But _he_ was _God_. Yes, all the fulness of the Godhead was in him,
or he could not have made atonement for the sins of his brethren. But
remember that Christ Jesus emptied himself. This does not mean that
he ceased in any sense to be God. But there was something that he had
as God, in glory with the Father, that he did not have as the God-man
living here on earth. He was rich up there; he was poor down here (2
Cor. 8:9). Of what did Jesus empty himself? He emptied himself of
the glory that he had with the Father before the world was. The full
meaning of that none of us can fathom. But here again there is a very
practical application to our everyday living of this profound doctrine
of the humiliation of our Lord:
He emptied himself of that which would have prevented him, in the
days of his suffering on earth, from being a true Son of man.
Jesus voluntarily gave up that inherent power that was his as God, and
lived his life as God intended that man should live his life, _in utter
dependence on a power not his own_.
When man fell, his sin was a declaration of independence of God. He
thus made impossible the living of a true man’s life, for an essential
part of a man’s life is to live moment by moment in utter dependence on
another, his Maker.
That is why our Lord constantly pointed _away from himself_. “The Son
can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19). “I can of myself do nothing: as
I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine
own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 5:30). “I do nothing
of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things” (John
8:28). “The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but
the Father abiding in me doeth his works” (John 14:10). Our Lord here
speaks as the Son of man, not coming in his own name, or living in his
own name, but in the name and by the power of Another dwelling within
him.