Christ's humiliation and exaltation #1

Well, you know, what's interesting is when I lay out the schedule, you know, this series of verses starting from Philippians 5 through 11 is considered by some the most important verses in Philippians. And I actually didn't realize in the time, I just thought they were fabulous verses. So I actually kind of spread it out across. So we actually have three lessons that are on basically 5 through 11. And there's going to be some overlap between what was taught last week and this week and then this week and next week. So they're really wonderful verses. So could I get someone to read, I wouldn't mind going back to the first of the chapter, read 1 through 11 for us, and Philippians chapter 2.

If therefore there is any encouragement Christ, if there be any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same life, united in spirit and intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than themselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of man, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Yeah, Gail, there's actually handouts in the back there. I'm sorry I didn't put them in there. Okay, so today we're going to focus, actually we're going to focus on a little bit of 7 and 8 and 9, and then next week we're going to focus more on 10 and 11. So, this passage is really kind of wonderful. There's so many neat things about this, so much about the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. I thought Jim did a good job last week when he did his section. So, I kind of wanted to backtrack just for a little bit and kind of look at this section.

If you look at it in the original language, you can kind of pull out some key things. What's in red is sort of the subject. There's like, in this section, five through eight, Christ Jesus is the subject and there's like three main verbs, did not regard, empty, himself and humble himself. So I like to kind of use that as a as a way to kind of go through, especially seven and eight, and kind of use those main verbs. The rest of the things are modifying those verbs. So the subject is Christ Jesus.

Do not regard equality. we've got a thing to be grasped and Jim went over that quite a bit last week and then but he emptied himself and then there's kind of two modifiers on that and then being found in the appearance of a man he humbled himself and it's actually two modifiers there and then the last one kind of Based upon that, God highly exalted him and bestowed upon him a name which is above every name. So I kind of divided this up like this. Christ Jesus, which is a subject, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. Anyone remember last week anything that was, we talked about last week about that? Actually, let me just get the modified.

Existing in the form of God, What we're going to find here in this section is that it's going to make several statements about the word Jesus. It's going to tell us that he's both God and man. And the way it's phrased is it says he existed in the form of God. And the idea is there that he He continually exists. In the present tense, He continually exists in the form of God. Or you could say, He eternally exists in the form of God. But then we're going to find that He came in the form of a man.

And at first that seems kind of almost contradictory. How can He be? And it is, you know, incredible thing. Our minds can't quite grasp that. And as I went through that, and we're going to get a little more detail on that, it is pretty astounding that the God of the universe is able to accomplish that. But you know, nothing is impossible with God. But it is just amazing. He exists in the form of God, but he did not cling on, he did not Grab wanted to hold on to that. He had a mission in mind He had a mission for the salvation of the world and that mission was set in eternity past so So it's wonderful.

So now let's just kind of go on the next kind of phrase or clause here is that Christ emptied himself and What's neat is if you look in the original language, you can kind of see how this is the main verb He emptied himself. We're going to look at that and And two things came out of the empty, taking the form of a bond-servant, and then two, having been born in the likeness of flesh. So two things flow out of emptying himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and having been born in the likeness of flesh.

And Jim went over this, and we're going to kind of touch on that again a little bit. And then kind of the new one here is that Christ humbled himself. And there's two aspects to that. The first one that, having been found in the appearance as a man, and then lastly, having become obedient unto death, that is death on a cross.

And I kind of changed a little bit different translation here than what I have in the further. We'll talk about that a little bit. There's some interesting words here. So this is kind of like an outline for actually it's six through eight. with the main verbs in blue underlined, and with the things that modify that main verb.

So we're going to go through the bottom two, Christ's incarnation as a man, and we're going to look at those and say, what does it tell us? What does it mean if to himself? Well, I think the two modifiers kind of explain that. He took the form of a bondservant. having been born in the likeness of men. And then what does humble himself mean? He was found in the appearance as a man and became obedient to death, to death on a cross.

So that was kind of a good way to kind of outline this, if you will. So we're going to kind of step through, repeat a little bit of what Jim did last week, but hopefully there'll be some things to think about here. So any questions or thoughts before we... And then actually verse 9 we're going to do is kind of the exaltation. Scripture has kind of an interesting pattern.

