2 CORINTHIANS 9: 8 [GAINING PERSPECTIVE Series]
THE GRACE OF ALL-SUFFICIENCY
[Ephesians 2:20-21 / Matthew 6:33]
Grace giving is a wonderful liberation from things and from circumstances. Instead of things possessing you, you start to possess them. Instead of money and things controlling you, dictating to you your actions, you begin to control money. You develop a new liberty and freedom. The words of our text apply to money matters for they are in the midst of a very earnest appeal to the Corinthian Christians for their financial help. Yet the principle of the text goes far beyond money to the very depths of the Christian life
Notice that our text has three clauses. These clauses create a progressive flow of thought that may be defined as a fountain, a reservoir and a stream. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you," or make you a Fountain, "so that you always have all sufficiency in everything" or make you a Reservoir, and "you may have an abundance for every good deed" or make you a stream that is feed by the Reservoir which originates from the Fountain. The fountain pours into the reservoir, the reservoir over flows so as to feed the stream. God's grace enables us to have all-sufficiency so we can abound in giving. God is able to give us complete sufficiency so that we can abound in every good work (CIM).
I. A FOUNTAIN, 8a.
II. A RESERVOIR, 8b.
III. A STREAM, 8c.
One way God’s approval of the Cheerful giver (7b) finds expression is in the provision of both spiritual and material prosperity caused by His fountain of overflow grace. Let’s back up to verses 6 & 7 to get the context for verse 8. “But this (I say) the one who is sowing sparingly, He will also harvest sparingly, and the one who is sowing upon the bases of blessings, He will also, harvest upon the bases of blessings.” [7] “Just as everyone has purposed by (in his) heart, not (grudgingly) out of sorrow or out of compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”
The uncertainty of life in the ancient world may have caused the Corinthians concern about giving money. God though does not want the uncertainties of life to be a reason to withhold our generosity. God being God is able to provide everything they or we need is the declaration in the first part of verse 8. “And God is able to overflow all grace into you (all) [(so) that in everything at all times you (all) may overflow having sufficiency into every good work.]”
“God is able” is the [frequent] promise of Scripture so that God's people will place their confidence in Him (Rom. 16:25, Eph. 3:20; Jude 24). The Christian should depend upon the fact that God is able. We especially need to be reminded of this when we are called to believe or do something contrary to the natural or worldly thinking. Giving to the natural mind is lessening our store not the way to increase it. To believe giving increases our supply it is necessary to believe in the power, providence and promise of God. God is able to accomplish the paradox that scattering seed increases the supply of [true] seed. When biblical teaching is contrary to our fallen nature's reasoning we need to remember that God is able. [Hodge, Charles. The Geneva Series of Commentaries. I & II Corinthians. 1859, 1974. Banner of Truth. Edinburgh. P. 596.]
The might and power of God is so capable that it is an easy matter for Him to bless in abundant measure every cheerful gift. God is able to give “all grace, all-sufficiency, for all things, for every good work.” Notice that even these staggering universals are not enough but the word abound must be added to reveal some of the jam-packed erupting outpour that can gush from this fullest of fountains. It is all grace and it is abounding or overflowing grace.
Now what does “overflow all grace into you” mean? Grace is a packed word and is used here to sum up a whole truck load of unmerited blessings which come to believers through Jesus Christ. The primary use of Grace in the New Testament indicates the unconditioned, undeserved, spontaneous, eternal stooping, providing, pardoning love of God God is able to make all grace abound toward you. All grace comes from one act of grace, the bestowing of Jesus Christ or if you like the new life through Jesus Christ. [The gift of spiritual life is like the gift of physical life which produces many results. Life gives shine in the eye, color in the cheek, the strength to the arm, flexibility and dexterity to the fingers and swiftness to the feet.] Grace has many sides, many manifested blessings but its source is Jesus Christ. It is like a meteor when it passes into the atmosphere of earth and catches fire and blazes showering out in a multitude of radiant points of light. When we by God's grace receive Jesus Christ it will sparkle out, it will manifest itself in a multiplicity of ways. [MaClaren, Alexander. Expositions of Holy Scriptures. Corinthians, Vol 14. 1978. Baker Book House. Grand Rapids, MI. p. 44]
So grace has many manifestation, yet they all come from the gift of Jesus Christ. The manifestation of grace giving is no different. A gift or favor of this Grace can be spiritual or earthy or both [depending upon the context]. Here the reference is clearly to earthly goods or to the human enabling to give of earthly goods because of a divine grace that enables Christians to give and receive [abundantly]. This grace is the extending of love and divine energy and when received becomes a blessed and beautiful thing in the eternal soul. God's loving hand's bestowment of the grace of giving on the inward man changes the recipient’s life which is then demonstrated by one’s own giving.
God not only gives all grace but gives it aboundingly or overflowingly. He does not give it scantily, like He opens but one finger of His omnipotent hand that is full of gifts so as too let out a little at a time. His hand is opened wide to all who met His conditions. This fountain is always abounding, pouring itself out with God's ceaseless, inexhaustible love, unmerited and free.
