UNITY IN SELF-FORGETFULNESS: THE EXAMPLE OF THE LORD
PHILIPPIANS ii. 1-11
Dissensions incident to activity--Arguments for heart-union--"No
plunderer's prize"--"The name"--The tone of the great passage--What the
"Kenosis" cannot be--It guarantees the infallibility--Doctrine and
life--"Only thou"
In the section which we studied last we found the Apostle coming to the
weak point of the Christian life of the Philippians. On the whole, he
was full of thankful and happy thoughts about them. Theirs was no
lukewarm religion; it abounded in practical benevolence, animated by love
to Christ, and it was evidently ready for joyful witness to the Lord, in
face of opposition and even of persecution. But there was a tendency
towards dissension and internal separation in the Mission Church; a
tendency which all through the Epistle betrays its presence by the stress
which the Apostle everywhere lays upon holy unity, the unity of love, the
unity whose secret lies in the individual's forgetfulness of self.
Such dangers are always present in the Christian Church, for everywhere
and always saints are still sinners. And it is a sad but undeniable fact
of Christian history that the spirit of difference, dissension,
antagonism, within the ranks of the believing, is not least likely to be
operative where there is a generally diffused life and vigour in the
community. A state of spiritual chill or lukewarmness may even favour a
certain exterior tranquillity; for where the energies of conviction are
absent there will be little energy for discussion and resistance in
matters not merely secular. But where Christian life and thought, and
the expression of it, are in power, there, unless the Church is
particularly watchful, the enemy has his occasion to put in the seeds of
the tares amidst the golden grain. The Gospel itself has animated the
disciples' affections, and also their intellects; and if the Gospel is
not diligently used as guide as well as stimulus, there will assuredly be
collisions.
Almost every great crisis of life and blessing in the Church has shewn
examples of this. It was thus in the period of the Reformation, the
moment the law of love was forgotten by the powerful minds which were so
wonderfully energized as well as liberated by the rediscovery of eternal
truths long forgotten. It was thus again in the course of the
Evangelical Revival in the last century, when holy men, whose whole
natures had been warmed and vivified by a new insight for themselves into
the fulness of Christ, were betrayed into discussions on the mysteries of
grace carried on in the spirit rather of self than of love. "We that are
in this tabernacle do groan, being burthened." The words are true of the
believing individual; they are true also of the believing Church. That
which is perfect is not yet come. In the inscrutable but holy progress
of the plan of God in redemption towards its radiant goal, it is
permitted that temptation should connect itself with our very blessings,
both in the person and in the community. And our one antidote is to
watch and pray, looking unto Jesus, and looking away from ourselves.
It was thus in measure at Philippi. And St Paul cannot rest about it.
He plies them with every loving argument for the unity of love, ranging
from the plea of attachment to himself up to the supreme plea of "the
mind that was in Christ Jesus" when He came down from heaven. He has
begun to address them thus already. And in the wonderful passage now
before us he is to develope his appeal to the utmost, in the Lord's name.
Ver. 1. +If therefore+, in connexion with this theme of holy oneness of
love and life, +there is such a thing as comfort+, encouragement
(_paraklesis_), +in Christ+, drawn from our common union with the Lord,
if +there is such a thing as love's consolation+, the tender cheer which
love can give to a beloved one by meeting his inmost wish, +if there is
such a thing as Spirit-sharing+,[1] +if there are such things as hearts+
(_splagchna_, _viscera_) +and compassions+, feelings of human tenderness
and attachment, through which I may appeal to you simply as a friend, and
a friend in trouble,
Ver. 2. calling for your pity; +make full my joy+, drop this last
ingredient into the cup of my thankful happiness for you, and bring the
wine to the brim, +by being[2] of the same mind+ (_phronma_, feeling,
attitude of mind), +feeling+ (_echontes_) +the same love+, "the same" on
all sides, soul and soul together (_sympsychoi_) +in a+
Ver. 3. +mind which is unity itself+.[3] +Nothing+ (_muden_, implying
of course prohibition) +in the way of+ (_kata_) +personal or party
spirit;[4] rather+ (_alla_), +as regards your+ (_tu_) +humblemindedness+,
your view of yourselves learnt at the feet of your Saviour, +reckon[5]
each other superior to yourselves+; as assuredly you will do, with a
logic true to the soul, when each sees himself, the personality he knows
best, in the light of eternal holiness
Ver. 4. and love. +Not to your own+ interests +look+ (_skopountes_),
+each circle of you, but each circle[6] to those+
Ver. 5. +of others also. Have this mind+ (_phroneite_) in +you+, this
moral attitude in each soul, +which+ was, and is,[7] +also in Christ
Jesus+, (in that eternal Messiah whom I name already with His human Name,
JESUS; for in the will of His Father, and in the unity of His own Person,
it was as it were His Name already
Ver. 6. from everlasting,) +who in God's manifested Being[8]
subsisting+,[9] _seeming_ divine, because He _was_ divine, in the full
