You can turn with me in your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 8. 2 Corinthians 8, I'll read verses 1 to 15, and then our focus this morning will be on verse 9. So beginning in 2 Corinthians 8 at verse 1.
Scripture Reading
Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us by the will of God. So we urged Titus that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well.
But as you abound in everything, in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us, see that you abound in this grace also. I speak not by commandment, but I am testing the sincerity of your love by the diligence of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. And in this I give advice.
It is to your advantage not only to be doing what you began and were desiring to do a year ago, but now you also must complete the doing of it, that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have. For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have. For I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may supply their lack, that their abundance also may supply your lack, that there may be equality. As it is written, he who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.
Amen. Well, let us pray.
Opening Prayer
Our gracious God and Holy Father, we thank you for the Lord's Day. We thank you for this wonderful privilege to gather before our great and glorious God. We acknowledge that you are most high, even Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from everlasting to everlasting. And we rejoice in your constancy.
We rejoice in the fact that the Scripture refers to you as a rock. We know that you are God for us, and we rejoice in what you have provided in terms of the Son of your love. We thank you that in the fullness of the time you sent him forth, born of a woman, born up under the law to redeem those under the law. May we muse upon, may we reflect upon, may we contemplate this great, wonderful truth that Christ, the Son of God, took on our humanity. for us men and for our salvation.
May this be a great encouragement. May you build us up in our most holy faith. And may those who are dead in their trespasses and sins be awakened by the power of God Almighty. May you call them forth.
May you give them the graces of faith and repentance to lay hold of Jesus Christ, that wonderful savior for sinners. Forgive us now and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, guide us and fill us by your Holy Spirit. And we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Introduction
Well, as Paul has to do often in his letters to the Corinthian church, he has to correct problems. He has to deal with particular issues. He has to set in order the things that are lacking. Remember, in 1 Corinthians, he certainly has to do that.
There's all kinds of abuse going on. 1 Corinthians 6, he has to tell them, flee sexual immorality. 1 Corinthians 8-10, he has to tell them and caution them about the issues concerning Christian liberty. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, they were basically abusing the Lord's table by their conduct or treatment of one another. 1 Corinthians chapters 12 to 14, he had to deal with the issue of spiritual gifts. And then in chapter 15, the issue of the resurrection. So then as we move into 2 Corinthians, we know that he has a pattern with this. We know that he is speaking to specific issues that are affecting the church there in Corinth.
And real simply, what we have here specifically in this section is that the Apostle exhorts the Corinthians, the Christians in Corinth, concerning charity to others. He wants them to be large-hearted. He wants them to be cheerful. He wants them to have an eagerness to give out of their resources to alleviate the other churches, the others that are affected by perhaps famine in Judea.
He urges them to persevere basically in what they had already started. Notice in verses 10 and 11. He wants them to continue in the pattern that they had already adopted. And then to that end, he gives them two examples of Christian liberality.
The churches in Macedonia in verses one to five, and then the example of our Lord Jesus in verse nine. And it's intriguing because the churches in Macedonia had nothing. They were impoverished, they had poverty. And yet from that poverty or from that vantage point, they nevertheless redoubled their efforts and were able to give.
They were able to provide for the needy. And in like manner, he speaks concerning Christ. And he says what I think captures the very heart of the Incarnation. So I don't want to grab verse 9, take it out of its context, and preach a sermon on the Incarnation, but that's kind of what I'm going to do.
Basically, the emphasis is on charity. Christ serves as the pattern for them to be charitable-minded with reference to others. And so Paul speaks of the riches of Christ and the poverty of Christ. Notice in verse 9, he says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.
Now, as I said, I think that captures, in essence, what the mystery of the incarnation is all about.
The Riches of Christ
So I want to look first at the riches of Christ, and then secondly, at the poverty of Christ. But notice first, with reference to the riches of Christ, Paul assumes something in verse 9. Notice the assumption that Paul makes. It's an assumption that I think holds for today, and it's not out of the ordinary for a preacher or an evangelist or other Christians to assume this.
Notice that he says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul's Assumption About His Hearers
He assumes that the church in Corinth knew a couple of things about the Lord Jesus Christ. And I would suggest that he assumes that they understand that the Christian faith is a redemptive religion. They understand that Christianity is not like Buddhism. Christianity is not like Hinduism.
