Spiritual Poverty and Heavenly Riches

Next Part Spiritual Poverty and Heavenly Riches 2

"Having nothing—and yet possessing all things." 2 Cor. 6:10

In the Gospel of Jesus Christ there are many 'apparent contradictions'. I use the word apparent, for there are no real contradictions. What at first sight appears paradoxical and inconsistent is found, when we see it in the Spirit's light, to be perfectly consistent and harmonious with the whole scheme of revealed truth. The very glory of the gospel is, that it is a mystery; and if it is a mystery, there will be things in it apparently contradictory, and utterly irreconcilable by human reason.

The Apostle in this chapter has brought together some of these apparent contradictions, as worked out in his own experience. He says, "By honor and dishonor, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, yet true; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." To a natural man, to a reasoning mind, to one not initiated by divine teaching into the mystery of the gospel, what clashing and contradiction are to be found in these expressions! And yet, when seen in the light of the Spirit and known and felt in a gracious experience, all the apparent contradictions disappear, all the seeming inconsistencies are blessedly harmonized, and we taste a beauty and glory in the very paradoxes and very apparent contradictions. Mr. Deer, who of all men seems to have been led most deeply into experimental truth, speaks in similar language of Christian experience:
'Tis to feel the fight against us,
Yet the victory hope to gain;
To believe that Christ has cleansed us,
Though the leprosy remain."

With God's blessing, I shall attempt this evening to show how the apparent contradiction in the text is reconciled to, and is harmoniously consistent with, not only revealed truth, but also with the experience of every one taught of the Spirit. May the Lord in mercy crown the word with his blessing.

"Having nothing!" The Apostle might have, and doubtless had, some reference here to his needy state naturally. The Lord saw fit to keep him in a state of absolute dependence upon himself for temporals. He did not use, as he tells us, the liberty which he had as an Apostle to "live by the gospel" that he preached; but he consented to voluntary poverty that he might not "hinder the gospel of Christ." So that, in a literal sense, the Apostle speaks here of "having nothing," as being completely dependent upon the Lord for the bread that he daily ate, and the clothing he daily wore. And yet, though such a beggar in temporals, rich in spirituals; though "having nothing," except what the Lord gave him as alms for his daily need, yet in the enjoyment of spiritual mercies, and in the possession of Christ in his heart, the hope of glory, "possessing all things."

But, I think, this would limit the Apostle's meaning; we would not get, so to speak, into the mind of the Holy Spirit in this passage, if we confined our interpretation merely to this point, that the Apostle by "having nothing" only meant that he had nothing in a temporal sense. We will take the expression in a higher sense, and place it upon another and more spiritual footing—we will view the Apostle speaking here, not so much of his temporal state as literally dependent upon God for daily food; but consider him as speaking of his statespiritually. And thus we shall find, that the two clauses of the text, so far from clashing with or contradicting each other, meet, in the soul's experience, in a most sweet and blessed harmony. And we are borne out in this interpretation by the Apostle's own words in this very Epistle, (2 Cor. 12:11) where he says, "Though I be nothing." To "be nothing," and to "have nothing," are expressions that differ but little; so that we may bring the Apostle's own authority and his own interpretation to bear upon the text; and consider, that when he said "having nothing," his views were carried beyond this present temporal scene and the struggles for daily bread; that he had a higher reference, and looked at things in a spiritual point of view, when he spoke of himself "as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

Thus, then, if God enable us, we will unfold the two branches of the subject, and show, what it is to "have nothing," and what it is to "possess all things" And then we shall see how these two opposites, or rather apparent opposites, so far from contradicting each other, are brought, in the experience of the child of God, sweetly to harmonize.

