Christ’s Humiliation (William S. Plumer, 1802-1880)

Respecting the humiliation45 of the Savior, the language of Scripture is strong: He “made himself of no reputation,46 and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion47 as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phi 2:7-8). This is an outline of our Lord’s humiliation, which has long been and will forever be the wonder and the song of angels and redeemed men. The whole of our Lord’s history on earth was one series of acts of self-emptying and humiliation.

Let us begin with the humble circumstances in which He came into the world. The husband of His mother was an artisan,48 commonly supposed to be a carpenter (Mat 13:55). Both he and the mother of our Lord were descended from David (Luk 2:4). But this family was fallen so low that when Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem, their descent from David secured them no attentions or civilities;49 they were lodged in a house built for cattle. There the mother of our Lord brought forth her child, wrapped Him in swaddling clothes,50 and laid Him in a manger because there was no room in the inn (Luk 2:7). And when she brought Him to present Him to [God in the temple,] her offering was that of the poorest: “A pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons” (Luk 2:24). The law of Moses admitted that offering for those who were “not able to bring a lamb” (Lev 12:8). Thus, the most highly favored among women was found in the depths of poverty and in great neglect. Her firstborn shared her lot. I have heard of but one child born in a stable—the holy child Jesus.

At His birth, our Lord had all the weakness of infancy. He was helpless and dependent like other children. The inspired history tells us that He “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luk 2:52). He had the trials of childhood.

No sooner was His birth known than Herod the Great, a cruel and bloody man, became intent on His death. He killed all the young children in one district of the land in the hope that he would thereby surely destroy Jesus. By timely warning from God, that infant Savior was rescued from the threatened evil; but only by flight into Egypt—Egypt, the “Rahab” and “Leviathan” of Scripture. The cruel, idolatrous, and degraded people of that land had a hereditary and inveterate51 hatred against the Jews; but now their country was a safer asylum to this blessed family than any city or village of Judea.

On their return from Egypt, they settled in Nazareth. By some means this place had been rendered odious.52 Even the guileless53 Nathanael shared in the common aversion and cried, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (Joh 1:46). Jesus spent the most of His life here until He was thirty years old. Nazareth is not once mentioned in the Old Testament, nor by Josephus.54 Prophecy said that Christ should be “despised and rejected of men” (Isa 53:3)…

Nazareth was probably infamous for the fierceness and brutality of its people (Luk 4:16-30). It was not the seat of any famous school. As a place of residence, it had the advantage of privacy; and its geographical position was truly beautiful. Here our Lord lived and wrought at the same craft as Joseph; for His own countrymen said, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mar 6:3). If there was any school at Nazareth, Jesus does not seem to have attended it; for the Jews said, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (Joh 7:15). Another part of Christ’s humiliation consisted in His being tempted (Heb 2:18; 4:15). True, the prince of this world found nothing in Him (Joh 14:30). In His holy soul was no fuel to be kindled by the fiery darts; but it must have filled Him with anguish to have so foul suggestions made to Him. So far as we know, His first great conflict with the adversary was in the wilderness. It lasted forty days (Luk 4:2). Christ was about to enter on His public ministry and retired to the wilderness under the best desires to commune with God. But Satan annoyed Him continually. The temptation grew worse and worse to the close. The adversary then tempted Him to use His miraculous power to prove His deity to Satan and to satisfy His own hunger, as He had eaten nothing for forty days. The wicked one also tempted Him to an act of presumption by throwing Himself from the pinnacle of the temple. Finally, he offered Him immense possessions and great honors, the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, if He would commit one act of idolatry. It added not a little to the power of these besetments55 that they were urged on Christ in His solitude. Although each assault was an utter failure, yet the devil departed from Him but for a season (Luk 4:13). The Savior was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin (Heb 4:15).

As Jesus was born, so He lived and died poor. He said, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Mat 8:20). During His ministry, He seems to have chiefly subsisted upon the charity of some poor, pious women. Well did He know what it was to suffer hunger and want. When a capitation56 tax was demanded of Him, though it was but half a crown57 for Himself and Peter, He could not pay it without a miracle.

Another element of Christ’s humiliation was His liability to affliction. Above all that ever lived, He was the “man of sorrows” (Isa 53:3). He was subject to disappointment, grief, vexation, a sense of wrong, a sense of the ingratitude of men, and the pangs arising from a disregard of all the principles of friendship. His holy soul was filled with anguish by His cruel rejection. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (Joh 1:10-11). None of the princes of this world knew Him (1Co 2:8). “We hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isa 53:3). Those countless annoyances, called slights, must have pierced Him deeply. The people of the city where He had been brought up were so offended at His first sermon in their synagogue that they attempted to destroy His life by casting Him down from a high rock (Luk 4:16-30). And when He claimed existence prior to Abraham, the Jews took up stones to cast at Him (Joh 8:59). For saving two men from the most frightful torments, followed by the loss of some swine, the whole city of the Gergesenes “besought him that he would depart out of their coasts” (Mat 8:34). They preferred their swine, madmen, and devils to the Prince of Peace. Afterwards, on His trial, the Jews cried, “Away with him, away with him” (Joh 19:15). They preferred to have a murderer turned loose on their community, rather than that the Son of God should longer teach His heavenly doctrines. Their cry was, “Not this man, but Barabbas” (Joh 18:40). During His whole ministry, the leaders among His foes denied that God had sent Him (Joh 10:24-26). Never was mission so well attested. Never were attestations58 so malignantly set aside.