When a person, including God, humbles himself, the natural response is that God the Father exalts him. That's true of the Lord Jesus, certainly we're going to see that. But I found passages about Paul. Paul talks about that, how when he humbled himself, God exalted him. It's almost like a cause and effect. And I guess I knew that, but I hadn't thought about it much.

But I thought it was kind of cool that, you know, as I think Jim pointed out, humility isn't necessarily considered a virtue. In our day and age, humility isn't, you know, the president of the candidate doesn't get bonus points for being humble. In fact, he probably gets negative points for being humble. So our society has a low view of humility. But God has a very high view of it.

OK. Excuse me. Yeah, could you give me some water? Yes, sure. First of all, he emptied himself, taking the form of bondservant and being made in the likeness of men. So from last week, what's the definition of emptied? Anybody remember? Can you tell me what it doesn't mean? Let's start with that end. What doesn't it mean? It doesn't mean to fill up.

Well, it's obvious. We know from scripture, just looking at a vast amount of scripture, we know that God does not change. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. When this says empty, it can't mean that God somehow ceases to be God. Otherwise, we have to throw out half our Bible. I mean, there's just so much information about God being unchangeable. He's the alpha and the omega. So this word has to mean, and it does mean something different than divest him himself of deity.

So take a look. Actually, let me go ahead and before I do that. Thank you, Maura. Oh, that's right. Jim talked about how the form... We're going to get to that. Actually, I went ahead a little bit. Let me go back. Let's just kind of stay with emptied for a second. We're going to get to form. Form is very important.

That's one of the modifiers of taking the form of a bondservant modifies emptying himself. So we're going to look at that in just a second. Basically, some have said, to empty is to divest oneself of the rightful dignity by descending to an inferior condition to abase oneself. The emptying spoken of refers to the setting aside of the prerogative of his deity.

And I read an example about the Queen of England. And they probably give an example. Imagine if she dressed in rags and went around begging for her food. And she lived that way. Even though she was a queen, she had everything. And so in a sense, that's She's still the Queen of England, but she's acting in a way contrary to that. She hasn't lost her queenship, she's still the Queen of England. It may not be the best example, but it gives you kind of the idea.

And then what I found, you start looking through Scripture and you'll find that, and we'll get into the form of it here in a second, you'll find that Christ many times would make statements about his being a man, and also makes it about him being God.

He would say, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He says, I always do my Father's will. And so you'll see that kind of tension between him talking about who he is as God, but he washed the disciples' feet, which seems he was a slave, a bondservant. So you'll see that tension between the God-man doing both.

Okay, so taking the form of bondservant. So another thing that kind of comes out here, this idea of taking, to take or to lay hold of, this is the idea that, you know, Christ, this wasn't something that he sort of reluctantly became part of. He didn't say, well, you know, this is going to be kind of tough here. I'll do it, but it's just not my first favorite thing. No, he had a zeal for this. He took the form of answer. It was a positive action by him, not something that he was talked into. He agreed in eternity past that he would go to the cross. That was an agreement in eternity past. And all the verbs kind of support that, that this was an action that Christ took of his own volition.

OK, so now we get to this word form. The idea of the word form was a Greek philosophical term for an outward expression of an inward nature. So what we're going to see here, and this word gets a little bit tough, you're going to see that God is able to maintain his form as deity but still take on the form of humanity with the same word.

Some scholars just go crazy. This just blows their circuits. You can't translate this word differently. So what it forces you to say is that he's both God and man. That's what it comes down to. So you say, well, when he was here on earth, Men didn't recognize him as God. I mean, looking at his outward appearance, they could not tell. He had set aside his glory. Now, a transfiguration, he revealed his glory, but he set that aside.

So this word forms a very, morphe, morphi, is very key in this, but it's also very troubling in a sense. So, all right. So let's also, here's kind of a neat verse. It's not used, I think it's only used in three places. twice in the Philippians and then once here in Mark. Let's look at this passage in Mark and see if this helps a little bit. Mark chapter 16 and verse 12. Someone could read that?

After that he appeared in another form unto two of them as they walked and went into the country. So what's interesting is, it says here, he existed in the form of God. and that's eternally. He never ceased from existing in the form of God. And we're going to see here that he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant. Then we have another case on the road to Emmaus there, where he came in another form. So, you've got to say, well, God is able to do that.