Christianity is not some man-centered attempt to try to get at God, but rather it is a redemptive religion. The reality is that God is holy, He's righteous, He's just, He's perfect, and we are made in His image, but we in Adam fell. As a result of that fall, we're not holy, we're not righteous, we're not good, but we are now open and liable to the just judgment and righteous punishment of God for our sins. So you see, we don't need just a little help from on high.
We don't need just a little better education. We need redemption. We need salvation. We need rescue.
We need deliverance. And so Paul assumes that his hearers understand that. But he also understands or assumes that his hearers realize that the Christian faith is a Christ-centered religion. Imagine that!
It's built right into the terminology. Christianity, right? Why do we call it Christianity? because it focuses in on that central mystery of our religion, the incarnation of the Son of God, the fact that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the fact that who was in the form of God took on the form of a servant. The one who was rich yet for your sakes has become poor.
So the apostle assumes that the people of God know these things. It is a valid assumption and I think an encouragement to us to wrap our minds around it, to try to understand what is going on in the pages of Holy Writ when it speaks concerning that wondrous activity of the Son of God coming down for us men and for our salvation. So then notice that he speaks concerning the riches of Christ. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, that though he was rich.
Now this participle points to what he is essentially. He was and always will be rich, as he is God. The contrast in the verse is very clear. He was rich.
He remains rich. He'll always be rich. Yet, for your sakes, notice the terminology change. He became poor.
He became what he was not so that he could confer upon us life eternal by what he's always been. And so we're talking about this wondrous thing in Christianity called the one person of Christ with two natures, both divine and human. He assumed our humanity. I've often thought about this for anybody that would wander into a church.
I'm not picking on anybody if you happen to wander in here this morning that was not sort of in tune with the idea of incarnation. Like, why do you Christians celebrate the incarnation? Why do you think about this? Why do you contemplate this?
Why does your hymnody reflect a commitment to this reality? You've got to think about this reality. So as I said, Christianity is not like the other religions of men, where men are trying to work their way up to God. Christianity is where God Most High, the Father, sends His Son.
And the Son takes on our humanity to Himself, and He lives for us, and He dies for us, and He's raised again for us. I guess the better question is, why wouldn't you sing about that? Why wouldn't you praise God for that? Why wouldn't you rejoice in that?
Why wouldn't you celebrate that fact that God Most High sent His rich Son into this world to assume our humanity, and thus, through His impoverishment, He confers upon us great riches? This is something that should make the saint of Jesus Christ jump in the air and click his feet together because it's wonderful. It's amazing. So notice again what Paul says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, if you turn to John's gospel for just a moment, John chapter one, you see a bit of a parallel going on.
For those of you who come every Sunday morning, you'll know this because we cover this material a lot as we work our way through the gospel according to John. I just want you to see the same sort of convention. The one who was has become. The one who was has become, not by sacrificing or by getting rid of what he was, he was that, he is that, and he'll forever be that.
The glory of the incarnation is that he assumes to himself or takes upon himself our humanity. So again, I think that's John's movement here in the prologue. Notice John 1.1, "...in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So John says three things about this Word. This Word is Jesus, just for those who maybe not have figured that out.
Notice, "...in the beginning was the Word." That speaks of Jesus' eternality. Eternality is a tough thing for, you know, our finite minds to get around, right? We're creatures, we're built, we're in space and in time. When we talk about eternity, I think we kind of look at it like this way.
Here's this ball of creation, and there's time, and then above that is this eternity. And I'm not sure that's an altogether bad way to sort of conceive of it. But you see, it's an attempt to conceive of something that we really can't process. From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God?
Well, when we read this first phrase, in the beginning, was the Word, what is John telling us? The Word identified in verse 14 is the Word who always was. And then he says the word was with God. That indicates there's a distinction between the son and the father.
That's crucial that we maintain that reality when it comes to interpreting scripture. But then it underscores that the word is of the same substance with the father and the word was God. See, John tells us that this one who is the very substance or has the same substance with the father. Now notice what he says in verse 14.
The word became flesh. So he was always this, but he became something in the fullness of time. So the word became flesh and he dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.
