The Humiliation of Christ

Well, good evening. It's very much of a pleasure to do this topic of the humiliation of Christ in the middle of the week, because it feels like when we're running and going, it's very important for this particular subject to pause and to really understand what we're talking about here. It's almost like it's great to be able to have Isaiah 6:3 being heard and reflecting on that this past Sunday and understanding the majesty and the wonder of who God is, and then at the same time here within the same week, within days of that, be able to dive into the humiliation of Christ. And so understanding first the majesty is extremely important — the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom — before we get into the humiliation of Christ. This is very, very important to be able to understand that first before we jump into the humiliation of Christ. So before we go any further, let me pray again, and with that in mind.

Lord, we want to be able to know You more. We want to know what You did in these 33 years while You were a human, in Your human nature, in Your divine nature, in this unique person of Christ, and what this means and how this applies to our lives today. Give us clarity of mind, help us to walk away here knowing You more and knowing that we desperately need You. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, the last three weeks we have been able to dive into the divine nature of Christ, the human nature of Christ, and then the union of Christ was last week. One thing that is really important from last lesson, the union of Christ — I was telling our family just how unique that is to be able to get that kind of teaching here in this kind of setting. What a tremendous privilege it is to be able to get this kind of teaching. One takeaway that I want to be able to get from that and bring into the rest of these lessons here on the humiliation of Christ is understanding that the divine nature assumed the human nature. Another word for "assumed" is "added." And so we need to avoid the heresies like we've been reviewing these last few weeks — the heresies of dividing the two natures and blending. Those two major heresies when it comes to how do we figure out these two natures, the human and the divine. Dividing and blending are a no-go. We need to avoid that whenever we hear some sort of dividing or language that suggests that kind of thinking. The dividing and the blending we need to avoid.

One thing — whatever we don't cover tonight will be covered next week, because next week we're going to be continuing the theme of the humiliation of Christ. We're going to get into the specifics of the stages of humiliation. As you flip to the back of your sheet you can see that. So for this week we are on lesson six, and whatever we don't cover, we will go into more detail on each of these stages that you may have questions on. Those stages, just real briefly — in case you don't get your questions answered or there's something that you're curious about — it's going to be the incarnation, the maturation, temptation, suffering and death, suffering within the death, and the burial. So in those stages we're going to go into much detail next week as a church. But today we are going to be able to get into the humiliation of Christ.

Today there are so many heresies. One in particular when we think about the humiliation of Christ is what our culture wants to throw in: the "He Gets Us" campaign. And we think about that. That may be something that you've already been thinking about — it's like in the forefront of our minds, it's in the Super Bowl commercials, it's everywhere. And we're talking about the humiliation of Christ. Those images, that music — it all just wants to profane the nature of Christ in that way. And "He Gets Us" — even the phrase "He Gets Us" — is a profane way to suggest that Christ is accepting of our sin and our unholiness. So we need to avoid that kind of belief. And so getting back to understanding, when we think about the humiliation of Christ, two words come to mind: majestic and humble. Majestic and humble. And we're going to kind of get into that as we dive in.

So on the front there, let me fill in the blanks for you as we dive in here for section one. As I was leaving work today and kind of cramming in the last few minutes of reviewing what I prepared — with everything that David Parker gave on the outline — my wife gave some great encouragement: as long as we get the blanks read, we're going to be okay. So we'll try to get the blanks, at least the minimum, and hopefully exceed that a little bit tonight.

So number one: the humiliation of Christ is voluntary submission of the eternal Son to the Father's will to accomplish the salvation of His people. Submission is not an equality, as all three persons of the triune God are equal in nature, attributes, glory, and honor. The three persons have but one will. In God's plan of redemption the Father sends the Son into the world to do the will of God. By His perfect obedience, Christ was the sacrifice to redeem the disobedient and reckon them as worthy before God. So the blanks are: Son, equal, sins, and obedience.

We all good in here? Okay, all right. So this first verse kind of helps us summarize what this means. It's a great verse in John 6:39, where it reads, "This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day." Here we have God the Son doing the will of the Father. He explored the idea of an obedient Son, obeying His Father. You know, all throughout the gospel we see this. It's just tremendous.

And I meant to open up here — open up your Bibles to John chapter one. We're going to be flipping around the Bible, but John chapter one is probably one of the most... I'm going to read a few of these verses here at the beginning of chapter one. John chapter one — I'm going to start reading as you're getting there.

"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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines, not comprehended. There came a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which coming into the world enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and cried out saying, 'This was He of whom I said, He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.' For of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace, and grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him."

That is just a great summary. One thing that's been said about John is that it's simple yet extremely profound, and where we're going to be getting into this is the uniqueness of the person of Christ in the context of humiliation.

And so when we get into this topic, the first point here is in relation to obedience and perfect obedience. Flip over to the back and we'll have a couple other verses. John chapter four, verse 34: "Jesus said to them, 'My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.'" And I just love that — "my food is to do the will of Him who sent Me." Meaning, like, when Jesus was here on earth it nourished Him to be in obedience — very different than if you and I were to strive in our suffering and our pains. For Christ it was food to be obedient, nourishment to obey His Father.

And in John 17:6 through 10, the next verse: "I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You, for I have given to them the words which You have given Me, and they have received them and have known surely that I came forth from You, and they have believed that You sent Me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them."

Here we see just a very precious prayer. It's a very intimate moment in the gospel of John, where Jesus is being very obedient to His Father. When we think about this unity within the Trinity and being obedient to the Father, there is one will in the Trinity, as we say here in section one — that there is a unified will within the Trinity.

I think God has given us marriage to be able to try to understand what this means. When we think about the union within the Trinity — each, like the husband and the wife, as we just went over in Ephesians 5 — each have a role, and they're both very, very important as the Bible has stated. Each role is crucial; not one role is lesser or greater than the other. They're all equal as human beings, just like each person of the Trinity is equal in their divine nature, but they have different roles. And so we see that being played out here with the second person and the first person in the Godhead.

And what a standard to live up to — when you think about a perfect... well, there's no such thing as a perfect marriage, but when you think about how amazing a marriage can be if you follow what God has commanded us to do. It takes — it's almost like a mini miracle when you see it working out great. And then there are times where Rebecca and I will go through some tough times and then come out of it through the grace of God and just shake our heads and say, you know, I don't know how non-Christians make it — because we had to go through those times, but out of the grace of God He has given us those times to be able to come out of it. But in the Trinity this is shown — we see almost the impossibility of this marriage to happen. Even for me to say that, it's like you just feel a big weight right now in the room about marriage. But in the Trinity that should just majestically lift up the name of God when we think about it — it's done perfectly in the Trinity, and all glory and majesty go to Him. For the Son has the same will as they accomplish the same things; they're on the same purpose, the same goal, and the same, but they're carrying out in different roles.

So I think that's a very God-given analogy in marriage, to be able to take it in that way. So the application for this first one — I promise you not every point is going to be this long — the application is: praise Christ for His perfect obedience. Praise Christ for His perfect obedience.

I'll flip over to Revelation chapter five. I love this passage. When we talk about perfect obedience, the one thing that comes to mind — there's a phrase that I just hear and I'm like, I think this is a great phrase for Christ — and it is: "There can be only one." There can be only one. When we think about Revelation chapter five, when the angel says, "Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?" Let's read with me. We're not going to read this whole chapter — I think it's like injustice if we don't read the whole thing — but we're just going to read the first five verses. Revelation chapter five, starting at verse one:

"I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?' And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open it or to look into it. Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, 'Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.'"

And you can put your finger in there and read that later and hear about our Savior being able to reconcile the sin in the world.

Section two here. The humiliation of Christ is the act of the eternal Son by which He gave up His divine glory with the Father to take a servant form. In this act Christ resigned not the possession nor the use, but rather the independent exercise of the divine attributes. It was not possible to give up His divine attributes, for He cannot cease to be God. Christ voluntarily and temporarily gave up His glory, His riches, and His divine form to save sinners.

