The Paradox of Divine Humility

In episode 475 of The Reformed Brotherhood, host Jesse Schwamb explores the profound theological question: "Is God humble?" Through a careful examination of Philippians 2 and the narrative of Pharaoh in Exodus, Jesse unpacks how Christ's incarnation represents the ultimate act of divine humility. This episode reveals how Jesus—fully God and fully man—humbled himself through obedience to the point of death on a cross. As we approach the Christmas season, this timely reflection helps us understand that Christ's humility isn't just a theological concept but the very foundation of our salvation and the magnetic force that draws sinners to him. Jesse connects this humility to Jesus' parables about seeking the lost, showing that God's love manifests through the paradox of the exalted one becoming lowly.

Key Takeaways

• Humility is fundamentally a creaturely virtue that acknowledges God as Lord and responds in obedience.
• Christ's incarnation wasn't a subtraction of divinity but an addition of humanity, allowing him to humble himself.
• Divine humility is displayed in Jesus becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).
• Pride, the opposite of humility, is actively opposed by God throughout Scripture.
• Christ's humility is what draws sinners to him, as seen in the parables of the lost coin, sheep, and son.
• True humility embraces our limitations as creatures and recognizes God's rightful authority.
• Jesus learned obedience through suffering, becoming the perfect high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses.

The Paradox of Divine Humility

Christ's humility represents one of the most astonishing paradoxes in Scripture. As Jesse explains, humility is properly understood as a creaturely virtue—it acknowledges God as Lord and obeys as a servant. For the eternal Son to humble himself, he first had to take on human nature. The incarnation wasn't God ceasing to be God but rather God adding humanity to himself. The divine Son emptied himself "not of divinity as if that were even possible, but of the privilege of not being human, not being a creature, not suffering the bounds and limitations of finitude and the pains and afflictions of the fallen world."

This emptying makes possible Christ's perfect obedience. Since humility means acknowledging God as Lord and obeying as a servant, the Son took "the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men." This allowed Jesus to demonstrate a servant heart with equal passion for God's holiness and his people's purity. Unlike our inconsistent obedience, Jesus' obedience was "an all the way kind of obedience" that persisted through suffering to death on a cross.

The Magnetic Draw of Christ's Humility

One of the most profound insights from the episode is how Christ's humility functions as a magnetic force drawing sinners to him. Jesse notes that in the parables, tax collectors and sinners were drawn not to the Pharisees' teaching but to Jesus himself. They came "almost magnetically" to be in his presence and hear his words. Why would this be?

The answer lies in recognizing that "we all have a master" and "we are all bound to something." The critical question becomes: "How good and kind is your master?" Christ's humility reveals him to be the perfect master—one who does not lord his authority over us but uses it to serve us, even to the point of death. This servant-hearted humility draws people because it demonstrates love in action. When Jesus humbles himself to seek the lost, he reveals that the gospel isn't about making "naughty people good, but to make dead people alive and alive in him so that their life is hidden within him."

Memorable Quotes

"To humble oneself is to acknowledge God as Lord and then to obey as servant. In order to do so, then the Son had to take this form of a servant being born in the likeness of men."

"Christ's obedience was an all the way kind of obedience, a true obedience. It wasn't part and parcel, it wasn't peace wise, it didn't be for a part of time, as long as it was comfortable and then try something else."

"To humble oneself is not to be less than human. It rather is pride that is our cancer. It's pride that corrodes our true dignity. To humble ourselves is to come even ever closer, step by step to the bliss, I think, and the full flourishing for which we're made."

Full Transcript

[00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: So how did Jesus humble himself and this we could spend loved ones in eternity and likely will. Talking about how did he do this By becoming obedient. It wasn't even mean to. Here is the one who is the God man. Truly God. Truly man. To humble oneself is to acknowledge God as Lord and then to obey as servant in order to do so.

Then the son had to take this form of a servant being born in a likeness of men. Again, this is so rich because I think without understanding the servant heart of Christ, where there is a power and a passion in Christ for the holiness of God that is at the same time equaled with the passion for the purity and the holiness of his people.

Welcome to episode 475 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse, and this is the podcast where all of mankind is on the naughty list. Hey, brothers and sisters, I am solo hosting once again on this episode, but I don't want you to worry. Tony will be back. Tony is alive and well. He is out in the wild doing his thing.

