2 Corinthians 8:9 - Exposition

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The word "grace," as in 2 Corinthians 8:4 , 2 Corinthians 8:6 , 2 Corinthians 8:7 , here means "gracious beneficence." Though he was rich ( John 16:15 ; Ephesians 3:8 ). Became poor. The aorist implies the concentration of his self-sacrifice in a single act. By his poverty. The word "his" in the Greek implies the greatness of Christ. The word for "poverty" would, in classical Greek, mean "pauperism" or "mendicancy." Dean Stanley (referring to Milman's 'Latin Christianity,' 5. bk. 12. c. 6) points out how large a place this verse occupied in the mediaeval controversies between the moderate and the extreme members of the mendicant orders. William of Ockham and others, taking the word "poverty" in its extremest sense, maintained that the Franciscans ought to possess nothing; but Pope John XXII ., with the Dominicans, took a more rational view of the sense and of the historic facts.