0917. The Cross and Christ
The Cross and Christ
"He * * took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
"And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross.
"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name" (Php_2:7-9).
Our key Scripture is a long one, but it brings before us several distinctive steps well worth our consideration.
1. Christ became in likeness of men. As Gal_4:4 puts it: "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman * * to redeem * *." Heb_2:14 perhaps makes our point even clearer. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil."
What we are seeking to state is this: The Cross meant to Christ the necessity of His becoming flesh. It was because the blood of bulls and of goats could not take away sins, that Christ said when He came into the world "A body hast Thou prepared Me" (Heb_10:5). Therefore Christ came saying, "Lo, I come, to do Thy will, O God;" and therefore are we "sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all" (Heb_10:7, Heb_10:10).
2. Christ humbled Himself. The Cross meant to Christ not only the necessity of becoming a man, but becoming a man "despised and rejected of men." Certainly there was an humbling in His taking flesh upon Himself at all, but there was an unspeakable humbling in the fact that "His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men" (Isa_52:14).
Who can measure the depth of His humiliation? He hid not His face from "shame and spitting" (Isa_50:6). "He despised the shame" (Heb_12:2). How one's heart is stirred when he reads of the base treatment Christ received at Golgotha. Yet the Cross meant all of this to Jesus Christ.
3. Christ was obedient unto death. The Cross meant to Jesus Christ obedience to the will of God even unto death. Christ was God's bond slave. He said, "Mine ears hast Thou bored." Christ went on and on until He cried, "It is finished." In all the things He suffered, He learned obedience. He never wavered. He went as "a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth" (Isa_53:7). The Cross meant all of this to Christ and yet He never turned back.
4. Christ was highly exalted. This is another meaning the Cross held for Christ. Even as He went round and round the cycle of His anguish, as He drank the bitter cup of death to its last dregs, He saw the glory that would follow. He knew that untold myriads would be saved by His sacrifice. He could hear them sing and shout praises unto God and to the Lamb.
Christ looked far beyond the moment of the anguish and pain, far beyond the suffering and the shame; He saw the joy that was set before, saw Himself exceedingly exalted and given a name which Calvary alone could give; saw Himself worshiped and adored and loved by all the redeemed of all ages forevermore.
This is something of what the Cross meant to Christ.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR