It was not merely an act of humiliation and condescension to become man,
but all His life was one long act of lowliness. Just as He 'emptied
Himself' in the act of becoming in the 'likeness of men,' so He 'humbled
Himself,' and all along the course of His earthly life He chose constant
lowliness and to be 'despised and rejected of men.' It was the result
moment by moment of His own will that to the eyes of men He presented
'no form nor comeliness,' and that will was moment by moment steadied
in its unmoved humility, because He perpetually looked 'not on His own
things, but on the things of others.' The guise He presented to the eyes
of men was 'the _fashion_ of a man.' That word corresponds exactly to
Paul's carefully selected term, and makes emphatic both its superficial
and its transitory character.
The lifelong humbling of Himself was further manifested in His becoming
'obedient.' That obedience was, of course, to God. And here we cannot
but pause to ask the question, How comes it that to the man Jesus
obedience to God was an act of humiliation? Surely there is but one
explanation of such a statement. For all men but this one to be God's
slaves is their highest honour, and to speak of obedience as humiliation
is a sheer absurdity.
Not only was the life of Jesus so perfect an example of unbroken
obedience that He could safely front His adversaries with the question,
'Which of you convinceth Me of sin?' and with the claim to 'do always
the things that pleased Him,' but the obedience to the Father was
perfected in His death. Consider the extraordinary fact that a man's
death is the crowning instance of his humility, and ask yourselves the
question, Who then is this who chose to be born, and stooped in the act
of dying? His death was obedience to God, because by it He carried out
the Father's will for the salvation of the world, His death is the
greatest instance of unselfish self-sacrifice, and the loftiest example
of looking on the 'things of others' that the world has ever seen. It
dwindles in significance, in pathos, and in power to move us to
imitation unless we clearly see the divine glory of the eternal Lord as
the background of the gentle lowliness of the Man of Sorrows, and the
Cross. No theory of Christ's life and death but that He was born for us,
and died for us, either explains the facts and the apostolic language
concerning them, or leaves them invested with their full power to melt
our hearts and mould our lives. There is a possibility of imitating Him
in the most transcendent of His acts. The mind may be in us which was in
Christ Jesus. That it may, His death must first be the ground of our
hope, and then we must make it the pattern of our lives, and draw from
it the power to shape them after His blessed Example.