sense of Deity, in that eternal world, +reckoned it no plunderer's
prize[10] to be on an equality with God+;[11] no, He viewed His
possession of the fulness of the Eternal Nature as securely and
inalienably His own, and _so_ He dealt with it for our sakes with a
sublime and _restful_ remembrance of others; far from thinking of it as
for Himself alone, as one who claimed it unlawfully would have done,
Ver. 7. +He rather (_alla_) made Himself void by His own act+,[12] void
of the manifestation and exercise of Deity as it was His on the
throne,[13] +taking[14] Bond-servant's+ (_doulou_) +manifested being+
(_morphe_), that is to say, the veritable Human Nature which, as a
creaturely nature, is essentially bound to the service of the Creator,
the _bond_service of the Father; +coming to be+, becoming, _genomenos_,
+in men's similitude+, so truly human as not only to be but _to seem_
Man, accepting all the conditions involved in a truly human _exterior_,
Ver. 8. "pleased _as Man with men_ to appear." +And+ then, further,
+being found+, as He offered Himself to view, +in respect of guise+
(_scheati_), in respect of outward shape, and habit, and address, +as
Man+, He went further, He stooped yet lower, even from Humanity to Death;
+He humbled Himself, in becoming obedient+,[15] obedient to Him whose
Bondservant He now was as Man, +to the length[16] of death, aye+ (_de_),
+death of Cross+, that death of unimaginable pain and of utmost shame,
the death which to the Jew was the symbol of the curse of God upon the
victim, and to the Roman was a horror of degradation which should be "far
not only from the bodies but from the imaginations of citizens of
Rome."[17]
So He came, and so He suffered, because "He
Ver. 9. looked to the interests of others." +Wherefore also God+, His
God (_ho theos_), +supremely exalted Him+, in His Resurrection and
Ascension, +and conferred upon Him+, as a gift of infinite love and
approval (_echarisato_), +the Name which is above every name+; THE NAME,
unique and glorious; the Name Supreme, the I AM; to be His Name now, not
only as He is from eternity, the everlasting Son of the Father, but as He
became also in time, the suffering and risen Saviour of sinners.[18] In
His whole character and work He is invested now with the transcendent
glory and greatness of divine dignity; every thought of the suffering
Manhood is steeped in the fact that He who, looking on the things of
others, came down to bear it, is now enthroned where only the Absolute
and Eternal King
Ver. 10. can sit; +so that in the Name of Jesus+,[19] in presence of the
revealed majesty of Him who bears, as Man, the human personal Name,
Jesus, +every knee should bow+, as the prophet (Isa. xlv. 23) foretells,
+of things celestial, and terrestrial, and subterranean+, of all created
existence, in its heights and depths; spirits, men, and every other
creature; all bowing, each in their way, to the _imperium_ of the exalted
Jesus,
Ver. 11. JEHOVAH-JESUS; +and that every tongue should confess+, with the
confessing of adoring, praising, worship (_exomologesetai_), +that Jesus
Christ is+ nothing less than +Lord+, in the supreme and ultimate sense of
that mighty word, +to God the Father's glory+. For the worship given to
"His Own Son" (Rom. viii. 32), whose Nature is one with His, whose
glories flow eternally from Him, is praise given to Him.[20]
So closes one of the most conspicuous and magnificent of the dogmatic
utterances of the New Testament. Let us consider it for a few moments
from that point of view alone. We have here a chain of assertions about
our Lord Jesus Christ, made within some thirty years of His death at
Jerusalem; made in the open day of public Christian intercourse, and made
(every reader must feel this) not in the least in the manner of
controversy, of assertion against difficulties and denials, but in the
tone of a settled, common, and most living certainty. These assertions
give us on the one hand the fullest possible assurance that He is Man,
Man in nature, in circumstances and experience, and particularly in the
sphere of relation to God the Father. But they also assure us, in
precisely the same tone, and in a way which is equally vital to the
argument in hand, that He is as genuinely Divine as He is genuinely
Human. Did He "come to be in Bondservant's Form"? And does the word
Form, _morphe_, there, unless the glowing argument is to run as cold as
ice, mean, as it ought to mean, reality in manifestation, fact in sight,
a Manhood perfectly real, carrying with it a veritable creaturely {98}
obligation (_douleia_) to God? But He was also, antecedently, "in God's
Form." And there too therefore we are to understand, unless the
wonderful words are to be robbed of all their living power, that He who
came to be Man, and to seem Man, in an antecedent state of His blessed
Being was God, and seemed God. And His "becoming to be" one with us in
that mysterious but genuine Bondservice was the free and conscious choice
of His eternal Will, His eternal Love, in the glory of the Throne. "When
He came on earth abased" He was no Victim of a secret and irresistible
destiny, such as that which in the Stoic's theology swept the Gods of
Olympus to their hour of change and extinction as surely as it swept men
to ultimate annihilation. "_He made Himself_ void," with all the
foresight and with all the freewill which can be exercised upon the
Throne where the Son is in the Form of the Eternal Nature. Such is the
Christology of the passage in its aspect towards Deity.
