us, beginning to be when He was born, takes away from
His example its mightiest constraining force. Only when we with all our
hearts believe 'that the Word became flesh,' do we discern the
overwhelming depths of condescension manifested in the Birth. If it was
not the incarnation of God, it has no claim on the hearts of men.

II. The wondrous act of descent.

The stages in that long descent are marked out with a precision and
definiteness which would be intolerable presumption, if Paul were
speaking only his own thoughts, or telling what he had seen with his own
eyes. They begin with what was in the mind of the eternal Word before He
began His descent, and whilst yet He is 'in the form of God.' He stands
on the lofty level before the descent begins, and in spirit makes the
surrender, which, stage by stage, is afterwards to be wrought out in
act. Before any of these acts there must have been the disposition of
mind and will which Paul describes as 'counting it not a thing to be
grasped to be on an equality with God.' He did not regard the being
equal to God as a prey or treasure to be clutched and retained at all
hazards. That sweeps our thoughts into the dim regions far beyond
Calvary or Bethlehem, and is a more overwhelming manifestation of love
than are the acts of lowly gentleness and patient endurance which
followed in time. It included and transcended them all.

It was the supreme example of not 'looking on one's own things.' And
what made Him so count? What but infinite love. To rescue men, and win
them to Himself and goodness, and finally to lift them to the place from
which He came down for them, seemed to Him to be worth the temporary
surrender of that glory and majesty. We can but bow and adore the
perfect love. We look more deeply into the depths of Deity than unaided
eyes could ever penetrate, and what we see is the movement in that abyss
of Godhead of purest surrender which, by beholding, we are to
assimilate.

Then comes the wonder of wonders, 'He emptied Himself.' We cannot enter
here on the questions which gather round that phrase, and which give it
a factitious importance in regard to present controversies. All that we
would point out now is that while the Apostle distinctly treats the
Incarnation as being a laying aside of what made the Word to be equal
with God, he says nothing, on which an exact determination can be based,
of the degree or particulars in which the divine nature of our Lord was
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