Here notice that what the Logos divested himself of, in becoming man, is not the [pg 706]substance of his Godhead, but the “form of God” in which this substance was manifested. This “form of God” can be only that independent exercise of the powers and prerogatives of Deity which constitutes his “equality with God.” This he surrenders, in the act of “taking the form of a servant”—or becoming subordinate, as man. (Here other Scriptures complete the view, by their representations of the controlling influence of the Holy Spirit in the earthly life of Christ.) The phrases “made in the likeness of men” and “found in fashion as a man” are used to intimate, not that Jesus Christ was not really man, but that he was God as well as man, and therefore free from the sin which clings to man (cf. Rom. 8:3—ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας—Meyer). Finally, this one person, now God and man united, submits himself, consciously and voluntarily, to the humiliation of an ignominious death.
See Lightfoot, on Phil. 2:8—“Christ divested himself, not of his divine nature, for that was impossible, but of the glories and prerogatives of Deity. This he did by taking the form of a servant.” Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:287—“Two stages in Christ's humiliation, each represented by a finite verb defining the central act of the particular stage, accompanied by two modal participles. 1st stage indicated in v. 7. Its central act is: ‘he emptied himself.’ Its two modalities are: (1) ‘taking the form of servant’; (2) ‘being made in the likeness of men.’ Here we have the humiliation of the Kenosis,—that by which Christ became man. 2d stage, indicated in v. 8. Its central act is: ‘he humbled himself.’ Its two modalities are: (1) ‘being found in fashion as a man’; (2) ‘becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.’ Here we have the humiliation of his obedience and death,—that by which, inhumanity, he became a sacrifice for our sins.”
Meyer refers Eph. 5:31 exclusively to Christ and the church, making the completed union future, however, i. e., at the time of the Parousia. “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother” = “in the incarnation, Christ leaves father and mother (his seat at the right hand of God), and cleaves to his wife (the church), and then the two (the descended Christ and the church) become one flesh (one ethical person, as the married pair become one by physical union). The Fathers, however, (Jerome, Theodoret, Chrysostom), referred it to the incarnation.” On the interpretation of Phil 2:6-11, see Comm. of Neander, Meyer, Lange, Ellicott.
On the question whether Christ would have become man had there been no sin, theologians are divided. Dorner, Martensen, and Westcott answer in the affirmative; Robinson, Watts, and Denney in the negative. See Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, 5:236; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 327-329; Westcott, Com. on Hebrews, page 8—“The Incarnation is in its essence independent of the Fall, though conditioned by it as to its circumstances.” Per contra, see Robinson, Christ. Theol., 219, note—“It would be difficult to show that a like method of argument from a priori premisses will not equally avail to prove sin to have been a necessary part of the scheme of creation.”Denney, Studies in Theology, 101, objects to the doctrine of necessary incarnation irrespective of sin, that it tends to obliterate the distinction between nature and grace, to blur the definite outlines of the redemption wrought by Christ, as the supreme revelation of God and his love. See also Watts, New Apologetic, 198-202; Julius Müller, Dogmat. Abhandlungen, 66-126; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 512-526, 543-548; Forrest, The Authority of Christ, 340-345. On the general subject of the Kenosis of the Logos, see Bruce, Humiliation of Christ; Robins, in Bib. Sac., Oct. 1874:615; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 4:138-150, 386-475; Pope, Person of Christ, 23; Bodemeyer, Lehre von der Kenosis; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:610-625.
II. The State of Exaltation.
1. The nature of this exaltation.
It consisted essentially in: (a) A resumption, on the part of the Logos, of his independent exercise of divine attributes. (b) The withdrawal, on the part of the Logos, of all limitations in his communication of the divine fulness to the human nature of Christ. (c) The corresponding exercise, on the part of the human nature, of those powers which belonged to it by virtue of its union with the divine.
The eighth Psalm, with its account of the glory of human nature, is at present fulfilled only in Christ (see Heb. 2:9—“but we behold ... Jesus”). Heb. 2:7—ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι παρ᾽ ἀγγέλους—may be translated, as in the margin of the Rev. Vers.: “Thou madest [pg 707]him for a little while lower than the angels.” Christ's human body was not necessarily subject to death; only by outward compulsion or voluntary surrender could he die. Hence resurrection was a natural necessity (Acts 2:24—“whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible he should be holden of it”; 31—“neither was he left unto Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption”). This exaltation, which then affected humanity only in its head, is to be the experience also of the members. Our bodies also are to be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and we are to sit with Christ upon his throne.