2 Corinthians

2 Corinthians 8:9
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

What exactly does “poor” mean here? At first glance it would seem that He became poor in a material sense. But logically this would seem to imply that he became poor so that we could become materially rich. This wouldn’t make sense unless you like TV evangelists with big hair.

We don’t even know if in fact He was materially poor. He said he didn’t have a place to lay his head in Matthew 8:20 but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s poor in that sense.

Garland says in his commentary on 2 Corinthians that, “Becoming poor refers to his ‘emptying himself’ (Phil 2:6 *; see also Rom 15:3; Heb 12:2) and suggests that this is something he did voluntarily. But how does this make us rich? Christ’s incarnation [embodied in flesh] climaxed in his death, and the principle of interchange–he became poor; we became rich–is the same as in 2 Corinthians 5:21: ‘Jesus gave up his righteousness (becoming ’sin’) in order that believers might become the “righteousness of God.”‘” (Sorry for all those quotation marks.)

Garland quotes C. Lapide:

Christ was made poor that we through His poverty might be rich. He took the form of a servant that we might regain liberty. He descended that we might be exalted. He was tempted that we might overcome. He was despised that He might fill use with glory. He died that we might be saved. He ascended, to draw to Himself those lying prostrate on the ground through sin’s stumblingblock.

*The word “exploited” makes much more sense to me:
Philippians 2:6 NRSV who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,