Actually, this is probably the time of year where Tony and I bring forward that annual or perennial denial. You know, the one, it's sy against the frailty, weakness, contingency of humankind. And most often manifested in this time of year in sickness. So I don't know where you live in the world, but in my part of the world, everybody's getting it and everything is going around.

The sickness is everywhere. And even if you're bobbing and weaving, if you're laying low, if you're trying to keep your head down, it just seems somehow. To snipe you. And so it sniped Tony last week and this week. Now it is his family and so he's doing what we shall do for another. He's caring for those in his own regard that are sick and unwell.

And so that means it's just me on this particular episode, but not to fear. We've got lots of great things to talk about.

[00:02:12] The Question: Is God Humble?

[00:02:12] Jesse Schwamb: In fact, the whole purpose of this episode is going to be talking about this question is God humble and. This, if you think it's just a one-off episode. It's actually born out of this continued series that we're doing where we're going through the parables.

And again, we've been talking a lot about lostness and finding things and Christ coming and seeking, saving those things that were very lost. And so as I continue to process this with Tony, one of the things that keeps coming to my mind is this question is God. Humble and what does that even have to do with any of these wild parables that we've been talking about?

You know the ones too, especially if you've been listening along and hopefully you have go back, check those bad boys out. We've been talking about the lost coin, the lost Sheep, and we have yet to get to because we're just teasing this for you. We, we keep telling you it's coming, but that's just to build like this amazing anticipation for the parable of the lost son or the prodigal son.

It's coming, and part of that, again, for me is wrapped up in this question, is God humble? So let's talk about that a little bit.

[00:03:13] Humility in Scripture

[00:03:13] Jesse Schwamb: It's interesting to me that throughout the scriptures, we find across both all the New Testament, that God gives us this imperative to seek humility or to put on humility, or to have a humble mind, as Peter says.

And it's something that is so ubiquitous that we kind of just flies by us. Of course. Like we would get the sense that it would be ridiculous to be like. I am so good at being humble that that in itself is oxymoronic. And yet we also know that we don't want to advertise, that we're trying to seek after humility.

'cause it seems like that's the very thing that we're trying to avoid in proclaiming or promulgating our pride and that kind of thing. But it's not just that, of course, God is seeking his children to be humble, but I think one of the most condemning things the scripture says to us about how God behaves.

Toward people is that he opposes the proud. So the opposite of being humble, and we'll get to that in a second. We had to define what that means, but let's just take for a second that the opposite of that might be being prideful. It is fascinating that it's not just God is indifferent toward pride, that he does everything in his volition to push against it.

And of course, because nothing can thwart the outstretched in mighty arm of God, that means that he wins inevitably against all that is pride prideful. And so he opposes it. And this is what. We should realize is that really the eschatological judgment, the fact that there is both heaven and hell reward and eternal punishment.

This is a reflection of God opposing the proud that in the final state, the one who says, I want nothing to do with God because I can take care of it myself, is the one that God must oppose pose because he always. Opposes that which is prideful, and so it makes sense. Then if he opposes the proud, if that is in a way, an enemy that he will ultimately defeat, it cannot stand up against him that shouldn't.

That in that path is both destruction that is internally derived and chosen, but also destruction that comes externally because it will be defeated. Then the best thing that God's people could be is to be humble. And so the question I think then persists, can God be humble? Is God. Humble. One of the things that is clear in scripture, again, this is the testimony of the entire arc of the salvific story of God and his recu of his people.

Um, the coming and drawing close giving of himself so that he might draw people onto himself. Is that the testimony of humility is both positive and negative in the scriptures. So we could look at examples of those who humbled themselves. That's what the scripture says, like Josiah, Hezekiah, Rebo, Ahab, Vanessa, and then there, of course, you could probably think of as just as many negative examples who did not.

What comes to my mind, of course, is Pharaoh. Or am Amen or Zetia. So what becomes clear though is when you look at those examples that the humbling first belongs to the hand of God. That even here, once again, God's doing all the verbs. That's exactly what he does. And so this idea of even like humbling yourself.

Has like a precursor, there's an antecedent. And is God doing some kind of great work to allow for this humbling to even take place? He initiates the humbling of his creatures. And once he has, then the question confronts us, uh, which is, are we going to receive it? How will we bear up underneath it? Will we submit ourselves to it because God has allowed us, or has humbled ourselves first so that we don't respond in kind.