And it seems like it violates, you think, well, why can't I see this form? It's an outward expression of an inward truth. That's the definition of that word. So it seems Like I said, you blow your circuits in this one here a little bit. So it's interesting. So hopefully, as we go on, it'll be clear. But that's one of the few other places that that word is used. So now, finishing out the phrase, taking the form of a bondservant. Bondservant was one called doulos, one who gives himself up to the will of another. So this is kind of cool. And there's a couple of places here.

If you look at this word, we see this true in terms of the servants of God, in terms of Paul. Paul is called a bondservant of God. And we see that what's going to happen here, that the Lord Jesus will be a bondservant of God the Father. And he's able to be God and a bondservant of God. And this is the tension here again. You've got the God-man. He's a bondservant. He's taken the form of a bondservant. He became a bondservant to God. And I want to show you some verses here that talk about that bondservant nature.

So let's look at John. One here, before I go, one in Titus here just basically is the one where Paul says, I'm a bondservant of God. I wanted to show you that believers are called bondservants of God, and so is Christ. Let's look at John chapter 12. And these are verses that Jim, I don't think he had time, we didn't actually go over these verses last week, but I thought they were quite good. John 12 and verse 50. John 12 and verse 50. Someone could read that.

And I know that his commandment is life everlasting, is that it? Yes. Whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. I'll just read mine. Therefore, the things I speak, I speak just as the Father told me. So I think this is an example of him being a bondservant. He says, you know, I'm not disconnected from my Father in heaven. I'm on the same page and I only speak the same words that he speaks. So in a sense, he's a bondservant. That's an example of being a bondservant. He's doing what his Lord And it hurts your head a little bit, but here's our Savior as a bondservant.

There's another example of this, too, a couple chapters over in 1431. Very similar kind of deal here. And I can read this one. 1431, John 1431. Let me just go up to 1430 to pick the whole sentence. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, as the Father gave me commandments, even so I do. Arise, let's go from here.

It's just all these verses support him being totally a bondservant, a bondservant of God. He's got his father. And Paul talks about he being a bondservant. So we see, you know, there's so much this duality between our Savior and the believer in him. We have the same, we have his very nature and we have the same attributes. So I thought this is kind of cool. So Roger... Yes, go ahead. I'm sorry, my mind is just kind of...

But Christ would not have any thoughts different from what the Father has in a glorified state, right? Before he came or after he was glorified. So when you say that he emptied himself, does he set aside that decision-making? I'm just talking off the top of my head. I'll let somebody else talk. I don't know if this is an answer, but I was thinking of this gifting himself more as a quick claim. He stopped the claim to what he could claim. That he was deity. Right, right. Hold that thought. Let's just go over it. Hold that thought. I'll try to answer it.

Let's go to Matthew 26.53. And here's kind of the flip side. Christ alludes to who he is here and what power he has. He doesn't exercise it, but he alludes to it. In Matthew 26, and let's look at verse 26, 52 and 53. Can someone read that? Matthew 26, 52 and 53. Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place. For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? I don't know. After reading that now, you could argue it the other way too, I see. But I took it as being, well hey, I got at my disposal, no problem here, I could take care of this totally. But he emptied, he put that aside. But not his deity. He put aside his glory and his power. He said, I'm not going to exercise those as a man. I can see Bob is... But yeah, the miracles.

Yeah, in a limited sense, you're right. So you go back and forth. That's the tension I saw. You go back and forth. You find the cases. Here he is saying things about God and who he is, his relationship with God. Then he talks about, here I am as a bondservant of God. So that goes back and forth. And the conclusion, I think, both are true.

It's almost as if every now and then he wanted, in the circumstance, he wanted people to see that deity. And even at the end when they said, well you could come down off that cross, you don't have to stay there. They'd already seen enough miracles that they were starting to see that he could have that power. But he chose not to. Right. Bob?

Well I think the God-man was portrayed in the miracles and However, the purpose of his coming was in the hands of his Heavenly Father, was it not? This form, the inner man is still God, but in fact his purpose was really directed by the Father, and so therefore everything that related to the ultimate fate of his earthly existence was in God's hands. Yeah, he totally turned, being God, he totally turned it over to his Father. I mean, knowing he was to become sin, for man for all time, ultimately was the covenant that he made with the Heavenly Father from time eternal past, right? And so that task was him emptying himself. And I like your analogy with the Queen, actually. I'm not so much begging for food, but I mean... Well, she got a job. She went out and worked in a tea shop. The Queen stole the Queen, despite the fact she's dressed in rags, right?

I mean, so anyway. I don't know if that helps. Okay, well good, thanks Bob, that's great. Okay, so that's just, there's four, actually four statements we're going to have to kind of wrestle with here. So this is the first one, taking the form of a bondservant. We've got three more to go. Okay, so the next one, this also comes under the empty himself. It's the last part of the verse, being made in the likeness of men. So now we're going to delve into this guy.

And this is kind of cool, being made or actually having been born. I thought this was really, and this is this word ginome, ginomai. Does anybody remember when Hal, this is one of Hal's favorite verbs. I remember a guy by his verbs. Hal just loved it so well and he gave me a love for it too.

Anyway, to come into a new state of existence. He came into a new state of existence, man, basically. He came into a state of existence that was man. And this is a state of existence that he had never been before. And this is the part of the side of the chain, the form thing kind of comes in here. Coming into a new state of existence and being man. And there's a couple of other places where this is used. Let's look in John chapter one and verse 14. This is a pretty familiar verse.

And the word became flesh. And that's actually, that's the word right there. Became is this ginome, ginomai. So the word came into a new form of existence, which was flesh. So this is kind of a, actually a parallel to this, if you will. So this says, having been made in the likeness of men, and men obviously have flesh, in 14 it says here, and the word became flesh. and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." So this became this kind of a really marvelous word, and it's used a lot in scripture.

In Galatians, that's another occurrence of that, and maybe we'll just skip that one for right now. Okay, so now let's look at the word likeness. That which is made like something of resemblance. Okay, so let's look at maybe a parallel. So this says, being made in the likeness of men. So let's look at Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8. Someone could read Romans chapter 8. Let's just read verse 3. I think that would be fine.

For what the law could not do, weak as it was, through the flesh God did sending his own son in likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin he pinned down sin in the flesh. So very similar, about the middle of the verse a very similar phraseology, sending his own son, same word here, in the likeness of sinful flesh. So here we have another statement about the Incarnate Lord Jesus as a man. He's in the likeness of sinful flesh.

But we know without sin. So here's another place where there's all kinds of opportunity here to go off the deep end. You can just go all over the place here. Keep on the straight path and not go off onto So when it says the likeness of men, it means without sin. Without sin, yes. And that's key.

Because people have taken this and said, well, you know, the Lord says you can have a sin nature. And you look at the volume of Scripture and you say, no, that's impossible. If he has that, he can't be my Savior. So, I mean, this is a place where you can go off on a bad rabbit trail. And people do. I said, well, you know, he can't be like me. He said, well, he's got to really identify with me. So he's got to have my saying, no, without sin.

And we're going to see that come up a little bit later on about the kind of death that he died. You know, I'll kind of jump ahead a little bit. You know, did Christ die? I mean, that's right. He obviously died. How am I going to say this? Did man cause Christ to die? No. He willingly gave up his life. So that's another key point you can go off and around a trail or two. Men didn't cause Christ to die.

He purposed to die. any purpose to die as a Savior. And it's the same kind of thing we're going to see again. We've got the tension between God and man. And we answer these questions and hopefully you cover all the bases there. Too bad they didn't recognize that during the Crusades. When they sacked Jerusalem and all that, the Jews killed Christ. I know. Isn't that awful how... What a... I know. It seems like if it's possible to have bad theology, man has done it.

So we've had, under the category of emptying himself, we've had two parts of that. We've had taking the form of a bondservant, and then second, being made in the likeness of men. Now we have two more to go here. Actually, that was Romans 8-3 there. So now we have humbled himself.

So the first one, let's just talk about humble himself for a second here Okay, the word humble Humble of mind is kind of thing like means lowly modest includes the idea of affliction And let's look at second Corinthians 10 1 It says now I myself Paul urge you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ I who am meek and when face to face with you, but toward you when absent. So this word meek is our word here for humble. So Paul talks about that he has a humility. He's humble in a sense.