I. "Having nothing." Is that the experience of a man in a state of nature? It cannot be; we know it is not. Could any man, in a state of nature, honestly take such an expression into his mouth? Some might say, "Man has nothing by nature." It is true; but though that is his state, it is not his experience. Man by nature is in that spot in which we read (Rev. 3:7) the church of Laodicea was. I do not mean to say, that the Laodicean church was in a state of nature. She was a true church, though fallen; the grace of God was in her, though she had backslidden from that spiritual standing which she once occupied. But her language in her fallen state was that of every man in his unregenerate condition, "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing;" though to the heart-searching eye of Omniscience she was "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked."

The Apostle, then, in using the expression, "having nothing," is not speaking of man in a state of nature, but of his own experience, and of the things he had spiritually felt and known. He was describing the state into which he had himself been reduced. I say, "reduced;" for we do not set out with this experience, nor do we come here in a day. There is a stripping, emptying process carried on by God the Spirit in the conscience; and it is only after we have passed through this stripping and emptying process, that we come into the experience of the Apostle, "having nothing." Until the Lord brings the soul down from its once lofty eminence, breaks to pieces its self-righteousness, and cuts from under its feet that ground on which it once proudly took its stand, it cannot come into the spiritual meaning of these words.

The wealthy stock-broker that walks daily upon Exchange cannot honestly say he "has nothing," when he knows that he has his thousands; nor can any one say, spiritually, he "has nothing," while he has any stock of strength, wisdom, or righteousness left. But if this wealthy stock-broker, through some unsuccessful speculation, (mark, I am merely using this as a figure; I am not saying that speculation of any kind is justifiable) were reduced to complete beggary, then he could say, he "had nothing;" and his conscience (if he had one, which few speculators have) could bear witness that he spoke the truth. Now I use this figure just to show the way in which the Lord deals with his people.

When we first set out Zionward, we start full of SELF—we have no idea what God means to do with us. Our idea of getting to heaven is, by accumulating a treasure of good deeds, heaping up an amount of piety, and living a life whereby we may propitiate God, and secure to our souls a seat in glory. Nature never can pursue any other path; nature knows no other way to heaven, but to climb up by the ladder of good works, and to crane itself up to glory by working at the winch of human merit.

But we read, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord—for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:8, 9.) Our thoughts are, to make ourselves rich; his thoughts are, to make us poor. Our thoughts are, to increase in piety; his thoughts are, to make us sink down into the ruins of self. Our thoughts are, to advance day by day in sanctification and holiness, and continually increase the amount of good works we mean to produce; his thoughts are, to teach us feelingly our helpless and hopeless state, and to strip us of all boasting in the flesh. But we struggle against this humiliating process. Our proud heart rebels against God's dealings with us in this manner; and being ignorant, for the most part, of what the Lord is doing in us by thus stripping us of the fancied treasure we are getting together, our proud, presumptuous, hypocritical heart rises up in perverseness and anger against it.

We do not often see what the Lord is doing with us until some months, perhaps years, after we have been put into the furnace. I am sure I can say so for myself. We certainly do not know, at the time, what the Lord is doing with us, when he is stripping us of our fancied religion. But when we come out of the furnace, and the Lord makes it clear to us how much tin and dross we have lost, we see the reason why we were put there. When we come out of the waters, we are glad we were sunk there, though we may have been half drowned in the process, when we see our filthy rags left at the bottom.

There is a word in the song of Hannah (a song I am very partial to, for it is a sweet epitome of the Lord's dealings with his people) that throws a light upon the text. In reviewing God's dealings with her, that gracious woman says, "The Lord kills, and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and brings up. The Lord makes poor, and makes rich; he brings low, and lifts up." (1 Sam. 2:6, 7.) What a wise and well-taught woman Hannah was! She knew both sides of the question. She was not for liberty without bondage, pardon without guilt, mercy without misery, salvation without condemnation, the riches of Christ without the poverty of the creature. She (as we find 1 Sam. 1) had passed through an experience that had taught her better things. She had poured out her soul before the Lord in groans and cries, and he had manifested his mercy to her conscience. And thus she had learned both sides of the question. She had known black, as well as white; darkness, as well as light; sorrow, as well as joy; stripping, as well as clothing; humbling, as well as raising; a furnace to pass through, as well as coming out like tried gold; floods of water to wade in, as well as to stand upon the bank blessing and praising the Lord. That gracious and wise woman, speaking by divine inspiration, has left this sentence upon record; and there it stands as a bulwark against all those who say, "That a man can know Christ and salvation without any stripping and emptying process;" "the Lord makes poor, and makes rich."

