Morning, December 24
Go To Evening Reading
“For your sakes he became poor.”
2 Corinthians 8:9
The Lord Jesus Christ was eternally rich , glorious, and exalted; but “though he was rich , yet for your sakes he became poor.” As the rich saint cannot be true in his communion with his poor brethren
unless of his substance he ministers to their necessities, so (the
same rule holding with the head as between the members), it is impossible
that our Divine Lord could have had fellowship with us unless he had
imparted to us of his own abounding wealth, and had become poor to
make us rich. Had he remained upon his throne of glory, and had we
continued in the ruins of the fall without receiving his salvation,
communion would have been impossible on both sides. Our position by
the fall, apart from the covenant of grace, made it as impossible
for fallen man to communicate with God as it is for Belial to be in
concord with Christ. In order, therefore, that communion might be
compassed, it was necessary that the rich kinsman should bestow his
estate upon his poor relatives, that the righteous Saviour should
give to his sinning brethren of his own perfection, and that we, the
poor and guilty, should receive of his fulness grace for grace; that
thus in giving and receiving, the One might descend from the heights,
and the other ascend from the depths, and so be able to embrace each
other in true and hearty fellowship. Poverty must be enriched by him
in whom are infinite treasures before it can venture to commune; and
guilt must lose itself in imputed and imparted righteousness ere the
soul can walk in fellowship with purity. Jesus must clothe his people
in his own garments, or he cannot admit them into his palace of glory;
and he must wash them in his own blood, or else they will be too defiled
for the embrace of his fellowship.
O believer, herein is love! For your sake the Lord Jesus “became poor” that he might lift you up into communion with himself.