_THE MIND OF CHRIST (Continued)._
It proves hard to make us aware of the sin and the misery involved in
the place commonly allowed to SELF. Some of its conspicuous outrages on
Christian decency we do disapprove and avoid: perhaps we have embarked
in a more serious resistance to its domination. Yet, after all, how
easily and how complacently do we continue to give scope to it! In forms
of self-assertion, of arrogance, of eager and grasping competition, it
breaks out. It does so in ordinary life, in what is called public life,
and, where it is most offensive of all, in Church life. Hence we fail so
much in readiness to make the case of others our own, and to be
practically moved by their interests, rights, and claims. There are
certainly great differences here; and some, in virtue of natural
sympathy or Christian grace, attain to remarkable degrees of generous
service. Yet these also, if they know themselves, know how energetically
self comes upon the field, and how much ground it covers. Many among us
are doing good to others; but does it never strike us that there is a
distant and arrogant way of doing good? Many in Christian society are
kind, and that is well; but undoubtedly there are self-indulgent ways of
being kind.
Having to deal with this evil energy of self, the Apostle turns at once
to the central truth of Christianity, the person of Christ. Here he
finds the type set, the standard fixed, of what Christianity is and
means: or rather, here he finds a great fountain, from which a mighty
stream proceeds; and before it all the forms of self-worship must be
swept away. In bringing this out the Apostle makes a most remarkable
statement regarding the Incarnation and the history of our Lord. He
reveals, at the same time, the place in his own mind held by the thought
of Christ coming into the world, and the influence that thought had
exerted on the formation of his character. He bids us recognise in
Christ the supreme exemplification of one who is looking away from his
own things--whose mind is filled, whose action is inspired by concern
for others. This is so at the root of the interposition of Christ to
save us, that the principle becomes imperative and supreme for all
Christ's followers.
We have to consider the facts as they presented themselves to the mind
of Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, that we may estimate the
motive which he conceives them to reveal, and the obligation which is
thus laid upon all who name the name of Christ and take rank among His
followers.
The Apostle, let us first observe, speaks of the Incarnation as that
reveals itself to us, as it offers itself to the contemplation of men.
To involve himself in discussion of inner mysteries concerning the
Divine nature and the human, and the manner of their union, as these are
known to God, is not, and could not, be his object. The mysteries must
be asserted, but much about them is to continue unexplained. He is to
appeal to the impression derivable, as he maintains, from the plainest
statement of the facts which have been delivered to faith. This being
the object in view, determines the cast of his language. It is the
_manner_ of being, the _manner_ of living, the _manner_ of acting
characteristic of Christ at successive stages, which is to occupy our
minds. Hence the Apostle's thought expresses itself in phrases such as
"_form_ of God," "_form_ of a servant," and the like. We are to see one
way of existing succeeding another in the history of Christ.
First, our Lord is recognised as already existing before the beginning
of His earthly history; and in that existence He contemplates and orders
what His course shall be. This is plain; for in the seventh verse He is
spoken of as emptying Himself, and thus assuming the likeness of men.
For the Apostle, then, it was a fixed thing that He who was born in
Nazareth pre-existed in a more glorious nature, and took ours by a
notable condescension. This pre-existence of Christ is the first thing
to consider when we would make clear to ourselves how Christ, being true
man, differs from other men. In this point Paul and John and the writer
to the Hebrews unite their testimony in the most express and emphatic
way; as we hear our Lord Himself also saying, "Before Abraham was, I
am," and speaking of the glory which He had before the world was. But
what manner of existence this was is also set forth. He "existed in the
form of God." The same word "form" recurs presently in the expression
"the form of a servant." It is distinguished from the words "likeness,"
"fashion," which are expressed by other Greek terms.
Frequently we use this word "form" in a way which contrasts it with the
true being, or makes it denote the outward as opposed to the inward. But
according to the usage which prevailed among thinking men when the
Apostle wrote, the expression should not be understood to point to
anything superficial, accidental, superimposed. No doubt it is an
expression which describes the Being by adverting to the attributes
which, as it were, He wore, or was clothed with. But the word carries us
especially to those attributes of the thing described which are
characteristic; by which it is permanently distinguished to the eye or
to the mind; which denote its true nature because they rise out of that
nature; the attributes which, to our minds, express the essence. So
here. He existed, how? In the possession and use of all that pertains to
the Divine nature. His manner of existence was, what? The Divine manner
of existence. The characters through which Divine existence is revealed
were His. He subsisted in the form of God. This was the manner of it,
the glorious "form" which ought to fix and hold our minds.
If any one should suggest that, according to this text, the pre-existent
Christ might be only a creature, though having the Divine attributes and
the Divine mode of life, he would introduce a mass of contradictions
most gratuitously. The Apostle's thought is simply this: For Christ the
mode of existence is first of all Divine; then, by-and-by, a new form
rises into view. Our Lord's existence did not begin (according to the
New Testament writers) when He was born, when He was found in fashion as
a man, sojourning with us. He came to this world from some previous
state. One asks from what state? Before He took the form of man, in what
form of existence was He found? The Apostle answers, In the form of God.
To Him, therefore, with and in the Father, we have learned to ascribe
all wisdom and power, all glory and blessedness, all holiness and all
majesty. Specially, through Him the worlds were made, and in Him they
consist. The fulness, the sufficiency, the essential strength of Godhead
were His. The exercise and manifestation of all these was His form of
being. One might expect, then, that in any process of self-manifestation
to created beings in which it might please Him to go forth, the
expression of His supremacy and transcendence should be written on the
face of it.
The next thought is expressed in the received translation by the words
"thought it no robbery to be equal with God." So truly and properly
Divine was He that equality with God could not appear to Him or be
reckoned by Him as anything else than His own. He counted such equality
no robbery, arrogance, or wrong. To claim it, and all that corresponds
to it, could not appear to Him something assumed without right, but
rather something assumed with the best right. So taken, these words
would complete the Apostle's view of the original Divine pre-eminence of
the Son of God. They would express, so to say, the equity of the
situation, from which all that follows should be estimated. Had it
pleased the Son of God to express only, and to impress on all minds only
His equality with God, this could not have seemed to Him encroachment or
wrong.
I think a good deal can be said for this. But the sense which, on the
whole, is now approved by commentators is that indicated by the Revised
Version. This takes the clause not as still dwelling on the primeval
glory of the Son of God, and what was implied in it, but rather as
beginning to indicate how a new situation arose, pointing out the
dispositions out of which the Incarnation came. "He counted it not a
prize to be on an equality with God." To hold by this was not the great
object with Him. In any steps He might take, in any forthgoings He might
enter on, the Son of God might have aimed at maintaining and disclosing
equality with God. That alternative was open. But this is not what we
see: no holding by that, no solicitude about that appears. His
procedure, His actings reveal nothing of this kind. What we see filling
His heart and fixing His regard, is not what might be due to Himself or
assumed fitly by Himself, but what might bring deliverance and
blessedness to us.[2]
[2] Various shades of meaning have been proposed. Meyer, whose opinion
has weight, virtually interprets in this way: He did not reckon equality
with God (which was His) to imply or to be fitly exercised in
acquisition, or in accumulation of benefit to Himself: and Hofmann,
after supporting another view, appears (in his _Hist. Schrift. N. T._)
to agree with this. To be equal to God, and to put forth power for His
own enrichment, were for the Son very different things. The one He
possessed: the other He renounced.
On the contrary, "He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant,
being made in the likeness of men." In the Incarnation our Lord assumed
the "form" of a servant, or slave: for in the room of the authority of
the Creator, now appears the subjection of the creature. He who gave
form to all things, and Himself set the type of what was highest and
best in the universe, transcending meanwhile all created excellence in
His uncreated glory, now is seen conforming Himself to the type or model
or likeness of one of His creatures, of man. He comes into human
existence as men do, and He continues in it as men do. Yet it is not
said that He is now merely a man, or has become nothing but a man; He is
in the likeness of men and is found in fashion as a man.