So in response to his humbling hand. Will we kick against him? Or as the, you know, king James version says, will we kick against the gods or are we going to come and humble ourselves before God? So this idea, I think of humbling ourselves isn't just like you wake up one day and you say, no, it'd be really fantastic.

Is my life would be better if I was just humble. I, I hear that God opposed to the proud, I don't wanna get. Lost in that. I don't wanna get wrapped in that. I would rather, instead I just become more humble. Even the ability to humble oneself first comes from this humbling hand of God, which is of course the greatest gift.

And so of course Peter writes, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. I mean, that's where I'm drawing this from and. That is the first descent of humility. The first coming down is a word that God would do that for us, will put us in a place that we might be humbled. And then the creature has somewhat in his turn kind of imperfect language, but somehow in his response that God is humbling me.

Will I embrace it? Will I humble myself? So given that background, I think you know exactly where I'm about to go in the scripture, and that is. The pretty, I would say, epic passage of humility, which is Philippians two. It's one of the most striking assertions in all of scriptures. That Christ himself, Jesus the Savior, the one who is truly God and truly man, he humbled himself and God himself truly divine, truly human, and the person of his son, he humbles himself.

And I think that is worth the slow meditation and a little bit of marveling again, as we consider that in light of. All that happens in these parables about lostness and ness is coming from in some way this first humility. And I think that's just so critical because it's not just context, it's the air in which we breathe and operate and understand who we are and who we are in Christ.

And so I think before like we even assume. I wanna assume like too much about like this idea of humility and then getting it ultimately to this question is God humble, which you may think I just answered by reading Philippians two eight, but in fact I think it's even more complex and more beautiful and more deeply layered than all of that.

I think it's worth for a second, just thinking about this idea of like, what is humility?

[00:08:35] Pharaoh's Pride vs. Humility

[00:08:35] Jesse Schwamb: And as far as I can tell, really the first mention of humility outright, like outright mention explicit notation in the scriptures comes in that showdown between Egypt's Pharaoh and Yahweh mediated through Moses and.

And I picked this because it's really instructive for getting a sense of how the Bible, how the scripture, the Holy Spirit is apprehending this word and driving it into the context so that we might learn from it, so that later on we're told that we ought to exhibit humility, put on humility that we understand it in the way that God has taught it to us.

And so you'll remember. Probably that Moses dared to appear before Pharaoh. He is an Exodus five, and he speaks on Yahweh's behalf, and it's that famous sentence, that famous imperative, let my people go to, which Pharaoh replies in my paraphrase, listen, I don't know who Yahweh is. I have no idea what you're talking about.

I don't listen to his voice. I don't acknowledge him, and therefore you can't go. It's just not gonna happen. What is incredible about this. What I think is like really illustrative for our lives is that Pharaoh swollen in pride here, and again, God's gonna pose him swollen with all of this. Pride has, it's not that he hasn't thought through what he's saying here, it's just that he's made an incredible miscalculation.

He actually did a little mathematics here as the creature, and he decides that. As a creature in relation to the creator God that he does not need to obey. In other words, he does not acknowledge or recognize or know this God, and because he doesn't know any of those things about Yahweh, then he's well within his reason to come to the conclusion that he does not need to obey and therefore he refuses.

The reason why I think that's so critical and a little bit wild is that is exactly what the natural man is prone to do to make this miscalculation built on even some kind of reasonable logic, so to speak. That says, well, because I don't understand it, because I don't see it, because I can't acknowledge it because I've never heard it.

Therefore, it cannot exist. It doesn't exist. It's not worthy of being obeyed. It's a bit like saying, just because I've never seen fire, that's not hot. And so it's crazy here that in the midst of all of that, we could say Pharaoh has made this enormous miscalculation. And so what he's going to do is he's going to essentially oppose God.

He refuses to obey, and then of course, Exodus 10 as we move. This story describes this call to humility, and it is a call to humility, which when I was thinking back through this, I was like, this is wild. Because we tend to think this story as like submission and beating down and humility might not be the principle word.

That comes to our mind when we think about how Har Pharaoh has to ultimately respond. But after seven plagues on the cusp of the eighth plague, God speaks to Pharaoh, and again, he's listen. He says to him, how long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? So fascinating because we have this. Humbling, mighty hand of God, the outstretched work of God, his hand and arm going out into the world of his creation and putting Pharaoh in a particular place and position.

