Though He was rich…

There is no greater privilege than thinking deeply about Jesus.

When it comes to what we choose to focus our minds on, we want to be a little like the apostle Paul.

“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Paul is explaining why he preached the way he did. He wasn’t trying to be flashy. He didn’t speak about a wide variety of topics that people back then might have found interesting. And he got push back for it. People wanted to know why. After all, he was brilliant. A genius, really. It wasn’t because he couldn’t engage on other subjects. It was because he chose not to.

He said, “I determined.”

In other words, “I made a deliberate, thoughtful decision to focus exclusively on Jesus—on who He is and what God is doing through Him.”

Now, he didn’t make that choice because he believed other topics were bad in and of themselves. Paul had no problem with people learning other things, so long as they weren’t in conflict with Christ. But he had only so much time, one life, and a clear calling. And he believed that no other knowledge could compare in value to knowing Jesus.

That’s how important knowing Jesus was to him.

Obviously, I’m not saying anything you don’t already know if you’re a believer. Even if we don’t always feel this as we want to, or pursue it as passionately as we should, deep down, every Christian wants to know Jesus—as much as we can know Him.

That desire is something the Holy Spirit plants in us.

It reminds me of the ancient Greek mathematician Anaxagoras who was captivated by the beauty of the sun. He supposedly said something like, ““I was born to contemplate the sun, the moon, and the heavens.” Actually, we were made to behold and delight in the glory of Jesus. When we think about Jesus we are doing what we were created and saved to do. It’s good for us. It’s good because Jesus is beautiful and fascinating. It’s good because deep, biblical thoughts about Jesus are practical. There’s nothing more relevant.

As one old Puritan put it: “Knowledge of Christ is fundamental knowledge.”

It is fundamental to all spiritual growth, all obedience, all joy, and ultimately, our eternal happiness.

That’s why the New Testament writers often dive into deep, mysterious truths about Jesus—even while they’re in the middle of giving very practical instructions about everyday Christian life. Because to them, these truths were not abstract or theoretical—they were the very foundation of how we live.

As a result, we often find them talking about very deep and complex truths in the middle of very down to earth practical exhortations The incarnation, for example—the astonishing truth that God became man—is rarely laid out in a complex theological treatise. Often, it’s simply assumed. For them, it was like the sun in the sky: self-evident. Their focus was on applying the truth, not dissecting it.But for us, two thousand years later, it’s not always as obvious. So before we rush into application, we have to slow down and make sure we understand the doctrine rightly—especially when it comes to Jesus.

That’s particularly true in 2 Corinthians 8:9, where Paul writes:

“For 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.”

Here, Paul isn’t launching into a systematic theology of the incarnation. He’s drawing on the incarnation to motivate generosity.That’s the theme of this chapter—giving. Specifically, Paul is urging the Corinthians to follow through on their earlier promise to contribute to a collection for the struggling believers in Jerusalem.

He’s encouraging them to finish what they started. One way he does is by talking about the example of other churches. The other way is by talking about the example of Jesus.

Paul writes: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He doesn’t command them to know it—they already do. Every Christian knows the grace of Jesus. Interestingly, Paul doesn’t describe this as “the grace of God through Jesus,” like he does with the Macedonian churches. Here, it’s the grace of Jesus Himself. Because Jesus shares in the very nature of God. His grace is not derivative. It is divine.And this grace is Paul’s supreme motivation for sacrificial giving. The example of the Macedonian churches is compelling, but the example of Jesus? That’s where Paul raises the stakes.

This is the ultimate motivation.

Instead of focusing so much on Paul’s challenge to give right now however, I want to make sure we are enjoying what Paul says we already know about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to the maximum. Because clearly this is an essential Christian doctrine. It’s like one of those ABC truths. Obviously, you can’t read without knowing your ABC’s and you can’t know much about being a Christian until you understand this. It’s fundamental. It’s basic. You know this! And yet do you know this? It’s a deep, mind-stretching, mind-blowing mystery that we can sometimes think too superficially about.

I know I can. I have.

So let’s try to think together carefully about what Paul says we know about the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Beginning with the phrase: “That though He was rich.”

And—you see— it’s translated in the past tense: “Though He was rich.”

Was.

Every single translation I looked up renders it that way. Which is interesting. Because— technically—it’s a present participle. Meaning, you would normally expect it to say: “Is rich,”
not was. But the reason they translate it as “was” is because Paul is clearly making a contrast in this verse.

He says: “Though He was rich, He became poor.”

You could say that He became is the main verb. Was rich = participle. He became = verb.

And yes— I know—it’s a bit too much grammar.

But it matters.

Because “became poor” is the main verb. And that means the phrase “though He was rich” supports it—it plays off it. Because He wasn’t always poor. There was a moment when He became poor. So when Paul speaks of Jesus being rich, he’s making a contrast. And—
it’s a little strange to time-stamp that reality. Because Jesus being rich? That’s actually sort of timeless. Still— we look at Jesus, and we see: in some way, He became poor. And that’s a great reality. But it’s not the only reality.

There’s also this: He was rich.

And we have to hold onto that if we’re going to understand Jesus.

To know who He is, you have to know who He was. Though honestly, that’s a funny way of putting it and illustrates how easy it is to think poorly about all this, if we are not careful, which is, why we want to be careful and in our next blog post, we’re going to begin right here—and try to appreciate what exactly Paul is trying to help us see about Jesus.