So what I want to camp on here is that this humility has a result. Let's look at James for a second here. Humility produces a result. I've already kind of let the cat out of the bag on that one, but humility produces a result. James 4.6. Actually, this wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it says, but he gives a greater grace. Therefore, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humility is a wonderful virtue in God's economy. So he humbled himself, and this humbling has a result here. One of the effects of humbling himself, that he was found in the appearance of the man.

So the first question is, what is appearance? And is this word schema, a figure, a fashion? And what we're going to see here, let me just talk about for a second. We'll look at the verse here It's a verse I have this is different. We talked about form and form had the idea that There was an inner truth, but there was no outward Evidence of the main not being outward evidence of that in Christ's case there was occasionally but This word is all about exterior.

It's all about the exterior. So Christ is It says here, he was found in the appearance of man. He looked like a man. He walked like a man and talked like a man. All outward appearances he was a man. So in this set of passages we have verses that talk about his inner nature and his exterior nature. The appearance is the word schema talking about that.

So there's a verse that, and actually incorrect, it's actually, I flipped it around, it's actually 1st Corinthians 7.31. So let's look at that.

1st Corinthians 7.31. And it's actually just the last part of this verse.

And those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it, For the form of this world is passing away. for the fashion of this world. Yes, that's actually better. The problem with this is you think, well, is that the same form as we saw earlier? No, this is fashion. This is the exterior. So we know this world as we see it is passing away, but there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. So that kind of makes sense. The fashion of this world, the schema of this world is passing away. We're going to have a new heaven and a new earth. So I'll just kind of tie it back. This is focused on Christ. He was found in the appearance of the man, his outward being looked like a man.

And that was part of humiliation. Secondly, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. How does the King James read for this last little part? He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. It says the death of the cross. Even the death of the cross. Even the death of the cross. Okay. Alright. So, okay. First, we have our word shows up here again. Ginnomai. Ginnomai. So basically, think about this.

Can God die? This is another mind boggling thing. And God didn't, you know, he was raised again. He just celebrated death like that. But this says, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. And actually, I think New American Standard did a better job here in the fact that it, and here seems to be the point, this is back to my point, did, who caused Christ to die?

Did, you know, Bob? Well, you know, I think, you know, Roger, I, you know, the humbling himself, and we identify with that humility. I think there can be self-afflicted humility in making ourselves look, oh, woe is me, I'm such a terrible person. But the humility that Christ, I think, experienced here is reflected in the second part of the verse. He became a man, an appearance of a man, but the humbling himself was God's all sin of all time for all men. So I think the humility is seeing ourselves as God sees us, as a sinner fortunately saved by grace.

I mean the humility is really Who is God and who are we? We're so unworthy. There is none righteous. No, not one and that that is truly humbling. Yeah Isn't it isn't humility isn't isn't godly humility or? Christian humility isn't that seeing ourselves for who we are exactly and not making ourselves any better or any worse We're told marvelous things about who we are in Christ.

Just incredible things if we discount those we're missing the boat. If we go the other direction and say, oh, I know, I know, whoa, it's me, like you were saying, that misses the boat, too. We need to evaluate ourselves based on what Scripture says. And, you know, Miles, I think, in a couple of the, you know, Hungry Heart series and the Daily Hungry Heart series, he talks about this self-inflicted humility, you know. That's not the way God sees us.

And that's the humility here really very much represents. No, that's good. Now we'll talk about the death here. So he came into a new state of existence. He's going to voluntarily die for the sins of the world. And that concept that God can die just kind of blows your circuits again. It's unfathomable. But he did do that. And he was obedient. Here's one, does God need to learn obedience? Actually, let's look at the Hebrews here. It actually talks about this.

I'm not sure I have an answer for this one. I'm going to let Bob answer this one. I'm going to let you answer this one. I want you to tell me how I'm doing. I'm giving you a hard time. I better be careful. You're giving me a hard time. Okay, Hebrews. Yeah, Bob, can you reinforce Hebrews for me? Okay. You're putting me on the spot.

