You're listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are an extension of the ministry of the university. Well, welcome back for another episode of the VC Hour. Really excited about this series we're doing, really focusing on Christ and hopefully answering some questions about Him. We're just kind of going question by question. looking at different things about Jesus that the Bible says, and maybe you've wondered about, I hope you have. And we came across today a passage, Philippians chapter 2 verse 8, says that Jesus humbled himself. Jesus humbled himself. I don't know if you've ever wondered to yourself, maybe you've heard someone talk about the humiliation of Christ, and you thought to yourself, what does that mean? What does it mean that Jesus humbled himself? He underwent I hope I can answer that question for you today, and it really ties back a lot to Jesus's humanity. If you missed that episode, you're listening to me on the radio, you can go back vchour.buzzsprout.com. There you can find every single episode we've done so far online for free. You can download for yourself and you can check out that idea that Jesus was human. And of course, if that makes you confused and you think, I thought he was God, well, you could check out the episode about how he's God as well. But here today, we're talking about what they call the humiliation of Christ, or in what sense Jesus humbled himself. And as I mentioned earlier, it really does tie so much into Jesus's humanity. Of course, it assumes that he also was God. It's one of those things that I'm answering this question now because you have to understand in order to humble yourself, you have to first be in a lofty position. So the first way in which Jesus humbled himself is by his incarnation and by his birth. That is, the Bible teaches us that Jesus is God. In fact, he is the second person of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These three are God, one essence and in three persons. And in fact, we're told in John chapter 1 that the Word was made flesh and he dwelt among us. That means he lived with us as a man. It is the Son alone, that is, the Son is the one who came in the flesh. We wouldn't say that the Father came in the flesh, we wouldn't say that the Holy Spirit came in the flesh, but it is the Son who came in the flesh for us. In that sense, Jesus came in the flesh in a way that no other member of the Trinity came in the flesh. that incarnation is directly tied to human sinfulness. Now, I'm not saying that Jesus was sinful. In fact, if Jesus had been sinful, Him coming would have been no help to us at all. Instead, what I'm saying is that Jesus came precisely because we were sinful. We find this in passages like Luke chapter 19 and verse 10, where it says that the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Why did Jesus come? Well, He came because we were a lost people. And without that being lost, I'm not so sure that Jesus would have needed to come. We also find in John 3, verse 16, perhaps the most famous verse. Well, maybe not so much anymore. You may remember our long discussion about, judge not lest you be judged, I think is the most quoted passage of scripture for me anymore. But maybe this one's still number one, I hope it is. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. As Jesus came into the world precisely because God loved the world, and it's for us. In Galatians 4, verse 4, this is what Paul writes. When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. So God sent the Son and sent him the same way that you and I were born, which is by a woman, in the same condition we are in, which is under the law. We'll explore that a bit in a moment. But for the express purpose of redeeming all of us who are also under the law. And by doing that, we have a new and a unique position. Not our natural position, but an adopted position as sons and daughters. Notice here that the sending of the Son into the world, Paul says, is directly connected with who we are. That is, we are sinful people. 1st John chapter 3 verse 8 says the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. I think it's pretty clear there that the works of the devil is referring to sinful behavior. In fact, if you check out that passage you see The works of the devil is explained in detail. There's a number of other passages we could go to, Philippians chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. We've looked at that a bit in previous episodes, so I'll pass over today with just the explanation that it goes into great detail of exactly why Jesus came in the flesh, that is, he came in the incarnation, and it was precisely because we are a people who needed redemption, we needed to be saved. What does it mean that he came in the flesh? What does it mean that he was incarnate? That's what incarnation means. It means to come in the flesh. Well, it means he took on a real human body, a very real human body. I know a lot of people struggle with that, struggle with the idea of Jesus really being man. That's why I did a whole episode on that. I think you can go and see some of those. It will blow your mind, really, it certainly did mine when I went through all of those passages of Scripture, the great detail that the Bible goes into about Jesus' humanity, that he grew in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man. That's something that that kind of development is true of a human being, but God doesn't have to develop like we