High and Lifted Up

 

 

There are no words beginning with X that point to God, but there are a few that sound as if they do. One of them is EXALT and we exalt Him because of His holiness and excellence.

In the OT, three verbs are translated into forms of this exalt word. One is to make something great, God often being the subject, yet we do not make Him great by our praise; He is already great!

The second verb usually means to go up or ascend not always pointing to God but to the actions of His people. The third is describing things that are exalted. It can refer to stars and other things that are lifted up, but more often points to God.

The psalmists point out how we can exalt Him personally: “The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation” and corporately, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together!”

These song writers also exalt God globally and universally: “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” and “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!”

Psalm 99:2–5 offers a few of many reasons why God is exalted: “The Lord is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples. Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he! The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!”

Isaiah 6:1 tells how that prophet was given the privilege of seeing God’s glory and exalting Him: “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

The NT also translates three verbs into forms of exalt. One means “to look up, lift up” and has several senses. Another one means “to magnify” pointing to praise for God but also referring to His power to make great anything He chooses.

The third verb is similar to the third verb in the OT, but in the NT it is used almost exclusively in a theological sense: first to exalt Jesus and second in reference to God’s promise to the humble.

Jesus was exalted when He was lifted up on the cross. This seems a strange thing unless we know what His crucifixion  accomplished. He fulfilled the saving grace of God illustrated in the OT situation where Moses lifted up the bronze serpent in the wilderness giving people salvation from the experience of being bitten. Jesus told how His identity would be revealed and His source of power being seen as He was ‘lifted up’ or being exalted in His death. He also said in John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Acts 5:31 affirms that “God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” However, this comes only to those who bow before Him. We are told, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” and to, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. These two themes are brought together in the life and death of Jesus. He humbled Himself and God has exalted Him as Philippians 2:5–11 describes:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 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.”

When my focus is on Jesus, every part of His life, death and exaltation produces in me a heart filled with praise for all that He is and has done, and for all He will do!