When Jesus in his high priestly prayer prays in John 17, five, return to me the glory that I had with you before the foundational world. He's not saying there was no glory. He's not suggesting that there was nothing wondrous about him. We beheld his glory in the incarnation, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
And then notice, he moves from this discussion of theology to what we call in theology, the economy. And economy just simply means not the messed up state of current inflation, not the high gas prices, but economy in theological language means God's work to save his people from their sins. So he lays out the relation between the son and the father in John 1 and then verse 1 and then 1 verse 14. And then in verse 29 he says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
How does that make sense? Because the Eternal Word, who was with the Father, and who is of the same substance with the Father, took on to Himself our humanity so that He could live for us, and that He could die for us as the Lamb of God, and thus take away the sin of the world. So John is answering the question, who is it that does what he does according to verse 29? He goes behind the scenes to show us the glorious God and the reality that the Son of God has taken on to himself our humanity.
Paul is saying the same thing. In 2 Corinthians chapter 8, he refers to that. He says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, We know that Christ is rich when we consider the scripture.
Christ's Divine Identity and Works
He's rich in his identification. He's the son of God. And he's the son not by creation. He's the son not by adoption, but he's the son by nature.
So naturally as the only begotten son of the father, he has the same substance. He's equal to him in power and glory. to also see that divine nature in the works that he does. What does John tell us that Jesus is responsible for in John 1, 1, 3? He created all things.
This is also stated by Paul in Colossians chapter 1. It's stated in Genesis chapter 1, verses 1 to 31. If you have ears to hear, it's by the word of the mouth of Yahweh that he calls into being the creation. The psalmist muses on that in Psalm 33 verse 6 and basically says the triune God built the earth.
Well, that's exactly what Genesis chapter 1 says. So Christ is sovereign in the matter of creation. Christ is also sovereign in the matter of government. In him, Colossians 117, all things consist.
How do we know he's got the divine nature? Well, because John tells us under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Jesus tells us all throughout his ministry, the Old Testament prophesies that such is going to be the case, but then look at what he does. Look at how he functions. Look at the things he's able to do.
Now, I know that Moses and the prophets and some of those men did wondrous things, but it wasn't by virtue of their identification with God Most High. Christ does it by virtue of his relation to God Most High. He walks on water. He hushes the wind.
He hushes the storm or the waves. He's able to raise dead people. He's able to forgive sins. That's his emphasis there in Matthew chapter 9.
I want you to know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins. So this Lord Jesus Christ was rich. This Lord Jesus Christ remains rich. This Lord Jesus Christ can't be anything but rich.
As John Gill makes the point, he says, in the perfections of his divine nature, having the fullness of the Godhead in him, all that the Father has, and so equal to Him, such as eternity, immutability, infinity, and immensity, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence. In other words, everything true of God is true of the Son of God in this particular clause. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich,
The Poverty of Christ
now let's move to the poverty of Christ, yet for your sakes He became poor. We'll deal with the for your sakes in a bit, but first I want you to understand that the poverty of Christ here refers to his true humanity.
True Humanity Assumed, Not Divinity Surrendered
He was rich and he takes to himself our humanity. That's the nature of the poverty. That's it! How did this One, who was in the beginning, the One who was with God, and the One who was God, impoverish Himself for us?
Well, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So he was rich and he takes on this poverty. This is the incarnation. This is the glorious truth of Christianity.
The fact that the one person of our Lord Jesus Christ has two natures, divine and human. And the human didn't just appear to be human. The human didn't just kind of feel a bit human. The human was in fact real.
As our confession says, with all the essential properties and the common infirmities thereof, yet without sin. In other words, everything true of humanity was true of Christ, yet without sin. Everything true of divinity is true of Christ, without change, without messing it up, without any sort of an impact or negative impact at all. So we've got the poverty of Christ that refers to his true humanity.
So the riches and the poverty of Christ points to that reality. The one person in two natures. Again, the central mystery of Christianity. And by mystery, as our brother reminded us this morning, that's not something we can't understand.
It's not something only for the initiates. It's only for the esoteric? It's only for the Gnostics to have the certain pipeline into the divine throne room? No, it's a mystery in the sense that we can grasp it, we can understand it, it makes sense theologically and philosophically, but to fully explore the depths of that?