have to develop, so it's speaking there. obviously of his human nature, that he had a real human body, had to grow, had to mature, and so forth. Not only that, it tells us he was tired, he was weary, that he was hungry. In fact, one of the passages that never ceases to amaze me is the passage that talks about him being hungry and looking for something to eat. and finding a fig tree with no figs on it. And I think, man, is there anything more normal than being a bit hungry and looking around and seeing some kind of fruit tree and hoping there's fruit on it? He was thirsty. He was tired. He needed a break. He needed to be away from other people. He suffered and so forth and so on. We'll talk a bit more details on that. But it's a real body like your body and my body. You get tired. You need to eat. You need to drink. You need to sleep. You need time for yourself, and you need time with others, and Jesus needed all of those things as well. Jesus had a natural birth, even though it was a supernatural conception. So what I mean by that is, of course, that the birth was no doubt a work of the Holy Spirit. It was not, in every sense, His conception was a supernatural conception. It was promised this way in Isaiah 7, verse 14, where it says, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, The virgin will conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Emmanuel. Well, you and I both know, just as the people in the Bible know, that virgins don't conceive and bear children. That's... It's not possible. You can't be a virgin and conceive. That's precisely what virginity is talking about, is the fact that it's not possible for you to conceive. And they would have been just as surprised as anyone else because they knew just as well as anybody else, at least in general terms, where children come from. And so it wasn't a normal thing, they thought. You don't find this claim about other people. but it's true of Jesus, that he was born in very special circumstances. In fact, if you look at the circumstances of his conception, you do find in Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 through 20, that it is the Holy Spirit who's operational in the coming of the Christ. We see it again in Luke 1, verses 34 and 35, the same exact claim is made. So it is true that his conception is supernatural. It wasn't physical. It wasn't the Holy Spirit acting as a human would act, but instead acting supernaturally to bring about Jesus's birth. But in every other way, he's limited as we are limited because his humanity was real. He was born of a real woman. We find in Matthew 1, verse 16, Mary of whom Jesus was born, that is, he was born of Mary. It was reiterated again in Matthew 2, verse 11. They saw the child with Mary as his mother. So no doubt, in fact, it's repeated over and over again. There's no question who Jesus's mom is, it's Mary. In fact, even the people who don't like Jesus very much, like we find in Matthew chapter 13, says, is not his mother called Mary? Mark 6, a very similar, is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary? So whatever else they may have believed about Jesus, even his enemies knew he was born of Mary, who was a real woman, just like you and I are born of real women. Imagine what that means, that Jesus, who is God, came in the flesh and was born of a human woman, a God who needs nothing, who has everything, no limitations, put inside a human body, as it were, and born of a woman, and, you know, all of the things that go along with that. Not only that, not only was he born of a real woman, but he was born in a lowly estate. Consider the scriptures which indicate the condition of his birth, that he was in Bethlehem. That's not the most populated place. It's not the largest, certainly not the most popular. He's not born in a palace. He's not even born in the most famous town in the country that he lives in. And in fact, his country is not the most popular place within the empire in which he lives. Though he does have relations back to King David. He's not born in the most esteemed of places. He's not at the top. In fact, it's quite humble. And if you don't know anything about that, you can always go back to some episodes I did about the birth of Christ. But I think you probably know about that. He had a lowly beginning. so that he didn't come to the greatest and the best, but he was born in a lowly estate. Can you imagine for yourself this Jesus who is the king of glory as we learned in a previous episode? The king of glory born, not even the king of a country, but born a baby and born in a lowly estate. Not only that, but the scriptures tell us that he's born under the law. We have to kind of think about this carefully in order to really respect what it's trying to tell us. But you have to understand that it's contrary to the nature of God to be subject to anything. That is, God himself doesn't have to be subject to anything outside of himself. But instead, we find in Christ that he voluntarily assumed obedience to the law in his humanity for us. Let me unpack that for you just a little bit, and then we'll look at some passages together and what that means for us. You see, God does what's right because it's his nature. It's not because there's an external right and wrong to him. There's no one telling God, not even some sort of objective morality apart from God that says, God, you have to do and you have to be these things. No, God is not subject to anyone, but right is right because