There is no sign that he learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. So again, we've got this God who humbles himself becomes man, but his obedience is to the eternal covenant. Right. I don't want to be sinned. I mean, but I'm obedient to this covenant, you and I. I mean, and in fact, that obedience is the suffering in the human flesh, as we all do in the flesh, not necessarily the sinful nature, but just being in the physical being. But then secondly, this obedience is to the cross. Right.

And that's why it's this cup to be taken away. I'm going to be separated from you, Lord, you know, for these hours. This is not what I want to be separated from my Father. I kind of think it's like the obedience to God's plan. God's plan and his purpose.

I think that's kind of what's being said here. He knew he had to die and he did not, we see pictures of that we talked about in the garden there, where it seems like maybe he faltered. I'm not sure I can explain that one either. Donna, go ahead. But then going back to these passages, I don't know if this is the right way to say it, but it goes to to the character of our Savior.

I mean, it's mind-boggling, and there's no other God that is like this. No, absolutely not. I mean, you look through all these things and you think, would deity and any other, quote, religion, would it ever subject itself to what Christ did? It never would. It never would do that. Because it holds itself apart. God didn't hold himself apart. And that's what's so marvelous. We have a Savior that cares for us and died on our behalf.

So actually, this is a Weiss translation, which I don't think actually is, having become obedient to the extent of death, even such as death upon a cross. Here's a couple little points about up to the point of death. And this is a point that we just mentioned before. I think why they have up to the point of death, there's a verb here, not a verb, but a preposition that is up to the point or, what's the other, up to the point or as close, it's not, he was obedient, not to death itself, but to God's plans, like we talked about.

So he wasn't, death didn't come and grab him, he voluntarily died. So that's kind of why I think they tried to put up to the point of death to emphasize that, to make sure that we didn't falsely think that death kind of grabbed him. And then the last part I think is exactly what Bob was saying and it shows the humility.

How Christ was humiliated, I guess you'd say. Even death on a cross. It's not just death, it's death on a cross. And it's not even the cross, it's not even exalting his cross. Dying on a cross is foul, it's awful, it's downgrading. Only criminals do that. Here we have the God of the universe dying on a cross for us. So it's even death on a cross.

So I think that's trying to focus on that part. Roger, Schofield refers us to Psalm 46 or 8. I like 8 particularly here because it says, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. And you know, the law was the perfect sacrifice, was it not? I mean, the annual sacrifice was never the perfect. The sacrifice of bulls and goats can never take away the sin of the world, right? In Hebrews, truth too. So here's the law fulfilled. the perfect sacrifice would in fact be one who would do thy will.

And he did it, and he quote, learned obedience by doing his will. Some of those terms you think, can God learn something? He can't, but I think he does it for our benefit. Roger, I don't know what, in that Hebrews passage where it says he learned obedience, I'm not sure what the exact connotation of that word learn is, we're talking about here, it's a choice that Christ made.

He did so willingly. It wasn't inevitable, like, well, he had to do it. I mean, it's inevitable due to his character, I guess. I mean, because of his character, he would not have done anything else. But still, there is this willing act on the part of Christ to place himself on the cross. not just death on the cross, but that separation from God. Which for him, that was the big thing there, that he was going to be separated from the Father, that he was going to take the sin of humanity on him and have to endure that. But I just find that amazing, this willingness, that he delights to do it. It was not something that, well, I guess there's no other way around it, but he had to do it. But so he chose to do it. He learned. It was a decision. It was a willingness to do it.

I think that's what we see all through this. We see his delight, his desire, his motivation to do exactly this, to go through all the humbling and being of lowest state. It's all part of his desire. Okay, so now we see, for this reason, or for this cause, so it seems like, and this is exactly what, as both God and man, scripture describes, as we humble ourselves, as we are obedient to his plan, God has only one response.

And this is incredible. He highly exalted him. And this word is kind of a compound word. It's over or super. It's super exaltation. And this is one of the few places this is used. It might be the wrong place. Go ahead, Wayne. I was just thinking that not only was he obedient to the death, but he's still a man. It was a forever thing. It was going to forever be changed. And we're going to see our Savior in glory. We're going to see him with the marks of the crucifixion.

So that was a decision made that had, like I say, that's incredible. So the father's response to what the son did is that he, and this is either, I don't think I have it, this may be it actually. Yeah, actually this is the only place I think this is used.

