He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
Isaiah 53:2
and no beauty that we should desire him.
Jesus Christ, the all-impressive one was made unimpressive; the majestic one was stripped of majesty. If we were to see a group photo of Jesus and the disciples we likely would not be able to pick out Jesus. What incredible humility.
This is the opposite of us. We tend to flaunt our strengths. We put our very best out there for people to see, and social media is a great example of that. What a juxtaposition between us and Christ. We who should be humble inflate our egos, while Christ who should have been worshipped veiled his glory.
And he did all this so that as Hebrews 2:14 says, Jesus might be made like his brothers in every respect. According to Hebrews, Jesus had to take on flesh and blood to save us who share in flesh and blood. If Jesus didn’t become one of us he could not have lived a perfect life in our place and he couldn’t have been a sufficient scapegoat and sacrifice for our sins. He also took on flesh so that he would be a high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15).
For us he was humbled. To rescue us in love he veiled his glory, suffered, bled, and died. All for us.
Yet, his glory did not stay veiled. His beauty and majesty shone forth on the mount of transfiguration, and when he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven he resumed his heavenly glory which he has known for all eternity. Isaiah says, “He had no form or majesty…” He does now. As J.L. Reynolds pointed out, God has established Christ’s throne and reign through the divinely orchestrated coronation ceremony of the cross. The soldiers placed a crown of thorns on him to mock him, but they were installing him as king. The high priest asked him if he was the Son of God to accuse him but they were swearing him in. The soldiers lifted him up on a cross to kill him, but they were establishing his throne. And of the increase of his government and reign and glory there will be no end.
The heart of Christmas is that Jesus, the Son of God was humbled so we could be with him. 1 Peter 3:18 tells us the purpose of the gospel: “For Christ died for sin, once for all; the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” As much as the incarnation and the cross illuminates God’s glory for us, he didn’t need the help. He was perfectly glorious and content without man’s appreciation for his majesty. The ultimate purpose of the cross was to bring us to God, and he’s done it in the most marvelous manner.
Now, having received this gift, we get to imitate Christ’s humility. As Phil Ryken has pointed out, our ministry as Christians follows the pattern of humiliation and exaltation just like Christ’s ministry. We humble ourselves by sacrificing our time, resources, self-interest, and even pride in order to love others.
Mark Dever reveals how ministry involves humbling ourselves in a very convicting paragraph from his book The Gospel and Personal Evangelism:
We are called to love others. We share the gospel because we love people. And we don’t share the gospel because we don’t love people. Instead, we wrongly fear them. We don’t want to cause awkwardness. We want their respect, and after all, we figure, if we try to share the gospel with them, we’ll look foolish! And so we are quiet. We protect our pride at the cost of their souls. In the name of not wanting to look weird, we are content to be complicit in their being lost. As one friend said, “I don’t want to be the stereotypical Christian on a plane.”
Sharing the gospel with others, discipling others, and serving others means humbling ourselves; it means sacrifice. But this shows Christ to be worth treasuring! JC Ryle wrote, “There is a common, worldly, kind of Christianity in this day, which many have, and think they have enough–a cheap Christianity which offends nobody, and requires no sacrifice–which costs nothing, and is worth nothing.”
When we humble ourselves and suffer in order to tell others the gospel or obey God, we reveal Jesus to be the pearl of great price that he is. People will see our sacrifice and wonder what is so great about Jesus that we would go through all that for him.
But Jesus isn’t just the reason we should humble ourselves. He also gives us the power to humble ourselves.
When we see Jesus veiling his glory for us we will be filled up with his love that no sacrifice will seem too great. Jesus was humiliated for us. As one hymn puts it, “He fights for breath, he fights for me, loosing sinners from the claims of hell.” See Jesus fighting for breath for your sake. See him laying his glory aside to take on flesh, wrapping a towel around himself as a servant so he can wash your sins away. “Mild he lay his glory by, born that man no more may die.” This is our great God, and he has loved us more wonderfully than we could have imagined. The more we realize this the more we will gladly lose everything for the sake of others and to bring God glory.
As 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor so that you by his poverty might become rich.” We are rich because of Christ’s poverty. Not even the Biltmore is big enough to fit all the gifts that are ours in Christ. And because he’s made us rich we can humble ourselves to make others rich.
Mike McGregor
Mike McGregor (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary) is Director of College Ministry at First Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. You can follow him on Twitter at @m5mcgregor.
