We have already dealt with St. Paul's references to Timothy and Epaphroditus (•2'^-*'). We must look a little more closelj' at their Great Example.
(d) The imitation of Christ (2^'"). — This famous passage cannot be discussed with any fullness here. It is evident from the rhythmical structure that thought and language have been carefully arranged and elaborated, yet the wliole statement is brought forward as a practical motive, not as an exhaustive theological statement.
Christ first comes into the Apostle's vision — as he considers Him in this passage in His pre-incarnate state — before His appearance on earth. In this state, the Apostle says. He was in the form of God. What does this mean ? It must mean something that Christ could lay aside, of which He did empty Himself, something that forms a direct contrast to the ' form of a servant.' From the phrase ^auTji/ inivudev it is not too much to say that it is equi- pollent to ' Himself,' His personality. His per- sonality then was essentially identical with that of God. Is it not absurd to say of any one, however, that he empties himself of his personality ? Logi- cally it is, but really it is not. We know what is meant by a denial of oneself, an effacement of one- self. The fact is that these ethical activities tran- scend the bare laws of logical consistency. The ' form of God ' then seems to describe Christ's pre-
incarnate personality in terms of the Divine nature. IJ.op(f>ri is, ot course, not used here as an accurate tcr- minu.i technicus of philosophy, but it does seem in St. Paul to express (cf. Ko S^", Gal 4>», 2 Co 3'«, Ph 3'°) a personality with adequate means for the expression of personal activities, and to St. Paul Christ in His pre-incarnate state was a Divine Personality, with a spiritual organism perfectly adequate for the manifestation of His Divine glory. This is implied in ftop<pri, which still retains traces of its original percejitual reference. St. Paul does not say that this /iopipri was identical with our Lord's post-Resurrection spiritual body, far less that He had a quasi-material ffu^o, but he does seem to say that it was functionally as perfect for the expression of His Divinity then as the latter is for the expression of His redemptive Lordship now. In this pre-incarnate state He did not grasp at equality with God (oi^x apiraynbv i^yqaaro t6 etfai taa Oeip). It is difficult if not impossible to find here a reference to our Lord's earthly life. That has yet to come before the Apostle's mind. Psy- chologically, of course, the self-denying life of Jesus on earth was the temporal prius from which the Apostle developed his view of Christ's nature, but here it is the ordo eventuum in the pre-earthly life of Christ which he describes, not the psychologi- cal order of his own thinking. What, liowever, does it mean to say that He did not consider equality with God a thing to be .snatched ? How could He seize on equality with God if He was already in the form of God ? If the two phrases are identical is there not here a manifest absurdity ? Lightfoot and others get out of this difficulty by translating — ' did not consider equality with God as a prize to be retained, to be clung to ' ; but the phrase indicates more than retaining — it indicates a posi- tive grasping. Others again refer this grasping to His future Lordship which God gave Him (as a gift) in virtue of His obedience. ' He might have used the miraculous powers inherent in His Divine nature in such a way as to compel men, without further ado, to worship Him as God' (Kennedy, EGT, ' Philippians,' p. 437").
But the insuperable objection to this opinion is that the phrase expresses a pre-incarnate activity and not an incarnate one. "The truth in this view is that ' equality with God ' is regarded as a rela- tion— a recognition of Divine equality from others — spiritual beings. Christ did not think of claim- ing this in heaven before His appearance on earth. The redemption of men being in view He on the contrary voluntarily determined to undertake it, and thereby did not snatch at this Divine recogni- tion. In one word the self-humiliation of our Lord was first transacted on the theatre of His own Divine mind above before it was concretely mani- fested here below, and it was not simply a renuncia- tion toucliing Himself only, but a renunciation in spite of a positive essential nisus that heavenly beings might in virtue of His nature have expected Him to have exerted. The Apostle no doubt argued from Jesus' earthly activity, but he natu- rally projects this activity into the pre-incarnate state. As His action was on earth so it was formerly in heaven. The Apostle in the expres- sion oi'x apiraynbf Tjyi^aaTo rb elvat iaa Oet^ is not con- cerned with defending Christ from blame, but with commending Him as the transcendent moral Example. He might — at any rate, all others would — have exercised self-assertion : it was, as it were. His right. But He did not do so. The diffi- culties here are not those of formal logic, but the ever-present difficulties of visualizing eternal in- finite activities in finite temporal categories. Then the second vision which the Apostle has of His Master is on earth. ' He emptied Himself by tak- ing the form of a servant, being or becoming in