From the silence to Smyrna, just one word, one gleam of light, is given: “But thou art rich.” It is as though He bent over them and whispered the great truth. Smyrna counts thee poor. I count thee rich. The blasphemy of the Jews and the persecution of pagans have robbed thee of everything, but thou hast lost nothing. “I know thy poverty (but thou art rich).”
The words recall to our mind the Lord’s conception of riches as revealed in His parable concerning the rich fool. The farmer said to himself, “I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years.” As though a soul could be fed with goods! At the close of the parable Jesus said, “So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Again one calls to mind the word of James, the practical, far-seeing apostle. “Did not God choose them that are poor as to the world, rich in faith?” So the world might take everything from you, but you are rich in faith, in the principle that possesses the unseen and imperishable things.
Paul’s conception of his own position harmonizes with the Lord’s estimate of Smyrna. “As poor”–so poor that he had to make tents to live, so poor that when someone is coming to see him, he has to ask them to bring that old cloak to protect him from the cold, and to keep him warm–“yet making many rich”–so rich that he is able to minister through tent-making without cost, so rich that he is more anxious about the parchments than about the cloak: “especially the parchments.” “As having nothing and yet possessing all things.” “I know thy poverty,” says Christ, you are poor, you have nothing, but you are rich, enriching others, possessing all things.
All this is intensely interesting, but we have not yet touched the deepest note of exposition. Read again the old familiar words concerning the Master from the writings of Paul. “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 become rich.” The words used are exactly the same for “rich” and for “poverty.” “He became poor,” “I know thy poverty.” “He was rich,” “but thou art rich.” “I know, I know your poverty. I have been poor with the actual poverty of beggary, but you are rich, for through that poverty of Mine, you have entered into that wealth of Mine, and even in the midst of all your poverty, you possess the abiding wealth. I know your poverty, for I have shared it. I know your wealth, for I have given it.”
It is well to remember that the word “rich” in all these cases is the actual word which we use of the world’s wealth. It is the root word from which we derive our word plutocrat. According to Christ then, wealth is enrichment of character, not possession of gold. He said in effect to these suffering people in Smyrna, You are the poorest people in Smyrna. Yet you are the plutocrats of Smyrna. Others have the wealth of the world, the fullness of material things, but you have the true fullness.
I love to think of this estimate of Christ, and to remember that the saints of God are the true aristocrats and plutocrats of every age. An aristocrat is a man of best strength. A plutocrat is a full man. The best strength of the nation is ever to be found in the saints of Christ. The true fullness of the nation is to be reckoned by the number of its men and women who are living in fellowship with God. The riches of the saints are the riches that abide. The things the Christians of Smyrna had lost, they must have left behind them ere long, when they had passed from the stage of earth. The things that they possessed became theirs in fullest measure only through that passing. True wealth is the wealth that never tarnishes, never decays, never fades. Oh, glorious parenthesis of Jesus–a great silence of commendation, and a parenthesis of approbation.