The fact that he was rich and for your sakes he became poor, I think it's better to understand mystery in the language of that final stanza in Newton's Amazing Grace. When we've been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. In other words, our minds are not going to get to this point, well, we got it all figured out, I got the nuts and bolts down, I can answer all the hows. Brethren, there is a chasm that exists between the infinite God and finite man.
Again, not that we don't have true knowledge, not that we have to, you know, walk around, you know, kind of banging on our lips and in our minds, you know, monkeys banging cymbals. I'm not suggesting that. We learn truth from God's 31,000s of propositional revelation, but I'm suggesting that there is the concept or the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility. We cannot fully explore the depths of the divine.
And brethren, that's a good place to be. It's humbling. It promotes a righteous understanding of who we are before a great and awesome God. If we could figure Him out, if we could explain Him, if we could domesticate Him and put Him in a box and set Him on a shelf, He wouldn't amaze us anymore.
He wouldn't fascinate us anymore. We wouldn't sing praise to Him. We would have it all figured out. We don't throw him on the little slide that you put in the microscope and just sort of examine him to satisfy our own carnal desires.
No, we stand in awe and worship. We glorify, we praise, we honor. The one that was rich, for your sakes, became poor. But there's something that you need to understand.
He didn't become poor by getting rid of the riches. He didn't become poor by doing something different in terms of his divinity. As Augustine, the famous father in the life of the church says, the divinity is not changed into the creature, so as to cease to be divinity, nor the creature into divinity, so as to cease to be creature. It's the beauty of the hypostatic union, two natures, one person.
They're not mingled, they're not combined, they don't make one super person, but what you have are the two natures in union in the one person. In theology, we call that the hypostatic union. That's not a big word. A hypostasis simply means person.
There is a union of natures in the one person. That's what Paul's getting at. The one that was rich became poor. But he became poor not by getting rid of his riches.
He became poor not by adding something to him that wasn't there to begin with. The change or the newness of the incarnation doesn't come at the level of God. It's not divinity that's affected. It's not divinity that's changed.
It's in the person. It's in the flesh of the Son of God. That's where the innovation, that's where the change takes place. It's not that the divine can be changed.
If you have a God that can be changed, may I suggest you find a new God? Remember those heathen back in the prophet Isaiah's day, when those heathen are carrying their gods on their carts, and they hit a bump in the road and the god falls off of the cart? What do the heathen go do? They pick up the god and put him back on the cart.
Remember Dagon, that half-man, half-fish idol of Canaanite religion? When they put the Ark of the Covenant, the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant, and as an obvious image and declaration, they put the Ark of the Covenant into the temple with Dagon. That wasn't just the most handy place to store things. That wasn't just a big closet where, you know, put your other boots in Dagon's temple.
There was a message there. Dagon won. Dagon bested Yahweh. Dagon beat Yahweh.
You see, that's what they were saying. They capture the Ark of the Lord, which was by God's design, by the way. He's teaching Israel a lesson. He's not trying to exalt the Philistines or make them actually believe that Dagon is real.
But as warring factions would do, they want to prize their God. They want to display their God. They want to show the supremacy of their God. So they bring the Ark of the Covenant, put it into Dagon's temple.
What happens when they go the next morning to sing praises to Dagon? Well, Dagon's fallen over. So what do they do? They dutifully put him back upright.
And then the next day, what happens? Well, Dagon had fallen over, but this time he broke some things off. So did they have super glue, gorilla glue? I'm not sure what they did to fasten these appendages back onto Dagon.
What's the point, brethren? If your God is like us, you are in the wrong religion.
Against Kenotic Christology
There was no change that occurred at the level of divinity. There's no addition. And again, addition isn't the worst possible language that one can use, but you can add to divinity. You can't increase divinity.
You can't make divinity more divine. So when we talk about the assumption of a human nature, we use that language with theological emphasis. Some say, well, he added humanity. And again, it's not the worst thing in the world.
But the better language is the language of Paul in Philippians 2.7, taking on the form of a bondservant, taking on. See, all addition is assumption in theology, but not all assumption is addition in theology. We need to make sure we keep that clear. So it's not that the divinity was added onto by the flesh of the Savior, as again, to make some super divinity now.
