Becoming Obedient
It's only because it's so familiar to us that we don't
shut our mouths in astonishment when we read it. He who is God in
nature, who is a divine colleague in the "land of the Trinity", becomes
an obedient servant. He took the view that his Godhood wasn't to be
exploited and so he emptied himself and took human nature as his own.
Breathtaking truth!
Then he who ordered mountain ranges around, he who spoke commands to
mighty oceans and flung stars into space the way we throw rice at a
wedding that one, who rolled out the heavens like a man rolling out
carpet, became "obedient". There's something profoundly startling in
that concept. The Hebrew writer says, "Although he was a son, he learned
obedience" (5:8) In spite of his being a son he learned obedience.
There it is, the sense that somehow we might have expected him to be
exempt from obedience and the suffering that taught him obedience.
Satan once tempted him saying (Matthew 4), "Oh come on, if it's true
you're the Son of God you're to be exempt from hunger and obedience." To
this the Master replied, "You're wrong. It's precisely because I am
God's Son that I should not be exempt. I am to suffer and obey." Satan
didn't understand the true nature of the true God. Godhood is not to be
exploited.
And so we hear that he who emptied himself became obedient even to
death on a cross. And why should the Philippians be obedient (2:12)? Why
should they be obedient even when it meant suffering? Because they had
found in Jesus Christ all their motivation and inspiration for living in
the world and with one another (2:1-4).
The cross was not only atoning in nature. It was a call to have the heart of God and live it out before the world.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.