Then in regard of our beloved Lord's Manhood, its implications assure us
that the perfect genuineness of that Manhood, which could not be
expressed in a term more profound and complete than this same _morphe
doulou_, Form of Bondservant, leaves us yet perfectly sure that He who
chose to be Bondservant is to us only all the more, even in His Manhood,
LORD. Was it not His own prescient choice to be true Man? And was it
not His choice with a prescient and infallible regard to "the things of
others," to "us men and our salvation"? Then we may be sure that,
whatever is meant by the "made Himself void," _heauton ekenosen_, which
describes His Incarnation here, one thing it could never possibly
mean---a "Kenosis" which could hurt or distort His absolute fitness to
guide and bless us whom He came to save. That awful and benignant
"Exinanition" placed Him indeed on the creaturely level in regard of the
reality of human experience of growth, and human capacity for suffering.
But never for one moment did it, could it, make Him other than the
absolute and infallible Master and Guide of His redeemed.
We are beset at the present day, on many sides, with speculations about
the "Kenosis" of the Lord which in some cases anyhow have it for their
manifest goal to justify the thought that He condescended to be fallible;
that He "made Himself void" of such knowledge as should protect Him from
mistaken statements about, for example, the history, quality, and
authority of the Old Testament Scriptures. I have said once and again
elsewhere[21] that such an application of the "made Himself void,"
_heauton ekenosen_, of this passage (from which alone we get the word
Kenosis for the Incarnation) is essentially beside the mark. The Kenosis
here is a very definite thing, as we see when we read the Greek. It is
just this--the taking of "Bondservant's Form." It is--the becoming the
absolute Human Bondservant of the Father. And the Absolute Bondservant
must exercise a perfect Bond-service. And this will mean, amidst all
else that it may mean, a perfect conveyance of the Supreme Master's mind
in the delivery of His message. "_He whom God hath sent, speaketh the
words of God_." The Kenosis itself (as St Paul meant it) is nothing less
than the guarantee of the Infallibility. It says neither yes nor no to
the question, Was our Redeemer, as Man, "in the days of His flesh,"
omniscient? It says a profound and decisive yes to the question, Is our
Redeemer, as Man, "in the days of His flesh," to be absolutely trusted as
the Truth in every syllable of assertion which He was actually pleased to
make? "_He whom God hath sent, speaketh the words of God._"
The dogmatic treasures of this wonderful passage are by no means
exhausted, even when we have drawn from it what it can say to us about
the glory of the Lord Christ Jesus. But it is not possible to follow the
research further, here and now; this imperfect indication of the main
teachings about Him must be enough.
But now, in closing, let us remember for our blessing how this passage of
didactic splendour comes in. It is no lecture in the abstract. As we
have seen, it is not in the least a controversial assertion. It is
simply part of an argument to the heart. St Paul is not here, as
elsewhere in his Epistles, combating an error of faith; he is pleading
for a life of love. He has full in view the temptations which threatened
to mar the happy harmony of Christian fellowship at Philippi. His
longing is that they should be "of one accord, of one mind"; and that in
order to that blessed end they should each forget himself and remember
others. He appeals to them by many motives; by their common share in
Christ, and in the Spirit, and by the simple plea of their affection for
himself. But then--there is one plea more; it is "the mind that was in
Christ Jesus," when "for us men and for our salvation He came down from
heaven, and was made Man, and suffered for us." Here was at once model
and motive for the Philippian saints; for Euodia, and Syntyche, and every
individual, and every group. Nothing short of the "mind" of the Head
must be the "mind" of the member; and then the glory of the Head (so it
is implied) shall be shed hereafter upon the member too: "I will grant to
him to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down
with My Father in His throne."
