Thursday, December 13, 2018

Victor Paul Furnish on 2 Corinthians 8:9



For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (2 Cor 8:9 NRSV)

Commenting on this important Christological passage, Victor Paul Furnish wrote the following:

It seems to be based on the kind of christological affirmation present in the creedal fragment of 1 Tim 3:16 and in the hymn of Phil 2:6-11. All three texts presume that Christ enjoyed of this doctrine see Schweizer 1960:101-3, and 1959, especially 67-68). Thus, according to the hymn of Phil 2, Christ divested himself of the outward signs of his deity as he assumed human form and gave himself up to death (vv. 6-8; cf. Rom 15:3). Similarly, in the present verse Paul characterizes the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (a phrase familiar from the Christian liturgy . . . ) as his divesting himself of riches become poor. There can be no question here of a reference to the literal poverty of the historical Jesus (correctly, e.g., Craddock 1969:164-65; Seidensticker 1977:95; against Buchanan 1964, who—contrary to his own intention—succeeds in showing only how futile it is to argue for a literal interpretation). Paul is not speaking about the manner of Jesus’ earthly life, but about his incarnation and death as an act of grace. (Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians: A New Translation With Introduction and Commentary [AB 39A; 2d ed.; New York: Doubleday, 1984], 417)