But the more problematic approach, based on Philippians 2.6, is that he emptied himself of his divinity. He got rid of some of his divinity so that he could really be like us and save us. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. But he didn't do that by getting rid of the riches that we desperately need.
He does it by an assumption of our humanity. When Paul says, you, or have this mind in you, which was in Christ Jesus our Lord, who being in the form of God, did not consider it to be robbery or to be seized upon, to be equal with God. It says in the New King James, he made himself of no reputation, no account in the Old King James. The Greek word there is emptying.
He emptied himself. So guess what people have done? They've emptied Jesus of His divinity to make Him a fit Savior for us in our humanity. You see, when you empty Jesus of His divinity, He's no longer a fit Savior for us in our humanity.
The glory of the Incarnation is that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. He doesn't divest himself, that's a big word that means got rid of. He doesn't empty himself in terms of divinity. He has what he's always had when he's assumed our humanity.
So that as I said earlier, he's one person in two natures, both divine and human. Turn to Philippians chapter two for just a moment, just to sort of see how this particular argument goes. And again, in the context, Paul is holding forth Jesus in an exemplary fashion. In other words, be like Jesus here.
Just like he's doing in 2 Corinthians 8. Never forget, the main emphasis in 2 Corinthians 8 is to let go of that wallet, brothers, sisters. Let those pennies wipe their eyes when they see the sun of the day, and you start coughing up to the churches in need. That's Paul's point in 2 Corinthians 8.
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. Again, grander emphasis, I want you to give to the churches in Judea that are suffering famine. The same sort of attitude here.
Notice in chapter 2, verses 1 to 5. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affliction or affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Isn't it incredible and very concrete, real-life, real-world applications the Apostle invokes Christology at its highest levels to bring to bear upon the people of God their necessary duty in terms of charity and in terms of humility? Let this mind be in you. Notice in verse five, which was also in Christ Jesus. The next time you feel full of yourself, the next time you think you're it, the next time you think that everybody is below you, let this mind be in you.
The one who was in the form of God could certainly act that way, couldn't he? Couldn't he? Absolutely, positively, but he doesn't act that way. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, which he can't not be in the form of God.
He can't cease being in the form of God. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. It's another glorious thing about our religion. Our God can't stop being God.
Our God can't deny himself. Our God doesn't go on holidays. Our God doesn't sleep. Our God doesn't take breaks.
Remember, this is how Elijah challenged the heathen of his day. Where's your God? Maybe he's gone on a visit. Maybe he's gone on a holiday.
Maybe he's in the latrine relieving himself. I betcha Elijah, I can't say this under inspiration, but he probably had a smile on when he was mocking those heathen. It was a knee slapper, brethren. It was funny.
Why? Because our God doesn't need to go to the latrine. Our God doesn't go on holiday. Our God doesn't slumber.
Doesn't Isaiah invoke that principle in Isaiah 40 when he wants you to find confidence and rest in your God? He's neither weary nor slumbers. Our God is everything specifically that we need, and why would we want to divest Him of those riches in order to get something? Look back at verse 5.
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider robbery to be equal with God. I don't want to get into trying to explain that, but just see what He is. He's equal with God. Forma of God equal with God.
Notice in verse 7, but made himself of no reputation, no account. Again, the Greek word kenosis is to empty oneself. This is a good rendering. This is a good helpful interpretive call.
But made himself of no reputation. How did he make himself of no reputation? How did he make himself of no account? How did he empty himself?
Well, Paul tells us that by virtue of two statements. Notice the poverty or the making himself of no reputation is in the form of taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of man. He assumes our humanity, verse 7. And he comes in the likeness of men.
Now likeness isn't this kind of appeared or almost was a man. He's using language to say that he came with all of our essential properties and common infirmities thereof and yet without sin. So going back to our particular text, this one, form of God, form of a servant. That speaks to the two natures, the divine and the human.
When we come to 2 Corinthians 8 and verse 9, it speaks of two natures, divine and human. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. Again, brethren, it cannot be the case that Jesus is able or would take his divinity and throw it on the back burner. Again, this is a very common way to approach Christology, and it's a very commonly incorrect way to approach Christology.