it's God's nature, and he does it because it's in accordance with his nature. In fact, we only know it's right because it's his nature. This is really tricky for people today because a lot of people claim that they know what's right, and they're somehow right. The problem is that they think they know what's right in and of itself. They don't know that they don't have any idea what's right if God had not told them or revealed it to them. He does this in a number of ways. We've talked about how he does it in his Word, but he also does it in part through the testimony of nature as well. More questions on that, you can always go to Romans chapter 1 and 2. It makes it really, really explicit for you. You can see it there for yourselves. But the fact is, there is no objective right unless there's a God of rightness. And in fact, that's what we see explicitly that the Bible tells us, that it's God who is good. He is goodness itself, just as he is life, just as he is love, he is goodness itself. We wouldn't know what goodness was, but Jesus, when he came in the flesh, came as a human being, and human beings are not like God. That is, we are subject to the law of God, and in his humanity, he also was born under the law. That can be hard to wrap your mind around and you may wonder, did Jeremiah just get this from a bit of philosophy? But no, I got it directly from the Bible. Paul in Galatians chapter 4 verses 4 and 5 says that Christ was born under the law to redeem those who were under the law. So why would God subject himself in becoming human beings who are subject to the law? He would do it for you and for me in order to be able to redeem us. Christ comes in the flesh, comes under the law so that he can save us because we're under the law. It's a pattern you're going to see time and time again that God redeems us by sending the Son who is like us. Romans chapter 5 verse 19, For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. We see this, that the Son is obedient on our behalf. This last Adam is obedient for us, so that in his obedience we may be credited with his righteousness rather than with our own unrighteousness. We won't look like our father Adam anymore. So Christ comes under that covenant of works to fulfill the terms of the covenant of works. We've talked about this a number of times in the past, but covenant of works is that covenant that God made with Adam, do this and live. He tells him not to eat of the tree, of the garden, of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death. And, of course, he does it and he dies. You have to have personal, perfect, and perpetual, that means forever, obedience. And Adam failed. But Christ comes under the law to fulfill the terms of the covenant of works so that we can be made the righteousness of God in him. It fulfills it for us perfectly. So there's no aspect of the moral law in which Christ fails, but he keeps every single part of it. So Christ came in the flesh. He came born of a woman. He had a real human body. He's born in a lowly estate. He's born under the law. And these are all restrictions common to human beings, but demonstrate how he humbled himself on our behalf. Not only that, but he actually had physical sufferings as well. Physical, mental, even emotional sufferings. One that often people point to is the temptations of Christ, these temptations that Christ underwent, not only the starving of his body, but also the assault, the verbal assault of the devil upon him, the great strain it put upon him that he was not tempted in a Garden of Eden as Adam was, but this second, this better, this last Adam was tempted in a wilderness. not when he was full of food, but when he was full of hunger. And he nevertheless was able to transcend, to rise above and to succeed where Adam had failed. Of course, he was subject to all of the general suffering of human beings due to our real human bodies. I don't know if you ever thought about that, but in the same way that you get a cold or you get the flu, the same way that you stub your toe, you skin your knee when you fall down, and the same way that if someone hits you, You bleed and you bruise and it hurts. Jesus had all of those things as well. I'm sorry, I'm ignorant. I don't know if there was malaria in Jesus' time where he was. I think there's probably a good reason to think there probably was, but if there was, there's every reason to believe if he got bitten by a mosquito, he caught malaria just like you and I will if we get bitten by the wrong mosquito now. Not only that, but we're told he had some mental anguishes. He was sweating great drops of blood. Not only that, but there was multiple times we were told that he had spiritual anguish, that is, he was grieved in his spirit. You may notice what it was exactly that grieved his spirit, and oftentimes it was the oppression of other people. That is, he saw people who were being oppressed and abused, and it grieved him in his spirit. We're told that he was beaten for you and for me. He was struck. Not only that, but he was verbally abused as well. He was spat upon. He had his beard plucked. He was whipped severely, savagely, really, in a way that was meant to be cruel. The whipping was so savage that they had laws that would limit how much you could whip someone because it was very reliably a death sentence if they were carried out too extremely. In fact, your back was laid bare among other things, so much so that you were open to all kinds of infection. So