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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.
In 2 Corinthians 10:1 Paul says that he entreats the Corinthian believers through the meekness and gentleness of Christ. Because Paul lived Christ, the virtues of Christ became his. The phrase through the meekness and gentleness of Christ indicates that Paul was one with Christ and that he took Christ as his life. Therefore, he entreated the believers not by himself but through the virtues of Christ, particularly through Christ’s meekness and forbearance. Paul entreated others by Christ, in Christ, and with Christ.
All the virtues of Christ were becoming Paul’s virtues. Meekness is a virtue in the humanity of Christ by the divine life. Christ’s meekness is not a simple matter, because it is in His humanity and by the divine life. When He was on the earth, He lived a human life by the divine life. Through this mingling of divinity and humanity the virtue of meekness was manifested. The principle is the same with Christ’s virtue of gentleness. Gentleness is another virtue of Christ lived in His humanity by the divine life.
To be meek is to give in to others, and to be gentle is to bear others. To have the virtue of meekness is not to invade others or fight with them; instead, it is to be willing to give in to others. To be meek is to be mild toward men, without resisting or disputing. Gentleness denotes humility, yieldingness, and approachableness. To have gentleness means to be willing to allow others to invade us. This means that to have gentleness is to be willing to suffer affliction and injury. To have meekness is not to invade others but to give in to them; to have gentleness is to be willing to be invaded by others. These are two of the virtues Christ lived in His humanity by the divine life. Because Paul lived by Christ, whatever Christ was became his virtue in his behavior.
Moreover, we may be meek and gentle, but we need to consider whether or not our meekness and gentleness are something of Christ. We all agree that we must reject or repudiate the character that is not meek and gentle, but we need to realize that we must reject our natural meekness and our natural gentleness. Some believers may be proud of their meekness and gentleness, but the apostle Paul said that he entreated the Corinthians not in his own meekness or gentleness but in the meekness and gentleness of Christ. This shows that Paul was a person living in the spirit, always taking Christ as his everything. He was a person living by Christ and experiencing Christ as his meekness and gentleness.
Furthermore, Paul did not say that he imitated the meekness and gentleness of Christ. To imitate Christ is one thing, but to live in His meekness and gentleness is another. In order to live in His meekness and gentleness, we need Christ to be wrought into us so that His meekness and gentleness can be ours. Paul enjoyed these aspects of Christ’s unsearchable riches, and they also should be our enjoyment today. As we contact others, we should not try to imitate Christ. Rather, we should contact them in the meekness and gentleness of Christ.
In order to enjoy the meekness and gentleness of Christ, we need to be in the Spirit, because all the riches of Christ are in the all-inclusive Spirit. When we turn to our spirit, contact Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit, and take Him as our person, His meekness and gentleness become our food, nourishment, strength, and satisfaction. There is no need for us to desperately attempt to restrain ourselves or to manufacture meekness or gentleness. The meekness and gentleness of Christ are simply our spontaneous enjoyment. We can actually feed on these aspects of Christ’s riches. When we take Him as our person, we spontaneously enjoy His meekness and gentleness. Instead of self-effort, we simply enjoy whatever Christ is. This was the living of the apostle Paul.
In 2 Corinthians 11:10 Paul says, “The truthfulness of Christ is in me.” What is in Christ as truthfulness — as honesty, faithfulness, and trustworthiness — was also in the apostle Paul. Since Paul lived by Christ, whatever Christ is became his virtue in his behavior. Because the truthfulness of Christ was in him, Paul could be honest with others. Christ’s truthfulness is His genuineness, sincerity, honesty, and trustworthiness as a divine attribute (Rom. 3:7; 15:8) and as a human virtue (Mark 12:14), an issue of the divine reality (John 4:23-24; 2 John 1; 3 John 1). Such a divine attribute and human virtue should be our experience and enjoyment of Christ.
The truthfulness of Christ was in Paul because Christ Himself was wrought into him. Christ is truthfulness. This is a further proof that Paul lived by Christ. Otherwise, he could not have had the truthfulness of Christ. Here truthfulness denotes faithfulness, trustworthiness, and honesty. Specifically, truthfulness indicates the faithfulness, the honesty, of the Lord Jesus in His human living. This virtue was also manifest in the living of the apostle Paul. Because Paul realized that he was one with Christ, he also realized that he had the virtues of Christ’s human life. Paul not only enjoyed Christ’s divinity in great things; he also enjoyed His humanity in the detailed items of His human virtues based upon the divine attributes.
In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says, “I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” Here we see that Christ is the believers’ one Husband, the unique Husband, for us to love. We should belong only to Him, and we should appreciate Him and love Him. As our Husband, Christ has attracted us, and we have been presented as a pure virgin to Him. Now we should care only for Him, allowing nothing to replace Him in our heart. Our love for Him should be pure, and our whole being should be focused on Him.
As those betrothed to Christ, we should take Him as our Husband. Taking Christ as our Husband is a most intimate matter. If we marry Christ, taking Him as our Husband, our life will be changed. We will realize that we must have a wife’s fidelity, and we will learn how to enjoy Christ as our life, walking and behaving in oneness with Him. Then we will become those who gain Christ and enjoy Christ, loving Him and living with Him.
The apostle Paul betrothed the believers to one Husband in order to present them as a pure virgin to Christ. Just as the apostle engaged the believers to Christ as the unique Husband, when we preach the gospel, we should represent Christ in His courtship of His chosen people that He may marry them. In other words, when we preach the gospel, lead others to salvation, and baptize them, we should have the feeling that we are betrothing them to Christ as one Husband in order to present them as a pure virgin to Him. In fact, to preach the gospel to others, to bring them to Christ, and to baptize them into the name of the Triune God are to present them as a pure virgin to Christ and to marry them to the Triune God embodied in Christ. We need to learn the truth that Christ is the one Husband and that we should betroth others to Christ as one Husband. This truth will strengthen us with assurance to exercise our authority to betroth others to Christ.
The word virgin in verse 2 means to be the bride for the Bridegroom (John 3:29), the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7). In this sense, all the believers of Christ are female. Spiritually, we all, brothers and sisters alike, are virgins betrothed to Christ (S. S. 1:3). All the believers, especially the brothers, need to realize that they are a part of the virgin to Christ. Before the Lord and to the Lord we have to consider ourselves as females. We have to love the Lord, just as a virgin loves her husband. A brother may be a husband, but to Christ he is a part of His wife. We all are virgins and are parts of the corporate virgin to Christ. If you behave yourself as a man before Christ, you insult the Lord’s headship; you must behave yourself as a virgin before the Lord. Paul betrothed the believers as a chaste, pure virgin to Christ.
Moreover, God has a jealous heart, an envying heart, toward us because He wants us to be solely for Him and to turn toward Him. He does not want us to have any other love apart from Him, just as a husband desires his wife to love him and wants his wife to be only for him. Therefore, we need to be blindly and foolishly satisfied with Christ alone. We should not know anything but Christ and have the attitude that nothing is as good as Christ. He is the best, and we simply love Him.
The goal of the Lord’s recovery is to recover Christ Himself as the unique Husband for us to love. We should belong only to Him. As long as we have been brought as a pure virgin to this Husband and love Him, appreciate Him, and belong to Him, we will be preserved. This will keep us, sanctify us, and transform us. Christ is a lovely person, the unique, universal Husband. We have all been presented as a pure virgin to Him. We are for Him, and we should be attracted to Him, loving Him, appreciating Him, and treasuring Him.