The beauty of the Savior is that He doesn't get rid of the riches that you and I need. Imagine if I called you, or imagine better, you called me and you said, I ran out of gas. I'm over on Highway 1, just off on Whatcom. OK, I show up, and I say, you know, I had this great big can of gas in my garage, but I didn't bring it.
Why not? Because I want to identify with you in your gaslessness. This is what we're doing when we're divesting the riches of Christ with reference to his impoverishment. You see, that's what we may be doing.
That's what heretics in the church may have done, but that's not what the Bible does. The Bible presents to us the one person in two natures. We quite need that gas, don't we? We quite need those riches, don't we?
We quite need His power, don't we? We want Him to come and save us from our sin. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes, He became poor. Again, not by getting rid of His riches, but by taking to himself our impoverished state." Aquinas says, he says, being and not having been, lest it seem that Christ lost his spiritual riches, would he assume poverty?
For he assumed this poverty in such a way that he did not lose those inestimable riches. See, again, the glory of the incarnation is that the Word became flesh, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, the exact sorts of riches that you and I need to rescue us, to vindicate us, to redeem us from the bond slavery of sin and depravity. So just get this in your head when you're celebrating the incarnation. Don't celebrate it in the sense that he stopped being what he was in order to be just like me.
He's just like us, yet without sin, but without ever having stopped being what he is. The Word became flesh. He dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. So going back to our text in 2 Corinthians 8-9, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.
We've seen the sort of theological exposition of that in Philippians chapter 2, the form of God and the form of a bondservant, divinity, humanity in the one person. We've seen it in John's prologue, the word God, verse 1, became flesh, man, verse 14. Again, they're not mixed and mingled. We don't make a super-Jesus, a super-God, or a less-than-God.
He takes on our humanity.
The State of Humiliation
But what does that look like in terms of His own ministry? Well, a quick, brief trip through Scripture will educate us on that. The theologians of yesteryear used to refer to this as the state of humiliation. His state of humiliation.
Now, we hear that and say, oh, I was humiliated when my son or baby, you know, let one fly in church. Oh, we were humiliated. That's not what theologians are referring to. It refers to the lowliness of Christ in our humanity.
His impoverishment when he assumes our humanity. Notice, according to scripture, the Lord took upon him man's nature with all the essential properties and the common infirmities thereof and yet without sin. He was born, like we are born, of not royalty, not in a palace, not attended by servants, but in lowliness, right? As well, his human life, or his life rather, according to his humanity, was prophesied by Isaiah in chapter 53 at verse 3.
It says concerning Jesus, he is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our face from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. I think I read it in Lloyd-Jones once, where he argued that Jesus never smiled.
It's a bit much for me. Maybe I'm giving it a bit more crass than the spin he put on it. But the idea was, in light of Isaiah 53, verse 3, Jesus didn't walk around with a big smile on his face, the way Jesus Christ's superstar, the kind of effeminate character, having tea all over the Israeli countryside. No, no.
He was a man of sorrows, and he was acquainted with grief. But I know that when Jesus, I'm not going to say needed, but I'm going to say needed, a child for an illustration, they had no problem coming to him. Children are pretty good judges of character. Somebody that's always dour and sour and scolding and mad.
Kids don't typically run to that person. So I wouldn't argue that he never smiled. In fact, the mark of true humanity is smile. But I get his point.
He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our face from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him." Again, Paul says, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes, he became poor. Again, what does that poverty look like?
Remember that man that wanted to follow Jesus, according to Matthew chapter eight, Jesus says, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. State of humiliation. state of lowliness, state of impoverishment, to use the language of 2 Corinthians 8-9. Again, not ever ceasing to be what he is, as divine, but assuming to himself our humanity. As well, when we consider it,
Suffering and Death as Deepest Poverty
the poverty is most vividly seen in the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus. Right? Divinity can't suffer. Divinity can't die.
Jesus does that according to his humanity. The one person operating according to his humanity in those instances. We see it come to culmination in his suffering and death. It came up in the last hour, Jesus in Gethsemane.