And the piercing question in this context of this extended powerful encounter gives us this glimpse into the heart of humility, which I think is this humility recognizes and obeys the one who is truly. God. So there's not just an intellectual scent, but an experiential knowledge that comes from the revelation of who God is that is under his purview granted to his people, and that then causes us to acknowledge and obey the one who's truly Lord.

It's exact opposite of affairs response, which again says, I don't know that voice. I've never heard it. Who is Yahweh? And instead it's replaced with a humility that acknowledges that God is Lord of all, that Jesus Christ is one only son, and that his Holy Spirit is with and indwells his people and that he is truly Lord.

So humility entails this kind of right view, I think of self. Because Pharaoh Miscalculates, but the humble person makes the right calculus, the one who is created by God and accountable to God, which requires the right view of God as creator and this authority in relation to all his creatures. And so humility then is of course, like not a preoccupation with self or one's, even one's own lowness only in so much as it's in relation to what we just mentioned.

That's a right view of self. It's an agreement with God. Of course confession coming alongside agreeing with God, but it's a mindful and conscious understanding of who God is and his highness, his holiness, that he's high and lifted up, and then the self in respect to his position. You know, that's one of the things that I think always strikes me about humility is that it's this idea and this acknowledgement that God is high and lifted up.

And so while we don't come too hard on ourselves merely because we want to create a pity party, it's a recognition that. Aside from the mediator work of Christ to to stand in the presence of God would to be literally torn asunder by the molecule because his holiness cannot be, or rather, I would say our sinfulness cannot be in this presence of the one who is perfect in majesty and in righteousness, in intellect, and in in comprehension and creativity.

We cannot exist in that space apart from this mediated work of Christ the beautiful. Be editorial, like benevolent distance, so to speak, that Christ creates so that we might come into the presence of God, as Hebrew says, running as it were, coming in, not haphazardly, but purposefully into the throne room of God because.

And his holiness. He's a way to, he's made a way for him to be just and justifier. That is incredible. Loved ones. It's beautiful. And that is all. Again, I think just underneath this parable, it's starting with this sense of humility has brought all of this into play, and it's a critical part of God's design and plan.

There's a condescension, but I think even here, underneath that condescension is something about humility. That is worth discussing. And there is, the question again, is God humble. So put it another way. Humility, I think embraces the reality that you and I. We're not God. You know, pride led to humanity's fall when Adam and Eve desired to be like God, which is contrary to his command and humility would have obeyed his command, which is what we'll see when we come to Christ and especially Christ's work.

So.

[00:15:06] Christ's Humility and Obedience

[00:15:06] Jesse Schwamb: It strikes me then, and this is why I threw out this question, is like, is God humble? It's kind of a setup, I'll be honest, because all of I said so far, if you are keeping score at home, you probably should be drawing out then that I'm essentially saying that humility is a creaturely virtue. Actually, it's not just me.

A lot of people have said that, a lot of the old ones. I postulate that, that when we think about humility explicitly and in a narrow context, that's a creaturely virtue. It's a posture of. All of who we are, our soul, our body, our life, our activities, our families, our possessions. It's acknowledgement in those things and embracing that the goodness of God and that he is the one who controls and commands all things, all of our destiny, which means.

This question is God humble? It is kind of like linguistically and theologically tricky, like not for the sake of creating a tricky question for like a part of the game, but the the answer is in a sense, no, but not because God, I think is the opposite of what we'd consider humble. He's not arrogant, he's not prideful.

Rather, humility is a creaturely virtue and he's God. So we need to be again, in this appropriate separation of our state and who God is, recognizing that those are two very different things. All of this though, I think, contributes to moving us in a direction of understanding, well, what does this mean then?

For Jesus Christ, the God man, the one who humbled himself. You've probably been screaming the entire time. Will you get to that? What about that? And I think that is the critical question that is behind everything that we're reading about. In these parables. In other words, why is Jesus this way? What has brought him into this particular place to say these particular things to these people?

We talked last time about how one of the things that's remarkable is that all of these sinners, like the down out, the broken, the marginalized, the pariahs, they were all drawn to Jesus teaching, not even drawn. I mean, there's distinction not drawn to the Fara teaching, to the rules of the law, but drawn to Jesus, almost magnetically coming to him.

