Christ Degraded
Philippians 2:7
But made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:


1. The expressions which assert Christ's incarnation imply His Deity. Who would say of any merely human being that he was "found in fashion as a man."

2. Christ might have been man without humiliation: e.g., had He assumed the "glorious body" He now wears.

3. The most beautiful feature about Christ's humiliation was that it was never prominent, but always self-forgetful. The grace of a humble mind is that it is too humble to look humble. Our Lord's humiliation may be regarded in four stages.

I. In HIS INCARNATION. How imperceptible that was. No parade. Never did infant enter life with less consequence.

II. In HIS PREMINISTERIAL LIFE.

1. There was the humiliation of the flight and exile into Egypt.

2. His choice of Nazareth as a home, the name of which fastened a stigma and a prejudice upon Him all His days.

3. His life of subjection and labour.

III. In HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.

1. His submission to baptism. John was struck with the self-abasement of this act. Ordinances, however precious, are humbling because the badge of a fallen state.

2. His temptation. There are things we come in contact with which, though not hurtful, leave a feeling of debasement.

3. His poverty and privation.

4. His intercourse with the coarse and the sinful.

5. His subjection to the cavil of the unbeliever, and the jest of the profane.

IV. In HIS DEATH.

1. The circumstances of His arrest and trial.

2. The character of His punishment.

3. His dissolution. It was humiliation indeed for God to become man; much more, being man, to die.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

WEB: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.




Christ a Slave
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