Philippians 2:7

Philippians 2:7

I. We must be careful that we do not suffer our knowledge of the perfect Deity of Jesus Christ to confound or weaken our apprehension of His entire and essential manhood. A very little error on this point may lead to the worst consequences. For instance, if Christ be not absolutely a Man, if His Divinity come in in the least degree to qualify human nature, then He practically almost ceases to stand forth as an example which we are to follow. For the answer will be always ready to our lips, He is of a different and distinct order; imitation is impossible, for He was Himself holy by Deity: and besides this, unless He be perfect man, His death may carry the form of an infinite sacrifice, but it cannot be viewed in the light of a strict substitution.

II. The manhood which Christ assumed is full of the deepest comfort to His Church. For observe its consequence. All the nature of our race was gathered and concentrated into the one human life. He stood forth the great representative Man; what He did, it was as though we had done it: what He bore, it was as though we had suffered it. But were even one iota taken out of the manhood of Jesus, the parallel of the work would cease, and the provisions of the mediatorial scheme would fail. Therefore St. John twice makes the belief in it essential to our salvation. "Whosoever confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is born of God."

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874, p. 1.

Philippians 2:7

Christ a Slave.

The word servantwill convey to us in this present age a very inadequate idea of the degree of the degradation of which it is the figure. For service has been dignified since Jesus was a servant. We know nothing now more really honourable than Christian service. But let us not forget that He first taught us to call servants friends.

I. Notice one or two of the laws and customs respecting Jewish slaves, that you may see the correctness of the title and the exceeding extent of the humiliation of Jesus. (1) No slave among the Jews could have any position or right as a citizen; he had no political standing. If injured, he had no redress; if assaulted, no protection. And very accurate was the counterpart in our Saviour's life when subjected to the most outrageous violence and wrong. No arm of law was ever outstretched for His defence. (2) The slave could hold no property whatever. And what had He, the Servant of servants? Which of the world's paupers ever walked the earth as poor as the world's Creator? (3) And every slave was in the eyes of the law a mere piece of goods and chattels, which could be bought and sold. It was in the strictness therefore of the letter of the law to which He subjected Himself when for the base sum of less than three pounds Judas sold Him. (4) And when he died, the slave was still pursued by his brand; he might be scourged and tortured, and a last distinctive punishment was assigned him: the cross. So Jesus under the lash and on the tree was the slave.

II. As a servant or slave Christ had two duties to execute. The first was to His Father; (2) the second was to His people. What He did the last night in the upper chamber is only an epitome of His whole life; the girded towel and the basin in the hand characterised the Man. He is always going to persons' feet; He is always performing inferior offices; He is always in the attitude of some active ministration; He takes His Church as a charge committed to Him by God, and He honours and tends each one, as a servant does his lord's friends, and of each one He is able to give in the good account at last, "Of them which Thou gavest Me have I lost none."

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,1874.

Reference: Philippians 2:7; Philippians 2:8. W. J. Knox-Little, The Mystery of the Passion,p. 3.