0887. His Riches–His Poverty–How He Made Many Rich

His Riches–His Poverty–How He Made Many Rich

Our Lord was Rich (Eph_3:8).

Our Lord Became Poor (Mat_8:20).

The Pathway of His Humiliation (Php_2:6, Php_2:8).

The Pathway of His Exaltation (Php_2:9-11).

Sharing His Poverty (2Co_8:9).

Sharing His Riches (Eph_1:3).

We have before us a most blessed definition of "grace." 2Co_8:9 of our Scripture lesson reads: "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." Then "GRACE" is exemplified thus: "He was rich," "He became poor," "That we * * might be rich."

To understand the grace of the Lord Jesus, we must understand His riches, then His poverty, and then our own riches in Him.

All of this presents room for much reflection.

How can we know "grace" until we have known the riches of our Lord, riches which include all that He was and all that He possessed in the eternal ages past?

How can we know grace until we understand the depth of His poverty? We must comprehend the lowest depth of His humiliation; we must enter into the fullest meaning of His sufferings.

How can we know grace until we comprehend the riches which are ours in Christ Jesus? To know grace, we must grasp the exceeding heights to which we are lifted in Christ. We must comprehend the full limit of every blessing which God has purposed, in Christ, for us in all the ages to come.

As we view these three things, we readily concede the difficulty of defining "grace," much less of comprehending grace.

However, we propose to dig into the things which we cannot fathom.

Illustration: A certain lady, after waiting forty years, had her first glimpse of the ocean. She hurried down to the beach, and looked and looked and looked; then, turning to a friend, she said: "Oh, it is not near so big as I thought it was."

Of course, we know, and she knew on second thought, that her regret lay not in the smallness of the ocean at all–it was in the smallness of her vision. We may not see more than the shore line of grace to-day, but we will see all our eyes can hold; and then, day by day, we will sail out and on and see more and more. In Heaven itself, after endless ages have passed, we will only begin to touch the fringes of the riches of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR