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The epistles to the Philippians and to the Colossians reveal to us Christ as our life, below and "above".
Excerpt- The apostle proceeds to enforce lowliness in love, by setting the way of the Lord Himself before their eyes. This is the true “rule of life” for the believer since His manifestation; not even all the written word alone, but that word seen livingly in Christ, who is made a spring of power by the Holy Ghost to his soul that is occupied with Him. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal [on equality] with God; but made himself of no reputation [emptied himself]” &c.
What an illustrious testimony to the true, proper, intrinsic deity of Christ! It is all the stronger, because, like many more, it is indirect. Who but a person consciously God in the highest sense could adopt, not merely the unhesitating assumption of such language as “Before Abraham was, I am,” or “I and my Father are one,” but the no less real, though hidden, claim to Godhead which lies under the very words which unbelief so eagerly seizes against Him? Where would be the sense of any other man (which He surely was and is) saying, “My Father is greater than I?” A strange piece of information in the mouth (I will not say of a Socrates or a Bacon merely, but) of a Moses or a Daniel, a Peter or a Paul; but in Him, how suitable and even needful, yet only so because He was truly God and equal with the Father, as He was man, the sent One, and so the Father was greater than He! Take again that striking declaration in John 17:3, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” Of course, He was man, He deigned to be born of woman: else unbelief would have no ground of argument on that score. But what mere man ever dared, save the vilest impostor, calmly to class himself with God, yea, to speak of the knowledge of the only true God, and of Him, as life everlasting? So, again, the scripture before us; nothing can be conceived more conclusively to prove His own supremely divine glory, than the simple statement of the text. Gabriel, yea, the archangel Michael, has no higher dignity than that of being God's servant, in the sphere assigned to each. The Son of God alone had to empty Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. All others were, at best, God's servants, and nothing could increase that dignity for them or lift them above it. Of Christ alone it was true, that He took a bondservant's form; and of Him alone could it be true, because He was in the form of God. In this nature He subsisted originally, as truly as He received a bondman's; both were real, equally real; the one intrinsic, the other that which He condescended to assume in infinite grace.
Table of Contents
1. Philippians 1:1-2, Notes on
2. Philippians 1:3-11, Notes on
3. Philippians 1:12-20, Notes on
4. Philippians 1:21-30, Notes on
5. Philippians 2:1-4, Notes on
6. Philippians 2:5-11, Notes on
7. Philippians 2:12-18, Notes on
8. Philippians 2:19-30, Notes on
9. Philippians 3:1-11, Notes on
10. Philippians 3:12-21, Notes on
11. Philippians 4:1-5, Notes on
12. Philippians 4:5-23, Notes on
13. Colossians 1:1-8, Notes on
14. Colossians 1:9-18, Notes on
15. Colossians 1:19-23, Notes on
16. Colossians 1:24-29 and 2:1-3, Notes on
17. Colossians 2:4-12, Notes on
18. Colossians 2:13-19, Notes on
19. Colossians 2:20-23, Notes on
20. Colossians 3:1-11, Notes on
21. Colossians 3:12-17, Notes on
22. Colossians 3:18-25, 4:1, Notes on
23. Colossians 4:2-18, Notes on