In taking this great step the Apostle says "He emptied Himself." The
emptying is perhaps designedly opposed to the thought of accumulation or
self-enrichment conveyed in the phrase "He counted it not a prize."
However this may be, the phrase is in itself a remarkable expression.
It seems most certain, on the one hand, that this cannot import that He
who was with God and was God could renounce His own essential nature and
cease to be Divine. The assertion of a contradiction like this involves
the mind in mere darkness. The notion is excluded by other scriptures;
for He who came on earth among us is Immanuel, God with us: and it is
not required by the passage before us; for the "emptying" can at most
apply to the "form" of God--the exercise and enjoyment of Divine
attributes such as adequately express the Divine nature; and it may,
perhaps, not extend its sense even so far; for the writer significantly
abstains from carrying his thought further than the bare word "He
emptied Himself."
On the other hand, we are to beware of weakening unduly this great
testimony. Certainly it fixes our thoughts on this, at least, that our
Lord, by becoming man, had for His, truly _for His_, the experience of
human limitation, human weakness and impoverishment, human dependence,
human subjection, singularly contrasting with the glory and plenitude of
the form of God. This became His. It was so emphatically real, it became
at the Incarnation so emphatically the form of existence on which He
entered, that it is the thing eminently to be regarded, reverently to
be dwelt upon. This emptiness, instead of that fulness, is to draw and
fix our regard. Instead of the form of God, there rises before us this
true human history, this lowly manhood--and it took place by His
emptying Himself.
Various persons and schools have thought it right to go further. The
word here used has appeared to them to suggest that if the Son of God
did not renounce His Godhead, yet the Divine nature in Him must have
bereaved itself of the Divine attributes, or withheld itself from the
use and exercise of them; so that the all-fulness no longer was at His
disposal. In this line they have gone on to describe or assign the mode
of self-emptying which the Incarnation should imply.
It does not appear to me that one can lay down positions as to the
internal privations of One whose nature is owned to be essentially
Divine, without falling into confusion and darkening counsel. But
perhaps we may do well to cherish the impression that this self-emptying
on the part of the eternal Son of God, for our salvation, involves
realities which we cannot conceive or put in any words. There was more
in this emptying of Himself than we can think or say.
He emptied Himself when He became man. Here we have the eminent example
of a Divine mystery, which, being revealed, remains a mystery never to
be adequately explained, and which yet proves full of meaning and full
of power. The Word was made flesh. He through whom all worlds took
being, was seen in Judæa in the lowliness of that practical historical
manhood. We never can explain this. But if we believe it all things
become new for us: the meaning it proves to have for human history is
inexhaustible.
He emptied Himself, "taking the form of a servant," or bondslave. For
the creature is in absolute subjection alike to God's authority and to
His providence; and so Christ came to be. He entered on a discipline of
subjection and obedience. In particular He was made after the likeness
of men. He was born as other children are; He grew as other children
grow; body and mind took shape for Him under human conditions.
And so He was "found in fashion as a man." Could words express more
strongly how wonderful it is in the Apostle's eyes that _He_ should so
be found? He lived His life and made His mark in the world in human
fashion--His form, His mien, His speech, His acts, His way of life
declared Him man. But being so, He humbled Himself to a strange and
great obedience. Subjection, and in that subjection obedience, is the
part of every creature. But the obedience which Christ was called to
learn was special. A heavy task was laid upon Him. He was made under the
law; and bearing the burden of human sin, He wrought redemption. In
doing so many great interests fell to Him to be cared for; and this was
done by Him, not in the manner of Godhead which speaks and it is done,
but with the pains and labour of a faithful servant. "I have a
commandment," He said, as He faced the Jews, who would have had His
Messianic work otherwise ordered (John xii. 49).
