The Renunciation of the Lord Jesus
Things did not begin with the Lord Jesus at the little town of Bethlehem in Palestine. I have called that a "crisis," for it was a turning point in Christianity, but it all began in heaven. You have to go back behind Bethlehem and into heaven, and see what was happening there. The eternal Son of God was there, and He was equal with God. He was one with God in position, having all heaven's fullness and Divine glory. In John 17:5 the Lord Jesus prayed in these words: "Father, glorify thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was," and that was before Bethlehem! In heaven, then, before the world was, there was the Son possessing the glory of God, occupying the very throne of God, the throne of the universe. Then, speaking in human language, the point came when something needed to be done in this little world. God had lost His place, had been rejected, and man had lost what God had intended for him. He had forfeited the eternal life which God had intended him to have. So to speak, satan and man together had turned God out of this world, and it was in pride. satan had said: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:13-14). We know the result of that! And man entered into a complicity with satan and God's place and God's life were lost to man. There is so much more in that word "lost", but Jesus found me," but when were you lost, and what did you lose?
Here we are in an eternal setting. Jesus said: "The Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10), and as we go on we shall see what that was.
In this situation in eternity the Son said: "I will undertake to bring it all back. Father, I will do this service for You. I know what it means. Because it was pride that did all the mischief, pride must be destroyed in Me. Because it was disobedience that resulted in all this trouble, obedience must be the law of My life." Well, to make it short, away back there in eternity the Lord Jesus made the great renunciation. He relinquished His position, emptied Himself, and then came forth to do this service for God, which was to recover God's place in this world and in this universe. That was the crisis of Bethlehem!
Can it be true? Is that little babe in that manger in the innermost reality of His being that eternal Son Who occupied the place of supreme authority in the past ages? Is this little baby the same One Who was filled with the glory of God and all heaven? Oh, wonder of wonders, He has indeed taken the lowest place! What ought He to have had? But what He did have was a manger in a stable! There was no place for Him in the world that he Himself had create! "He came unto His own things, and they that were His own received Him not" (John 1:11). What a crisis in the ages!
That is what took place in heaven, so you are not surprised that heaven is interested in this crisis! To begin with, an archangel, Gabriel, is interested, and then we read of a "multitude" of angels who are interested, for they know something of the meaning of it.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 14 - (Mary's Renunciation)
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