My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, he says to Peter, James, and John as they enter into Gethsemane. Well, why is he saying that? Why is he verbalizing that? Because he knows what lied behind Gethsemane upon the cross.
And that not necessarily connected to his divinity. He read the prophet Isaiah. He understood that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He understood from Daniel 9 that he must be cut off.
He understood from the typology in Genesis chapter 22 that a ram had to die as a substitute in order to provide atonement. Jesus knew all this according to his humanity. He knows that he's the target, and he knows that this is where he's going. Of course, true humanity would say, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.
And then, of course, that death on the cross. You see that impoverishment being a vehicle by which He conveys to us the riches. We don't want Him devoid of riches. We don't want Him empty of riches.
We want all the riches with the necessary impoverishment to enable us to receive all that He is in God. It is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Remember, Peter could not conceive of the Messiah suffering and dying. Remember in Matthew 16, Jesus makes his announcement, I must go to Jerusalem, I must be tried, I must be arrested, I must be crucified.
What does Peter say? That's a good idea, Lord, that's the way it's gonna fulfill all the type of... He says, no, I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to go.
So Jesus says, get behind me, Satan. You're not thinking God's thoughts, you're thinking man's thoughts. What about post-resurrection and ascension on high? What about Jews today?
Do they look at the cross and say, what a wonderful, beautiful depiction of God's love for his world? No, they see on that cross a revolutionary. They see on that cross a heretic. They see on that cross one that may have had love for people, but the divine son take on our humanity, die in our place.
They don't see that. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. What does Paul say? We preach Christ and Him crucified. To the Jews what?
To the Jews what? A stumbling block, a scandal, and to the Greeks, foolishness. But to those who are being saved, Christ, the wisdom and power of God. See, this has always been a bit of a hurdle for people to get their minds wrapped around when it comes to biblical truth, that God the Son takes on our humanity without ever stopping to be God the Son in order that he can live for us and die for us and be raised again for us.
That is amazing. That is wondrous, and it is glorious, and it should evoke from our hearts great praise and worship and adoration.
The Redemptive Benefit
And then finally, notice the redemptive benefit involved. Again, he's not just this one person in two natures. He's this for us. So when you think about the Nicene Creed, for instance, you've heard a lot of that, you know, in our studies in John's gospel, probably gonna hear a lot more of that in our studies in John's gospel.
It talks about who the Father is, it talks about who the Son is, and it talks about who the Spirit is. And you can't, you know, sort of accuse them of, well, that's just abstract, sort of out there theology. Who? For us men and for our salvation.
It's not just an abstract theology out there for us to sort of gaze upon and wonder, it is that, but it's a for us men and for our salvation theology that is designed, if we're the people of God, to elicit praise, worship, and adoration. If you're not a believer, it's designed to communicate to you the great lengths that God has gone to to save sinners. In other words, sin is so bad and God is so holy, the only way available, I don't like that word necessarily, but it works for the moment, for God to breach that chasm is in the sending of the Son of His love, who takes on our humanity, who lives for us and dies for us and is raised again for us. See, that doesn't communicate, well, you know, God really isn't about saving sinners.
That's precisely what it communicates, that God is about saving sinners. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. The whole Bible is designed to call you sinner to Jesus Christ, to call you sinner to faith in Him, to call you sinner to look from yourself to the one in whom there is forgiveness, to the one in whom there is redemption, to the one in whom there is salvation. So it's not that, well, you know, this handful of people are going to end up in heaven.
The Bible says a great multitude that no man can number from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. God's about saving. In fact, the word Jesus, the name Jesus, guess what it means? Yahweh saves!
Imagine that. The very name of Jesus carries for us the mission of Jesus. This idea that there's no hope for me. I'm too far gone.
I'm just outside the pale of redemption. I could never be saved. I could never come to Jesus. I've heard these extra hyper preachers tell me that there's no way I could come.
The whole Bible tells you come. The whole Bible in some sense is encapsulated in Jesus' words in Matthew 11 and verse 25. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. What part of that don't you get?
What part of that is hard? Come to me. You understand the nature of that command when you give it to your child. Child's on the other side of the room, you want him to bring a cookie to you, and you say, come to me.
Well, Daddy, I don't know what that means. I've never... You do know what that word means. For whatever reason, there's a disconnect.
