Ver. 2. calling for your pity; +make full my joy+, drop this last ingredient into the cup of my thankful happiness for you, and bring the wine to the brim, +by being[2] of the same mind+ (_phronma_, feeling, attitude of mind), +feeling+ (_echontes_) +the same love+, "the same" on all sides, soul and soul together (_sympsychoi_) +in a+
Ver. 3. +mind which is unity itself+.[3] +Nothing+ (_muden_, implying of course prohibition) +in the way of+ (_kata_) +personal or party spirit;[4] rather+ (_alla_), +as regards your+ (_tu_) +humblemindedness+, your view of yourselves learnt at the feet of your Saviour, +reckon[5] each other superior to yourselves+; as assuredly you will do, with a logic true to the soul, when each sees himself, the personality he knows best, in the light of eternal holiness
Ver. 4. and love. +Not to your own+ interests +look+ (_skopountes_), +each circle of you, but each circle[6] to those+
Ver. 5. +of others also. Have this mind+ (_phroneite_) in +you+, this moral attitude in each soul, +which+ was, and is,[7] +also in Christ Jesus+, (in that eternal Messiah whom I name already with His human Name, JESUS; for in the will of His Father, and in the unity of His own Person, it was as it were His Name already
Ver. 6. from everlasting,) +who in God's manifested Being[8] subsisting+,[9] _seeming_ divine, because He _was_ divine, in the full sense of Deity, in that eternal world, +reckoned it no plunderer's prize[10] to be on an equality with God+;[11] no, He viewed His possession of the fulness of the Eternal Nature as securely and inalienably His own, and _so_ He dealt with it for our sakes with a sublime and _restful_ remembrance of others; far from thinking of it as for Himself alone, as one who claimed it unlawfully would have done,
Ver. 7. +He rather (_alla_) made Himself void by His own act+,[12] void of the manifestation and exercise of Deity as it was His on the throne,[13] +taking[14] Bond-servant's+ (_doulou_) +manifested being+ (_morphe_), that is to say, the veritable Human Nature which, as a creaturely nature, is essentially bound to the service of the Creator, the _bond_service of the Father; +coming to be+, becoming, _genomenos_, +in men's similitude+, so truly human as not only to be but _to seem_ Man, accepting all the conditions involved in a truly human _exterior_,
Ver. 8. "pleased _as Man with men_ to appear." +And+ then, further, +being found+, as He offered Himself to view, +in respect of guise+ (_scheati_), in respect of outward shape, and habit, and address, +as Man+, He went further, He stooped yet lower, even from Humanity to Death; +He humbled Himself, in becoming obedient+,[15] obedient to Him whose Bondservant He now was as Man, +to the length[16] of death, aye+ (_de_), +death of Cross+, that death of unimaginable pain and of utmost shame, the death which to the Jew was the symbol of the curse of God upon the victim, and to the Roman was a horror of degradation which should be "far not only from the bodies but from the imaginations of citizens of Rome."[17]
So He came, and so He suffered, because "He
Ver. 9. looked to the interests of others." +Wherefore also God+, His God (_ho theos_), +supremely exalted Him+, in His Resurrection and Ascension, +and conferred upon Him+, as a gift of infinite love and approval (_echarisato_), +the Name which is above every name+; THE NAME, unique and glorious; the Name Supreme, the I AM; to be His Name now, not only as He is from eternity, the everlasting Son of the Father, but as He became also in time, the suffering and risen Saviour of sinners.[18] In His whole character and work He is invested now with the transcendent glory and greatness of divine dignity; every thought of the suffering Manhood is steeped in the fact that He who, looking on the things of others, came down to bear it, is now enthroned where only the Absolute and Eternal King