Second Corinthians 8:9 indicates that we may experience and enjoy Christ as the factor of grace. “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, for your sakes He became poor in order that you, because of His poverty, might become rich.” He is the factor of grace because He, being rich, became poor for us that by His poverty we might become rich. As the factor of grace, Christ, being rich, became poor in order to give Himself to us to be our grace.
It is of grace that the Lord Jesus, being rich, became poor for us. In the same principle, it is a grace to others that we would sacrifice our material riches for their sake. Apparently, the Lord Jesus becoming poor has nothing to do with the ministry of material supply to needy saints. Actually, if the Lord Jesus had not become poor, we could not have Him as our grace. Suppose the Lord Jesus had never come into humanity. How, then, could He be our life? How could He be the grace working within us, motivating, strengthening, and supplying us to carry on a ministry to the needy saints? This would be impossible. It is crucial for us to realize that Christ can work in us today only because He became poor. His becoming poor for our sakes should be an example. On the one hand, He is the life within us; on the other hand, He is the pattern, the example, outwardly. The life of the Lord within us is the life of the One who, being rich, became poor. As such a One who is both our life and pattern, Christ is grace to us. We need to receive grace from the Lord Jesus. Then this grace will enable us to do what the Lord Jesus did: to become poor for others. Even though we may be in deep poverty, we still have something to share with needy saints. We have the life within to become poor for others, and we have the outward pattern to follow. We should receive this grace.
By becoming poor, Christ gave Himself to us to be our riches. If He had never lived in Nazareth in that poor environment to be a poor carpenter, how could He be our riches? This is all grace. By grace, Christ lowered Himself and left His position for our sake. He gave up His riches so that we may become rich. We can do such a thing only through the grace of Christ. If we take His grace as our enjoyment, spontaneously we will do the same thing Christ did—become poor for others. Actually, we will not be the ones who do this, but it will be Christ living in us.
In 2 Corinthians 10:1 and 11:10 Christ is revealed as the factor of human virtues.
The apostle Paul was firmly attached to Christ and was one with Christ. Thus, as the ambassador of Christ, he lived and behaved by Christ in His human virtues, such as meekness, forbearance, and truthfulness. In human society some of the best human virtues are meekness, gentleness, and truthfulness; everyone appreciates a meek, forbearing, and truthful person. In Christ we see all the attributes of God and all the human virtues, because for His constitution is a composition of the divine nature with its divine attributes and the human nature with its human virtues. When Christ was on this earth, He not only expressed God in His divine attributes, such as love, light, holiness, and righteousness; He also expressed the human virtues in His uplifted humanity, such as meekness, gentleness, and truthfulness.
In a very real sense, God does not need to be meek or gentle. However, when Christ was on earth, He lived as a man under all manner of persecution and trouble. He was very meek and gentle, continually bearing people in a meek way.
Christ’s meekness is seen in the way He entered Jerusalem, as described in Matthew 21:1-11. He was “meek and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, a foal of a beast of burden” (v. 5). This signifies the meek and lowly state in which the Lord was willing to present Himself. The donkey and the colt together give an impression of meekness. If the Lord had been mounted only on a donkey, the impression of meekness would not have been so striking. The significance of the Lord’s being mounted on a donkey and on a colt is not smallness but meekness. Christ, the heavenly King, did not come with haughty splendor but with gentle, humble meekness. He did not ride into Jerusalem proudly on a horse; rather, He came mounted on a little donkey, even a small colt. No earthly king would do such a thing. The Lord Jesus, however, came to be a meek King. In reality He was the heavenly King, but He had no intention to come as a great king fighting or competing with others. Instead, He came as a meek King who did not fight against anyone or compete with anyone. This is the meekness of Christ.
Furthermore, in His dealing with people, Christ was always full of truthfulness. He did not express any kind of crookedness; rather, He expressed only truthfulness. Therefore, He said, “Let your word be, Yes, yes; No, no; for anything more than these is of the evil one” (5:37). Paul had the meekness, gentleness, and truthfulness of Christ because the apostle, being firmly attached to such a Christ as the factor of human virtues, lived and behaved by Christ in His human virtues.