“The Word became flesh”; God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises. Needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this; the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the incarnation.
The key text in the NT for interpreting the incarnation is not, therefore, the bare statement in John 1:14, but rather the more comprehensive statement of 2 Corinthians 8:9 “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 by his poverty might become rich.” Packer unloads the verse nicely;
Here is stated, not the fact of the incarnation
only, but also its meaning; the taking of manhood by the Son is set before us in a way that shows us how we should set it before ourselves and ever view it—not simply as a marvel of nature, but rather as a wonder of grace. For the Son of God to empty himself and become poor meant to laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony—spiritual, even more than physical—that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. It mean love to the uttermost for unlovely men, who “through his poverty, might become rich.” This Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear. Personally, I believe the reality of Christ becoming poor carries more significant for me today than a year ago. Living in Kenya the last three months has allowed me to understand and engage poverty on a different level. I believe poverty is the greatest disease known to man. I will not talk about the depths of poverty because poverty, or at least the affects of poverty, is among all of us (Romans 3:23). But I would like to talk about what is important, Christ becoming poor.
I believe the implications of Christ becoming poor are staggering. Growing up I have heard of the “Christmas spirit”; however I rarely associated it with more than a sentimental jollity on a family basis. But if we understand Christ’s poverty he makes it clear that the phrase should carry tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives the temper of him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all year round. The Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor—spending and being spent—to enrich their fellow men, giving time, trouble care, and concern, to do good to others—and not just their own friends—in whatever way there seems need.
There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things he will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit. “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich.” “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” “I run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. (Ps. 119:32).
My prayer this Christmas season is to know, on a deeper level, what it means that our Savior became poor.
