"Take one of the holy Books, or a section of one of them; and for this purpose shorter is better. By a certain exercise of imagination suppose yourself to be reading a _newly-discovered_ fragment of the apostolic age. Treat it somewhat as many of us have recently sought to treat Bryennius' discovery, _The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles_. What microscopic attention has been brought to bear upon that little book, just because good evidence gives it a place in the first century, and because it speaks of Christ, and of Christians; of faith, worship, ministry, and life, in a part of the primeval Church! Now I attempt from time to time, reverently but very simply, to treat some inspired Epistle somewhat in the same way. I place myself before it as much as possible as if it were new to me and others. I seek, with something of the curiosity which such conditions would create, to collect and arrange its theology and its ethics. And then I bring in upon the results of my study the fact that it is God's Word, the Word which I am to embrace, and live upon, and act upon, to-day.
"For example and suggestion, let us turn to the EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS; few but golden pages, precious product of those two years of St Paul's physical imprisonment but blissful spiritual liberty. To stimulate our consciousness of what the Epistle contains to reward search, and search alone, let us try to place it before us as what it is not now, but once was, a newly-given oracle of God. It was once read for the first time, perhaps in the house of Lydia. Let it be to us, so far as thought can make it so, what it was then. And let us remember all the while that it is really even now new, for it is immortal with the breath of the Spirit of God. It not only 'abideth,' but 'liveth,' for ever.
"Let us take two titles under which to classify the results of our inspection of this primitive Document. First, its doctrine of Christ; then, its doctrine of Christian Life. As a subordinate third title we may collect what it indicates of Christian life as exemplified in the Writer's allusions to his own experience.
"I.--The Christology of the Epistle.
"(1) We trace hints of the _human history_ of Christ. He was man, in reality and in seeming; He died a death of suffering, the death of the Cross [ii. 7, 8; iii. 10.]; He rose again, for there is a power of His Resurrection; [iii. 10.] and, apparently, He so left this earth that it was known that an immeasurable exaltation attended His going, so that the heavens are now His seat [ii. 9.], from which He is definitely expected to return. [iii. 20.]
"(2) Going back to antecedent and prehistoric matters of faith about Him, we find here that before He became man He subsisted in possession, lawful and natural, of the manifested reality [Greek: morphÍ] of Godhead, equal to God [ii. 6.]. His appearance as man was the sequel of His own action of will in that eternal state [ii. 7.]. It was a novel and voluntary assumption of the condition of the Bondservant, the [Greek: Doulos], of God. Antecedently possessing the [Greek: morphÍ] of God, He now _de novo_ 'took' the [Greek: morphÍ] of a bondservant. What created beings in general are of course, God's bondservants, He had not been but now became; a fact as astonishing in its region as the fact of His possession of the Supreme Nature is in its region. He assumed this [Greek: douleia], we find, because His essential work was to obey, to 'become obeying,' yes, to the extent of death [ii. 8.]; which death was thus in Him altogether voluntary, part of a free undertaking to be not His own. The immediate result for Himself, it next appears, was an exaltation by God to supreme majesty under all these conditions. As being all this, possessor of Deity and accepter of bondservice, He was now _de novo_ proclaimed as [Greek: Kyrios], as Lord, in a sense interpreted by the adoration of the universe; to the glory of God His Father. For it repeatedly appears in the Epistle that God is His Father; He is the Son of God [ii. 11.]. Further, all 'the riches of God in glory' [i. 2; ii. 11.] are 'in Him.' [iv. 19.] It appears that in His exaltation He is embodied still, for it is to likeness to the body of His glory that the body of our humiliation is to be changed at His expected return. He is Almighty 'to subdue all things,' and the subjugation is 'to Himself.' [iii. 21.]