01.03. By His poverty we are rich
By His poverty we are rich
What a theme we have for our contemplation. The great, the deep, the unfathomable poverty of the Son if God on the cross has procured us riches. How great must these riches be, which are for poor lost sinners, for whom He died and who believe on Him? We shall find indeed that while the Riches of Christ He had with the Father before the world was were wonderful and the fact that such a One became so poor put something still more wonderful before our hearts, yet the most wonderful of all is the riches God has given us in Him. This is the fulness of the blessed Gospel, a fullness which is but little preached and less believed in these days. Some emphasize in Gospel preaching the fact of the forgiveness of sin, how the believing sinner is freely justified from all things. A great blessing it is indeed to know sins are forever put away. That blessedness David knew when he wrote the Thirty-second Psalm. (Psalms 32:1-3) “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.” But forgiveness is only a small part of that blessed salvation. Others make prominent the impartation of the new life, the eternal life, the certainty of salvation and the deliverance from the wrath to come. All these and other precious things are some of the most blessed results of the finished work of the Son of God on the cross. There is however a higher revelation of what the believing sinner, saved by Grace has in that blessed One, who became poor. The fullest blessing in Him our beautiful text reveals. We have become rich by Him. And what are the riches, which belong to us on account of the poverty of the Lord Jesus Christ?
How rich are we in Him? Have you ever thought of your Riches in the Lord Jesus Christ? In what do they consist? I will not keep you longer from that which cheers the heart of the writer, that which should fill all our hearts with constant praise and worship.
We are, saved by Grace, through the poverty of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He was forsaken on that cross, just as rich as He now is in Glory up yonder. This is a great assertion. It is a wonderful claim and yet it is true, true now, true forever and ever, throughout the countless ages of a never ending eternity. And let us first of all ascertain how rich He is who was our substitute on the cross. Where is He now? The tomb could not hold Him; He could not see corruption. The Father raised Him from the dead and after He showed Himself after His passion, He was received up into Glory. What a scene it must have been in heaven when He came again into the presence of the Father. He passed through the heavens. With that cloud, which took Him out of sight of the gazing disciples, He was ushered into the presence of the Throne, that glorious Throne, the great center of the universe. How wonderingly the angelic hosts must have stood about as He returned to the Father. They knew Him there before He took upon Himself the form of man. They had seen Him down on the earth. They were with Him in the desert in His journeys, in His toil and service. He might have commanded a legion of them in the hour when the power of darkness came upon Him. How they must have watched Him as He hung on that cross! They were present when the resurrection morn dawned and they gave the disciples the good and glorious news that He would come again in like manner. What must it have been to the Father, our loving God and Father, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, when His beloved Son returned to Him? He gave Him up, He smote Him on that cross, in the sinner’s place and now He comes back to Him and appears in His presence in the form of Man, the glorified Man. A human being with a body of glory, and still a body of flesh and bones, comes into the presence of the throne of God and that One is the Son of God, raised from the dead, the head of a new creation. How unspeakably grand and glorious it must have been when He came thus to the Father. And now He advances to that Throne and the Father welcomes Him. “Sit Thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” “Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” (Hebrews 1, 4) And perhaps under the shouts and praises of the heavenly hosts, He sat down. Where is He now? He is back with the Father, He is in the Father’s presence as the glorified man. And did God do anything else besides welcoming Him, giving the glorified One, with that body in which the nail prints are still seen, a place upon His throne? Yea, He did!
