A King Like This - Part 2

Last time we answered two very important questions: “What does the Incarnation mean for Jesus?” and “What does the Incarnation mean for us?”

What does this mean for Him?

Jesus, who had come to earth as God and King, put on a body. He was God, but He restricted the independent use of His deity, His divinity, His omnipotence, His omnipresence and His omniscience so that He could put on and confine Himself to a frail human body in order to one day do His redemptive work on a cruel rugged cross.

But He didn’t put on the flesh of a fully grown and matured human being, He put on the flesh of a weak, very much dependent embryo who would grow in the womb of a woman named Mary, who would one day give birth to Him and lay Him in a farm animal feeding trough that served as a crib.

Last time we learned that Jesus not only took upon Himself a body of flesh, He entered into our suffering. He suffered by experiencing all the spiritual, emotional and physical limitations of flesh—

Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted just as we are, yet without sin.”

Lastly, we saw last time that not only did King Jesus come into this world in order to enter into our suffering, He entered into this world to suffer for us.

1 Peter 3:18 says, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”

He came into this world to suffer for sins, our sins! The holy Son of God, who was from all eternity one with the Father, was separated from the Father at Calvary. In the Gospel of Matthew 27:46, the author records these words, “And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”

God turned His back on His Son when Jesus was on the cross because He could not look upon sin, especially the sin that was now being laid on His own Son.

What does coming in the flesh mean for King Jesus? It means the Creator of the Universe taking upon Himself the limitations of a human body. It means entering into our suffering. It means suffering for the sins of those who would one day believe on Him.

What does it mean for us?

C. S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity wrote, “The Son of God became man to enable men to become the sons of God.”

King Jesus, God the Son, would leave the glory of heaven and take on flesh and enter into our suffering and die on the cross for our sins. He would be led to the cross for our forgiveness.

Romans 4:25 says, “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

What does this mean for the believer? The follower of Jesus Christ is a recipient of all the graces and the blessings of salvation. Last time we quickly mentioned 53 blessings that come when we trust Christ for salvation.

Today we are going to delve a little deeper into what the Incarnation meant for Jesus. We are going to look at a section of Scripture that examines the humility demonstrated by God the Son when it came to His becoming human.

Kenosis (Self-emptying/self-limiting of Jesus)

As Jesus came to earth as a baby, destined to grow up and be the Lamb of God to be sacrificed for the sins of the world, He voluntarily limited the use of His divine attributes.

Jesus came to this earth as God but he surrendered the involuntary use of His divine prerogative to the will of God the Father. The Apostle Paul gives his readers a description of this process in Philippians chapter 2.

In this chapter Paul begins by exhorting Christians to have the mind of Christ.

(Phil 2:1 NASB) If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,

Here Paul appears and asks four rhetorical questions. One modern paraphrase (GW) presents those questions as follows:

So then, as Christians, do you have any encouragement? Do you have any comfort from love? Do you have any spiritual relationships? Do you have any sympathy and compassion?

But there are Greek scholars that tell us that the first class conditional in the Greek assumes the condition to be a reality. As a result, many translators translate the word “if” at the beginning of each of these statements to the word “since.” Making Paul say, “Since Christ encourages you, and since His love comforts you. And since God's Spirit unites you, and since you are concerned for others….”