Now Hannah must have had an experimental meaning in these words. She had no temporal necessities; her husband Elkanah was not a poor man; his coming up to Shiloh yearly, with his wives and children, shows that he could afford to travel. And we read, that "he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters portions; but to Hannah he gave a worthy (or "double") portion." We hear only of her 'soul trouble'; therefore, when she said, "The Lord makes poor," she must have had reference to the spiritual dealings of God with her soul. Taking, then, these words of Hannah as throwing light upon what Paul says here, "having nothing," we see that the Apostle means spiritual poverty and nothingness.

The Lord makes poor by taking away fancied riches. To use a figure, (and sometimes figures throw light upon truth,) a man may have invested all his property in a bank. He may get up in the morning, and please himself with thinking what a wealthy man he is; but before the hour of noon tidings come that the bank is broken; that, like many banks, it has been nothing but a swindling company; and that he is completely ruined. Before the tidings came, he thought himself rich; and yet all the time his wealth was but fancied, only a bubble. While he was counting and calculating on the wealth which he thought so securely invested, it had all been swindled away months and years ago; and he finds himself in the deepest poverty, when he fancied himself abounding in riches.

So spiritually, how many people think they are sure to go to heaven; their hope is firm and steadfast; they never doubt their faith; they have no exercises of mind, no trials, no desponding seasons, no harassing temptations, no fiery darts from Satan; and they are quite confident that they are safe for eternity. But unless God the Spirit has revealed salvation with power in their conscience, their hope stands upon a slippery foundation. It will not do to take the Scriptures, and get your religion out of them, unless God seals mercy and pardon with power upon your conscience. Like the man whose money was all in the swindling bubble bank, you may fancy yourself rich when you are really a bankrupt, and dream of wealth in the midst of poverty. You may resemble the man of whom we read (Isa. 29:8), "It shall be even as when a hungry man dreams, and, behold, he eats; but he awakens, and his soul is empty; or, as when a thirsty man dreams, and behold he drinks; but he awakens, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul has appetite." He dreams in the night, that he is sitting down to a banquet; but the pangs of hunger convince him to the contrary in the morning.

So a man may dream and delude himself by thinking how much religion he possesses; but when the Lord begins to show him what vital godliness really is, and convinces him that all saving faith stands, not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God; and that he has not a grain, nor an atom, but what the Spirit works in the heart, he sinks down into the depths of soul poverty. Grace makes a man's heart honest in the fear of the Lord; and therefore when he weighs up his religion in the "balances of the sanctuary," unless he feels that faith, hope, and love have been powerfully wrought in his conscience, he begins to find how much of his confidence stands in the flesh, and how much that he fancied to be a safe foundation for eternity was built upon nothing else but delusion or fleshly excitement.

Now it is from feeling this, and experiencing a measure of the stripping hand of God in the conscience (and I have known what it is to roll upon my bed in trouble while being stripped of my false religion, though I believe that the root of the matter was in my soul at the time), that the Lord drives his people out of the refuges of lies in which many a professor hides his deluded head. For instance, there is–

1. Our own RIGHTEOUSNESS, that Babel by which we would gladly climb up into heaven, and escape the rising waters of the flood; that proud tower must be leveled, and fall into complete ruin. The Lord, by bringing the law in its purity and spirituality into the conscience, discovers to us what sin is, and thus opens up the depravity of the heart and the vileness of our nature. There are many people who are strongly opposed to hearing anything about sin; they cannot bear to have "corruption," as they call it, even touched upon. But depend upon this, if you never know the malady, you can never prize the remedy. It is not very pleasant to go into a hospital, and look at the sores of the patients there; but what takes the patient there but the very sores which are so disgusting to the eyes of the healthy?

