Howdy!
This week’s Catechism questions are a good fit for the season of the year we are in. Seeing why Christ came to born of Mary in the manger of Bethlehem is vital to remembering that Jesus’s birth is not a schmaltzy time of trinkets and lights, but the beginning of His kingly reign as the God-Man of Psalm 2 ready to smash the mouths of His enemies with His giant rod of iron. We can never leave the Lord in the creche. Christ is not to be domesticated for the personal use of the culture one month a year. As the questions and answers below make clear He has a mission, and as He tells His mother in His first visit to the Temple He is about His Father’s business, and so must we be. This is why studying the catechism plays an important role in our praise and thanksgiving, not only day-by-day, but in every worship service we hold each Sabbath Day of the Year. Let’s go take a look at the Q/A’s for this week:
Q. 27. Wherein Did Christ’s Humiliation Consist?
A. Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.
Q. 28. Wherein Consists Christ’s Exaltation?
A. Christ’s exaltation consists in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into Heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day.
As I noted in the handouts for the kids that they will receive this Lord’s Day (and if you are not getting them to read with your young ones during the week let me know) humiliation is a word that needs some explanation before we move on. We primarily use that term to talk about people making fun of other people. That is not how the Catechism is using it. The way we use it here talks about Christ going from Heaven to the Earth. It is more akin to its sister word “humble”.
Sometimes I don’t think I properly understand how big a deal it is for Jehovah to come out of the Heavens and take on flesh. It’s one of those things we know of and hear about that can become kind of rote.
An of course He did that…
Yet the enormity of it is vital for us to think about. Recall Paul’s words in Philippians 2:5-11:
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 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 bondservant 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. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The catechism is merely explaining further what the Apostle says to the people at Philippi, the same thing the Apostles’ Creed teaches when it says:
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended to hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
Both the catechism and the creed show us that the humiliation and exultation of the Lord Jesus were instrumental in the plan of God to save us from our sins. For Christ to give up His place in the throne room of Jehovah, to live in Galilee and Judea, face all the mocking reviling of apostate sinners, and all the physical pain and anguish of general life, let alone death on a cross is quite a lot to take in. One thing it should immediately do is cause us to praise and worship. Another thing that it must bring out of our hearts is, to use the word again, humility. There is no place for haughtiness in the Christian life. For God has become flesh for our transgressions. He did that.
There is a reason we bring up the Resurrection every Sunday. It’s because it was part of the design of God to place the Sabbath Day in the New Covenant on the First Day of the Week as a set aside time of remembrance of what exactly has taken place in order for those dead in sin to be raised from darkness and into the light of the Lord’s marvelous grace. It’s also worth noting that this is a weekly thing because we need to be constantly reminded of the power and beauty of the gospel. We need to see the exaltation in light of the humiliation. We can easily forget such because we have a tendency to take for granted that we’ve always had this gift. Even those of us saved in adulthood can become like the Israelites of old and get so used to the idea that Jesus would die for me that the gravity of it becomes weightless.
But think about it again.
The Second Person of the Holy Trinity has come, made Mary the mother of God, has become very flesh of very flesh, and had His blood spilled, His body broken, humiliated in from of all mankind and Satan himself, so that you and I may no longer be strangers and aliens to words of promise, but bearers of His very name as sons and daughters of the Living God.
Hallelujah!
There is no other way to say it. Go back up to the beginning of this post and read the catechism questions again. He was not only born in a manger to a poor carpenter and his wife (a low condition), yet also became subject to the law. The one who wrote the law in the first place and gave it to Adam, and then to Moses on the mount, set Himself under it as a Covenant of Works, that in fulfilling it perfectly, keeping every jot and tittle correctly, He might gain for us the righteousness of faith, by which we are cleansed and made right with the Lord.
He who was humiliated for us and because of us, has been exalted, and we in Him, both this today and ever more in the praise of His name.
Make that gift worth it today by resting in the certainty of these truths for eternal life and showing forth the fruit of faith.
Here is a brief word for more on the subject:
https://www.placefortruth.org/blog/humiliation-exaltation-christs-resurrection
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church