Vou. III.—28
A434 WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. [Cu. IL
men, He was like themselves, with a real likeness; but this like- ness to men did not express His whole self. The totality of Tlis being could not appear to men, for that involved the form of God. Hence the apostle views Him solely as He could ap- pear to men. All that was possible was a real and complete likeness to humanity. What He was essentially and eternally could not enter into His human mode of existence. Humanly He was like men, but regarded with reference to His whole self, He was not ¢dentical with man, because there was an ele- ment of His personality which did not dwell in them—equality with God. Hence the statement of His human manifestation is necessarily limited by this fact, and is confined to likeness and does not extend to identity. ‘To affirm likeness is at once to assert similarity and to deny sameness” (Dickson). See on Rom. viii. 3.
8. Being found in fashion as a man (cyzpate evpedeis ws dvSpwrros). Some expositors connect these words with the pre- ceding clause, thus: being made im the likeness of men and being found in fashion as aman; anew sentence beginning with He humbled Himself. The general sense is not altered by this change, and there is great force in Meyer's remark that the preceding thought, 2 the likeness of men, is thus ‘ emphati- cally exhausted.” On the other hand, it breaks the connection with the following sentence, which thus enters very abruptly. Notice being found. After He had assumed the conditions of humanity, and men’s attention was drawn to Him, they found Him like a man. Compare Isa. lili. 2. “If we looked at Him, there was no sightliness that we should delight in Him.”
Fashion (cxjparte). That which is purely outward and ap- peals to the senses. The form of a servant is concerned with the fact that the manifestation as a servant corresponded with the real fact that Christ came as the servant of man- kind. In the phrase in the likeness of men the thought is still linked with that of His essential nature which rendered possible a likeness to men, but not an absolute identity with men. In being found in fashion as a man the thought is confined to the outward guise as it appealed to the sense of mankind. Lzhe-
Cz. IL] THE EPISTLE TO THE PHILIPPIANS. 435
ness states the fact of real resemblance to men in mode of exist~ ence: fashion detines the outward mode and form. As aman. Not being found a man ; not what He was recognized to be, but as a man, keeping up the idea of semblance expressed in likeness.
He humbled Himself (érarelvacev éavtov). Not the same as emptied Himself, ver. 7. It defines that word, showing how the self-emptying manifests itself.
Became obedient unto death (yevouevos—péyp.). Became, compare Apoc. i.18. Unto. The Rev. very judiciously inserts even ; for the A. V. is open to the interpretation that Christ rendered obedience to death. Unto is up to the point of. Christ’s obedience to God was rendered ¢o the extent of laying down His life.
Of the cross. Forming a climax of humiliation. He sub- mitted not only to death, but to the death of a malefactor. The Mosaic law had uttered a curse against it, Deut. xxi. 23, and the Gentiles reserved it for malefactors and slaves. Hence the shame associated with the cross, Heb. xii. 2. This was the offence or stumbling-block of the cross, which was so often urged by the Jews against the Christians. See on Gal. iii. 13. Toa Greek, accustomed to clothe his divinities with every outward attribute of grace and beauty, the summons to worship a cruci- fied malefactor appealed as foolishness, 1 Cor. i. 23.
9. Wherefore (6.0). In consequence of this humiliation.