Notice though the text says God is able to make, not that God will make. The responsibility for the overflowing is placed directly upon us. There are conditions, and although we may have access to that full fountain, it will not pour on us “all grace abundantly” grace until these conditions are met. Unless we observe these we will not open up God's ability, His potential to give. And how do we do that? We open up God’s hand upon our life by learning to faithfully, hilariously give or sow (vv. 6-7). We re-train our desire by asking God to do what He has promised. As we become cheerful faithful stewards God opens the doors of heaven upon us. As we sow cheerfully and abundantly God smiles down from Heaven and releases His blessing. For God "is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us" (Eph. 3 :20). Beloved, if our supplies are scant when there is a full fountain gushing out we need to reposition our life so that we come in line with God's conditions. The possibilities and provisions of God’s grace are up to individual Churches and Christians to receive. God is not stating here that He will make every giving Christian wealthy in material things but it does mean that the Christian who practices "grace giving" will always have more than he needs when he needs it. [For the Christian life is to overflow in fruit of the Spirit.]
II. A RESERVOIR, (8b).
The second clause in verse 8 gives the result or purpose of receiving the gift of grace giving is so that the giver will always all sufficiency to help in every good work. “So that always having all sufficiency in everything.”
The result of God’s exuberant outpouring of grace is to insure that the reservoir is not only full but overflowing. The striking literal expression here is, “in all things always, all” [ἑν παντί πάντοτε πασαν - panti pantote pasan] or “in everything always all self-sufficiency.” God is able to so enrich you so that you will have in every respect at all times, all kinds of sufficiency. God will give enough and more than enough of worldly goods and gifts so that we can participate in every good work.
The word “self-sufficiency” [αύτάρκειαν could be translated contentment however the context and the qualifier “in all”] indicates a personal competency [& contentment] in everything. So the word sufficiency means adequate resources within (Phil. 4:11) and without. Is divine grace more than sufficient? Undoubtably! Through Jesus Christ we can have the adequacy to meet the demands of life. What Paul wants to make plain is that the good gifts of divine grace will always be proportioned according to our work, and to our sufferings also. We shall have enough and it has been said that enough is as good as a feast. If we have strength to do the day's tasks, and carry the day's crosses, and the day's sorrows, and master the day's temptations, that is as much as we need to wish that we have. And brethren we will get it if we only fulfill the conditions by exercising cheerful faithful stewardship. Then we will find "as your days are so shall be your strength." God does not send His children against impregnable fortresses to be slain in heaps at the gate but He infuses grace's strength to each as is their daily need. The darker the sorrow, the mightier the work, the greater His supply of grace. Always having had, I may be sure that I always shall have.
As frequently as the resources of the cheerful givers are depleted by his generous giving they are replenished by divine grace. This replenishment gives the cheerful giver a “complete self-suffiency” [pasan autotarkeian] as they live in dependancy upon God and His promises.
III. A STREAM (8c).
Ultimately Christians can dispense only what they have received, whether it be material (Acts 14:17) or spiritual (Rom. 5:17). Thus the last clause in verse 8 indicates that the reason every grace abounds is so that believers can abound in every good work “You may have an abundance for every good deed;”
God is able to cause your riches to abound that you may have an abundance for every good work. The intent is that God will give us the abundance so we are able to perform every good work. Through our liberality God is able to cause our resources to abound in every good work. These resources depend upon God but are conditional upon our cheerful faithful stewardship. As we let God's abundance flow through our life to others we enable God to pour out even more into us so that we can be involved in even more good works. He does not simply give so we can be enriched but so that we can abound in enriching others through our good works.
The reason God gives us His grace that result in good works is because good works develop our character and conduct (Phil. 1:6). As the grace of God enriches us morally and spiritually we grow in Christian character and conduct. As we are filled with the fulness of Christ we abound in His good works. Most certainly in our character and conduct we should copy God in the grace of giving. As we do the inexhaustible resources of God's grace make available in Christ that exuberant life which is "always abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58). Let this grace flow from your life and conduct because you have received divine grace. For He who cheerfully sows shall have an abundance with which to sow or give.
In CLOSING
Again I ask “Can a person lose by doing that which pleases God?” God’s grace is always abundant and enriching, it always leads to increase, not decrease, even when it involves parting with one's possessions! For God says, "the consequence of giving is that you have opened the way for God to make all grace abound to you; in all things, at all times, having all sufficiency causing you to abound in every good work."
Do you believe God is able? Will you allow the fountain of God’s grace to flowing into you? Will you become a receptacle, a reservoir so that God can do and provide what His grace so desires to do in you and through you? As you sow bountifully, purposefully and cheerfully you enable God to do what He so desire to do, is so ready to do, and is so able to do. As you have trusted God, have you ever lacked sufficiency to do what He asks? Will you give and let His grace manifest itself in you all-sufficiency and in you every good work?
God wants to touch His world, to reach His world. He wants to make His grace abound in you so that He may touch and reach His world through you. Is He? Can He? God loveth a cheerful giver.... by making all grace abound in him or her.
This passages assures us that God will provide us with enough not only to meet our own needs, but so that we may give also. The New English Bible’s translation of 2 Corinthians 9:8 reads, “Thus you will have ample means in yourselves to meet each and every situation, with enough to spare for every good cause.”
[Money given to the kingdom of God may seem thrown away to the carnal mind, but when given from proper principles, it is seed sown, from which a valuable increase may be expected. ]
Blessed be God for the gift of His enabling grace, which inclines some of His people to give. Blessed be His glorious name for all eternity for Jesus Christ, that inestimable gift of His love, through whom every other good thing, pertaining to life and godliness, are freely given unto us, beyond all expression, measure, or bounds.