This experience deepened into the final experience of the cross. Death
is the signature of failure and disgrace. Even with sinless creatures it
seems so. Their beauty and their use are past; their worth is measured
and exhausted; they die. More emphatically in a nature like ours, which
aims at fellowship with God and immortality, death is significant this
way, and bears the character of doom. So we are taught to think that
death entered by sin. But the violent and cruel death of crucifixion,
inflicted for the worst crimes, is most significant this way. What it
comprehended for our Lord we cannot measure. We know that He looked
forward to it with the most solemn expectation; and when it came the
experience was overwhelming. Yes, He submitted to the doom and blight of
death, in which death He made atonement and finished transgression. The
Incarnation was the way in which our Lord bound Himself to our woful
fortunes, and carried to us the benefits with which He would enrich us;
and His death was for our sins, endured that we might live. But the
Apostle does not here dwell on the reasons why Christ's obedience must
take this road. It is enough that for reasons concerning our welfare,
and the worthy achievement of the Father's Divine purposes, Christ bowed
Himself to so great lowliness. A dark and sad death--a true obedience
unto death--became the portion of the Son of God. "I am the Living One,
and I was dead." So complete was the self-emptying, the humiliation,
the obedience.
"Therefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the Name that
is above every name." For still we must think of Him as One that has
come down into the region of the creatures, the region in which we are
distinguished by names, and are capable of higher and lower in endless
degrees. God, dealing with Him so situated, acts in a manner rightly
corresponding to this great self-dedication, so as to utter God's mind
upon it. He has set Him on high, and given Him the Name that is above
every name; so that Divine honour shall be rendered to Him by all
creation, and knees bowed in worship to Him everywhere, and all shall
own Him Lord--that is, partaker of Divine Sovereignty. All this is "to
the glory of the Father," seeing that in all this the worthiness and
beauty of God's being and ways come to light with a splendour heretofore
unexampled.
So then, we may say, perhaps, that as in the humiliation He who is God
experienced what it is to be man, now in the exaltation He who is man
experiences what it is to be God.
But the point to dwell on chiefly is this consideration--What is it that
attracts so specially the Father's approbation? What does so is Christ's
great act of self-forgetting love. That satisfies and rests the Divine
mind. Doubtless the Son's pure and perfect character, and the perfection
of His whole service, were on all accounts approved; but specially the
_mind_ of Christ revealed in His self-forgetting devotion. _Therefore_
God has highly exalted Him.
For, in the first place, Christ in this work of His is Himself the
revelation of the Father. All along the Father's heart is seen
disclosed. It was in fellowship with the Father, always delighting in
Him, that the history was entered on; in harmony with Him it was
accomplished. Throughout we have before us not only the mind of the Son,
but the mind of the Father that sent Him.
And then, in the next place, as the Son, sent forth into the world, and
become one of us, and subject to vicissitude, accomplishes His course,
it is fitting for the Father to watch, to approve, and to crown the
service; and He who has so given Himself for God and man must take the
place due to such a "mind" and to such an obedience.
Let us observe it then: what was in God's eye and ought to be in ours,
is not only the dignity of the person, the greatness of the
condescension, the perfection of obedience and patience of endurance,
but, in the heart of all these, _the mind of Christ_. That was the
inspiration of the whole marvellous history, vivifying it throughout.
Christ, indeed, was not One who could so care for us, as to fail in His
regard to any interest of His Father's name or kingdom; nor could He
take any course really unseemly, because unworthy of Himself. But
carrying with Him all that is due to His Father, and all that befits
His Father's Child and Servant, the wonderful thing is how His heart
yearns over men, how His course shapes itself to the necessities of our
case, how all that concerns Himself disappears as He looks on the fallen
race. A worthy deliverance for them, consecrating them to God in the
blessedness of life eternal--this is in His eye, to be reached by Him
through all kinds of lowliness, obedience, and suffering. On this His
heart was set; this gave meaning and character to every step of His
history. This was the mind of the good Shepherd that laid down His life
for the sheep. And this is what completes and consecrates all the
service, and receives the Father's triumphant approbation. This is the
Lamb of God. There never was a Lamb like this.
