Incarnational Love

2:6-7 Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

We don’t appreciate what an enormous step of humility it was for God the Son to take on human flesh. We think of His humiliation at the hands of the Jews and Romans as substantial: getting stripped and whipped and spat upon, getting mocked and crowned with thorns and unjustly charged with a crime, and finally nailed to a cross in public display. But really the humiliation of the incarnation is even greater than this. The step from God-ness to humanness is far greater than the step from normal humanness to criminal crucifixion and mockery. Jesus traveled a long distance from "equality with God" to "death on a cross," but by far the biggest step along the way was the step from Creator-ness to creature-ness. The distance from humanness to criminal is very finite. The distance from God-ness to humanness is infinite.

But it was a step that had to be taken if man was to be saved. Man’s sin could only be paid for by man’s blood, and so "the Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of man could become the sons of God."

This same love that compelled Him to become one of us is at work in us today. This same Christ whose love led Him to the incarnation resides in us, compelling us in the same direction.

Part of Christ-like love, then, is identifying ourselves with the ones we are trying to love. This means not only having compassion, wherein we notice the struggles and needs of the objects of our love. It also means adapting ourselves to their circumstances (as much as we can within the boundaries of God’s commands) in order to meet them where they are. Here’s the way Paul describes his own practice of incarnational love:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. (1Cor.9:19-23)

(It is crucial, of course, to distinguish between adapting yourself to men out of Christ-like love for them and adapting yourself to men out of love for their ways. Though they might sometimes look similar, it is the distinction between incarnational love and worldliness. One good test to judge which is going on is a person’s willingness to adapt himself in many directions instead of just one. If a young person wants to dress like and hang around his peers in order to "love them for Christ’s sake," is he just as willing to dress like the businessmen or the adults in the church and hang around with them? If his zeal is in one direction only, the motivation is worldly, not Christly. It is also important to say that we are not talking about identifying ourselves with other people’s sin here, but only with their circumstances. Neither Jesus nor Paul ever participated in the sins of those they were seeking to love.)

Lord Jesus, I praise You for the amazing degree that You were willing to go to in order to secure my salvation. I praise You for being willing to be made in the likeness of men, FOR ME! I praise You for emptying Yourself in order to fill me. Now may Your love compel me to love others, may I be moved to step out of my comfort zone and get involved loving the people that you put around me. May I be willing to adapt myself to love others in the way they need to be loved. Help me to surrender all my preferences and dreams and ambitions, laying them at the foot of the cross, in order that I may carry my cross and follow in the path of the One who gave Himself up for me.