The Humiliation of the King of Kings

Rev. P.L. Bazen, Picture Butte, AB

As the calendar of the church moves on and the time of Advent and Christmas are past, we have already begun relating in sermons the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. The seven weeks prior to Easter are given for this purpose so that the church may be mindful of what price the Mediator has paid for the redemption of His people. The prophet Isaiah is one who prophesied so clearly of these great truths.

The prophet Isaiah lived approximately seven hundred years before the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. His name means “the Lord is salvation,” signifying “the Lord is the source of salvation.” Little is known of Isaiah himself, but his ministry was in and about Jerusalem, and he had easy access to the kings in his time. Isaiah was known as the evangelist among the prophets. He wrote of the sufferings of Christ as if he stood in Gethsemane, Gabbatha, or at the foot of the cross. Isaiah is the pulse, heart, center, and climax of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Isaiah wrote, “He is despised and rejected of men,” not referring to a man that was physically sick or in a weak condition but of Him who was like unto us in all things, sin excepted. Here he depicts the Lord of glory in the flesh with no man desiring to look unto Him. This despising is not attributed to one age or one people but to all who live and have lived upon the face of the earth. The people expected a Messiah with external pomp and glory and scorned Him who was born in the manger and spoke to the doctors of the law in the temple as the son of a carpenter.

Christ was despised in a multitude of ways:

• Was He not despised in Matthew 13:55: “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? and His brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judah?”

• Think of John 5:17 when Christ said, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” The Jews then replied in verse 18 that they desired to kill him because Christ made “Himself equal with God.”

• Did not the Jews reply in John 8:48, ”Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?”

• The Jews despised Christ and the company He kept because they were but poor fishermen; also, He ate with publicans and spoke to sinners.

• The people despised and rejected His message of salvation.

• The majority did not believe His words spoken in parables and the miracles He performed.

• If the people acknowledged Christ, they were put out of the temple or synagogue. This would be known in our time as excommunication from the church.

Are we any better, my friends? How often do we close our ear-gate to the Word of God, refrain from affiliating with God’s people, and are slow in reading and studying God’s Holy Word? What do we read in Scripture of those that have the fear of God?

• The Apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:5b, “Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”

• Christ spoke in Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”

• Paul wrote in Hebrews 12:1b, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

• Those that fear the Lord desire God’s house as David wrote in the psalms, God’s people to communicate with, and God’s Word to receive encouragements and visits.

• They have low thoughts of themselves and high thoughts of God in Christ Jesus.

• When they receive a glimpse of the Suffering Savior, their delight is to elevate Him and to see and know Him and “the power of His resurrection.”

In His humiliation Christ was surrounded with sorrows and grief on every side:

• Christ was exposed to mockery, weariness, contempt, and opposition.

• Being true God and also true man, Christ’s feelings were human because all His sufferings were part of the state of His humiliation.

• His character was criticized, His Person despised, and His words twisted.

• One of His disciples denied Him, another betrayed Him, and all forsook Him.

• Christ was the example that His Church must follow.

Try to think of the perfect knowledge and foresight that He possessed in His divine nature; He foresaw His sufferings that are now spoken of as His Passion. He counted the cost for the atonement of His people long before, that is, from eternity. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). In the sufferings of Christ His authority was degraded, His goodness abused, and His mercy despised.

People will acknowledge the Lord of glory. Some will say that His morals and teachings were good, that He was a great Prophet, and that the answers to today’s problems can be found in Him. If you ask those same people if they are sinners deserving eternal punishment and explain that it is only through His perfect sacrifice made on the cross that the justice of God is satisfied, thereby to reconcile a sinner to an offended God, they will not believe these doctrines. Even today this Servant of the Father is despised and rejected of men, and men do not esteem Him.

Two times in this verse we read the word “despised,” and added to it is the sad statement, “and we esteemed him not.” These words show what lives in man and also the great contrast we read of in verse four. Do we despise the One who is the only bridge between God and man? Are we given by grace to esteem Him, love Him, and adore Him? Do not seek great things for yourself in this sin-sick world, but seek this King whom to know is eternal life. The trumpet of the gospel is still being blown: “This is the way, walk ye therein.” May this Passion season be a blessing for your soul; may Christ Jesus be exalted and sinners abased in deep, true humility.

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