God appointed Him heir of all things. God made Him heir of all creation. He gave over into the hands of the glorified man the entire universe. All power in heaven and on earth He gave to the Son of His Love. How rich is He then? All creation belongs to Him. He is the rightful Lord over it all. And what else does He possess? The Father’s Love. The Love of God is centered upon Him once more. That eternal Love He ever knew and enjoyed, the riches of that Love are His once more. Oh! how God must love Him, that lovely One, who did His will, who exalted His eternal righteousness and made known His Love to a lost and guilty world! Is there anything else, which He has received, when He ascended upon high? I look again and cry out: “We see Jesus who for the suffering of death was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with Glory and Honour.” (Hebrews 2:9) There is Glory upon Him. The Father put Glory upon the Lord Jesus Christ. And what a Glory it must be! Who can tell out His Glory? Who can describe the Glory which He has upon the Father’s Throne, which He will have in the day of His power, when He comes again as Lord of lords and King of kings? And now pause, dear reader. He was rich in all eternity in three things - in Possessions, all belonged to Him; in Love, the Only begotten of the Father; in Glory, the Glory of God. These three things He gave up. He laid them down in that dark period when He hung naked, alone, forsaken on the cross, He was stripped of all. And now in resurrection, we see Him the risen Son of Man and Son of God back with the Father. All power is given to Him and He is the heir of all things; the Father’s Love is upon Him and Glory enshrouds Him once more. Then He has exactly the same riches, which He had before the world was only with this difference, He is now as Man in the Glory.
Just as rich as He is the glorified One so rich is the vilest sinner, who has believed on Him, who is washed in that precious blood. The eternal Riches of Him are your Riches, child of God!
Open your eye and heart wide and get just a faint glimpse of the Love and Grace of God.
He saw this world ruined; men rebels and enemies of Him. He was not taken by surprise when men fell. He knew it in all eternity. He had made provision for it. There is that lovely One in His bosom, by whom and for whom all things were called into existence. He purposes to have others in the place of sons with that One. These vile, lost sinners are to be taken out of the power of darkness and placed alongside of that only One to share His inheritance, the Father’s Love, the Glory in all eternity. How could He do it? He gave Him up. He let Him depart into that dark, dark world. He smote Him, as we saw, on the cross. And then He raised Him up, victor over death and grave, and took Him into His presence again, seating Him at His own right hand in the Heavenly. And in Him He has accomplished His wonderful purpose to have sons in that Son, sharers of His Riches. Could man ever have conceived such a plan? Could all the wisdom of this world ever have discovered such a scheme? The Only begotten of the Father, (Hebrews 1:5) the rich One, who created all things was made a little lower than the angels and now He is made so much better than the angels, obtaining by inheritance a more excellent name than they. And all was done for us lost sinners that we might be sons with Him and share that place, which He has in highest Glory.
Just as rich as He is in the Father’s presence so rich are you, so rich is every believing sinner. Are we anything less in Him than Sons of God and as sons Heirs of God? “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:16-17)
Sonship and Heirship are inseparately connected. We are Heirs of God because as believers we are sons. Our inheritance is nothing less than the inheritance of Him who is the First begotten from the dead. God appointed Him the heir of all things and we are the joint heirs, the fellow heirs of Christ. Can there be anything plainer than that?
God told Abraham to walk through the land which He had promised to him and to his seed. We can readily imagine with what joy the father of the faithful walked through that goodly land, with its green pastures, springs of water, rivers and lakes, how his eyes delighted in gazing upon the beautiful mountains. Yet he did not actually possess it then, but in faith he enjoyed it. Our God and Father does not ask us to walk through a land here in this world. He tells us more than that. He has given all to the Son of His
Love, the whole earth belongs to Him, the whole universe; and because it belongs to Him it belongs to us. Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens above with its wonderful mysteries, its countless heavenly bodies, its unfathomable space, its solar systems beyond the reach of the most powerful telescope. It all belongs to Him. He holds it in His blessed hands and it belongs to us. It is your inheritance. With Him we shall be in the possession and enjoyment of the heavens and the earth. What it all will be, how great our riches are, who can tell? There will never be reached in all eternity a time when we have come to the end of our riches in Him, with whom we shall spend the eternal ages. The Father wants you now to enjoy in faith your riches. What are all possessions here upon this earth, though men may call them riches, what are they in comparison with our riches as sons of God? They are but soap bubbles, miserable toys of poverty, which ere long will pass away. Child of God, look beyond. In wealth or poverty, in abundance or want, yea every day remember your eternal, your abiding riches in the Lord Jesus Christ. Rejoice in faith and triumph in it, over all earthly conditions and circumstances as the future Heirs of God. The riches of Love, He enjoys, the Love wherewith He is loved of the Father is the love with which we are loved. We are the sharers of the same love; that is why believers are addressed in the New Testament as “Beloved of God.” We have to listen to His own high priestly prayer in John xvii to realize that it is even so. Here He tells the Father all about Himself and His redemption work and all about His own, who are given to Him by the Father. It is a wonderful thing that all the great fact of our salvation, our standing before God, our present responsibilities and privileges, our future glory are all revealed by Him, the author and finisher of the faith, in this prayer. This prayer with its blessed depths may be called the germ of all the subsequent unfoldings of the Gospel of Grace, all the great salvation truths as revealed in the great Pauline epistles are herein mentioned. These teachings in the xvii of John may be grouped around seven words and these are: Salvation; Manifestation; Representation; Identification; Sanctification; Preservation and Glorification.