Compelled as it were, to be in his presence, to hear the things he was saying. Captivate, I mean, can you imagine yourself there? Not necessarily there in that environment, but captivated again by the teachings of Jesus, how good they are, how true they are, how incredible they are. And so I think it's possible for us to marvel then at that remarkable word then from the impossible, Paul, when he says that Christ humbled himself in Philippians two, eight.

And no, I think that that confirms our definition above of humanity, uh, of. Humility rather as being something in humanity, of being a, a creaturely virtue in that the eternal son first became a man. That's what Paul says in verse seven, and then humbled himself in verse eight. And I'm gonna submit to you that this is really the one of the most epic parts of the gospel that.

This is the only way we can get this kind of humility, this humbling of God is if first he comes to undertake the creaturely virtue so that then he himself or become rather, lemme say it this way, I'm getting too excited, loved ones. It's rather that we first must have God become a creature, so to speak, not emptying himself as we'll.

Talk about. Of, of his godness, but instead taking on this flesh so that he might humble himself be to be like his children who must be humbled and in fact will ultimately be humbled in the ES eschaton no matter what they believe. And so the verb Paul uses to capture the action of the incarnation is, is not humbled here first, but it's this idea of emptied.

So again, Philippians two is verse six and seven. Paul writes, being in the form of God, Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of man. And so this movement.

[00:18:59] The Incarnation and Humility

[00:18:59] Jesse Schwamb: From heaven to earth, which if you're listening to this in more or less real or New York time, as we're coming into the season of the calendar where we celebrate the incarnation, again, I've been thinking so much about this beautiful gift of the incarnation, and I've been thinking about that in light of Jesus coming to seek and to save the lost and this real heart to hearts kind of way where he's speaking the truth to the people who need to hear it most, and they're drawn magnetically to him, into his teaching.

And so that movement. From Heaven to earth is an emptying. It's the divine son emptying himself, not of divinity as if that were even possible, but of the privilege of not being human, not being a creature, not suffering the bounds and limitations of finitude and the pains and afflictions of the fallen world.

I think a lot, honestly, especially this time of year, I think a lot about strange things like Jesus has fingernails and blood vessels and eyeballs and hair and toes. And shins and knee bones, you know, all of these things. Because to me it's this incomprehensible reality that God loves me so much that he would send his only son to be a creature, but in a way that was limited to the same creatureliness that I have.

And then would forever, in a way, in his glorified state, identify still with that creature. And only in that process could he come and humble himself. I mean, that's incredible. I mean. Could not have grasped like the divine privilege of not being subjected to the rules and realities of creation. But instead, he empties himself by taking our humanity.

He was emptying not by subtraction of identity, but by addition of humanity. This is the taking, the taking on, and this allows him then to become obedient and in that obedience, that passive and act of obedience. What we find is that Christ is able to say these very things that are exemplified in the parables, that this is the height of God, and he says, it is in your midst.

The kingdom of God is here and I am the kingdom, and it's all because he has come in such a way. To empty himself again, where that was not a subtraction of divinity, but addition of humanity. It is an amazing and glorious truth. It's the thing upon which like turns all of salvation and all of the world that God would do this and do it so completely that again, it's finalized, it's complete, it's already done.

So first, Jesus became a man. And then as a man came the ly virtue, he humbled himself. And Paul confirms what we learned about humility. In the negative example, I think in Pharaoh of Pharaoh in Nexus 10 and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

[00:21:49] Christ's Obedience to Death

[00:21:49] Jesse Schwamb: So how did Jesus humble himself and this we could spend loved ones in eternity and likely will. Talking about how did he do this By becoming obedient. It wasn't even mean to. Here is the one who is the God man. Truly God. Truly man. To humble oneself is to acknowledge God as Lord and then to obey as servant in order to do so.

Then the son had to take this form of a servant being born in a likeness of men. Again, this is so rich because I think without understanding the servant heart of Christ, where there is a power and a passion in Christ for the holiness of God that is at the same time equaled with the passion for the purity and the holiness of his people.

And those two things come together and coalesce in the gospel because we know that righteousness and holiness is completely vouched, safe to God. It's under his purview and his control, and it comes to his people when he draws close. That's how it was in the Old Testament, and that's how it was in the New Testament.

