IMITATING THE INCARNATION

任大弟兄

B.B. Warfield


Philippians 2:5-8: 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 with God: but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man. He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
“Christ our Example.” After “Christ our Redeemer,” no words can more deeply stir our heart than these. Every Christian joyfully recognizes the example of Christ, as, in the the words of one commentator, a body “of living legislation,” as “law, embodied and pictured in a perfect humanity.” In Him, in a word, we find the moral ideal historically realized, and we bow before it as sublime and yearn after it with our whole soul.

任大弟兄

We can follow every footstep of the Son of Man, on the rim of hills that shut in the town of Nazareth, on the Sea of Galilee, over the mountains of Judea, and long to walk in spirit by His side. He came to save every age, says Irenæus, and therefore He came as an infant, a child, a boy, a youth, and a man. Each of us can find its example in Him. We see Him, the most proper child that ever was given to a mother’s arms, through all the years of childhood at Nazareth “subjecting Himself to His parents.” We see Him a youth, labouring day by day contentedly at His father’s bench, in this lower sphere, too, with no other thought than to be “about His father’s business.” We see Him in His holy manhood, going, “as His custom was,” Sabbath by Sabbath, to the synagogue,—Yes He was God, but He was not too good to worship with His weaker brethren. And then the horizon broadens. We see Him at the banks of Jordan, because it was his calling Him to fulfil every righteousness, meekly receiving the baptism of repentance for us. We see Him in the wilderness, calmly rejecting the subtlest trials and temptations of the evil one: refusing to supply His own needs by misusing of His power, repelling the confusion of tempting God with trusting God, declining to seek His Father’s ends by any other than His Father’s means. We see Him among the thousands of Galilee, anointed of God with the Holy Ghost and power, going about doing good: with no pride of birth, though He was a king; with no pride of intellect, though omniscience dwelt within Him; with no pride of power, though all power in heaven and earth was in His hands; or of station, though the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily; or of superior goodness or holiness: but rather in lowliness of mind esteeming every one better than Himself, healing the sick, casting out devils, feeding the hungry, and everywhere breaking to men the bread of life. We see Him everywhere offering to men His life for the salvation of their souls: and when, at last, the forces of evil gathered thick around Him, walking, alike without display and without dismay, the path of suffering appointed for Him, and giving His life at Calvary that through His death the world might live.


Who of us can find a single lack, a single failure a perfect example in His life? In whatever situation of our own life, in what trial, in what danger or uncertainty, we turn our eyes to Him. Do we fail to find just the example that we need? And if by chance we are, by the grace of God, enabled to walk with Him but a step in the way, how our hearts burn within us with longing to be always with Him,—to be strengthened by the almighty power of God in the inner man, to make every footprint which He has left in the world a stepping-stone to climb upward over His divine path. Do we not rightly say that next to our longing to be in Christ is our corresponding longing to be like Christ. And also that only second in our hearts to His great act of obedience unto death by which He became our Saviour, is His holy life in our world of sin, by which He becomes our example?

Of course this text is not alone in calling us to make Christ our example. “Be ye imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ Jesus,” is really the whole burden of the ethical side of Paul’s teaching. And in this, too, he was but the imitator of his Lord, who pleads with us to “learn of Him because He is meek and lowly in heart.” The peculiarity and uniqueness of our present passage is that it takes us back, not only to Christ’s earthly life but it bids us imitate Him in the great act of His incarnation itself. Not, because we were equal with Christ and needed to stoop to such humbling as He performed. “Why art thou proud, O man?” Augustine asks. “God for thee became low. Thou wouldst perhaps be ashamed to imitate a lowly man; then at least imitate the lowly God. The Son of God came in the character of man and was made low. . . . He, since He was God, became man: do thou, O man, recognize that thou art man. Thy entire humility is to know thyself.” The very force of Paul's appeal lies in the infinite exaltation of Christ above us: and him mentioning the incarnation is his reminder to us of the indescribable majesty which was Christ's. Paul prys at our hearts here with the great lever of the deity of Christ. He calls upon us to do nothing less than to be imitators of God. “What encouragement is greater than this?” says Chrysostom, “Nothing arouses a great soul to the performance of good works so much as learning that in this it is likened to God.” And as we've said, here too, Paul is but the follower of his Lord: “Be ye merciful, as your Father which is in heaven is merciful,” are words which fell from Christ's lips, so similar to Paul’s words in the text: “Let it be this mind that is in you, which also was in Christ Jesus.” It is the spirit which animated our Lord in the act of His incarnation which His apostle would see us imitate. He would have us in all our acts to be like Christ, as He showed Himself to be in the innermost core of His being, when He became poor, He that was rich, that we by His poverty might be made rich.