There's a root word, just exalt, but this is highly exalt. And what's interesting is you look at these verses in James and in Peter, and it talks about basically humbling, as a believer we humble ourselves and God will exalt us. Both those verses talk about humbling ourselves and God will exalt us. And so I thought, isn't it wonderful, and I've already mentioned this, that our Savior did that, and as we do that, He exalts us. I mean, it's the same picture is there. We have the same benefit as we humble ourselves. And now, as a result of that being highly exalted, we sowed on Him a name. We sowed it from Charis, Grace, to Grant with Favor. So what's the name?

And actually, I thought this would be almost a trivial question. But I'm going to study more next week. So if you look in your Bibles, read down a little farther. So from the context, what do you think the name is? I mean, this is not hard. But people actually have different opinions about this. I don't know.

So I may be missing something. says Jesus I know but that's something well I don't know I'm a little bit more but basically the name you know it says and bestow on him the name which is above every name at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and so on we're going to say that next week but actually some people said well I think the name should be and what they came down on I'll just tell you they came down saying well I think it should be more than Jesus it should be the Lord Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ. So they added more of his quote full name.

But from the context of this passage, it seems like Jesus is the name. I mean, I, but I was amazed. I, I said, what's that? It just can't be Jesus. It's gotta be more than Jesus. I said, okay, I don't know. Well, you'll deal with this next week, but it perhaps leads into the terminus of verse 11, does it not? Yeah, we're going to go through and talk about the whole thing. Excuse me.

Well, I was just thinking, the name Jesus means Savior, and that's what they're going to be bound to, that He's the Savior of the world. Whether they accepted that or not, He is still the Savior. No, I agree. It's interesting. As I was going through here, I just said, wow, a lot of people, you know, I'm looking through, Jesus, and the name's gotta be the Lord Jesus. I said, well, okay. Anyway, interesting. And actually, basically, and the name is above or beyond any other name. And know the name. There's no other name given among men that must be saved.

I like prepositions. Good. Coupere. Right. Anyplace else you find it, it's on behalf of. Okay. And that makes more sense to me. He's already exalted. Right. So his name is on behalf of all names. Okay. Great. Great. Well, thank you. Good. Okay. Right. That's good. Coupere on behalf. That's good. So actually, I did a search just to get this name. I got on a sidetrack there for a while. I did a search on my computer under the name. And it goes through.

Jesus is probably the most frequently. You've got the Lord Jesus. Then you have the Lord Jesus Christ. So his name is referred to either in the Jesus for the shortest and then in a longer form, the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I don't know, in the context it seems like, I'm kind of camping on that, it seems like Jesus makes the most sense.

We'll talk more about it next week, but we're going to cover the last two verses. You know, it's also interesting that the name Jesus, when you hear people from around the world, people may not call him Jesus Christ, but people know absolutely who Jesus is. the name Jesus. Even non-believers, but they may not call him the Christ or Lord, but they know the name. That's also the most offensive name. If you were on some public TV program, you can say God, you can even say Lord maybe. But if you say Jesus, that puts you over the top.

Actually, I had a personal experience, not the best one, but my sister, my mother's death. My mother, she died in Albuquerque in the border up here, so they buried her here locally. My sister came from that time. She was in Albuquerque too. She came up for the funeral. We went to the funeral home in the grave site. We were trying to decide what's on the on the tombstone.

So I had already kind of thought about and prayed about it a bit. And I thought, well, safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's safe in the Lord Jesus Christ. She looked at that and said, can't we make it just safe in the Lord? I said, you don't understand what's happened to mom. She's changed. Unfortunately, my sister isn't a believer. So I convinced her. I held fast to what I wanted to put on there, because I felt that that was good. And she eventually came around, but she didn't want Jesus on there. Safe in the Lord was okay, but safe in the word Jesus was not okay. But that's my point.

Lord could be construed by anyone to be their Lord, whoever that is. But the name of Jesus is very specific. When you think of the state of this earth at the end of the seven years, what it's going to be like when he comes again. They're going to know that name. They are. They are. Just like it says, every knee will bow. Yep, yep. Okay, well next we're going to talk about the last part, our knee bowing.

Well thanks, it was a great class and thanks for your participation. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. We thank you that the name Jesus is above all names, Lord, and we praise you for that. In Christ's name, Amen.