“Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant… 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.” (Philippians 2:6–9)
The crown and the cross are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other. The path to the throne went through Calvary. The King became a servant. The Sovereign suffered. And through His suffering, He secured His eternal reign.
This is not a paradox to be resolved. It is the central truth of the Christian faith — the thing that makes the gospel unlike anything else the world has ever produced. Every other religion offers a god who is powerful and distant. Christianity offers a King who descended, suffered, died, and rose. The crown and the cross belong together because the King who wears the crown is the same one who bled on the cross.
The Suffering Servant
Isaiah 53 prophesied the Messiah’s suffering centuries before Jesus was born. It is one of the most remarkable passages in all of Scripture — a detailed portrait of a figure who would be despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. One from whom people would hide their faces. Esteemed not.
And then the theological weight of it: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4–5)
This is substitutionary suffering. The servant doesn’t suffer for his own sin — he has none. He suffers for ours. He bears what we deserved. He is crushed under the weight of iniquities that belong to us, so that the peace that should be impossible for us becomes possible through him.
Isaiah wrote this seven hundred years before the cross. And when Jesus stood before Pilate, when the soldiers drove the nails, when the crowd mocked and the darkness fell — every word of Isaiah 53 was being fulfilled in real time. The suffering servant had arrived. And He was exactly who Isaiah said He would be.
The Kenosis: Why He Came the Way He Came
Philippians 2 gives us the theological framework for understanding the Incarnation. Paul says Jesus, though He was in the form of God — possessing the full nature and attributes of deity — did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He didn’t cling to the privileges of His divine status. He emptied Himself.
This is what theologians call the kenosis — the self-emptying of Christ. He didn’t cease to be God. He didn’t lay aside His divine nature. But He voluntarily set aside the independent exercise of His divine prerogatives and took on the limitations of human flesh. He who upholds the universe by the word of His power learned to walk. He who is the bread of life got hungry. He who is the resurrection and the life wept at a tomb.
The Creator became a creature. The King became a servant. And He did it deliberately, willingly, for a specific purpose: to become the kind of representative who could stand in our place, bear our sin, and die our death. The Incarnation wasn’t an accident or a concession. It was the plan — the only way the redemption could be accomplished.
He humbled Himself to the point of death. Even death on a cross. The most shameful, most public, most agonizing form of execution the Roman world had devised. The King of kings, stripped and mocked and nailed to wood. Not because He had to. Because He chose to. For us.
The Cross: Where the Suffering Accomplished Everything
The cross is not a tragedy that God redeemed. It is the event God planned from before the foundation of the world to accomplish the redemption of His people.
Revelation 13:8 speaks of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The cross was not Plan B. It was always the plan. The suffering servant of Isaiah 53, the Passover lamb of Exodus, the sacrificial system of Leviticus — all of it was pointing forward to this moment. The moment when the Son of God would absorb the full weight of God’s just wrath against human sin, so that everyone who trusts in Him could be forgiven, justified, and reconciled to the Father.
Colossians 2:14–15 says He canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, nailing it to the cross. The debt is not deferred. It is not reduced. It is canceled — nailed to the cross with Him, paid in full by His blood.
And then He rose.
The Resurrection and the Reign
The resurrection is not a postscript to the cross. It is the vindication of everything the cross accomplished. If Jesus had stayed in the tomb, the cross would have been a tragedy — a good man executed unjustly, nothing more. But He didn’t stay in the tomb. He rose on the third day, exactly as He said He would, and in doing so He proved that death has no final claim on Him — and no final claim on those who are in Him.
Philippians 2:9–11 says therefore — because of the cross, because of the obedience, because of the death — 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.
Matthew 28:18: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Not some. Not most. All. Ephesians 1:20–22 says He is seated at the right hand of the Father, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion — and all things are under His feet.
Revelation 19:16 gives Him His title: King of kings and Lord of lords. Not a king among many. The King above all kings. The one before whom every other authority will one day bow.
The Cross Led to the Crown
Hebrews 12:2 says Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. The cross was the path to the throne. His suffering led to His exaltation.
Revelation 5:9 says He is worthy to reign because He was slain. His kingship is rooted in His sacrifice. The crown validates the cross, and the cross explains the crown. You cannot separate them without losing both. A king without the cross is just power. A cross without the king is just tragedy. Together, they are the gospel.
And this is the King you are called to follow. Not a distant sovereign who issues commands from a safe distance. A King who descended into the worst of what you face, bore the worst of what you deserve, and rose to prove that He has authority over everything that threatens you. A King who reigns not in spite of His suffering but through it.
One day, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The question is not whether that day is coming. It is. The question is whether you will bow now in faith, or later in judgment.
King Jesus reigns. Bow before Him. Submit to Him. Worship Him. Live for Him.
Go Deeper
1. Isaiah 53 describes a servant who suffers for the sins of others — bearing what they deserved so they could receive what they didn’t. How does understanding the substitutionary nature of Christ’s suffering change the way you think about what happened at the cross? Is it something that happened for you, or something that happened in your place?
2. Philippians 2 says Jesus didn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped — He voluntarily emptied Himself and took the form of a servant. What does that kind of voluntary humility say about the character of the King you follow? And what does it say about what it means to follow Him?
3. Revelation 5:9 says He is worthy to reign because He was slain. The crown and the cross are inseparable. Where in your life are you tempted to follow a version of Jesus that has the authority without the suffering — the King without the cross? What would it look like to follow the whole Jesus?
— Todd Wallace, 4HG
Wear the declaration — crown and cross, suffering servant and reigning Lord. Shop the King Jesus tee at 4HG.
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