The Incarnation's Appeal to Humility
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Humility seems to be a lost spiritual discipline these days. If not completely lost, it is not practiced that often. Fast-talking, foul-mouthed, egocentric personalities seem to be elevated to the point of heroic status, possibly because those individuals are representative of those who take little flak from anyone or anything. Arguably, the antihero has risen to the status of the American ideal. But does this represent the nature of the One whose birth we celebrate every December 25th?
From the time of Thanksgiving until Christmas, the church enters the phase of the liturgical calendar called Advent. This is a time of preparation for Christmas when the birth of Christ is celebrated. Much ink has been spilled concerning the correct dating of Jesus’s birth.[1] Are we celebrating the correct date of Jesus’s birth, or should we celebrate in the spring or fall? To be honest, the older I get, the less importance I see in pinning down the exact date of Jesus’s birth, outside of academic interest alone. While theories abound, it may be impossible to know with any degree of certainty what the precise date of Jesus’s birth is.
The more important issue is to take time each year to contemplate the birth of Jesus and what it means for the Christian faith. In AD 335, Athanasius of Alexandria penned one of his most famed and endearing works entitled On the Incarnation of the Word of God. In his work, Athanasius writes, “For He became Man that we might be made God: and He manifested Himself through the body that we might take cognizance of the invisible Father: and He underwent insult at the hands of men that we might inherit immortality.”[2] Athanasius points to the humility of Christ as exhibited by the sacrifice that he would ultimately make.
The most remarkable aspect of Christ’s incarnation is that he left a state of perfect bliss to enjoin himself with humanity. Philippians 2:6–11 is an amazing passage of Scripture. Most likely, it is an early Christian hymn that predates the New Testament writings. The hymn makes the connection of Christ’s humility as exhibited through his incarnation. Before citing the hymn, Paul teaches that believers should “Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5).[3] What can we learn about humility from Christ’s incarnation? I argue that we can learn four spiritual principles from the humility in Christ’s incarnation. The first article will examine the first two, whereas the second will peer into the last set.
The Incarnation’s Appeal to Humble Authority (Phil. 2:6)
The hymn begins by noting that Christ, “who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited” (Phil. 2:6). The term aJpagmo;n (hapagmon), translated “exploited,” indicates something that is not held on to forcibly.”[4] The Moody Bible Commentary, in my opinion, rightly interprets verse 6 as saying that “Jesus does not exploit His equality with God for selfish ends.”[5] Jesus remained God, and his position did not change when he became a human being. Rather, Jesus humbly walked among humanity. Even though he had greater authority than any living human being ever had, or ever would have, Jesus continued to live a humble life. In like manner, believers must walk even more humbly, as we have far less authority than Jesus. Rather than being obsessed with power, authority, or prestige, believers would do well to remember their humble state when compared to the awesome authority of God.
The Incarnation’s Appeal to Humble Assistance (Phil. 2:7)
The hymn continues by noting, “Instead [Christ] emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity” (Phil. 2:7). Throughout his life, Jesus taught, led, and modeled servant leadership. Even though he held more authority than anyone ever could ever imagine, he led by serving. The text says that Christ “emptied himself.” Theories abound on what this means,[6] but all would agree that this is humility personified. Imagine this: The King of kings, who was in the highest court of all time (i.e., the divine council), allowed himself to be born in a dirty, stinky manger.
Compare this to the modern mindset that many hold today. I worked in an environment a few years ago, where the employees had been asked to assist the custodian with his duties, where possible. The custodian had suffered from some heart problems. His doctor had discouraged him from lifting anything heavy, including trash bags, which could weigh well over 20 lbs. To assist him until he could fully recover, leadership requested that we the employees help him by throwing away the trash bags into the trash bin. Most of the employees were more than willing to help the custodian. To assist the custodian, I grabbed a couple of the trash bags and loaded them into the cart so that they could be taken out. At the time that this occurred, I was still working on my bachelor’s degree. One employee looked at me and said, “I have earned a master’s degree. I don’t do things like that anymore!” This startled me. Did the individual take out their own trash? One would think so. Furthermore, does obtaining degrees in higher education remove the need for one to perform menial tasks? Now that I am working on the last phases of my dissertation for my Ph.D. program, I need to talk to somebody, because something has not worked out right for me. After all, I am still required to perform daily tasks like taking out the trash. (In case your sarcasm detector is broken, I am, of course, speaking tongue-in-cheek.)
The employee’s reaction is commonplace in modern society. Many people, myself included, have sought to obtain positions and statuses where others look up to us. I am, quite honestly, startled how social media has brought out our incessant desire to be seen, heard, and appreciated. Being seen, heard, and loved are not necessarily bad things, mind you. Such desires merely illustrate the needs of the human heart. However, the problem comes when these desires overwhelm us and become obsessive, to the point of exhibiting narcissistic traits, where others are cast down at the altar of our own ego. When we become infatuated with the number of likes our posts hold, the number of awards we have, and the standing we have among others, we are not focused on the virtues of Christ. Such actions stand directly opposed to the model that Christ afforded and expects from us.
Conclusion
Thus far, we have learned that Christ’s incarnation emphasized humility in his authority. That is, even though Christ had the highest authority that any could hold, he did not flaunt his authority and neither did he use his authority as a means to boast. Rather, he assumed the role of a lowly servant. By this point alone, we should all stop to consider how counteracts some segments of Western Christianity that appeals to the idea of domination by force. Secondly, we noted how Christ’s incarnation speaks to the need of humble assistance. That is, the believer should not seek to be served, but rather to serve. Already, the incarnation has challenged us to the core regarding humility—or at least it has me. In the next entry, we will investigate how Christ’s acceptance and assurance speaks to our need for humility.
[1] I have written on the different possibilities of Jesus’s birth date at BellatorChristi.com. See Brian Chilton, “When and What Time Was Jesus Born,” BellatorChristi.com (12/19/2017), https://bellatorchristi.com/2017/12/19/when-and-what-time-was-jesus-born/.
[2] Athanasius of Alexandria, Athanasius: On the Incarnation of the Word of God, 2nd ed, T. Herbert Bindley, trans (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1903), 142.
[3] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman, 2020).
[4] 57.236, in Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 583.
[5] Gerald W. Peterman, “Philippians,” in The Moody Bible Commentary, Michael A. Rydelnik and Michael Vanlaningham, eds (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2014), 1861.
[6] Three theories provide a possible interpretation. 1) The kenotic theory holds that Christ emptied himself of his divine attributes while on earth. 2) The incarnation view asserts that Christ merely emptied his nature into humanity by assuming the form of a servant. 3) The Servant of the Lord portrait views the term “emptying” as a metaphor of the Servant of the Lord motif in Isaiah 53. As Hansen notes, the Philippians hymn could provide an interpretation that holds some elements of all three. Walter G. Hansen, The Letter to the Philippians, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans; Apollos, 2009), 146.
Brian G. Chilton is the founder of BellatorChristi.com, the host of The Bellator Christi Podcast, and the author of the Layman’s Manual on Christian Apologetics. Brian is a Ph.D. Candidate of the Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. He received his Master of Divinity in Theology from Liberty University (with high distinction); his Bachelor of Science in Religious Studies and Philosophy from Gardner-Webb University (with honors); and received certification in Christian Apologetics from Biola University. Brian is a member of the Evangelical Theological Society and the Evangelical Philosophical Society. Brian has served in pastoral ministry for nearly 20 years and currently serves as a clinical chaplain.
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