And never were hard names and opprobrious epithets59 so heaped upon any one. His enemies said He was a deceiver (Joh 7:12), gluttonous and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners (Mat 11:19). They said He was in league with the prince of the devils and that by satanic power He wrought miracles. Surely above all others, He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself (Heb 12:3). Nor were these things without their dreadful effects on His refined and tender nature. “His visage60 was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isa 52:14). Speaking in His name, the prophet said, “Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none” (Psa 69:20). The same prophet had elsewhere said in His name, “I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head” (Psa 22:6-7).

The annals of our race furnish no parallel to His history in the lack of sympathy under amazing sufferings. No terms of derision, no taunts in the midst of His agonies were deemed indecent by His enemies (Mat 27:40-43). In His greatest trial, when He most needed the offices of friendship, His “disciples forsook him and fled” (Mat 26:56). The very boldest of all His followers denied Him thrice, and even with oaths and curses (Mar 14:71). Never by countenance did friend express such surprise, regret, and reproof, as when Christ looked on Peter after the cock crew.61

He was not only denied by one disciple; He was betrayed by another in a manner full of base hypocrisy, even with a kiss (Luk 22:48). The general motive for His betrayal was the depravity of Judas. The special motive was covetousness. Yet the son of perdition sold Him for the paltry sum of thirty pieces of silver, the amount fixed by the law of Moses as the price of a slave, to be paid to his owner if his death had been brought about by the goring of a neighbor’s ox (Exo 21:32). In prophetically speaking of this sum, Zechariah ironically calls it a goodly price. He cast the amount in scorn to the potter in the house of the Lord (Zec 11:13).

Another element in our Lord’s humiliation was the character of the testimony on His trial. The witnesses were all suborned.62 The Jews “sought false witness against Jesus, to put him to death; 60 But found none: yea, though many false witnesses came, yet found they none” (Mat 26:59-60). That is, the law required two concurring witnesses, and they found not two who agreed. “At the last came two false witnesses, And said, This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days” (Mat 26:60-61). These witnesses lied, for they had not heard Him say anything about destroying the temple, and what He did say was quite unlike what they alleged. “Destroy this temple”—i.e., kill this body—“and in three days I will raise it up” (Joh 2:19). The thing charged was absurd and frivolous as well as false. No wonder Jesus held His peace and answered nothing. The Jews evidently felt that they had made good no serious charge; for they tried to get from Him a confession that He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed. Our Lord [thought] it was a right time to speak, whereupon He made that “good confession” (1Ti 6:13), so precious in the church ever since. He said He was the Christ.

The course of the judge who sat on His trial, while it was a disgrace to himself, was a deep humiliation to Jesus. If history can be trusted, Pilate was a monster of perfidy, avarice, cruelty, and obstinacy.63 Previously, he had fallen on some poor Galileans and butchered them while they were making their prescribed offerings, thus mingling their blood with their sacrifices (Luk 13:1). No decency of life, no solemnity of religion could restrain him. Over and over again did he confess that Jesus had violated no law, had committed no offence. His wife warned him to do nothing against that just man. He knew that the chief priests had delivered Him up for envy. He was afraid that he would lose his place if he did not give sentence against Jesus. Instead of abiding by his own clear convictions, he turned to the malignant enemies of the innocent sufferer before him and asked them what the sentence should be (cf. Mat 27:18-19, 24; Joh 19:12-16). Before yielding to the violence of the mob around the judgment seat, this mercenary and vacillating64 creature made a feeble effort to convince the Jews that the prisoner before him ought not to die, saying, “Why, what evil hath he done?” (Mat 27:23). This failing, he thought to save his popularity and the life of Jesus by working on their sympathies. So, he delivered Christ over to be scourged. This was a dreadful infliction. The back was made bare, the arms were drawn up, the scourge was applied first with the right hand and then with the left. Men often grew faint at the shocking sight. All this had been predicted by the evangelical prophet: “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting” (Isa 50:6). But all this had no effect in appeasing the rage of the malignant throng. Nor did it strengthen any just purpose in the bosom of the judge. So, he delivered His guiltless victim to be crucified (Mat 27:26). It is often asked, What became of Pilate? His murder of the Galileans and like acts of violence would probably have caused his dismissal, had not Tiberius65 died. He, however, fell under the displeasure of the successor of that emperor, was degraded from office, became a wretched outcast, and ended his days by committing suicide.

