A
708
K I N G ’S
B U S I N E S S ___________________ December 1926
T H E
~ CONTR I BUTED a r t i c l e s -
ìS E S E S E S E
“ He Stooped So Low” DEAN JOHN
M. MACINNIS ***■
He—who was in the form of God and assumed the form of a servant—was able to be literally tempted in all things as we are, yet apart from, or without, sin, and to be touched with all the feelings of our infirmities. The miracle and everlasting wonder of that is that HE did it. In order to do this He had to literally live a perfect human experience into the life and experience of Deity. In the living of this experience He did not, however, have to become some other person. The experience of the form of God was no more real' than the experience of the like ness and fashion of man. He was just as consciously active and real in the experience of humanity as He was in the experience of Deity, but we must never forget that He was Deity experiencing humanity—not humanity experi encing Deity. In order to do this He had to do it within the limitations of humanity. He could not live the form of Deity in the form of humanity, but as God He could voluntarily limit Himself to the form of man and become obedient even uiito death. As God manifested in a perfect human experience, He did not become mortal in the sense that He was compelled to die by reason of His nature,, but in the form of man He voluntarily laid down His life as an atonement for sin; therefore when He died He did not die as an ordinary man dies. He gave up His Spirit. He died as an act of will in which He surrendered His life. He did not take His life by destroying His body, but He gave up His Spirit; therefore He could not be holden of death, for death being the wages of sin, had no claim upon him. Hence we see that as this was the experience of One Person who continues identical throughout the sublime sweep of the experience, every outstanding part of the experience must’ by the law of consistency be unique and uniform— His birth, or entrance into life; His consciousness and activity in life; and His death. Because these are all unique, there must be a resurrection and exaltation. "Be cause He stooped so low, God lifted Him very high. . . . and gave Him the Name that is above every name.” He who left the Glory is now at the right hand of God exalted. In that sublime stoop He experienced much and touched great depths, but in it all He continued Himself, and never for a single moment became someone else. It was God who left the Glory and was “found on earth as a man in out ward seeming,” and it was God who returned to the Glory and is in the Glory today—God with a genuinely human experience in which He wrought out all the mystic glories of redemption in which man and the universe are restored to the purpose of His Divine love and will. It is God who is “touched with all the feelings of our infirmities” and is therefore able to sympathize with us and to save us to the uttermost. But all this He is able to do because of His gen uinely human experience in the stoop of the Incarnation and the shame of the Cross, and “None of the ransomed ever knew How deep were the waters crossed, Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through Ere He found His sheep that was lost.”
»■■■■»■■■HIS is how Dr. Way translates a phrase with refer- gW B n ence to the Christmas fact, which is the central fact of human history. Robert Browning, in refer- ring to this stoop, speaks of it as “the sublime stoop of the Godhead.” It is “a sublime stoop” because it is not the stoop of compromise or degradation, but the down ward reach of Divine love that it might fasten its golden chains in the very roots of humanity and lift men into the very presence of God, the place- of victory and mastery. Frequently we have to be startled by a challenging phrase or remark into a new consideration of this action of Deity in order to have anything like a living appreciation of what God really did when He came here to work out His loving purpose of« redemption. This particular phrase is a part of the most wonderful statement of this action of Deity to be found anywhere in the Bible. It brings, out in a most striking way the fact that it was God Himself who did this thing and that He actually lived a life of man that He might lift it up into the very life and experience of Deity. It is this unity that makes possible the imparta- tion of the life of Deity that realizes in men "the mind that was in Christ Jesus.” That mind, of course, has reference to the mind that was in Him while He was here on earth, and the writer illustrates the attitude of it by some things He did before He came.here, and things He did in coming here, and things He did while He was here. It was the same mind that made possible this whole series of acts named in the sublime stoop as it is described in this wonder ful passage in the second of Philippians. HE WAS IN THE FORM OF GOD. He subsisted in that form. That is where we meet Him as we begin with this movement. While subsisting in that form we have first a negative statement regarding His attitude of mind. The writer declares that He did not selfishly cling to His right or prerogative of equality with God. That was a form that was His by right, but in the interest of redemption “HE EMPTIED HIMSELF.” That was a definite act prepara tory to what follows. At this point we are primarily Interested in what He emptied Himself of. Of oi\e thing we are quite sure—He did not empty Himself of Himself. In the very next step we find Him doing something else as a result of what was done in this act of emptying Himself. This action is just as really His action as was the act of emptying. It was the same One who was in the form of God and who emptied Himself, who took the form of a servant, and the act of taking the form of a servant re quired all the essentials of a conscious, willing, intelligent and feeling person. In order to do this He had to take the likeness of man, so He was “found on earth as a man in outward seeming” (Dr. Way’s translation). This One who is now in the form of a servant, being in the likeness of men, is the same One who was in the form of God. He did not become somebody else nor develop another personal ity, but voluntarily took a form in which He experienced the life of a man, and did it in such a perfect way that
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker