Knees bent and tongues confessing the absolute dominion of Jesus Christ
could only be offence and sin if He were not one with the Father. But
the experience of all the thousands since Paul wrote, whose hearts have
been drawn in reverent and worshipping trust to the Son, has verified
the assertion, that to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord diverts no
worship from God, but swells and deepens the ocean of praise that breaks
round the throne. If it is true, and only if it is true, that in the
life and death of Jesus all previous revelations of the Father's heart
are surpassed, if it is true and only if it is true, as He Himself said,
that 'I and the Father are one,' can Paul's words here be anything but
an incredible paradox. But unless these great words close and crown the
Apostle's glowing vision, it is maimed and imperfect, and Jesus
interposes between loving hearts and God. One could almost venture to
believe that at the back of Paul's mind, when he wrote these words, was
some remembrance of the great prayer, 'I glorified Thee on the earth,
having accomplished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.' When the Son
is glorified we glorify the Father, and the words of our text may well
be remembered and laid to heart by any who will not recognise the deity
of the Son, because it seems to them to dishonour the Father. Their
honour is inseparable and their glory one.
There is a sense in which Jesus is our example even in His ascent and
exaltation, just as He was in His descent and humiliation. The mind
which was in Him is for us the pattern for earthly life, though the
deeds in which that mind was expressed, and especially His 'obedience to
the death of the Cross,' are so far beyond any self-sacrifice of ours,
and are inimitable, unique, and needing no repetition while the world
lasts. And as we can imitate His unexampled sacrifice, so we may share
His divine glory, and, resting on His own faithful word, may follow the
calm motion of His Ascension, assured that where He is there we shall be
also, and that the manhood which is exalted in Him is the prophecy that
all who love Him will share His glory. The question for us all is, have
we in us 'the mind that was in Christ'? and the other question is, what
is that name to us? Can we say, 'Thy mighty name salvation is'? If in
our deepest hearts we grasp that name, and with unfaltering lips can say
that 'there is none other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we
must be saved but the name of Jesus,' then we shall know that
'To us with Thy dear name are given,
Pardon, and holiness, and heaven.'