Final Considerations
Final Considerations
The incarnation of Christ serves as a caution to us: we must begin with Scripture rather than with some (perhaps) Greek philosophical abstractions about a generic “Unmoved Mover” or “First Cause”; otherwise, we may run the risk of beginning with a deity that more closely resembles that of Greek philosophy or Enlightenment Deism than the Triune God of the Christian faith. Even though there is a rightful place for arguments for God's existence, the discussion must move beyond this point to asking the personalizing question: “If some good, wise, powerful Creator exists, has He made Himself more clearly known, and, if so, how should I respond to Him?” The Scriptures emphatically state that God has revealed Himself in Jesus of Nazareth. This God is not necessarily the kind of God that, say, Plato or Aristotle would expect. Rather, Jesus shows up on the scene doing the sorts of things Yahweh is supposed to do—manifest the presence of Yahweh, bring forgiveness and deliverance from exile, and so forth. He does something unexpected, even though the Old Testament anticipates it: He stoops exceedingly low to identify with us and to rescue us, and in doing so He displays His greatness. Jesus of Nazareth, who said that the one who sees Him sees the Father (John 14:9), invites us to look to Him to see just what kind of God Yahweh is. Jesus' incarnation and crucifixion are profound indicators of what God is like.21
Earlier we looked at the Christ-hymn in Philippians 2, where Paul draws on Isa 45:22–23; 52:13; 53; 57:15—passages that stress how God, though high and lofty and worship-worthy, dwells with the contrite and lowly in spirit. Here I should mention the kenosis theory or “kenotic Christology” (from the Greek word kenōol “empty” in Phil 2:7, where God the Son “emptied Himself [auton ekenōsen]”). This view generally emphasizes the Son of God's temporarily surrendering certain divine attributes such as omniscience or omnipotence between the virginal conception and the resurrection (although since the incarnation, God the Son remains incarnate forever).22 However, I believe that we have embedded in the Old Testament itself themes of God's “self-emptying” or self-humiliation coupled with His exalted status. These themes are brought together and cohere remarkably in the New, particularly in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. In this Christological hymn Paul is saying that the career of the Servant of the Lord—including His suffering, humiliation, death, and exaltation—is the manner in which the sovereignty of the one true God becomes evident to the world. It is precisely in the Servant's humiliation that God's greatness is most clearly revealed to the nations. In contrast to the kenotic theory, Yahweh is humble in His nature. This humility is not simply manifested in the Son of God's self-emptying, but, as I have argued elsewhere,23 it is characteristic of God even apart from Jesus' earthly career.
Having said this, I want to discuss briefly how the New Testament expands on the twin themes of God's humility and exalted status. In John's Gospel, the words and themes of humiliation/suffering and exaltation are actually aligned closely: the Servant of Yahweh is exalted and glorified in and through His humiliation and suffering. John refers back to the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament [LXX]) of the Suffering Servant passage in Isa 52:13 (“Behold, My servant will prosper; He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted” [my translation]). The verbs “lifted up” [Greek verb: hypsoō] and “glorified/exalted” [Greek verb: doxazō]) are brought together in John's Gospel to refer to Jesus' death on the cross. Note the following verses (my emphasis):
As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. (John 3:14)
Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” (John 8:28)
And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:23–24)
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die. (John 12:32–33)
Therefore when [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.” (John 13:31–32)
John is using a double meaning of the verb “lift up”: it is being used both literally (the crucifixion elevated one above the earth [cf. 12:33]) and figuratively: in the humiliation of the crucifixion, we note Jesus' simultaneous elevation to the status of divine sovereignty over the cosmos. The cross is already Jesus' exaltation or glorification.24 So in the incarnation of Christ—particularly the shameful, humiliating crucifixion—we see God's greatest achievement, His supreme moment of glory: God is willing to descend to humiliating death (being physically lifted up on the cross) to display unsurpassable greatness (being spiritually lifted up, being glorified).
In the incarnation, the God-man becomes the perfect Mediator between humankind and God. Indeed, the essence of sin is humans attempting to take the place of God whereas the essence of salvation is God taking the place of man.25