it wasn't just the pain and the loss of skin and the bleeding and the ripping of the muscles to the bone. It was also the subsequent possible infections that would come along as well. Not only that, but he was made for a distance to carry his own cross. until Joseph Arimathea picked it up for him. And then, of course, I think you know that he was nailed to a cross, nails driven through him. And he had to undergo mocking, not only as he was being tortured and assaulted, but also as he was dying. And this is the king of all glory, subject to human suffering, because he had a real human body and felt all of the bits of pain, the physical, the mental, and the emotional pain. Not only that, not only have the suffering, but it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that Jesus died, that God came in the flesh, that he was a real human as you and I are human beings, and that Christ died. The King of glory in the flesh died. Philippians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 says that Christ was obedient to death, even the death on the cross. I don't know if you understand what Paul's trying to say, but crucifixion, that is death by cross, has been a bit sanitized for you and I. What I mean is they kind of take away a bit, truly, how horrible it was. It was a terrible way to die. I know that we now have them on the top of our buildings. In fact, our chapel has one. Some people wear them as crosses around their necks and so forth, as symbols of Christianity. I certainly understand where that comes from, and I in no respect mean to make fun of that. But I will say that the cross originally was a symbol of humiliation, torture, and death. It really was the way when the Roman Empire wanted to show the whole world that you thought you were important, but actually to them you were a powerless, insignificant bug. they would take you and they would crucify you. It was such a horrible and humiliating death, affected for maximum torture, both mental, emotional, and physical anguish, that many times we see in Roman literature that people would use euphemisms. They wouldn't even describe it directly because it was thought of as being too brutal to discuss in certain types of lofty writings. Certainly others were All for it when it came to the enemies of Rome. The enemies of Rome were anybody who kept the wheels of the empire from rolling smoothly. The Romans used crucifixion in order to humiliate you. They would strip you down so that you were naked in front of other people. They would beat you, humiliate you, and then they would drive nails or sometimes tie you to cross posts. The point of this was that it's actually very difficult for you to breathe unless you're able to lift yourself up. in that position, and if you fail to be lifted in that position, you will begin to suffocate internally. And you were not meant to hang for just a few minutes or just even for a few hours, but it is possible at times that people could hang for days without dying. Ultimately, the cause of your death, as I mentioned, is asphyxiation, that is your inability to breathe. Your body would break down over time as you have a very small point, often creating pain, like having a nail driven through it, that you had to push against or pull against. in order to be able to breathe, and as soon as your body was incapable of doing that because of loss of strength, because of the great pain that was involved there, you would internally choke to death. What happens if you fail to do it? Well, sometimes they certainly would stab you, but quite often they would break your limbs. They wouldn't even put you out of your misery. They would let you hang with broken limbs, incapable of pulling yourself back in until you slowly choked to death. Why would they do this? They wanted to make it maximally public that you couldn't do anything. Imagine then you are seeing this Christ who is, as you know, God. And He is at the mercy, it seems, of these sinful, fallen creatures. If you've heard a previous episode of mine, you hear that not only did God create us, but it says that Christ is the one personally who sustains us. So that while his deity was sustaining everything, even the people who are nailing him and mocking him and watching him, who are torturing him, in his humanity, he's suffering from those very same people. A death meant, designed, to show how powerless he is. Almighty God, in some sense, in his humanity subject to the whims of his creation. Can you imagine the humiliation there? Of course, God can't die, and God can't be made to die. And yet Christ, in his humanity, he humbled himself even to death. Not only that, but it says in his death, he was numbered among the transgressors. That's what the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53 says. It wasn't even a noble death in the sense that he wasn't in a lush palace, he wasn't on a soft couch, he wasn't attended to by a number of people, making sure he was as comfortable as possible. But instead, he was hung up with common criminals on either side, and even they began to mock him. Not only that, we're told that he underwent in his death the taking on of the sin of his people. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says that he was made to be sin for us, though he knew no sin. That is, he was perfectly innocent, but he was made sin for us. Can you imagine a perfectly sinless person at once feeling all of the weight of sin, never having felt guilty once in his life for ever having done anything wrong, having the full weight of sin upon him instead. And of course we have his cry, this echoing of the cry from the Psalms, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And his humanity feeling that separation that sin brings between us and the Father. the death of Christ, horrible physically, horrible mentally, emotionally, and of course also spiritually. Not only that, but Jesus underwent burial just as you and I come from the dust. Jesus, though he didn't return to dust because he was only in the grave for three days, he was put into the ground. The psalmist says in Psalm 1610, you will not abandon my soul to Sheol. You probably know that word Sheol just means the place for the dead. In Acts 2 27 31, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ that he was not abandoned to Hades, that is the Greek word for the place of the dead, nor did his flesh see corruption. But he did really die and he was really buried. Not only that, but the tomb wasn't even his own. Can you imagine the king of all glory in the flesh, buried in a borrowed tomb, like us and for us? Not only was he in a burial, but also he did go, as the psalmist says, into the place of the dead. Old Testament word for that is Sheol, and the New Testament word for it is Hades. Not the word for hell, just the general word for the place of the dead. And that is, of course, precisely where Jesus went for you and for me. He suffered the full wrath of God as the penalty for his people. And that is an amazing thing that we really have to come to grips with, that God is the God of all of his people, but he's also a God of holiness. And the way that he made us his people, though we were enemies of his, as Paul tells us in Romans, is that we had to have someone who came to us who was like us, but without sin. And who could that be except God himself come in the flesh? So the humiliation of Christ as it's spoken of in the scriptures is talking about a Christ who took on a real human body through a birth. just as you and I have a natural human birth." Though he had no sinfulness in him, he had a real human body. And that real human body was able to suffer just as we are able to suffer. He suffered in the fact that he was born in a very lowly estate, born not in great palaces, but born instead in a lowly manger. He was born under a law for the first time, subject to a law just as you and I are subject to a law as well. In his life and in his death, he underwent unbelievable anguishes of body and spirit and mind, finally ending up dead and buried among the people who are dead. This is amazing. If you understand who God is and the greatness of God and the wonder of His power and how He is so unlike His creation. He is the Creator and we are the created. It can't help but amaze you that this great God would come in the flesh that the Son would be here among us. And who did he do this for? Well, brothers and sisters, he did that for you and for me. When I think about myself and I think how hard it is to humble myself, how hard it is for me to do something where I think it's lowering my estate, how quickly I get insulted when people don't treat me as I think I ought to be treated. how I want to be seen for what I think is of my value and so forth, how quickly I can be arrogant and prideful because I think better of myself than I ought. And I wonder if you're not a bit like me as well. that you don't also sometimes suffer with a vision of yourself that's a bit too grand. Or perhaps maybe your vision of yourself is quite accurate, but you find yourself constantly fighting to be sure that everybody sees you because you want to be sure that everybody else knows exactly how good you are. Maybe you're a bit like me and you always find ways that can make yourself a bit more comfortable, make life a little bit easier. We have no idea, truly, we have no idea what it's like to be an eternal God with no beginning or end, who transcends time itself, who made all things, sustains all things, and to come in the flesh and dwell among people like you and me. Can you imagine the Creator subjecting Himself to being humiliated by His creation, but not doing it for Himself? but even doing it for them. That's the Christ that you and I have. I hope that makes you think today, and I hope it drives you in your passions, your desires, and yes, even your humility in this coming week. Thanks be to God. On our next episode, we're going to find out what happens after humiliation. Praise be to God, we have a good and godly pattern so we can know exactly what happens after humiliation. I think you're going to enjoy it. Catch me again next week or anytime online, vchour.buzzsprout.com. May the Lord bless you and keep you and cause His face to shine upon you. You've been listening to the Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus of African Bible University. We hope this has been beneficial to your Christian walk and understanding. If it has, you can support the ministry of Radio ABC by going to AfricanBibleColleges.com and clicking on the donate button. Don't forget to let them know it's going to the Uganda station. If you have questions about this or any other episode, please feel free to contact us at vcourofficial at gmail.com. We're also available through Instagram and Twitter as VCHourOfficial. We may answer your question on a future episode. Until next time, may the peace of God and the fellowship of God's people encourage your hearts.