Monday Meditation
August 15, 2016
From the desk of A.J. Higgins
The Omnipotent Depending on the Omnipotent
“But be not Thou far from Me, O Lord, O My strength. Haste Thee to help Me”
Psalm 22:19
On the cross, the Lord Jesus was marked by a self-imposed weakness. He never, during any moment of His life on earth, relinquished any of the attributes of deity. Omnipotence was always His; omniscience was inherently and essentially His. Every moral and essential quality of deity was fully and constantly present in Him. Yet upon the cross, “He was crucified through weakness” (2 Cor 13:4).
In those moments on the cross, in a way that we cannot explain and about which we dare not speculate, He endured weakness. In the words of Psalm 22, He cried out and called upon God as “My strength.” He would not use His inherent strength to deliver Himself. He would allow God to be that strength and to display His strength. The omnipotent One allowing His God to be the Omnipotent One! There must have been infinite joy in the heart of God that His Servant-Son, possessor of all power and authority, would allow Him to be His Strength in that hour. What a display of absolute dependence! What honor it brought to God and what delight it brought to His heart.
In His life, the Lord Jesus humbled Himself to the extent that the maker and provider of all things, allowed His creatures to minister to Him. There were devoted women who “ministered to Him of their substance” (Luke 8:3; Mark 15:41). We feel embarrassment if, amidst our plenty, someone of lesser means were to give us a gift or to make a sacrifice for us. Yet such was His humility and grace that He allowed His creatures, as touched by His Father God, to minister to Him. Such was His poverty and temporal need that apart from their ministry, He who had nowhere to lay His head, would have lacked the daily essentials for life. How deeply He appreciated their ministry and the things they provided.
But as well, the Sovereign of the universe, bowed to the Sovereign in heaven. Sovereignty as an essential trait of deity was always His. While bowed in the garden, facing “the dark tomorrow,” He still possessed sovereign rights as Creator and Sustainer of all. Yet He bowed in wondrous grace and submission, telling His Father, “Not My will, but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42). Every other man who had walked upon the earth was a mere subject, a created being, devoid of sovereign rights and subject to the rule of God; man was subject to that rule yet constantly rebelled against it. But here was a Man of a totally different order. Here was a man possessed of sovereign rights, yet bowing and agreeing with the counsels of His Sovereign God that Calvary was a necessity.
Can we begin to estimate the joy and honor it brought to God to have a Man upon earth Who, though possessed of omnipotence would allow the God of heaven to be His strength? That, though maker and provider of all, would bow to receive the ministry of His own creatures, as directed by God? That while Sovereign in Himself would own the Sovereignty of His God? The only mystery is that heaven was not rent asunder at Calvary and the universe made to hear once more, “This is My Beloved Son in Whom is all My delight!”
Consider:
1. Think of the things which the Lord Jesus “self-imposed” on Himself: humanity, poverty, weakness, humility, and even death (John 1:14; 2 Cor 8:9; 13:4; Phil 2:5-8; Rev 1:18).
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