THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST
‘He humbled Himself.’
Php_2:8
Let me draw your attention to one or two points in the ‘humiliation’ of Christ.
I. It was all done, in the full sense, all along, that He was God’s child.—With the exception of a moment or two, He never lost the fullest conviction that His Father loved Him. It was part of Christ’s ‘humiliation’ (it was only one interruption—if it were an interruption—and that but for a moment) to doubt that He was God’s own dear Son! And you will never be really ‘humble’ until you feel, and are quite sure, that God loves you. It is no humility to doubt that. That abases God, not you.
II. Christ ‘humbled Himself’ to God before He ‘humbled Himself’ to man: the beginning of ‘humiliation’ was the consent in heaven to the Father’s will. It may be, at this moment, there is some providence which you find it very difficult to accept and to bear ‘humbly.’ Do not try first to ‘humble’ yourself to it, but go and ‘humble’ yourself to the God of the providence.
III. Christ’s ‘humility’ never paraded itself.—It never talked of itself. Once or twice He said to this effect: ‘I am among you as he that serveth.’ But that was all. Never show you are ‘humbling’ yourself. Let others discover it; but do you never exhibit it. It loses all its grace and beauty if it is once seen to be stooping. Not only the act, but the ‘humility’ which hides the act. It must hide itself from going to be proclaimed.
IV. The great ‘humiliation’ of Christ was sin.—He was perfectly and unutterably sinless. He was the immaculate Lamb of God. He could not sin. But He bore sin. He represented sin. He was treated as sin. He was the substitute for sin. ‘He was made sin for us.’ The most ‘humbling’ thing in all the world is sin, when it is felt to be sin. Pray that your sins may all turn into abasements.
V. The ‘humility’ of Jesus was always clothing itself in acts of kindness.—It is not humility without that.