Unfathomable Humility, Unwavering Obedience.

“God tested Abraham and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there’”

Genesis 22:1-2

It is interesting that Abraham didn’t challenge God at all, but fully trusted him and obeyed him when God called him to make such a huge sacrifice.  If you aren’t familiar with the account, later on in verse 11, with Abraham’s arm raised with a knife, about to slaughter his only son, his beloved son, his promised son, God stops him.  God provides the sacrifice himself through a ram in the bushes.  This is one of the most vivid pictures we see in the old testament foreshadowing the sacrifice God will make through Jesus.  God will lead his own son, his only son, his beloved son up a mountain for a sacrifice that will save us all from our sins.

We see not only the obedience of Abraham in these verses in Genesis, but also that of Isaac, who fully trusted in his father and willingly walked up the mountain for the sacrifice.  Consider this with these verses from Philippians:

“Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Philippians 2:6-11

When Jesus came to earth, from the moment he was found in human form, he chose the life of a suffering servant (Isaiah 53:3) over that of an exalted king.  We see that Jesus did not struggle with any identity issues as we tend to as humans, he knew exactly who he was and as such he didn’t need to “grasp” onto that, to cling to it at all costs, but he could lay that aside while he lived a perfect, sinless life on this earth and sacrificed himself to bring us to himself.  

Charles Spurgeon explains it so well; “You and I can have no idea of how high an honor it is to be equal with God. How can we, therefore, measure the descent of Christ, when our highest thoughts cannot comprehend the height from which He came? The depth to which He descended is immeasurably below any point we have ever reached, and the height from which He came is inconceivably above our loftiest thought. Do not, however, forget the glory that Jesus laid aside for a while. Remember that He is very God of very God, and that He dwelt in the highest heaven with His Father. Yet, though He was thus infinitely rich, for our sakes He became poor, that we, through His poverty, might be rich.”