The Willing Humiliation and Great Exaltation of the Son

Humility Is Hard

It’s important to confess that we love being exalted and dislike being humbled. None of us enjoys moments when we are proven to be less than others, and we revel in situations where we are elevated. Acclaim, respect, appreciation, power, control, and position are seductive idols for us all. We hate to be embarrassed or shown to be weak. Being humbled is hard for us. Philippians 2 makes it clear that Jesus is not like us:

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. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:5–11)

As the apostle Paul calls the Philippian believers to live a life of humility, he encourages them to have the mind of Christ. Jesus, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit in divine majesty, sovereignty, holiness, and power, willingly humbled himself. Paul assures us that Jesus wasn’t humbled, but rather willingly humbled himself. What did his willing humiliation look like?

He emptied himself.
He took on the form of a servant.
He took on human likeness.
He became obedient, even to death on a cross.

Jesus didn’t come to earth in a display of divine splendor. From the manger to homelessness, mockery, rejection, and public crucifixion, Jesus’s life was a portrait of humility. He came to be not an earthly monarch but a sacrificial Lamb. Our justification and adoption as the children of God rest on the willing humiliation of the Son. We should be his humble and willing children. But, thankfully, our hope rests not on our willingness but on his.

Paul doesn’t stop with Jesus’s willing humiliation; he also points us to Christ’s exaltation. Humble Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father as the reigning King. The final defeat of sin and death and the delivery of the final kingdom of peace and righteousness rest on the exaltation of the Son. There will be a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is, in fact, Lord.

Be thankful for the willing humiliation and great exaltation of the Son. The sacrificial Lamb is now a reigning King. Hallelujah!

This article is adapted from Everyday Gospel Christmas Devotional by Paul David Tripp.

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