Spurgeon: December AM
* 12/24/AM
"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.