MADE RICH THROUGH CHRIST’S POVERTY (PART I)

“Baba Adeboye Feeds His Followers With Doctrinal Excrement”

By Akin Ojumu

Few passages have been more frequently removed from their context and pressed into the service of the prosperity gospel than 2 Corinthians 8:9. This is a Bible passage of choice of the “Name It and Claim It, Blab It and Grab It” bunch.

2 Corinthians 8:9

“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.”

People like Baba Adeboye interpret Paul’s words to mean that Jesus surrendered material wealth so that every Christian might possess material riches. According to this interpretation, financial prosperity is a redemptive entitlement purchased through the atonement.

Hear him in his own words in this video clip:

“One fellow was saying. ‘You must not seek Jesus Christ for wealth; that I want to become a Christian so that I can be rich.’ I said, ‘Of course, we all know that. We seek Jesus Christ for salvation. We seek Jesus Christ so that we can make it to Heaven.’ But then he went ahead and he added…that fellow said… ‘Jesus Christ was a poor man. He loved the poor, so He was born in a manger. He was poor, that’s why He chose to be born by a carpenter.’ And on and on and on. And then he made a mistake by quoting a Bible passage. He said, ‘You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He were rich, He became poor.’ I said, ‘Yes. Go ahead, finish it.’ Because that passage says, ‘That we, though His poverty, might…’ What? ‘…Become rich.’ He didn’t become poor so that we can remain poor. He became poor so that He can take us out of poverty. He was beaten, that we might be healed. He went to hell, so that we won’t go there. Everything He suffered is so that we can we have the opposite. He became poor so that we might become…rich. He didn’t say He became poor so that we might continue to be poor.”

Baba Adeboye’s interpretation of 2 Corinthians 8:9 is so profoundly erroneous that it is difficult to comprehend how such a reading could be sustained by anyone with even a basic grasp of Biblical exegesis. That a man of his stature, displaying such serious deficiencies in scriptural understanding, exercises spiritual authority over hundreds of thousands of people is a sobering reflection of the precarious condition of Christianity—not only in Nigeria, but across the world.

Baba Adeboye’s reading of 2 Corinthians 8:9 is a complete deviation from Paul’s argument in this text. The RCCG GO imports the aberrant theology of temporal health, wealth, and success into a passage whose subject is the grace of Christ, the humiliation of the incarnation, the riches of salvation, and the generosity that grace produces in believers.

Paul is not presenting Christ as the guarantor of earthly affluence. He is presenting Christ as the supreme example and source of self-sacrificing grace. That this is the correct understanding of 2 Corinthians 8:9 is evident when you examine the context.

Second Corinthians chapters 8 and 9 concern a financial collection Paul was organizing for impoverished Christians in Jerusalem. The Corinthian believers had previously expressed their willingness to contribute, but they had failed to complete what they had begun. Paul therefore urged them to demonstrate the sincerity of their love by following through with their promised gift.

To motivate them, Paul first pointed to the Churches of Macedonia. Although the Macedonians were enduring severe affliction and “extreme poverty,” their joy in God overflowed in remarkable generosity. They gave voluntarily, sacrificially, and even beyond what Paul expected. Paul then urged the Corinthians to excel in this same “grace” of giving.

2 Corinthians 8:1-4

“We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints.”

This context is decisive. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 8:9, is not addressing impoverished believers and teaching them how to become financially wealthy. He is addressing Christians who possess resources and calling them to give sacrificially to Christians who are suffering.

The movement of the passage is not, “Christ became poor so that Christians would never be poor.” Rather, it is, “Christ gave Himself for you; therefore, you should willingly give for the good of others.”

Second Corinthians 8:9 is the theological foundation of Paul’s appeal for generosity.

Paul begins, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The word translated “grace” is “charis”. In this context, it carries the sense of graciousness, generosity, beneficence, or a freely given gift. The NLT Bible therefore notes that the expression may be translated as “the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Earlier in the chapter, Paul repeatedly uses the same word family to describe God’s work in producing generosity and the Corinthians’ financial gift to the Jerusalem believers.

Christ’s grace is not merely a sentiment or a kindly disposition. It is grace revealed through action. Jesus demonstrated His generosity by giving Himself.

Paul does not begin with what Christ can give us materially. He begins with what Christ has already given of Himself redemptively. 

Grace moved Christ downward. Grace led Him to surrender privilege, embrace humiliation, enter human weakness, endure suffering, and submit Himself to death. The grace of Christ is therefore fundamentally self-giving and sacrificial.

Hebrews 12:2

“Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

When Paul says that Christ “was rich,” he is not describing Jesus as a wealthy landowner who possessed houses, money, livestock, or earthly estates. The statement reaches back beyond the birth of Jesus to His preexistent glory. Before His incarnation, the Son enjoyed the glory, majesty, fellowship, authority, and blessedness that belonged to Him with the Father.

John 1:1-3

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.”

The grammatical contrast in 2 Corinthians 8:9 is important. Christ is described as already “being rich,” while His poverty is something He voluntarily entered. His poverty had a beginning; His riches preceded His earthly humiliation. 

Early Christians understood Christ “being rich” as referring to His preexistent state. As the second person of the Trinity, Christ is as rich as God is rich. He owns everything, and possesses all power, authority, sovereignty, glory, honor, and majesty.  On the other hand, His poverty is understood, historically, as beginning with the incarnation and encompassing His earthly humiliation, suffering, death, and resurrection. 

Christ’s riches included everything implied by His divine glory: His fellowship with the Father, His heavenly majesty, His authority over creation, the worship of angels, His freedom from suffering, and His rightful enjoyment of divine honor.

The language closely parallels Philippians 2:5-8. 

Philippians 2:5-8

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Here Paul says that Christ, existing in the form of God, did not use His status for His own advantage. Instead, He took the form of a servant, entered human likeness, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death—even death on a cross.

Therefore, the “riches” of 2 Corinthians 8:9 refer primarily to the glory, majesty, and privilege Christ possessed in His preincarnate existence—not to material wealth or earthly possession.

Sadly, Baba Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, fails to grasp this fundamental truth.

To be continued.