What a comment is this upon that fallacy of religious thought which would
dismiss Christian doctrine to the region of theorists and dreamers, in
favour of Christian "life"! Christian doctrine, rightly so called, is
simply the articulate statement, according to the Scriptures, of eternal
and vital facts, that we may live by them. The passage before us is
charged to the brim with the doctrine of the Person and the Natures of
Christ. And why? It is in order that the Christian, tempted to a
self-asserting life, may "look upon the things of others," for the reason
that this supreme Fact, his Saviour, is in fact thus and thus, and did in
fact think and act thus and thus for His people. Without the facts,
which are the doctrine, we might have had abundant rhetoric in St Paul's
appeal for unselfishness and harmony; but where would have been the
mighty lever for the affections and the will?
Oh reason of reasons, argument of arguments--the LORD JESUS CHRIST!
Nothing in Christianity lies really outside Him. His Person and His Work
embody all its dogmatic teaching. His Example, "His Love which passeth
knowledge," is the sum and life of all its morality. Well has it been
said that the whole Gospel message is conveyed to us sinners in those
three words, "Looking unto Jesus." Is it pardon we need, is it
acceptance, free as the love of God, holy as His law? We find it, we
possess it, "looking unto Jesus" crucified. Is it power we need, victory
and triumph over sin, capacity and willingness to witness and to suffer
in a world which loves Him not at all? We find it, we possess it, it
possesses us, as we "look unto Jesus" risen and reigning, for us on the
Throne, with us in the soul. Is it rule and model that we want, not
written on the stones of Horeb only, but "on the fleshy tables of the
heart"? We find it, we receive it, we yield ourselves up to it, as we
"look unto Jesus" in His path of love, from the Throne to the Cross, from
the Cross to the Throne, till the Spirit inscribes that law upon our
inmost wills.
Be ever more and more to us, Lord Jesus Christ, in all Thy answer, to our
boundless needs. Let us "sink to no second cause." Let us come to Thee.
Let us yield to Thee. Let us follow Thee. Present Thyself evermore to
us as literally our all in all. And so through a blessed fellowship in
Thy wonderful humiliation we shall partake for ever hereafter in the
exaltations of Thy glory, which is the glory of immortal love.
[1] _Koinunia pneumatos_: "participation in the Spirit"; sharing and
sharing alike in the grace and power of the Holy Ghost. I venture to
render _pneumatos_ as if it were _tou Pneumatos_, having regard to the
great parallel passage, 2 Cor. xiii. 14, _he koinonia tou hagiou
Pneumatos_. With a word so great and conspicuous as _pneuma_ it is
impossible to decide by the mere absence of the article that the
reference is not to _the_ (personal) Spirit. _Kurios_, _Theos_,
_Christos_, are continually given without the article where the reference
is definite; because they are words whose greatness tends of itself to
define the reference, unless context withstands. _Pneuma_ in the N. T.
is to some extent a parallel case with these.
[2] _Ina_ . . . _phronute_: my English is obviously a mere paraphrase
here. More exactly we may render, "make full my joy, so as to be," etc.;
words which come to much the same effect, but are less true to our common
idioms.
[3] _To en phronountes_: a difficult phrase to render quite adequately.
We may paraphrase it either as above, or, "possessed with the idea, or
sentiment, of unity." But the paraphrase above seems most satisfactory
in view of the similar phrase just before, _to auto phronete_. This
phrase seems to echo that, only in a stronger and less usual form. The
thought thus will be not so much of unity as the object of thought or
feeling as of unity as (so to speak) the substance or spirit of it.
[4] _Kata eritheian_: my long paraphrase attempts to give the suggestion
that the _eritheia_ might be either purely individual self-assertion or
the _animus_ of a clique.
[5] _Hegoumenoi_: the participle practically does the work of an
imperative. See Rom. xii. for a striking chain of examples of this
powerful and intelligible idiom.