So stout, unwounded professors may say, "This gloating over corruption and the sores of human nature, how disgusting it is!" It is disgusting to a healthy man to look at these sores. But if the man had a wound made in his conscience, and was covered with bruises and putrefying sores, how glad he would be to be admitted into the spiritual hospital; to have Jehovah-rophi, "the Lord my healer," come to his bed-side, and heal him by a touch of his gracious hand, and the application of the balm of his blood to his conscience.

2. So with our own WISDOM. I do not know how it is with you; perhaps the Lord has led you otherwise. But when I set out, what a wonderful stock of wisdom I thought I would get from reading the Scriptures, and good men's books; and I thought, by such helps I could easily understand the truth. But the Lord has to teach us different lessons from this. I have been to the University, have learned languages, studied commentators, and thought to make myself wise by cultivating my natural understanding. I have passed through all those things which are by many considered such wondrous helps; I bought book upon book, and commentator upon commentator. And what did all these helps do for me? They never gave me one grain of true wisdom. I value all these things in their proper place. But there is no greater delusion than to think we can learn the truths of God by the exercise of creature intellect.

When the Lord begins to open up his truth in our conscience, he shows us (and that is the main point I am aiming at) our own folly, and that though we may "know his mysteries" and "have all knowledge," yet, short of his teaching, we know nothing as we ought to know. This is what the Apostle says, (1 Cor. 3:18) "If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise." We thus become fools for Christ's sake; and learning what ignorant besotted wretches we are strips us of our fancied wisdom, and brings us down to our true level. You would not think it, but I assure you it is true; I have, as I told you before, learned languages, studied commentaries, and exercised my mind upon the Scriptures; but I have often felt, that a poor ploughman who only knew how to handle the plough– if the Lord teaches him more deeply by his grace than myself, is a wiser man than I. And the greatest dolt that cannot read a word in a book, and does not know great A from great B, if the Lord but teach him, knows better and deeper the meaning of the word of God and the nature of the kingdom of heaven, than I, or any man, ever could by all our study of God's word distinct from that teaching. When, then, we come to know and feel in our conscience that 'divine teaching' is the only source of all true knowledge, the pride of human wisdom is brought down. And what a mercy it is to be brought there!

3. So again, with respect to our own STRENGTH. How strong we think we are when we set out in the divine life! We do not need God to strengthen us against temptation; we may not dare actually to say so; but we never think of the Lord's keeping us, or of his strength being made perfect in our weakness. We have little idea of being guided and kept continually by him that "our footsteps slip not," and of his power being thus made known. But we go on leaning, as we think, upon the Lord and depending upon him, but in a great measure, in reality, depending upon ourselves. After a time, however, we begin to find 'our' strength fail us; we have no power to stand against the temptations that attack us; our inward slips and falls, and the idolatrous workings of our depraved nature, startle and alarm us. From these things we painfully learn our weakness, and come to that spot where the Apostle was, when Christ said to him, "My strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. 12:9.)

4. So with respect to holiness and inward SANCTIFICATION. There is much talk about holiness. That "without holiness no man shall see the Lord," is most certain; and that there is a holy principle which the Lord communicates to every man to whom he gives a new nature, is most certain also. But how often is mere fleshly holiness mistaken for the inward sanctification of the Spirit! And until we learn painfully that we have no real holiness of nature's growth, and until we are made to know our own vileness and defilement, we never can learn what gospel holiness is. As long as the Lord lets us, we whiten the sepulcher, and make the outside of the cup and platter clean. But when we painfully feel what defiled wretches we are by nature and practice, what vile thoughts fill our mind, what perverseness is working and bubbling up from the bottom of our heart, we cry out with the leper, "Unclean, unclean;" and with Paul, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

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