So when we think about that, I think it's important not to get confused with the word "gave up." He didn't give up as in He laid it off to the side — that gets into this heresy of dividing the two natures — but He added the human nature. In essence, the face of the Son of God was seen in an added human nature, and this is a form as a servant. We as human beings at the time were witnesses where they saw Him, and not in His — He didn't have to be like showing off His glory to the point where you'd be vaporized, as we've seen in Exodus. But He was humiliated in a sense, taking on a servant form.

And so He resigned to exercise divine attributes. One of the analogies I like to think about when I think about this is an expert swordsman. An expert swordsman has the mightiest sword on the battlefield, and it's like Christ is this mighty swordsman — He keeps the sword in the sheath and He doesn't take it out and fight with it. Although He can, He doesn't exercise that divine attribute. He keeps it within Him; He still has the power to be able to do these things. But as Christ was moving through His life from baby to crucifixion, He was in essence not exercising the divine attributes. So He's not pulling out that sword and using it. In that sense He is giving up that divine glory aspect — not the divine attribute — but He's giving up that divine glory.

Here on the front, the verse is 2 Corinthians 8:9: "He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." And so understanding this — He became poor, right — but He didn't put off His divine nature to the side. He became poor in this servant form, and He did that to save sinners, which is what we're understanding there in that last blank.

The application for the second part is: do you have the mind of Christ? Do you have the mind of Christ? When I think about this particular part of the humiliation of Christ and being in servant form, one word comes to mind, and it's the word meekness — strength under control.

Meekness. We see a biblical example of meekness in Numbers 12:3, where it talks about Moses being the most humble or the most meek person on the face of the earth. You think about Moses being educated in Egypt and everything that he did, being raised up in the Pharaoh's family, and then there he is leading a bunch of complainers — and he's being very meek and humble in this form of leadership, as a biblical example for the word meekness.

But this is the challenge for us: do you and I have the mind of Christ? When we have truth, how are we using that truth? Are we using it in a gentle way, or are we blasting it out and in essence causing people to run away? With the mind of Christ we need to be gentle and loving, but still understand that we have the truth and that we don't need to be shying away from that. Strength under control.

With that, flip over to the back, and we're just going to go rapid fire with these verses here. These are just nails driving into this point here for point number two. Philippians — when I first saw this I really thought there was a typo error. I was like, there's no letter to Philip... you know, I don't know if your worksheets say "Philip" — anyway, I was like, oh, this is "Philippians." I always have a preview — P-H-I-L when it comes to Philippians — but anyway, I digress. All right, getting back to meekness and the humiliation of Christ here. Philippians chapter two, verses six through eight:

"Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross."

Galatians 4:4 through 5: "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." Those two verses right there — I heard a couple of years ago, a couple of us were out together, that it was shared as a Christmas passage, Galatians 4:4 through 5. I thought that was a great reference there, "in the fullness of time." That was a great message.

Next one, Romans 1:3 through 4: "Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead." We don't have time, but I hope you're circling or underlining the parts where it's like — He still has His divine attributes, but they're still within His humble form of a servant. You can kind of see those two truths in the same context of scripture here.

Hebrews 2:9: "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone." So that is a challenge for us — to be able to have the mind of Christ. That blank for the application is: His mind. Do you have the mind of Christ?

The third section — okay, in His humiliation the God-man surrendered His divine form in His incarnation to know as an infant and to possess the powers of an infant. Jesus washing the feet of His disciples was symbolic of His taking the form of a servant to purify and cleanse His people. So the blanks are: know, powers, and servant.

So in these two forms that are highlighted here in this part, it kind of helps us zone in on this particular point. The two forms that we see here are a baby and a servant.

And like I said earlier, we need to be very careful not to take away from the majesty and the wonder and the greatness of God when we think about Jesus being a baby. I see this often profaned. There's a movie with Will Ferrell in it where he's praying to baby Jesus and mocking the name of Jesus as he's praying, and it just makes me feel a little enraged when I see that being profaned. And a lot of this — like the world will see that and try to — I mean, we see it all the time with Christmas, right? In the culture that we're in, we're able to see that people just like to put baby Jesus in a box.

