Was Jesus Rich?

I’ve heard many theories about the great wealth of Jesus while he lived on earth – this seems to be a doctrine that’s floating around the church. We know that Jesus had all He needed to carry out His ministry on this earth, but evidence that He lived in lavish, earthly wealth is not found in the Word of God.

Matthew 12 tells the story of Jesus and the disciples walking through fields on the Sabbath, plucking heads of grain to fill their empty stomachs. The Pharisees saw this and were indignant. Had they finally caught Jesus sinning? Was He a law breaker? NO WORK ON THE SABBATH – and picking grain was certainly work. Jesus response to their condemnation was very telling: “Haven’t you heard that David went into the temple and ate the bread off of the altar?”

So David and his band of men, and Jesus and the disciples, had this in common: they had no food and they had no money to buy food. This problem didn’t come up simply because it was the Sabbath - everyone planned ahead to have food on the Sabbath so they wouldn’t have to work on that day to prepare meals. If Jesus had been lax in His Sabbath preparation He would have been sinning and breaking the law. But the law had a special provision in it for those who were poor and hungry – they could glean from the fields on any day and NOT be sinning.

This was how God extended mercy to the poor on earth under the law (Deut. 23:25) – it was His way of giving them provision when they were hungry. We know that Jesus kept the law perfectly, so it would have been ‘illegal’ for Him to gather the grain if He had funds to buy food and He would have ceased to be perfect if He’d been lax in keeping the Sabbath preparations.

Jesus gave up all for us – all of the riches of heaven and earth – He became poor for our benefit! He lived a life of complete sacrifice and dependence on God. How much more I love Him knowing the sacrifices He made in both living and dying.

(Other scriptures on this topic: Matt. 8:20, 17:27, 19, Luke 8:3, Acts 3:6, Php 2:6-8).