rebuke His own mother for failing to understand the significance of His divine mission. His brothers and sisters did not believe in Him. His disciples often failed Him. In His darkest hour, the Father’s face was hid. That cry of utter desola tion enables us to understand some thing of what it meant for Christ to become poor. “None of the ransomed ever knew How deep were the waters crossed, Or how dark the night the Lord passed through, Ere He found the sheep that was lost.” The Purpose of His Humiliation All the writings of Paul are elo quent with the truth of substitution. Christ came to earth and died at Calvary as our representative. All He endured was for our sakes so that we might become rich. Our remembrance of Christmas will be futile if we do not come anew to the central truth of Christ’s incar nation. He was bom a Saviour. Alice Meynell in her poem “ A Son is Given,” wrote — “New every year Hew born, and newly dear, He comes with tidings and a song, The ages long, the ages long.” How does the coming of Christ make us rich? The wealth we in herit by faith is not according to the world’s standard of riches, which Paul speaks of as being “ uncertain.” When Christ is bom within the heart, His unsearchable riches be come ours, and we become rich to ward God. The spiritual treasures Jesus left when bom a Babe become ours through Him. We become rich by sharing His life, for He came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. We also enter into fellowship with the Father as the result of Christ’s sacrifice. What wealth is comparable to that of sharing the intimate life of the Trinity? Then we have the riches of His glory. The glory Christ had in the beginning with the Father be comes ours. “ That we might become rich.” Life, fellowship, glory, these are the treasures we can possess as the result of Christ’s poverty. Would that the multitudes hearing the Christmas story again might recog nize it as a challenge to possess the wealth His poverty bought! end .
by Herbert Lockyer
ficed in order that He might person ify man’s abject poverty and need. The Process of His Humiliation Wheneve r Paul re f erred to Christ’s voluntary surrender for our salvation, he used a pregnant phrase— “He became poor.” He who knew no sin became sin.” “Be came” suggests a deliberate, definite act. Christ’s incarnation, humilia tion and death are more than a rev elation. They constituted a divine act. The first step was that He be came man (Phil. 2:7). Of His own volition, He emptied Himself of all but love and holiness and assumed the limitations of our humanity. He became the Son of Man, but not the son of a man. He became poor. Material poverty carries very def inite limitations, and Jesus endured them all. Beggared though He was, He never taught that material pov erty was to be deplored. He never promised His followers riches or comfort. He taught them to glory in freedom from earthly entangle ments and worldly cares. Peter was bapt ized with Christ’s baptism when he said, “ . . . silver and gold have I none.” William James reminds us that “ Poverty indeed is the strenuous life—without brass bands or uni forms or hysterical popular ap plause or lies or circumlocution; and when one sees the way in which wealth-getting enters as an ideal into the very bones and mar row of our generation, one wonders whether a revival of the belief that poverty is a religious vocation may not be the transformation of mili tary, and the spiritual reform of which our time stands most in need.” Both the cradle and the cross tes tify to Christ’s poverty in another direction. Involved in His self-emp tying was poverty in mind and heart as well as earthly possessions. From the outset He lacked the un derstanding and the sympathy of those nearest to Him. When He was only 12 years of age, He had to
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The King's Business/December 1957
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