As the form of trial granted to Jesus was a mockery of all justice and decency, so mockery was kept up to the last. They spit in His face and buffeted Him. Others smote Him with the palms of their hands, and asked Him, “Who is he that smote thee?” They stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet robe, as though He were a royal personage. But all was in derision. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon His head and a reed in His right hand; and they bowed the knee before Him and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they spit upon Him and took the reed and smote Him on the head. And after they had mocked Him, they took the robe off from Him, put His own raiment on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him (Mat 26:67-68; 27:28-31).

It would be wonderful66 indeed if so long and sleepless sorrow, such scourging and smiting, had not much exhausted His strength. And so we find it. At first by their bidding, He bare His own cross (Joh 19:17); but, as is supposed, growing faint under it, He could bear it no farther. They met a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Matthew says they compelled him to bear the cross. Luke says they laid the cross on him that he might bear it after Jesus (cf. Mat 27:32; Luk 23:26). Who this Simon was, friend or foe, or how he felt on the sad occasion is not certain; but he was probably suspected of leaning to the cause of Christ. It is not certain whether he bore the whole cross or only the hinder part of it.

As the procession advanced, there followed Him a great company of people and of women that also bewailed and lamented Him. But Jesus, knowing He should soon be through His troubles and seeing the glory that should follow, turning to them, said, “Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” He then foretold the awful doom of the holy city (Luk 23:27-31).

Reaching the dreadful spot, Jesus was again stripped and nailed to the cross. Truly, this was the hour of darkness! A few days before, the Son of God was in tears. The night before, He had been in bloody sweat (Luk 22:44). Now He is on the cross, receiving at the hands of men a punishment reserved for the worst criminals and those slaves. Some think hanging on the cross produced dislocation. So they understand that phrase, “All my bones are out of joint” (Psa 22:14). Others think it is figurative language, descriptive of dreadful agony, as if all the bones were dislocated. Perhaps this is the more probable view. The theory of death by crucifixion was the extinction of life, not by strangulation nor by loss of blood, but by nervous distress. The extremities, the seat of very tender sensation, were wounded and lacerated. The distortions of the frame were dreadful. The sufferer was confined to one position, itself great torture if long continued. One may read the history of crucifixion until his feelings are petrified. The details are indeed lacerating. No doubt a graphic description of them in a large assembly would make many swoon away. But the object of this chapter is not to [rip up] sensibilities, but to show how Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wondrous cross! Wondrous tree...But the efficacy of the cross is not in the wood, but in the blood shed by Him Who hung upon it…Every death by the cross was shameful. That of our Lord was peculiarly so. He was crucified between two thieves, and with every mark of ignominy.67

Such was the agony of death by the cross that, as a matter of humanity, it seems to have been customary to administer some powerful narcotic to produce insensibility. “Wine mingled with myrrh” was offered to our Savior, but He “received it not” (Mar 15:23). He drew His solace from another source. As He had despised their reproaches and cruelties, so He [despised] their proffered stupefying cup. Christ would end His days with an unclouded intellect. He would not leave the world in voluntary stupor. Yet even the offer of wine mingled with myrrh was soon followed by renewed derision (Mat 27:42-43).

The death of the cross is often called accursed. It was so indeed. Paul says: “It is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Gal 3:13). He refers to Deuteronomy 21:22-23: “And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.” These texts do not teach that eternal misery always followed this kind of death. We know this is not so. The penitent thief went from the cross to paradise…

Though the sentence given by Pilate was wholly unjust, and though it was with wicked hands that Jesus was crucified and slain (Act 2:23), yet, as He voluntarily and by God’s approval stood in our place, He bore “the curse of the law,” not for His own, but for our sins. No doubt the Mosaic law pointed to the death of Christ, for above all that ever lived, He was “made a curse” (Gal 3:13), though not for Himself, yet “for us.” He was not only forsaken of men, but of God. The bitterest cry ever heard came from the cross: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”68 (Mar 15:34).

Not long after, our Savior cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost. The executioners admitted that He was dead, and neither friend nor foe doubted. The water that came from His side proved that He was dead and cold. But the Lord of heaven and earth had no sepulcher of His own. The love of one of His followers secured Him burial. Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counsellor and a rich man, who had hitherto shown much timidity, went in boldly unto Pilate and craved the body of Jesus. He bought fine linen and took Him down, wrapped Him in the linen, laid Him in a sepulcher that was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher (Mar 15:43, 46). Here the Lord lay surrounded by a strong guard of Roman soldiers.

This was the end of His humiliation.

From Rock of Our Salvation, 179-197, Sprinkle Publications, www.sprinklepublications.net.

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William S. Plumer (1802-1880): American Presbyterian minister and author; born in Greensburg, PA, USA.

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