The Nature of Our GodSample

The Humble God

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

The supreme example of humility in the universe is Jesus Christ. The word translated into “form” is the Greek word morphē. Our English words morph and metamorphosis come from this Greek word, which means “essential nature.” The Bible tells us that Jesus’s essential nature is God. He did not become God, look like God, or appear as God—He is God. He is truly and fully God, and always has been. 

But Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” That is, Jesus did not cling to His glory, His honor, or His privileges as God. He did not hang onto these things, but relinquished them. He was still God, make no mistake, but He gave up the glory, honor, and privileges of being a deity.

The humble God. The very phrase is almost jarring to the ears. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it is true. Jesus Christ, God incarnate, exemplifies humility. The One who created the galaxies with His mere breath, the One who had received the worship and adoration of innumerable angels, the One who exuded a blinding holiness, became a wrinkled little Baby who was completely dependent on His teenage mother. He needed His diaper changed. Talk about humility.

The well-known author C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity:

"The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man—a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular color, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab."