Excellencies So Diverse
To Edwards' sermon on Revelation 5:5-6, "The Excellency of Christ" in which Edwards pointed out that the unique glory of Christ was that such diverse excellencies (lion and lamb) unite in him. These excellencies are so diverse that they "would have seemed to us utterly incompatible in the same subject," Piper responds- We admire him for his glory, but even more because his glory
is mingled with humility;
- We admire him for his transcendence, but even more because his transcendence is accompanied by condescension;
- We admire him for his uncompromising justice, but even more because it is tempered with mercy;
- We admire him for his majesty, but even more because it is majesty in meekness;
- We admire him because of his equality with God, but even more because as God's equal he nevertheless has a deep reverence for God;
- We admire him because of how he was of all good, but even more because this was accompanied by an amazing patience to suffer evil;
- We admire him because of his sovereign dominion over the world, but even more because this dominion was clothed with a spirit of obedience and submission;
- We love the way he stumped the proud scribes with his wisdom, and we love it even more because he could be simple enough to like children and spend time with them;
- And we admire him because he could still the storm, but even more because he refused to use that power to strike the Samaritans with lightning (Luke 5:54-55) and he refused to use it to get himself down from the cross.
I pray that it moves my heart to praise God for being my glorious king, the King of kings, who is not above riding on a donkey, washing feet, eating with sinners, stepping off his throne as Creator out of heaven and into the body of a creature, to die naked on the cross in my place, to draw me to himself despite my resistance and rebellion toward him, to adopt me as a child, and to exalt Jesus so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. I pray that this reminder moves me today to not think myself too high to do even the most menial of tasks, not think my time too important to be bothered with the "insignificant" things of caring, and to love the way Jesus loved (1 John 3:16-18).
I was reminded of this quote and moved to post it because of PyroManiac's most recent Spurgeon quote.