Paul does not then say, as A. V., that Christ ded not think at robbery to be equal with God: for, 1, that fact goes without saying in the previous expression, being in the form of God. 2. On this explanation the statement is very awkward. Christ, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God; but, after which we should naturally expect, on the other hand, claimed and asserted equality : whereas the state- ment is: Christ was in the form of God and did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but (instead) emptied Himself. Christ held fast His assertion of divine dignity, bu¢ relinquished it. The antithesis is thus entirely destroyed.
Taking the word dpraypov (A. V., robbery) to mean a highly prized possession, we understand Paul to say that Christ, be- ing, before His incarnation, in the form of God, did not regard His divine equality as a prize which was to be grasped at and retained at all hazards, but, on the contrary, laid aside the form of God, and took upon Himself the nature of man. The em- phasis in the passage is upon Christ’s humzliation. The fact of His equality with God is stated as a background, in order to throw the circumstances of His incarnation into stronger re- lief. Hence the peculiar form of Paul’s statement. Christ’s great object was to identify Himself with humanity; not to appear to men as divine but as hwman. Had He come into the world emphasizing His equality with God, the world would have been amazed, but not saved. He did not grasp at this. The rather He counted hwmanity His prize, and so laid aside the conditions of His preéxistent state, and became man.
7. Made Himself of no reputation (éavrdv éxévwoev).*
* «The diversity of opinion prevailing among interpreters in regard to the meaning of this passage is enough to fill the student with despair, and to afflict him with intellectual paralysis” (Bruce, ‘‘The Humiliation of Christ,” pal):
Cu. II] THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 433
Lit., emptied Himself. The general sense is that He divested Himself of that peculiar mode of existence which was proper and peculiar to Him as one with God. He laid aside the form of God. In so doing, He did not divest Himself of His divine nature. The change was a change of state: the form of a servant for the form of God. His personality continued the same. His selfemptying was not self-eatinction, nor was the divine Being changed into a mere man. In His humanity He retained the consciousness of deity, and in His incarnate state carried out the mind which animated Him before His incarna- tion. He was not wnabdle to assert equality with God. He was able not to assert it.
Form ofa servant (uopy SovAov). The same word for form as in the phrase form of God, and with the same sense. The mode of expression of a slave’s being is indeed apprehensible, and is associated with human shape, but it is not this side of the fact which Paul is developing. It is that Christ assumed that mode of being which answered to, and was the complete and characteristic expression of, the slave's being. The mode itself is not defined. This is appropriately inserted here as bringing out the contrast with counted not equality with God, ete. What Christ grasped at in His incarnation was not divine sovereignty, but service.
Was made in the likeness of men (év duoudpare avd parrav yevopevos). Lit., becoming in, ete. Notice the choice of the verb, not was, but became: entered into a new state. Likeness. The word does not imply the reakty of our Lord’s humanity, as wopoy form implied the reality of His deity. That fact is stated in the form of a servant. Neither is eikav image em- ployed, which, for our purposes, implies substantially the same as poppy. See on Col. i. 15. As form of a servant exhibits the inmost reality of Christ’s condition as a servant—that He became really and essentially the servant of men (Luke xxii. 27)—so likeness of men expresses the fact that His mode of manifestation resembled what men are. This leaves room for the assumption of another side of His nature—the divine—in the likeness of which He did not appear. As He appealed to