[6] _Hekastoi_, not _hekastos_, should probably be read in the first
clause here, and certainly in the second. By Greek idiom, the plural
gives the thought of a _collective_ unity under "each."
[7] The Greek gives no verb. I have written "was, and is," in the
paraphrase, because the _limitation_ of the reference of our blessed
Lord's _phronema_ to the pre-incarnate past is not expressed in the Greek.
[8] _En morphe_: _morphe_ is imperfectly represented by our common use of
the word "form," which stands often even in contrast to "reality."
_Morphe_ is _reality in manifestation_.
[9] _Uparchon_: R.V. margin, "originally being." The word lends itself
to such a reference, but not so invariably as to allow us to press it
here.
[10] _Arpagmon_: the word is extremely rare, found here only in the Greek
Scriptures, and once only in secular Greek. Strictly, by form (_-mon_),
it should mean, "_a process_ of plunder" rather than "an object of
plunder" (_-ma_). But parallel cases forbid us to press this. The A.V.
rendering here suggests the thought that our Lord "thought it no
usurpation to be equal with God, _and yet_ made Himself void," etc. But
surely the thought is rather, "_and so_ made Himself void." So sure was
His claim that, so to speak, with a sublime _un-anxiety_, while with an
infinite sacrifice, He made Himself void.
[11] _Isa Theo_: the neuter plural calls attention rather to the
Characteristics than to the Personality.--Through this whole passage we
cannot too distinctly remember that it occurs in the Scriptures, and in
the writings of one who was trained in the strictest school of Pharisaic
Monotheism. _St Paul_ was not the man to use such terms of his Saviour
and Master had he not seen in Him nothing less than the very "Fellow of
JEHOVAH" (Zech. xiii. 7).
[12] _Eauton ekeose_: _Heauton_ is slightly emphatic by position; I
attempt to convey this by the words "by His own act."
[13] See further below, pp. 98, etc. [Transcriber's note: page 98 is
indicated in this text with "{98}".]
[14] _Labon_: the aorist participle, in Greek idiom, unites itself
closely in thought with the aorist verb _ekenose_ just previous. The
resulting idea is not "He made Himself void, and then took," but "He made
Himself void _by taking_." The "Exinanition" was, in fact, just
this--_the taking the form of the_ _doulos_: neither less nor more.
[15] Note again the aorist verb and aorist participle: _etapeinose_ . . .
_genomenos_.
[16] The Greek, _mechri thanatou_, makes it plain that the Lord did not
_obey death_ but _obeyed the Father_ so utterly as even to die.
[17] Cicero, _pro Rabirio_, c. 5.
[18] Bishop Lightfoot has well vindicated this reference of the _onoma_
here. I venture to refer the reader also to my commentary on
Philippians, in _The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges_.
[19] Not "the Name Jesus," but "the Name of, belonging to, Jesus." The
grammar admits either rendering, but the context, if I explain it aright,
is decisive. "The Name" is still the Supreme Name, JEHOVAH, as just
above.--"_In_ the Name" should be explained, in view of the context, not
of worship _through_ but worship yielded _to_ the Name. See Lightfoot
for examples of this usage.
[20] Chrysostom brings this great truth nobly out in his homiletic
comments here (_Hom._ vii. on Philippians, ch. 4): "A mighty proof it is
of the Father's power, and goodness, and wisdom, that He hath begotten
such a Son, a Son nowise inferior in goodness and wisdom . . . like Him
in all things, Fatherhood alone excepted." Nothing but the orthodox
Creed, with its harmonious truths of the proper Godhead and proper
Filiation of the Lord Christ, can possibly satisfy _the whole_ of the
apostolic language about His infinite glory on the one hand and His
relation to the Father on the other.
[21] In my _Veni Creator_ and _To my Younger Brethren_, and more recently
in a University Sermon quoted at the close of a little book published
Easter, 1896, by Seeley: _Prayers and Promises_.
"Make my life a bright outshining
Of Thy life, that all may see
Thine own resurrection power
Mightily shewn forth in me;
Ever let my heart become
Yet more consciously Thy home."
MISS J. S. PIGOTT.
_THE LORD'S POWER IN THE DISCIPLE'S LIFE_
"O Jesus Christ, grow Thou in me,
And all things else recede;
My heart be daily nearer Thee,
From sin be daily freed.
"More of Thy glory let me see,
Thou Holy, Wise, and True;
I would Thy living image be
In joy and sorrow too."
H. B. SMITH, _from the German of_ C. LAVATER.