8I am not speaking this as a command, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity of your love also. 9For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
In a manner fully demonstrated in his later correspondence to Philemon, Paul strongly urges but does not invoke the “apostle card” of authority. The thrust of his instruction on giving is that it must come from a sincere heart of love, not as an act of obedience to a law. It is true that Jesus used the wording of commandment when He spoke in the Upper Room: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you … This I command you, that you love one another” (John 15:12, 17). But commands to the heart are a different sort than commands to the mind. The exhortation to generosity in our giving is responsive at the heart level to the grace we have already received. Our giving, as Paul intones, is evidence of grace received.
The cross understood engenders real transformation in believers, a change that motivates them to love and good deeds. Paul focuses the magnifying glass of theology on one aspect of grace, adapting it to the application he is intending. He begins first with the full, expanded title: our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the grace of that One that should capture our attention, our hearts and thus our wills. He is the master, He is the Messiah, Jesus—the God-man.
When we consider the theology of the cross in financial terms, how could we not be generous in our giving? For after all, Christ gave to us to the point of His own poverty. The Macedonians had already imitated our Lord in that regard, for “in the great ordeal of affliction … their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality… beyond their ability” (2 Cor. 8:2–3).
But what does it mean that Christ was rich, yet became poor? He left His throne in heaven and entered the world wrapped as a baby in a cattle feeding trough. As a traveling preacher, He often had “nowhere to lay His head” (Matt. 8:20). He came as a servant (Matt. 20:28) with no earthly authority. He died penniless, with even the clothes on His back being gambled away by His executioners (John 19:23). Yes, “ although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:6–7). All this, so that we would become rich in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is therefore every reason for His followers, those enriched by His grace, to be generous with our material possessions toward other believers.
Lord, thank You for the abundant wealth of Your grace in my life!
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