Philippians 2:8

Philippians 2:8. and being found in fashion as a man. Being found, that is of those by whom he was seen and known. This was constantly expressed by those who saw and heard Him: ‘Never man spake like this man;' and even the centurion (Mark 15:39), while styling Him ‘Son of God,' speaks of Him as ‘this man,' and St. Peter in his Pentecostal sermon calls Him ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God unto you.'

in fashion, in all those outward particulars which the eye can note as in human growth and human needs, human sense of pain and human capacity for death, in every way and manner resembling the usual type of mankind.

as a man. He was more than man, but the Divine in His nature He deigned to shroud and keep out of sight on most occasions, so that to the people of Nazareth, whose want of faith checked Him from mighty works, He seemed but as ‘the son of the carpenter.'

he humbled himself. As though it were not enough to lay aside the Divine and consent to wear the human form, His self-abasement went still farther, and went, too, of His own will.

becoming obedient even onto death, yea, the death of the cross. He became obedient, for He had taken the ‘form of a slave.' His obedience was yielded to the Father, as we may learn from the agonized language in Gethsemane: ‘Not my will, but Thine, be done.' The scheme for man's redemption was framed in the counsels of the Godhead from all eternity, and the consent of the Son of God made one part of that counsel. So that of ‘His own will lie suffered, and yet the Divine was so far veiled, the human in Him so far manifest in His agony, that He can speak to His Father of the coming death as ‘Thy will.' And in Him obedience was carried to its farthest limit. Even in the slave's lot there comes a point at which resistance may be expected and justified. Toil and pain He may endure and not rebel, but to accept death when it might be avoided is the extreme of humiliation. Yet even this Christ chose to do for men, and to the humiliation was added degradation, for He died upon the cross, a death reserved only for the worst criminals and malefactors.

Now we may see how the whole picture of Christ's humiliation fits into the apostle's argument He looked also on the things of others. He beheld man's fallen state, man made in the likeness of God, and to rescue him, came down from His eternal glory and dwelt as a man among men, and fathomed the lowest depths of humiliation and of suffering.