Well, I don't want you to be disconnected, sinners. And I'm not saying sinners like I'm not. I'm a sinner, redeemed, saved by grace. Maybe a whole lot worse than any sinners out there unredeemed and saved by grace.
I'm addressing unbelievers. Everything in the Bible converges at this reality. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor. Why?
That we through that poverty might become rich. There's riches held out by God. It is the empty hand of faith that receives it. It's not your works, it's not your doing, it's not even the strength of your faith.
If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, Jesus says, there is blessing there. It is an instrument to receive the promised blessings of God Most High. What we see in this passage is called the riches of Christ. Ephesians 1 verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
It's a beautiful statement, isn't it? These are the riches conferred upon us by God's grace received through faith alone. Justification by God's grace through faith. We're justified freely by His grace.
Romans 3 23. The gift of sanctification. See, brethren, sanctification isn't first and foremost you trying harder, you being better. If the work of Christ is for us, the work of the Spirit is in us, conforming us ever unto the image of our beloved Savior.
It's a work of God. He is at work in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. And of course, glorification. That's what awaits us in the future.
These are the riches that are conferred by Christ. These are the riches that are secured by Christ. These are the riches that come as a result of His having become impoverished for us, so that we can become rich through Him. So brethren, listen to the text, let it inform your idea of the incarnation, and let it elicit praise and worship and glory and honor given unto our great God.
Because in the fullness of the time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to do what? To make sure nobody would ever be redeemed? To make sure that there's only five people that are going to heaven? To redeem those who are under the law.
See, you cannot prove hyper-Calvinism from an open Bible. You cannot prove it from an open Bible. There is just too much contrary evidence in terms of the graciousness, the large-heartedness, the benevolence, and the glory of God in the salvation of sinners. Do you understand that that's what the scope of Scripture is?
The Scripture speaks to science. I'm not going to tell you otherwise, but is it a science book? The Scripture speaks concerning history. I'm not going to tell you otherwise, but is it a history book?
Scripture speaks to biology. Is it a biology book? It's a book of redemption. It's about God in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
The scope of the whole is to give glory in the salvation of sinners by the son of God, who though he was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.
Application: Baptism and the Gospel
Now the $64,000 question, how does he connect this to baptism? I don't want to neglect Rebecca, who's going to enter the waters of baptism momentarily. I would suggest first, with reference to a specific application of baptism, I'll read presently in the water, chapter 29, in our confession of faith from paragraph one. But then the general application, if we ask the question, why is Rebecca going into the water today?
You might be tempted to say, because Rebecca is a fine young lady. Rebecca is very nice. Rebecca can play a mean piano. That might be the temptation, but that's not the answer.
Rebecca is going into the waters of baptism today because the one who was rich became poor for her sake, that she through his poverty might become rich. It's about God's grace, it's about God's glory, it's about God's honor. This tank does not exist to celebrate the Rebecca's of this world. She's got two parents that do that probably profusely on their own.
This tank is designed to promote the glory of God Most High. The tank is there to preach to us in an external form what God the Lord does internally. He changed her heart. He gave her the graces of faith and repentance.
He conferred upon her the riches acquired by our Lord or through our Lord's impoverishment. It is because of God's kindness, love, mercy, and grace that this young woman today is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. This we'll preach 2 Corinthians 8, verse 9. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.
She has been made a rich woman by God's grace. She has been made a rich woman by the power of the Spirit, applying the finished work of our Lord Jesus to her. And that will be conveyed when she identifies publicly with our triune God in baptism. Well, let us pray.
Closing Prayer
Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, we thank you for its clarity here in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and Philippians 2 and John 1. Not necessarily simple, not necessarily easy for us to get our minds wrapped around, but when we behold the infinite God of glory and majesty and power and honor, that word who became flesh for us men and for our salvation, certainly there is a learning curve involved. but what we may not know fully or wholly, may we receive what the written word tells us concerning this reality, and may we stand in awe and worship and praise and glorify you, our great and sovereign God. We thank you for this wonderful doctrine of the incarnation of our Lord, We thank you for its redemptive benefit on our behalf, and we pray now that you would be glorified and honored as we see the gospel in Christian baptism. And we ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.