27. God who is Exalted

Names of God Meditations No.27:  God who is Exalted

Isa 57:15 “For this is what the HIGH AND EXALTED ONE says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

God IS exalted: This amazing prophecy from Isaiah brings before us a truth that is both incredibly simple and straight forward, but also remarkably sublime. It is the fact that the Lord, Almighty God, our heavenly Father, is exalted above all others and all else. Why? Because He IS God, the Eternal One, the Holy One, who is unlike anyone or anything else. All else in our somewhat limited existence in this solar system has been tainted by sin, but not Him. He is perfect, pure, beautiful, wonderful.

Something more: When, earlier in this this series, we considered Him as our rock, our fortress, our deliverer, and so on, all those things comforted us and made us feel good about Him and our relationship with Him. However, this is something different, this produces a massive gulf between Him and us. He is ‘up there’, and we are ‘down here’; He is utterly perfect, and we are definitely not; He, the Creator, is all-powerful, while we are frighteningly weak; He is bathed in light while we (without His salvation) are in darkness. The Bible testifies to all these differences again and again.

The Visionaries: When Isaiah had his vision, he recorded, “ I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne,” (Isa 6:1) and just the sight of Him made Isaiah aware of his own imperfection and uncleanness (v.5). Ezekiel in his vision tells of those below the throne and of the One on the throne, and he writes, “This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown.” (Ezek 1:28). John in his vision in Revelation records the throne room of heaven where every being around the throne falls down and worships the Lord (Rev 4) such is the wonder of the Exalted One.

The Messiah: Now God is God, and He is all that we might expect, but when Isaiah starts getting words about the suffering-servant-Messiah, we see terrible accounts and contradictory descriptions of him. First, “he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.” (Isa 52:13) but then, “his appearance was so  disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness,” (v.14) so that his listeners must have wondered what that could mean.

Jesus lifted: This initial lifting up, we see from the distance of history, must have referred to the cross but at the end of that particular Servant Song, it is clear that in triumph Jesus will be exalted.

In the New Testament, it takes John to remember Jesus’ words referring to himself, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,” (Jn3:14) referring obliquely to a literal, physical lifting up, i.e. the cross. Later he again refers to this when he says,  “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.” (Jn 8:28). There the ‘lifting up’ could have the double meaning of physically being lifted AND being lifted up in the sense of being exalted, seen for who he really is. But then he speaks of another ‘lifting up’ which must have confused the disciples when he says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (Jn 12:32) Again, we can now see a double lifting up – his literal physical ascension (Acts 1:9) where, “he was taken up,” but also being lifted up to the highest place in heaven alongside his Father, “Exalted to the right hand of God,” (Acts 2:33 – also Acts 5:31, Phil 2:9 etc.)

And us: For the psalmist, at that time this seemed to mean that the Lord being exalted meant He was also distanced from us, “Though the Lord is exalted, he looks kindly on the lowly; though lofty, he sees them from afar.” (Psa 138:6) but when we come to the New Testament, we see that the work of Jesus means that we are now, in one sense, brought to the amazing position of being exalted with Christ, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 2:6), which the Message version paraphrases beautifully, “he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.”

And so: So what have we seen? First, God the Father, simply because of who He is, is exalted. Second, Jesus by coming and dying for us, is now also exalted alongside his Father. Third, and this takes faith and revelation, you and I, linked to him by his Spirit, are joined to him and are, in the eyes of heaven at least, exalted with him.

So how does this impact me? Well, first, it lifts me out of the ordinary and the mundane, to say that my identity is transformed as I, as a child of God, am joined to the Godhead with access to heaven but, second, it brings me to worship and bow down before these Beings, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who are so awesome, so mighty, so wonderful. Nothing less than worship is appropriate here.  But…. Oh yes, there is one sobering truth: every single human being without exception will be called to account to stand before them, except those whose names are already written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev 19:11-15, 21:27). There all will bow before the exalted Ones in heaven (Phil 2:10, Rom 14:11) even as Isaiah had previously prophesied: “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, ‘In the Lord alone are deliverance and strength.’ All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.” (Isa 45:22-24) Why? Because He IS exalted.