“God highly exalted Him.” Philippians 2:9
The Father exalted the Son as the God-man.
A question that often springs to mind regarding the exaltation of Christ is
how Jesus could be exalted since He is already God. We find the answer in Jesus’
High-Priestly prayer in John 17, where He asked the Father to restore to Him the
glory He had with the Father before the world began (v. 5). Christ’s request
shows that He gave up something that God would give back to Him. Christ gave up
His glory in the Incarnation. Beyond glorification, in His exaltation Christ
would receive more than He had before.
How is that possible? God has it all. Christ didn’t become any more God or
any more perfect; He was already the Most High God—King of kings and Lord of
lords. But as the God-man, a new state of being for Him, He suffered things and
was given things He would not otherwise have had if He had not become the
God-man. For example, He never would have had the privilege of being the
interceding High Priest for His people if He had never been touched with the
feelings of their infirmities—tempted in all points like them. If He had not
become the God-man, He would never have become our substitute by bearing our
sins in His own body on the cross. As God He was incapable of elevation, but as
the God-Man He could be lifted up from the lowest degradation to the highest
degree of glory. So in a sense He received from the Father privileges He didn’t
have before—privileges He gained because of His incarnation.
At His ascension Christ was seated at the Father’s right hand. He was
elevated to that position as the God-man—a state of being that was His only
because of His incarnation. Thus He entered upon the rights and privileges not
only of God as God, but of God as the God-man. His exaltation was not with
regard to His nature or eternal place within the Trinity but with regard to His
new character as the God-man.
~John MacArthur, Strength for Today
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