The Exaltation of Jesus Christ

I sometimes, in meditating on Jesus and what He is to me, try to find one bottom line of my relationship to Him.  It always begins with Who He is and why He came to our realm.  Covenant always comes into my consideration for God is a God of covenant.  I always arrive at the one conclusion:  God came to us in our likeness, radiating His Likeness, so He could make it possible for us to fulfill His covenant expectation of man in His image and we could become like Jesus.  We know He literally took our place, while 'being in very nature God', (Philippians 2:6 NIV) was tempted in all things pertaining to the journey to becoming mature sons of God we are now taking.  When Satan came to tempt Him in the wilderness when He was weakened from fasting, he said, "If you are the Son of God..."  He comes to us with that big "if" also, but Jesus did not answer in defense of Satan's attack, but spoke only the written Word.  He spoke out of His humanity as we must do, relying on all God had provided through His Spirit in the prophets.  Jesus was totally obedient to the heart of God to do all the Father wanted accomplished through Him on earth.  Philippians 2:5-11 (ESVUK) ⁵  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶  who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

We see a further reference to this in Hebrews 2:6-3:6, a portion I often consider for we must never forget the price of our salvation, nor that our humanity needs desperately to be connected to our link--our High Priest, the One constantly carrying us in intercession.  John saw Jesus in the Revelation as being very different from His earthly, human appearance.  While we must identify with His human ministry to and for us, we must also identify with His exalted glory of victoriously providing a finished work of salvation for all eternity.