By feeding on Christ in His humiliation the soul's affections enter into the preciousness of His path and death, His human path down here. We are touched, moved, softened: Christ has a place in the heart. We abide in Him according to this love, in the delight of this lowliness, and He in us.
In being changed, on the other hand, into the same image by contemplating God's glory in His face, we are drawn out energetically to that which is glorious, to God's glory as set before us; but in One who is a man, who has loved us and died for us, so that we are associated with this glory. The Holy Ghost, who reveals it, interests us in the glory of God, but this in man, and lifts above what is below it and everything connected with life in flesh. The result is that we are formed into the image of what Christ Himself was when on earth. Christ was the display of it practically on earth. Compare Acts 7:56-6056And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. 57Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, 58And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man's feet, whose name was Saul. 59And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. 60And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:56‑60), where ail this is brightly realized.