Here we hear Him say to the Father: “That the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me.” (John 17:23.) And again: “That the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.” (John 17:25)
Then it is truly so, the love wherewith the Father loves the Son, is the love wherewith He loves each who belongs to Christ, who by believing on Him is in Christ. God is Love and oh! how He loves! It was love which gave the Only Begotten and the object in view that He might be able to have us poor sinners sharing that eternal love.
Take hold of it in faith, Beloved of God; in Christ Jesus, where Grace has put you, there is for you from the side of God the Father nothing but love. In all reverence we say, God can do nothing but love those who are His children by faith in Jesus Christ. Learn to consider all, even the darkest and the strangest experiences, in the light of His love. Nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. By nature and by practice, far - How very far from God! Yet now, by grace, brought nigh to Him, Through faith in Jesus’ blood. So nigh - so very nigh to God, I cannot nearer be; For in the person of His Son, I am as near as He. So dear - so very dear to God, More dear I cannot be; The love wherewith He loves the Son, Such is His love to me. And what about the Glory? How great the Glory He has revealed! It belongs to us in Him and with Him. We but need to remind ourselves of another utterance in His prayer. How good of Him that He spoke all these words before He left the world. His disciples heard Him utter these words and from them they learned His love and their glorious destiny. And we, in reading the xvii of John can hear Him still praying. Here then is the word which tells us of Glory: “And the Glory which Thou gavest me I have given them” - “Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am that they may behold my Glory which Thou hast given me.” (John 17:22-24.) Is this not sufficient? We shall share His glory! We shall forever be with Him! Our bodies of humiliation will be fashioned like unto His glorious body. We shall see Him as He is and shall be like Him. Our glorious destiny is to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. At last glorified with Him God will show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus.
What a Glory that will be! Forever with the Lord who loved Me and gave Himself for Me. And soon that Glory will be upon us. The Lord is at hand! The blessed moment for which He has waited upon the Father’s throne to have us all with Him, for which generations after generations waited, is very nigh, even at the door. Soon we shall hear the voice of the Bridegroom calling His beloved Bride to come away, to come into His presence and then we shall share His Riches. And is it so - I shall be like Thy Son? Is this the grace which He for me has won? Father of glory, (thought beyond all thought!) - In glory to His own blest likeness brought!
Oh, Jesus, Lord, who loved me like to Thee? Fruit of Thy work, with Thee, too, there to see Thy glory, Lord, while endless ages roll, Myself the prize and travail of Thy soul.
Yet it must be: Thy love had not its rest Were Thy redeemed not with Thee fully blest. That love that gives not as the world, but shares All it possesses with its loved coheirs. Nor I alone; Thy loved ones all, complete In glory, round Thee there with joy shall meet, - All like Thee, for Thy glory like Thee, Lord, Object supreme of all, by all adored. But alas! how poor and weak our words are! How dull the mind, how slow of heart to believe all and to enjoy it all!