And so this is very much a point to be able to understand: it is Christ in majestic humble form, and to understand the majesty of that is extremely important to keep at the forefront of our minds. And one of the reasons why it's so important is to understand that it helps us understand the mission — the mission when He came to save sinners.

As in baby form — He came, born of a woman, came out just like any other human being, developing in that way. And then all throughout His time He was in servant form, all part of His ministry, obeying the Father. He was a servant to His disciples, as we see here in the washing of His disciples' feet. Read with me on the front here, John chapter 13, verse eight: "If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me."

So here we see the criticalness of Him being a servant. It's not just for the sake of being an example; this here is part of the work of Christ, building up righteousness in the account of Christ. As He's being a servant to others, He is building up righteousness for us, and this is what we have our faith in as Christians — that righteousness that He's earning. When He was a baby and when He was a servant and all the things that He did all throughout His life, that's what we have when we talk about having faith in the person and the work of Christ. We have faith in that righteousness. So we need to take it a little bit step further — not just like "What would Jesus do?" in the sense of "I'm going to live like Jesus in that form," but knowing that that's what pleased the Father — in the righteousness that He has. So we have our faith in that righteousness; we have nothing to add to that.

Another way where He was a servant to others is that He became a shepherd. He would often look at a crowd and have compassion on them because they did not have a shepherd, and so He would fill that void.

So the application for this section three is: what will you do to bring others to Christ? What will you do to bring others to Christ?

One thing to think about: one way to bring others to Christ is to be a Christlike example. When we talk about taking on a servant form, yes, it's conforming our life to what Christ did in how He served others, but also speaking the truth as Christ did. This is how people came to believe, and we must believe in Him and what He taught.

Flip over to the back. We have, on number three, Luke two, verse 40: "And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him." And then in Luke 2:52: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men."

So if there's one kind of takeaway on how we bring others to Christ, it's to point to what He did in the Bible. It's like, this is what we have our faith in. Yes, we believe in the death, burial, and resurrection, but the life — the life of Christ and the righteousness that He did from baby all the way to the crucifixion, where He took different humiliated forms — we're going to get into a little bit more. But standing in front of ignorant and weak people and graciously teaching them the truth and being patient with them — all those things that take about — I mean, teachers are very humble people, to be able to take that form and come down. It's almost like baby talk, the way that a divine Creator of the world speaking to a finite human being — this is just incredible work that our Lord did on earth.

Go back to the front, in section four. Let me read this. Christ's humiliation is not inconsistent with His omnipresence. Oh, I just opened up a can right there, didn't I! All right. This is next level stuff here. Are we ready? Are we ready to keep reading? This is big, so I'm going to maybe read this a little slower.

The whole of God is ever present at all times and in every place. As God was in the burning bush yet present everywhere, so the eternal Son of God was united to and present in the man Christ Jesus while filling and governing the universe. So the blanks are: present and universe.

And I would, if you have your Bibles open to John one, I would maybe keep going back to that, because this is just a very important type of chapter — John chapter one — to be able to go back to. If I say anything wrong, John, what — right? I'll just default there. All right.

To continue on for section four: the Logos reigns in heaven in the perpetual consciousness of the Godhead, while as united to humanity in Christ He was subject to ignorance, weakness, suffering, and death. So the three blanks are: present, universe, and united. We good? Okay.

So one of the things to be able to understand here is God is Spirit. This is something that is like unknown in our world other than what is revealed in scripture, and so we must read scripture and believe what is revealed to us through it. Where is the Lord who still reigns? We read in the Psalms — in the 90s, I don't have it written down as far as which psalm it was; I think maybe 91, 93, and 97 — where it talks about the Lord reigning. It's the Lord reigns — He is reigning eternally. So even in this 33-year period the Lord is still reigning. He is still governing the universe, omnipresent, holding things up as the Lord of the universe. But at the same time, in the person of Christ, He is subject to authority. He is subjecting Himself to authorities, socializing with human beings.

