Vers. 9, 10. The contrasted Humiliation and Exaltation of Christ.
I. The circumstances of the Saviour’s depression from His original state.—We say that a person stoops, that he bends, that he sinks. Moral correspondencies to these actions are understood. They are condescensions. Immanuel is the name of our Saviour when born into our world and dwelling in it—God with us. A local residence is thus described. And we are informed of the degree which marks His coming down from heaven, of the manner in which He came into the world—He descended into the lower parts of the earth. What lowliness is this! Similar terms are employed in other portions of the inspired volume; by collating them with those of the text we shall most satisfactorily determine its sense.
1. The incarnation of Christ may be thus expressed.—To what did He not submit? By what was He not buffeted? What insult did not disfigure His brow? What shade did not cloud His countenance? What deep waters did not go over His soul? His was humanity in its severest pressures and humblest forms.
2. This form of language may denote the death of Christ.—It is the ordinary phrase of the Old Testament; “They shall go into the lower parts of the earth: Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.” Does it not seem strange that His soul should be commended hence who had often bound death to His bidding and summoned from the grave its prey? He is brought low to the dust of death. The erect figure is prostrated. The instinctive life is arrested. That mysterious frame—related to the infinite and the Divine temple of all greatness, shrine of all sanctity—that “Holy Thing” sleeps in death.
3. This style may be intended to intimate that burial to which He yielded.—“Lest I become like them that go down into the pit.” “So must the Son of man be in the heart of the earth.” He has made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death! He is put away into darkness. He is held of death in its gloomy chambers. He is as a victim and a prey. It is a prison-keep.
4. The separation of the Redeemer’s body and spirit may be described in these words.—We mark in this departure of His soul the simple requirement of death. It could not be retained. It descended into the lower parts of the earth. This is the reverse of resurrection and heavenward flight. It was humiliation. These are the gradations of His descent. These are the “lower parts of the earth” to which He declined. This is His coming forth from the Father! This is His coming down from heaven! This is His coming into the world! His measureless surrender of claims! His inconceivable renunciation of honours! Stooping to inferior and still inferior levels of ignominy! Plunging to deeper and still deeper abysses of shame!
II. The glory of His subsequent exaltation.—1. It is in itself an absolute expression of love.
2. It justifies an expectation of surpassing benefits.
3. The act regulates and secures its own efficiency.
4. This act is to be regarded as of incomparable worth and excellence.—The mission of Christ contemplated the highest principles which can direct the Divine conduct. He came to vindicate that character which to conceive aright is the happiness of all creatures—to uphold and avenge that law which cannot be infringed without an utter loss of good and overthrow of order—to atone for sin whose slight and impunity would have been the allowance of infinite mischiefs and evils—to bring in an everlasting righteousness adequate to the justification of the most guilty, and of the most multiplied objects who needed it—leaving it for ever proved that no rule nor sanction of God’s moral government can be violated without a necessary and meet resentment! His ascension was a radiant triumph. Scarcely is it more descried than His resurrection. We catch but a few notes of the resounding acclaim, we mark but a few fleeces of the glory-cloud, we recognise but a few attendants of the angel-train. With that laconic force which characterises holy writ, it is simply recorded, “Who is gone into heaven.”