Trading Places

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The LORD mighty in battle, able to deliver His chosen people with mighty signs and wonders, is the same LORD Who humbled Himself to the extent He was found in appearance as a man, not to do mighty battle in the way the world sees it, but by undertaking to have the sin of the world heaped upon Himself so that He would take it away, thus satisfying all holy judgment against sin.

You, the poor sinner, are the object of this humility It was for you that Your Maker became small, so that He could visit you with His mercy. It is good for you to draw very simply from this verse how deeply your Father in Heaven is concerned for your temporal and eternal well-being. It is a descent from the highest throne in heaven to the lowest parts of the earth on your behalf.

We are not capable of imagining the holiness that attends to the highest things. The sinful nature is too ingrained for these things to be known directly, although some, like the Apostle Paul, and others, were given to see more clearly. Not even the most beautiful sights on earth compare. It is easier for us to understand misery, fear, sadness, anxiety, decay, and death. There are very much a part of experience, because they are attendant to our condition by nature as poor sinners.

The line from the highest heights to the deepest depths is so long and pervasive, it takes God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, to navigate from one to the next without hesitation or difficulty, which He does for you in Christ Jesus not just occasionally, but richly and daily.

The obedience of Christ Jesus was rendered in such a form as to be little recognized. He was numbered with the transgressors. He had mother, father, brothers, and sisters. He had family and friends who knew Him in person. He had no form or comeliness, no literal halo, that attended His humility, that we would look upon Him and treat Him special.

That’s because your Father in Heaven, in Christ Jesus, wanted to treat you special instead. He want to trade places, so you might be His own, and live under Him in His kingdom in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness.

It pleased him, being the Word of God, to “take the form of a slave.” So he willed to be joined to our common human condition. He took to himself the toils of the members who suffer. He made our human maladies his own. He suffered and toiled on our behalf. This is in accord with his great love of humankind. - Eusebius of Caesarea

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