He is being, like I said earlier, subject to ignorant, weak people. He's subjecting Himself to the proud — I mean, it's hard for us to be able to stand in front of some people who are not humble. The Pharisees sure did that, and He confronted them. He couldn't pull out that sword and just judge them right there, which He very well could have.

That's why we shouldn't take this lightly — that He kept His divine attributes not exercised during those profane times in His confrontations that are revealed in the Gospels.

On the front here we have a couple verses in section four. Hebrews 1:3: "And upholds all things by the word of His power." And then in Colossians 1:17: "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

The application here: do you trust that Christ is fully present with you? Do you trust that Christ is fully present with you?

Okay, so when we talk about whether you trust that Christ is fully present with you, there are two things that really jump out at me. This is both convicting and comforting.

It is convicting because when you and I sin, Christ is with you. When you think about Him on the cross — yet He is omnipresent throughout all space and throughout all time — it's convicting that that cost He paid there on the cross is paying for the sin that you are committing at that particular time. So that's very convicting when you think about Christ being omnipresent throughout all space and time. So do you receive this forgiveness?

And that's when we kind of get into the comforting aspect of this truth, because of who Christ is and the humiliation that He took on. Here our sins are forgiven — not only just the present sins that we're maybe currently doing, but the past sins and the future sins that we will commit.

So on the back here, in Romans 11:33 and 36: "Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Or who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to him? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to Him be the glory forever. Amen."

Going on to section five. Did everyone get the blanks on the previous one? Okay.

Section five: the humiliation of Christ is the continuous self-chosen state of surrender and self-renunciation which the God-man had entered. Jesus Christ had the power to be, know, and do as God on earth. That His glory was rarely manifested was His obedience to His messianic mission. He came to save His people from their sins. So the blanks are: continuous, power, mission, and save.

This right here is talking about just the dailiness, the continual work that Christ did, where He remained as man — in His eating, His sleeping, His sweating, working hard. Throughout this particular time, this was very much done. He didn't just disappear across the world for a quick vacation, which He very well could have — as a human being, transported to a different part of the world to get a breather and then come back. He absorbed it all; He took it all. He was very obedient to the Father in this. He continued the messianic mission as the God-man. He revealed His deity at specific times for specific purposes, and these revelations of His deity were done in a way that was in compliance with the Father and the Spirit. His works testified — we look at who testified that Jesus was the Son of God in John chapter five, verse 36. It talks about the works; the works testify that He is the Son of God.

Here on the front we have, in section five, Matthew 20:28: "Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

So the application is: do you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Christ? Do you deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Christ? This is a selfless sacrifice, being obedient to Christ, living out the fruit of the Spirit where we have in Galatians 5:22 and 23.

If you flip over to the back, we have on number five, Luke chapter 22, verse 37: "For I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in Me, and He was numbered with the transgressors, for the things concerning Me have an end."

All right, section six. In His humiliation, Christ communicated His divine fullness to His human nature by the Holy Spirit — the blank is Spirit — without mixing or confusing the two natures. The God-man knew, taught, and performed only what the Spirit permitted and directed. The words are "permitted" and "directed." And you have some scripture there too. There's so much scripture in these truths. When permitted, Christ knew, taught, and performed not as the prophets did from without, but by virtue of His own inner divine power.

We see here that Christ did not go rogue. Some people have this Unitarian type of mindset toward God where, yes, they will worship the Son but not so much the Father or the Spirit. They have this idea of the Son of God — "oh, this is the God that I like" — the baby form and the servant form. They'll fall down and worship the humiliated Christ while forgoing the majesty of Christ. But here in this particular way we see that in this form where He communicated graciously, He communicated this in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Christ taught by His own divine power. So what Jesus did when He came here on earth is that He didn't just come and hide out and then just go to the cross. He graciously taught, He explained, He said, "If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father," and He taught and explained that. And He didn't have to, but He was being obedient to what the Father had commanded Him to do.

On the front here we have Matthew 17:2: "And He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light."

So the application for this is: do you walk in step with the Spirit? Do you walk in step with the Spirit? It's very important that — one of the reasons why it's so important to be in church and to be able to study the Bible is that we don't trust our own fallen nature on how to live. We're going to be coerced by the culture; we're going to be profaned by the things that are profane out there. It's so important to be able to study the scripture, be in church with other like-minded people who are aiming and looking at Christ, and to be able to live that out, walk in step with the Spirit.

And so the question, the follow-up question with this is: are you living a holy life? This can be very, very comforting, answering this question. Are you living a holy life? You may be able to take what we say is a five-year test — are you growing? Are you becoming more holy than you were five years ago? Are you growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior for the last five years? If not, run to the cross. Run to the cross. It's very simple — lay it all out before Him, and He will — and 1 John 1:9... okay, where are we at? We're at the front here, and Romans...

Lost my place. Okay, number seven. The humiliation of Christ was His entire earthly ministry from His conception to His crucifixion. His glory was veiled, obscured, and hidden so that it could be fully revealed. The cross of Christ is the greatest revelation of God. Christ's crucifixion reveals the holy God's abhorrence of man's sin. Christ's crucifixion also reveals the holy God's perfect love for sinful humanity.

So we see here this humiliation cycle, from conception to crucifixion, like we've been getting into a little bit earlier, where His glory was hidden and later it was revealed. We see the fuller revelation there at the end of scripture — the actual title is "The Revelation of Jesus Christ," the actual name of the book. People often will put an S on the end — "Revelations" — and think it's just talking about the end times. Yes, and the Revelation of Jesus Christ is this. And so we see that all the way going from Genesis to Revelation — this revelation of Jesus Christ.

And so the cross reveals two things, like what we have here in this point. It reveals God's hatred for man's sin, yet it also reveals God's perfect love for sinful humanity, where He gave His Son to this world and provided salvation to everyone who believes — which we've memorized in Romans 1:16 — and then we were alluding to earlier in Romans 5:8: "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

And the application — this is a very natural application — is: thank God for His amazing grace.

And then the last point: Christ's humiliation culminated in His self-subjection to suffering and death. In Jesus Christ the union of the divine and human natures are so close that the Lawgiver — as Jesus Christ is indeed God made flesh — did He pass unscathed through Gethsemane and Calvary? Because Jesus Christ is God made flesh, He underwent an absolute, infinite suffering.

So the three blanks are: death, law, and infinite. So we think about this — the Lawgiver subjecting Himself to the law. And not only did He subject Himself — He passed the test. He aced it — 100%, full righteousness. He fulfilled the law. Not only that, but He suffered the penalty. It's like the greatest student in the class getting 100 but still having to go to detention for the student who failed the test, you know, if that was the penalty or whatever. I mean, that just doesn't make sense. Where Jesus fulfilled all righteousness, aced the test, and yet He subjects Himself to death and burial — very much humiliated in this way.

On the front here we have Isaiah 53:10: "But Yahweh was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief."

So the application is: let your life reflect Christ's zeal for you. Let your life reflect Christ's zeal for you. This is very encouraging for us as we're in this church, that we look around and we see other people whose lives Christ has changed. When we're together — what an amazing... I mean, it's just unexplainable, to be able to be together and to let your life reflect Christ's zeal for you. The feelings that we have when we're at church together isn't just a feeling, just a whimsical type of feeling. It is a knowledge based on truth that each one of us has been changed by the life of Christ. Those of us who have been regenerated — and the elders have tried to vet as much as possible to have this purity as much as we can here in this church. What a glorious time this is to be together as we honor Christ.

So flip over to the back, and we'll close here with Isaiah 53, verses two through six.

"For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant" — we talk about that when we are referring to Him as like a baby. We're going from baby to servant, conception to crucifixion. Okay, I'll start over and just read the scripture.

"For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

So to God be the glory for the humiliation of Christ. What a majestic humble truth this is to be able to understand. Thank you.