How often we go about cast down, disappointed because earthly conditions, the things temporal, did not turn out to our comfort. Perhaps we are murmuring or complaining. If our hearts were fixed constantly upon the Christ of God, upon the wonderful Riches which are His in Glory, which belong to us, there would be no room for care or sorrow, impatience or distress, it would be all praise and thanksgiving.
It is this which the Father wants, in which He delights. He loves to hear the voice and praise of such, who were once afar off and now brought nigh, giving thanks in that precious, adorable name. He loves to see His blood bought people rejoicing in His Son. A mother in Israel came to praise Him once. Her prayer had been answered. And as she pours out her heart the Spirit of God opens her vision. In holy joy she cries out: “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes., and to make them inherit the throne of glory; for the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s and He has set the world upon them.” (1 Samuel 2:8) A great conception it was and yet it does not express our glorious inheritance, our riches in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Poor beggars upon a dunghill we are by nature and that blessed One who came down to our misery took us from the dunghill to where He is into His Riches, to His Glory, to share His Throne. Ah! how little it is real to us! How little our hearts enter into it all. And yet our God wants us to enter in faith into these wonderful thoughts of love towards us in Christ. More than anything else the true conception of our Riches in Christ, which we shall before long share with Him in Glory, will keep us in the place of separation and teach us to walk worthy of the Lord. With such Riches in view and such a destiny, how holy our lives should be! If these Riches are ever before our soul we shall be satisfied to walk in His path, the path of humility and suffering, satisfied to be nothing now and sharing His reproach. How easy it would be to take the lowest place and with joy we would welcome all that humbles us. For His sake who gave up all, constrained by “ His mighty love with the knowledge of the joy set before us, to be with Him as joint heirs, we too would more and more endure the cross and despise the shame. It is our greatest need. Oh! for a greater vision of Him, His Glory, His Riches and our place in Him now and with Him in all His Riches and Glory before long. But not only are we to share all that with Him, but while here on earth, as saved ones passed from death unto life, waiting for Him and for Glory, we are rich. At the close of that lovely Epistle to the Philippians (Php 4:19) we read this word:
“But my God shall supply all your need according to His Riches in Glory in Christ Jesus.” And in the beginning of Ephesians (Ephesians 1:3) we read: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the Heavenly in Christ. “ In Colossians we hear that in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and that we are complete in Him. Let us also remember that precious word which we find on the summit of the Epistle to the Romans: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” All we need in spiritual blessing, in strength, in power, anything and everything, we have in Him who paid for it on the cross, who became so poor that we might be so rich. How dreadful if we, in possession of such riches, with every spiritual blessing at our disposal, with a Lord who is ready to fill us with the very fullness of Himself, if we do not use these riches, if we neglect so great salvation. We are all guilty of it. But few of God’s people, if any, live up to their fullest riches in Christ.
Israel failed with that earthly land and did not take possession of it; we fail in not entering into the riches we have. And if Israel had gone in and possessed the whole land it would have come to an end of the land, for there was a limit. It is far different with the riches we have in Christ; we can never exhaust them; they are like Himself, like God, infinite. Oh, my soul, praise Him, praise Him! And, oh, how feeble is our praise. That Love, these riches, pass praises indeed,
It passeth praises! that dear love of Thine, Lord Jesus! Saviour! yet this heart of mine Would sing a love so rich - so full - so free, Which brought a rebel sinner, such as me, Nigh unto God. But though I cannot tell or sing or know The fullness of Thy love while here below, My empty vessel I may freely bring - Thou who art of love the living spring, My vessel fill.
I am an empty vessel - scarce one thought Or look of love to Thee I’ve ever brought; Yet I may come, and come again to Thee With this, the needy children’s only plea - “Thou lovest me!”
Fill me, Lord Jesus, Saviour, with Thy love; Lead, lead me to the living fount above! Thither may I in simple faith draw nigh, And never to another fountain fly, But unto Thee.
