Our God is a Humble God
If someone were to ask you to list attributes of God, you might come up with responses like majestic, all-powerful, loving, or glorious. Someone else might add, unchanging, self-existent, or eternal.
These are all appropriate responses, and there are many more like them that, given time, we could list. But as I pondered the “godness” of God this week, I reflected on one that we rarely think of, and that is God’s humility.
Last week, we looked at the reality of the incarnation—God taking on human flesh and blood. What was required to allow the creator of all that exists, this majestic, awe-inspiring, glorious God we just described, to become one with what he had created? It boggles the mind to even consider what all that involved, but one thing it had to require was humility. Our God is a humble God.
Twice, in the New Testament, we read that God stands in opposition to pride while exalting humility.
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
– James 4:6, ESV
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
– 1 Peter 5:5b, ESV
When Jesus’ mother, Mary, visited Elizabeth and John leapt in Elizabeth’s womb, Mary sang a song, often referred to as The Magnificat.1 In that song, Mary sang the line, “He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;”
Aside from the New Testament references above, the humility of God is all over the Old Testament.2 For example:
For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.
– Psalem 138:6, ESV
In absolute humility, the Creator became one with the created. The God of heaven touched the earth. The limitless, Spirit God entered time, space, and matter. The all-powerful God became a helpless infant. The omnipresent God, in all places at all times, could find no private room in which to be born. Our God is a humble God.
During his ministry on earth, the one time Jesus opened up and described himself from the inside, he said he was gentle, and humble.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
– Matthew 11:29, BSB
Let this be a part of your Christmas remembrance, that the God of Heaven, the awe-inspiring God, is a God of humility. Though a holy and omnipotent God to be revered, he was among us as one who serves.3 Though the King of kings, he came to lowly shepherds in an obscure village rather than a palatial estate.
You give me your shield of victory,
and your right hand sustains me;
you stoop down to make me great.
– Psalm 18:35, NIV-1978
1. Luke 1:46-55
2. 2 Samuel 22:28, Psalm 18:27, Psalm 22:29, Psalm 31:23, Psalm 94:2, Psalm 119:21, Psalm 138:6, Proverbs 6:17, Proverbs 8:13, Proverbs 15:25, Isaiah 2:12, Isaiah 10:12, Isaiah 23:9, Jeremiah 13:9, Jeremiah 50:31, Ezekiel 7:24, Daniel 4:37, Amos 6:8, Zechariah 9:6
3. Luke 22:27