How all this was and is in the Eternal Son in His Divine nature we
cannot suitably conceive. In some most sublime and perfect manner we own
it to be there. But we can think of it and speak of it as the "mind of
Christ": as it came to light in the Man of Bethlehem, who, amid all the
possibilities of the Incarnation, is seen setting His face so steadily
one way, whose life is all of one piece, and to whom we ascribe GRACE.
"Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." _Therefore_ God has highly
exalted Him, and given Him the Name that is above every name. _This_ is
the right way. _This_ is the right life.
Are we followers of Christ? Are we in touch with His grace? Do we yield
ourselves to His will and way? Do we renounce the melancholy
obstructiveness which sets us at odds with Christ? Do we count it our
wisdom now to come into His school? Then, let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, this lowly, loving mind. _Let it._ Look not
every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
Do nothing through strife or vainglory. In lowliness of mind let each
esteem the other better than himself. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and
anger, and envy, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all
malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one
another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. If there is
any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of
the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, let this be so. Let
this mind be in you; and find ways of showing it. But, indeed, if it be
in you it will find ways to show itself.
The Church of Christ has not been without likeness to its Lord, and
service to its Lord: yet it has come far short in showing to the world
the mind of Christ. We often "show the Lord's death." But in His death
were the mighty life and the conclusive triumph of Christ's love. Let
the life also of Christ Jesus be manifest in our mortal body.
We see here what the vision of Christ was which opened itself to
Paul,--which, glowing in his heart, sent him through the world, seeking
the profit of many, that they might be saved. This was in his mind, the
wonderful condescension and devotion of the Son of God. "It pleased God
to reveal His Son in me." "God, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus." "Ye know the grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ, how that though He was rich yet for our sakes He
became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich." "He loved
me and gave Himself for me." And in various forms and degrees the
manifestation of this same grace has astonished, and conquered, and
inspired all those who have greatly served Christ in the Church in
seeking to do good to men. Let us not separate ourselves from this
fellowship of Christ; let us not be secluded from this mind of Christ.
As we come to Him with our sorrows, and sins, and wants, let us drink
into His mind. Let us sit at His feet and learn of Him.
* * * * *
A line of contemplation, hard to follow yet inspiring, opens up in
considering the Incarnation of our Lord as permanent. No day is coming
in which that shall have to be looked upon as gone away into the past.
This is suggestive as to the tie between Creator and creature, as to the
bridge between Infinite and finite, to be evermore found in Him. But it
may suffice here to have indicated the topic.
It is more to the point, in connection with this passage, to call
attention to a lesson for the present day. Of late great emphasis has
been laid by earnest thinkers upon the reality of Christ's human nature.
Anxiety has been felt to do full right to that humanity which the
Gospels set before us so vividly. This has been in many ways a happy
service to the Church. In the hands of divines the humanity of Christ
has sometimes seemed to become shadowy and unreal, through the stress
laid on His proper Godhead; and now men have become anxious to possess
their souls with the human side of things, even perhaps at the cost of
leaving the Divine side untouched. The recoil has carried men quite
naturally into a kind of humanitarianism, sometimes deliberate,
sometimes unconscious. Christ is thought of as the ideal Man, who, just
because He is the ideal Man, is morally indistinguishable from God, and
is in the closest fellowship with God. Yet He grows on the soil of human
nature, He is fundamentally and only human. And this, it is implied, is
enough: it covers all we want. But we see this was not Paul's way of
thinking. The real humanity was necessary for him, because he
desiderated a real incarnation. But the true original Divine nature was
also necessary. For so he discerned the love--the grace, and the gift by
grace; so he felt that the Eternal God had bowed down to bless him in
and by His Son. It makes a great difference to religion when men are
persuaded to forego this faith.
_WORKING AND SHINING._
"So then, my beloved, even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my
presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own
salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in
you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. Do all things
without murmurings and disputings; that ye may be blameless and
harmless, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation, among whom ye are seen as lights in the
world, holding forth the word of life; that I may have whereof to
glory in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain neither
labour in vain. Yea, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and
service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all: and in the
same manner do ye also joy, and rejoice with me."--PHIL. ii. 12-18
(R.V.).