Lord Jesus, when Thee face to face I see, When on Thy lofty throne I sit with Thee; Then of Thy love in all its breadth and length, Its height and depth, its everlasting strength, My soul shall sing. And how true it is that we understand, like the little children we are, but little of all the Riches which await us. We are children, but when He comes we shall be full grown sons; what a revelation we shall have then of His Riches and our Riches! What a Glory it will be when He has His completed church with Him and with it His full inheritance in the Saints. What a Glory when He comes as the Firstborn, bringing the many sons with Him to glory! We shall share His Throne. We shall reign with Him over the earth and have control with Him over the works of His hand. And then it shall roll on, the mighty song of praise, but feebly uttered here below by a feeble few: “Unto Him that loveth us and has washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests unto God His Father, to Him be Glory and Dominion forever and ever.”
Let us turn more to the Word of Prophecy. What we read here in the Old Testament and in our New Testament prophetic Book, His own Revelation, which He received from God, concerning the coming Glories does not alone concern Him, but it concerns us as His joint heirs. And now, my dear reader, are you saved? Do you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know this marvelous Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, for your sakes became poor that you might be rich? If you are not a Christian, not yet saved, still a stranger to that Grace, what hinders you from accepting Him now? Let me tell you that God wants you, that God more than wants you, He loves you. It was for you He gave His beloved Son; for you He forsook Him on the cross. Could God do anything more than that? And now the good news, the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished all for you and God invites you to come. He tells you that all is ready, He wants to welcome you home. God wants you to come out of all your poverty and your want, out of your sin and guilt, shame and confusion into the Riches of His own Son. Can you doubt this? I am persuaded you cannot. It is too clear, too simple to doubt that God does want the lowest and the vilest, to give them the Riches of Himself. Do you ask the conditions? There are none. God does not ask you to do anything, for He has done it all. All He asks that you come just as you are, as a poor sinner and that you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour, by trusting in Him, by casting yourself upon Him. Are you willing to do it now?
Just as I am - without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me, And Thou bidst me come to Thee O Lamb of God, I come!
Just as I am - poor, wretched, blind; Sight, riches, healing of the mind, - Yea, all my need in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come!
Just as I am - Thy love, I own, Has broken ev’ry barrier down; Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come!
Just as I am - of that free love, The fullness and the depth to prove, Here for a season, then above - O Lamb of God, I come! The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life.” All God asks is that you accept the Riches, which the Son of His Love purchased for guilty sinners on the cross. Is this too good to be true? as some one said. If you say so and add a single thing to it, trying to do your share by good works or repentance, then you shut yourself out from that Grace. Oh, believe it. Christ died for the ungodly; He died for you. His anguish of soul on the cross hast thou seen? His cry of distress hast thou heard? Then why, if the terrors of wrath He endured, Should pardon to thee be deferred?
We are healed by His stripes. Wouldst thou add to the word? And He is our righteousness made; The best robe of heaven He bids thee put on;
O couldst thou be better arrayed?
Then doubt not thy welcome, since God hath declared There remaineth no more to be done; Christ once in the end of the world hath appeared, And completed the work He begun.
O take, with rejoicing, from Jesus at once The life everlasting He gives; And know with assurance thou never canst die, Since Jesus thy righteousness lives. And should you reject God’s offer of free salvation; what then? It is almost impossible for the writer of these words to believe that any one can reject such an offer, such riches, such love. And yet it is sadly true; thousands turn their backs upon Him who died for them. God grant that not one who reads these lines may reject the Lord Jesus Christ. Reader, if you should reject Christ and go on in unbelief, in self-righteous religiousness, what then? You live on in the poverty, misery, discontent, unrest of the natural man. You could have rest, peace, joy happiness and contentment in the Lord Jesus. You chose the unrest. But is that all? What about eternity? You pass into eternity having rejected that which God did for you. Deliberately you said, No, to God, and instead of the eternal Riches, with Him who loved you so, you have chosen eternal poverty, eternal wrath, eternal shame. Far be it to enlarge upon these solemn, solemn facts of an eternity of misery. Such it must be for everyone who dies rejecting God’s offer of salvation. God’s righteousness demands it.
Once more we repeat the text: “For ye know the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor that by His poverty we might be rich;” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”