sense of indebtedness to your grace. Have mercy upon those who stand in your presence utterly impoverished.
Lord God, have mercy, have mercy upon them. Make your Son precious, and the gifts that are in him desirable, to them that they will count no price too great, in order to have him who is the pearl of great price. Hear our prayer, seal the word to our hearts, and continue with us in this your holy day. We plead through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors.
It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
2 Corinthians 8:9
The primary text: the grace of Christ who, being rich, became poor for our sakes, that we through his poverty might become rich. The entire sermon is an exposition of what this poverty consisted of, why Christ entered it, and what it reveals about grace.
Philippians 2:5-9
Cited as parallel language confirming that the incarnation was addition without subtraction - being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant, and was then given the name above every name.
Romans 14:5-6
Paul's teaching on liberty of conscience regarding days - the pastoral and contextual framework for the sermon's Christmas setting and the congregation's diversity of practice.
Texts Expounded
auto_stories
The primary text of the sermon: '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.' Martin devotes the entire body of the sermon to expounding the precise Greek grammar and theological weight of every clause.
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Paul's teaching that one man esteems one day above another while another esteems every day alike - cited as the basis for Martin's pastoral approach of allowing the full spectrum of Christmas conviction in the congregation.
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He that regards the day regards it unto the Lord - further grounding the congregation's liberty of conscience on Christmas observance.
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In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God - pressed into the exposition of Christ's eternal riches as the pre-incarnate Son.
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Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus - Martin draws on the participle 'being' in the form of God to reinforce that divine riches were concurrent with, not replaced by, the poverty of humiliation.
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Who being in the form of God emptied himself by taking the form of a servant - Martin argues that Bethlehem involved only addition, no subtraction from the divine nature.
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He took upon himself the form of a servant - the kenosis passage used to formulate the mathematical equation: whatever additions came with Bethlehem, nothing was subtracted.
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A body thou hast prepared me - presented as the last words Christ spoke before entering the incarnation, the voluntary consent that reveals the nature of grace.