November 21, 2019 – Revelation 5:5–6

“See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah … has triumphed.…” Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain.
—Revelation 5:5–6

There meet in the person of Christ diverse qualities that would have been thought utterly incompatible in the same person.50 These are brought together in no other person, either divine, human, or angelic.
Infinite glory and lowest humility. Infinite glory and the virtue of humility meet in no other person but Christ. They meet in no created person, for no created person has infinite glory, and they meet in no other divine person but Christ. For though the divine nature is infinitely abhorrent to pride, yet humility is not properly attributed to God the Father and the Holy Spirit, who exist only in the divine nature, because [humility] is a proper quality only of a created nature.
But in Jesus Christ, who is both God and human, those two diverse qualities are united. He is a person infinitely exalted in glory and dignity. There is equal honor due to him with the Father. God himself says to him, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8). And the same respect and worship is paid to him by the angels of heaven as to God the Father: “Let all God’s angels worship him” (v. 6).
But however he is thus above all, yet he is lowest of all in humility. None ever was so aware of the distance between God and him or had a heart so humble before God as the man Jesus (Matt. 11:29). When he was here on earth, what humility appeared in him, in all his behavior: in his contentment in his inferior outward condition, living in the family of Joseph the carpenter and Mary, his mother, for thirty years together and afterwards choosing outward commonness, poverty, and contempt rather than earthly greatness; in his washing his disciples’ feet and in all his speeches and behavior toward them; in his cheerfully taking the nature of a servant through his whole life and submitting to such immense humiliation at death!
Self-sufficiency and entire trust and reliance on God. As he is a divine person, he is self-sufficient, standing in need of nothing. All creatures are dependent on him; he is dependent on none but is absolutely independent.
Yet Christ entirely trusted in God—his enemies say that of him, “He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him” (Matt. 27:43). And the apostle testifies, “He entrusted himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).
—Jonathan Edwards