And so as Christ in human form is coming and drawing near to his people, he's preaching this good news message that those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will have salvation and eternal life in him So intimately wrapped up that again, he hasn't just come. In the Christmas season to make naughty people good, but to make dead people alive and alive in him so that their life is hidden within him, and therefore, because he's the indestructible life, your life and mine cannot be destroyed either.

I. So it is this amazing mark of the fullness of humanity and identification with us that he didn't just come on special terms. You know, I often think it's not like God on a deck chair laid out looking down as a creation separate as he were, as it were, just observing and kind of more or less interjecting here and there.

It wasn't Jesus coming at. Arms length, distance. It wasn't God snatching him up when the frustrations of our limits or the pains of our world fell him. He had the full human experience. He was all in fully human and body mind. Hearts will and surroundings. Fully human in our finitude and all of this frustrations that we share that are just part of our lives, fully human in.

Vulnerability to the worst of the civil world can work. Clearly that's manifested in his ign Ammonious death. Nor was he at the bottom spared the very essence of being human. He was accountable to God. Even there, that humility is incredible, that he himself learned, undertook, became obedient so that he would be accountable to God a father.

Hebrews five celebrates this. Exactly. I love this set of words. Although Jesus was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered and being made perfect. He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. And if he is our first brother, then the calling that we have is to do exactly the same, to come before him, to obey him and to see him as the one who is high and lift it up.

But that self humbling, that humiliation doesn't just stop with obedience. And that's why the apostle keeps going. It says to the point of death, how far did it take him? How far did he go? How far was he willing to go? Volitionally all the way. To the point of death. And Christ obedience was an all the way kind of obedience, a true obedience.

It wasn't part and parcel, it wasn't peace wise, it didn't be for a part of time, as long as it was comfortable and then try something else. You know, of course, even in the garden when he's praying and the disciples are with the in your shot and he asked that the cup might pass, we might reasonably ask what other option was there.

And so here even Christ says. Even to the point of death, forsaking all other things, real obedience endures in obedience, which is a really difficult thing. And so I'm grateful because my obedience is peace wise, it is part and parcel, it is weak, it is feeble. And instead we have Christ who is transferred all of his righteousness into our account.

And all of that righteousness is because of real obedience that he undertook, endured in obedience. And so Christ did not begin obedience and then surrender disobedience once the greatest threats loomed even in the garden. There he again. He is coming before the father and he is continuing to obey. He's humbled.

So I think God does indeed command our humility and one of the ways that he can command that it, well, there's many ways. First and foremost, by fiat, he's God and his character demands it. The second way is that, again, coming back to these parables. Finally, and lastly, we see that Christ is exhibiting great humility in the message that he's bringing forward and all of this, that he comes forward to save and all of the seeking that he undertakes, he conspires with God in humility to bring his children.

Into the fold. There was no other way without this incredible humility of Christ, this humility that shows us that it's not denigrating of humanity, but it's God's image shining in its fullness. That this is the very thing he comes to restore and to humble oneself is not to be less than human. It rather it is.

Pride that is our cancer. It's pride that corrodes our true dignity to humble ourselves is to come even ever closer, step by step to the bliss, I think, and the full flourishing for which we're made. And Christ exemplifies that very thing. And I submit to you loved ones. It's that very humility. This is what I buried the lead on last week.

It's that very humility that draws the sinner. Because we all have a master. We are all slaves to something, which I know is really unpopular to say, but hear me out. We are all stuck on something. We are all bound into something. It's just like we say with worship, it's not whether we not, we choose to worship.

It's what we worship and we are what we worship. All those things are true. All those cliches stand and if they're true, then the opposite is true and that is that we're all bound to something. The question is how good and kind is your master. The thing in which you are bound to the thing which you choose to serve and submit to how life giving is that thing.

And the humility of Christ clarifies that not all of our hum lings are owning to our own sin that Christ had. None, none. Yet he humbled himself. Sometimes repentance is the first step in self humbling. Other times it's not. Our self humbling may often come in response to our exposure to sin, but even in Christ sinless as he was.

He heeded the father's call to humble himself. And so I think for us, as we think about what it means then to go and study these parables, we first even need to humble our understanding, our cognizance, our reasoning, our logic, that the scripture as given by God as his very word to us, stand so far above us.

That while we study it and we interrogate it, that we dare not stand in opposition to it because it is the high and lofty command of God for us because he's good and his love endures forever. So I hope that as we continue to build into this next step of looking at this final lost parable, that we can all continue to just appreciate and boast in the God man who in his humility, makes the gospel possible, and that in his humility shows.

A greater sense of what it means to have the abundant life. And we have to take Jesus at his word, loved ones when he says like He's come, not just to give life, but to give it in abundance that that is a real quantity, and that the humility of Christ in his life and death and resurrection testifies to one of God's clearest and most memorable promises in all of scripture.

That again, he humbles the proud and he exalts the humble. So it was with Christ. He humbled himself and God has highly exalted him. I remember reading John Owen writing about. Justification and Christ's time of suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and his preparation for the cross and inevitably his, his forsaking, his forsakenness on that cross and how Jesus himself entrusted his justification to God the Father, which I think is a.

A, a conception that will make your mind do a somersault. I mean, think about it long enough that even Jesus himself in learning obedience and taking upon himself the full measure of what it was to sit under the law and then to obey it perfectly, was still going to his death, knowing that he was gonna be the greatest sinner who ever lived yet was gonna be the one without sin, having committed any, that he himself was entrusting all of that he had accomplished and who he was.

To God the father, to justify him and his resurrection on the third day loved ones is proof positive that he is the savior. That we all long for that in our sickness right now, as in our world, as all these things groan, as they all say, in some way, maratha, Lord, come quickly, that we are acknowledging that Jesus Christ is the one.

Who in his complete humility satisfied the law of God to such degree that he was justified before God the father, and raised TriNet on the third day as proof positive that he is in fact the Savior, the chosen one, the Messiah, the first brother, the firstborn among the dead, the serpent crusher. The one who will come and redeem all of his people.

So I hope there's something in there for you that's an encouragement that lifts up as if they were even possible to do more than they already are. That lifts up these parables that we've been talking about, that it's not just, of course, that Jesus on this mission because. He's full of love. His love predated all of this.

Now, this is why we keep coming back to, uh, all Christians at all times, in all heirs. John three 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. Now whosoever should believe in him. Now, all the believing ones should have eternal life, and that eternal life is purchased by the blood of Christ and through his humility, but also it is a, a stark reminder that love always leads to giving.

And here we have God the father, giving his son Unreservedly for us, becoming Creature Lee, so that he might undertake the humility of the creature. And in so doing fully, not just, I would say identify with who we are, but become like us in every a. Way yet without sin, which is why can we rejoice that even now in the sound of my voice or yours, wherever you are, there is Jesus Christ in Heavenly Rumble.

Before the God the Father interceding perfectly as this incredible representative, as the scriptures are, he says, as this best of all, the high priests, the perfect one. Who is ushering us in to bend the ear, as it were of God because of what he's accomplished on our behalf. Man, that is good news. And if it's not good news and you don't think it is, you better check your pulse.

Check it right now.

[00:33:20] Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser

[00:33:20] Jesse Schwamb: So you need to come back. And listen to the next episode because we are, I mean, I think assuming everybody's healthy, Lord willing, we're gonna talk about the Prodigal Son and really wrap up this culmination of the lost parables. But of course, you know that I'm contractually obligated to say to you all.

That you don't have to just wait to interact until the next podcast. You can come hang out with us, and I gotta say it again for all the people in the back. The way that you do that is this little app called Telegram. You might be using Telegram already to message with your friends and your family. If so, you might not have known that.

There's also a little group within Telegram for the Reform Brotherhood. Everybody who listens, everybody wants to hang out and talk about theology or life share prayer requests. It's all happening right there, and I promise you, you will not be disappointed if you come check it out. So you're probably saying enough already.

Tell me how to do that. Alright, here's what you do. Get a piece of paper, stop the car, put down the backhoe for a second, and listen up. You go to your favorite browser and you type in t me slash reform brotherhood. T. Me Reform Brotherhood. Come hang out with us. Come talk about the episode, and until then, everybody stay.

Well keep your head down. Don't list sick sickness night people. But remember, even if it does, you have this great high priest who endured obedience, in obedience to bring you abundant life, to identify with you, to resonate with you, to give you the love of God, and to finally conquer sin, death, and the devil.

I say loved ones, so until next time, you know what to do. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood.