[2.] That he was not only lesser than God, but lesser than the angels, '^Xdrrcoaa'i avrbv ^pa'yy rt Trap ayyiXovi;, Heb. ii. 7, ' Thou madest him a little lower than the angels,' or for a little time, the time that he spent here on earth. Man is inferior to an angel, as man, in the order of being ; much more as mortal, for the angels never die ; therefore his very incarnation and liableness to death was a great lessening of his dignity. Though the incarnation of Christ was the exaltation of our nature, yet it was the depression and humiliation of the Son of God. God could stoop no lower than to become man, and man could be advanced no higher than to be united to God.
[3.] That in the human nature he was depressed beyond the ordinary condition of man. For he came in such a form and course of life as was beneath the ordinary rate of mankind : Ps. xxii. 6, ' I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men, and despised of the people.' So Isa. liii. 3, ' He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs, and we hid as it were our faces from him ; he was despised, and we esteemed him not ; ' as a vile and abominable creature, both despised, and rejected, scarce deemed worthy the name of a man, or to have any converse and fellowship with them. It is in Hebrew, □"'ti^NI bT} the leaving off of a man ; as if we should say, the very list and fag-end of mankind ; so low and mean that the nature of man can hardly descend lower : Mark ix. 12, ' The Son of man must suffer many things, and be set at nought ; ' it is i^ovSevwOi], made nought worth, or nothing. Thus did he appear in the meanest and most abject form of mankind, not in any glorious estate and majesty. Survey the whole course of his life ; he was born of a poor virgin, and, instead of a better place, laid in an inn ; which probably being taken up by persons of great quality, he was laid in the basest place of the inn, in a manger. His birth was revealed to poor shepherds, not to em- perors and kings, not to Csesar at Kome. Presently after his birth he was banished together with his mother into Egypt, and exposed to the troubles and toils of a long journey into a strange country for refuge. Afterward, till he appeared in his ministry, we read little of him. His supposed father a carpenter, and he himself called so : Mark vi. 3, ' Is not this the carpenter ? ' He made yokes and plouglis, saith Justin Martyr. Certainly it is probable that, as he submitted to other parts of the curse, so this : ' In the sweat of thy brows shalt thou eat thy bread.' In the course of his ministry he suffered many affronts and reproaches. Surely his life was a life of sorrows. We find him beg- ging water when thirsty, John iv. 9 ; that a fish paid tribute for
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nim, Mat. xvii. 27. He had little money, and had no certain resi- dence and place of abode, but lived by contribution : Mat. viii. 20, * The foxes have holes, and the "birds of the air have nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.' At his death, never was child of God under so much misery as Christ himself. His own heavens, his own Father, his own godhead, did hide their face and consolation from him. God's wrath pressed the weight of punish- ment, with the full power of justice, both upon his soul and body. Those for whom he died despised him. He himself, being emptied of all things which make men respected in the world, was depressed lower than any man, and was as a worm to be trod upon. He was made a matter of common talk and reproach in all men's mouths, condemned by the ruling part of the world, and set at nought by the basest of the people, derided and scorned in his most holy behaviour, his bitter sufferings made matter of sport and laughter, malice feeding itself with pleasure upon his pain and misery, and expressing itself with the basest signs of mocking which disdain could devise, flouting at his saving doctrine, and insulting over him as if he had neither been the Son of God nor an honest man ; and all this was counted little enough for satisfaction of justice, exacting of him the due punishment of our sins.
II, That this was his own voluntary act. He made himself of no reputation. You may read that men set him at nought: Acts iv. 11, ' This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders.' Nay, we read, Heb. ii. 7, ' Thou madest him a little lower than the angels.' It was an act of God himself ; yet on Christ's part it was voluntary, undertaken for the glory of God and the good of men. It was not imposed upon him by constraint, without his consent, or against his will. An act of love and an act of obedience are truly consistent. A punishment is imposed upon us against our will, but here was a volun- tary susception of our burden. None of this was due to him upon his own account, but ours. It was no punishment for his self-exalting, but an act of gracious condescension. This appeareth in scripture two ways —