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THE K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
in the form of God, considered it not a thing to be grasped (a thing to choose, to seize hold of and hold on to) to be on an equality with God.” On the con trary as we shall see when we come to consider the verses that follow, He considered something utterly different the thing to be chosen. Two choices were before Christ Jesus, He could choose which He would: Divine Glory or the death of a malefactor of the worst type, execution as the vilest felon, death under the curse of God (Gal. 3: 13), and He chose the latter. Why? Because our interest demanded it and He looked not to His own things (or interest) but to the interests of others, to your interests and mine. This is the one sublime illustration of self- sacrifice, and this is the mind that we should have in us. This is the general thought of the passage, but individual words and statements demand consider ation and comment. Look first at the clause, “being in the form of God.” The word translated “form” means the outward form by which anything strikes the eye and which thus reveals thé inward reality or fact. The thought is that our Lord Jesus in His preexistent state (cf. John 1:1, 2; Micah 5:2; John 8:58) existed in such an outward form that the whole heav enly world saw by His very outward appearance that He was a Divine Being, was God. Incidentally this teaches that while God is essentiality spirit (John 4:24) and invisible (1 Tim. 1: 17), nevertheless He was a “form,” the form the Lord Jesus originally existed in. This glorious condition of existing in such an outward form that the whole angelic world saw thereby that he was God, our Lord Jesus deliberately turned His back upon and chose something else. What that something else was we shall see tomorrow. MONDAY, September 29. Philippians 2 :7 , 8. We have seen what our Lord did not choose, to continue “in the form of God” in which He originally existed, “to be on an equality with God.” Paul now tells us what He did choose in place of this. “He emptied Himself” : these remarkable words need both care ful definition and deep meditation. Of what did He empty Himself? Some say of His divine omniscience, and other divine attributes, and upon that supposed fact they build up a whole system of misleading theology. But does the verse interpreted in its con
text (as every verse in the Bible or in any other book should be interpreted), say so? It certainly does not. The context clearly shows that what He emptied Himself of was His Divine “form” taking a human “form” in place of it, and His Divine glory, the last atom of it, taking instead of it a place of utter shame and dishonor. And why did He empty Himself? That He might fill us. Oh, wondrous love! There is nothing even hinted here of a surrender of Divine attributes, as those who wish to discount the absolute truth fulness and final authority of His state ments would have us believe. During the earthly life of our Lord there was a constant outflashing of the Divine wisdom that dwelt in Him (e. g., John 2:25; 4:17, 18). Nevertheless, He did live His life on earth as a man, work ing in the power of the Holy Spirit. But even so the Holy Spirit wrought in Him in such fulness that all the words He spoke were “the words of God” (John 3:34; 12:49; 14:24) and are absolute and final authority on all subjects of which they treat. “The form” which He now took, in place of the “form” of God which He wore before, was “the form of a servant” (more exactly, “bond-servant,” or, “slave” ). This “form” was a numan form, “being made (or, coming to be) in the likeness of men” : the form of a man was “the form of a bond-serv ant,” because man’s proper relation to God is that of a bond-servant. The words “coming to be in the likeness of men” contain an implication that while He really came to be like men, and indeed was man, He was essentially more than man, (cf. Rom. 8:3). When “found in fashion (the word translated “fashion” means, outward guise) as a man,” He went lower yet, “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea the death of the cross”: He humbled Himself not merely to become a man, and not merely to become a poor man, born in a stable and the servant of others (John 13:3-5), not merely to die, but to die on the cross, which manner of death expressed not only the most utter rejection and con tempt by men, but also indicated His being “under the curse” of God( Gal. 3: 13; Is. 53:6; 2 Cor. 5:21). This humbling Himself in this way was an act of obedience to God: the Father bade Him do it, and it was loving obe dience to God, even more than (or before that) it was self-sacrificing love to us, that led Jesus to the cross (John
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