任大弟兄

Paul's exhortation is forceful because of the deity of Christ, and that He, being God, was brought into this world, into a dependent, earthly life. The same life that we live in by nature. It is altogether natural, then, that he reinforces his appeal by reminding us who Christ was and what He did for our salvation, in order that, with the facts more clearly before our minds, we may more acutely feel the spirit by which He was animated. Thus, Paul does not inform his readers but reminds them, in a few brief words what we may call the whole doctrine of the Person of Christ. With such skill, or let us rather say with such an eager spirit and loving clearness and firmness of touch, has he done this. These words constitute one of the most complete statements of this essential doctrine to be found in Scripture. Though three short verses, it ranks up there with the opening verses of the Gospel of John as being a concise outline of this doctrine. And so whenever the heresies confuse our minds about the Person of our Lord, it is these verses that we should flee to have our thinking corrected and purified. The words of these verses cut through every error.

Chrysostom was so impressed with this passage, that he pictures it as an arena and a chariot race. The Truth runs through the verses, as the victorious chariot overthrowing its opponents one after another, until at last, amid the roar of applause it springs alone towards the finish. One by one he points out the heresies concerning the Person of Christ which had sprung up in the ancient Church, as clause by clause these verses destroy them. He is not content until the knees of all half-truths and whole falsehoods are made to bow before our Saviour’s perfect deity, His complete humanity, and the unity of His person. And yet the magic of the passage has lost nothing in millennium and a half since John Chrysostom electrified Constantinople with his golden words: this sword of the Spirit is as keen to-day as it was then, and happy is the man who understands it and has the arm to wield it. But we must not lose ourselves in a purely theological interest with this passage. Rather let us keep our eyes on Paul’s main purpose, and feel the force of the example of Christ as he here advances it, for our own lives. But to do this, as he points out, we must begin understanding who and what our Lord was, who set us this example. Three observations:

The Person of Christ is God.
The Actions of Christ.
The Spirit of Christ in his actions.



Let us observe, then, first, that the person who Paul would direct our eyes, is none other than God Himself. “Who being in the form of God,” are his words: and they are unmistakable. Christ Jesus is divine. After the wear and tear of two thousand years on the phrases, it would not be surprising if it lost some force. Let us remember that the approach which Paul here uses was common in his day, first popularized by the Aristotelian philosophy: and so it the most natural language for asserting the deity of Christ which he could use. As you know, this mode of speech divided everything into its matter and its form,—into the bare material out of which it is made, and that qualities or characteristics which made it what it is. “Form,” in a word, is equivalent to our phrase “specific character.” To understand this better, we could say, that the “matter” of a sword, for instance, is steel, while its “form” is that whole body of characterizing qualities which distinguish a sword from all other pieces of steel, and which, therefore, make this particular piece of steel distinctively a sword. This distinction of matter and form also existed for steel itself, even for metal itself, even for material objects in distinction from the spiritual. So, too, with God: the “matter” of God is bare spiritual substance, and the “form” is that body of qualities which distinguish Him from all other spiritual beings, which constitute Him God, and without which He would not be God. What Paul asserts then, when he says that Christ Jesus existed in the “form of God,” is that He had all those qualities and characteristics which make God God. When they are present, it is God, and in the absence of them God does not exist. In short, He who is “in the form of God,” is God.
It is worth noting that Paul could have expressed this in many ways. Yet, he was led to choose this mode of describing the deity of our Lord. His mind in this passage was not on the bare divine essence; it was upon Christ's divine qualities and prerogatives. It is not the abstract conception that Christ is God that moves us: but rather our concrete realization that He was all that God is, and had all that God has,—that God’s omnipotence was His, His infinite exaltation, His unapproachable blessedness. Therefore Paul is choose an expression which says more than the bare fact that Christ was God, but that He was “in the form of God,”—that is to say that He fully possessed all those qualities and characteristics which, taken together, make God that all-holy, perfect, all-blessed being which we call God. In so doing, apostle is preparing his readers for the great example by showing them not only of who, but of what Christ was.

Let us note, then, secondly, that the apostle outlines in detail the actions which Christ performed. “He took the form of a servant by coming into the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming subject even unto death, and that the death of the cross.” There is no metamorphosis here: the “form of God” is not said to have been changed into the “form of a servant”; but instead He who was “in the form of God” also took to Himself “the form of a servant.” Nor is there, on the other hand, any false humiliation here: He took, not the appearance, state and circumstances, or the mere work and performance, but truly “the form of a servant,”—all those essential qualities and attributes which belong to “a servant.” The taking of an actually servant nature, as well as a servant’s work and position. He took the form of a servant, it is explained, “by coming into the likeness of men:” He did not become merely a man, but by taking the form of a servant He came also to appear as man. His humanity was real and complete: but, we remember it was not all,—He remained God throughout his humanity, and therefore only appeared as man, not became only man. And further to this, by taking the form of a servant in the likeness of men, He became subject to obedience,—an obedience that pushed him so far in its humiliation that it extended even unto His death, the shameful death of the cross. Words cannot fully describe the depth of this humiliation. But so it was,—the taking of the form of a servant brought with it an obedience even to such a bitter end,—this it was that He, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was by nature in the form of God,—in the full possession and use of all the divine attributes and qualities, powers and prerogatives,—this He was willing to do for us.

Let us observe, then, thirdly, that the apostle shows us what spirit was in our Lord in that He performed this great act. “Although He was in the form of God, He yet did not consider His being on an equality with God a precious prize to be eagerly retained, but made no account of Himself, taking the form of a servant.” It was a spirit of pure unselfishness and self-sacrifice, that looked not on its own things but on the things of others, that for the sake of love esteemed others more than Himself. It was in this mind, that Christ Jesus who was in the form of God took the form of a servant. This was the state of mind that led Him to so marvellous an act,—no compulsion from His Father, no desires for Himself, no hope of gain or fear of loss, but simple, unselfish, selfsacrificing love.

任大弟兄

Now it is worth mentioning that the meaning of some of the clauses in these verses are disputed by the expositors. Nevertheless, the main drift of the passage is unaffected by any of the special interpretations which the reasonable expositors have developed. Some of the divergent expositions do seriously affect our doctrine of the Person of Christ. In particular, the popular doctrine of kenosis which teaches that Christ in becoming man “emptied Himself,” and thus, that God contracted Himself to the limits of humanity. These doctrines find their chief, almost their sole basis in what appears to be a wrong interpretation of one of these clauses,—where it says, “He made Himself of no reputation,” and which I prefer to render, “He made no account of Himself,” that is, in comparison with the needs of others, “He made no account of Himself.” Other versions render this, “He emptied himself.” But it is unnecessary to pause to argue the point. Whatever the conclusion might be, the main drift of the passage remains the same. It is an undeniable fact that the passage sets before our eyes the two ends of “the form of God” and “the form of a servant,” involving obedience even unto a shameful death. The emphasis of the passage remains the spirit of self-sacrificing unselfishness as the impelling cause of Christ’s humiliation, which the apostle argues here in order that it may impel us also to take no account of ourselves, but to estimate lightly all that we are or have in comparison with the claims of others on our love and devotion. The one subject of the whole passage is Christ’s marvellous self-sacrifice. Its one exhortation is, “Let this mind be in you.” As we read through the passage we may, by understanding the mind and heart of the apostle, learn much more than this. But let us not fail to grasp this, his chief message to us here,—that Christ Jesus, though He was God, yet cared less for His equality with God, cared less for Himself and His own things, than He did for us, and therefore gave Himself for us.

Firmly grasping this, then, as the essential point and special message of the passage, there are some inferences conclusions that flow from it which we must remind ourselves of.

And first of these is a very great and marvellous one,—that we have a God who is capable of self-sacrifice for us. It was although He was in the form of God, that Christ Jesus did not consider His being equality with God so precious a possession that He could not lay it aside, but rather made no account of Himself. It was our God who so loved us that He gave Himself for us. This is a wonderful thing. Some men tell us that God is incapable of passion, incapable of being moved by those from without; that He dwells in holy calm and unchangeable blessedness, untouched by human sufferings or human sorrows for ever. Let us bless our God that it is not true. God can feel; God does love. We have Scriptural warrant for believing that, God, it could be said, has reached out loving arms and gathered into His own bosom that forest of spears which otherwise had pierced ours.

But is not this gross anthropomorphism? We care not about names: it is the truth of God. We have and we must have an ethical God; a God whom we can love, and in whom we can trust. We may feel awe in the presence of the Absolute, as we feel awe in the presence of the storm or of the earthquake: we may feel our dependence in its presence, as we feel our helplessness before the tornado or the flood. But we cannot love it; we cannot trust it; and our hearts, cry out for a God whom we may love and trust.

Let us rejoice then that our God has not left us by searching to find Him out. Let us rejoice that He has plainly revealed Himself to us in His Word as a God who loves us, and who, because He loves us, has sacrificed Himself for us. Let us remember that it is a fundamental conception in the Christian idea of God that God is love; and that it is the fundamental dogma of the Christian religion that God so loved us that He gave Himself for us. Accordingly, the basis of our present passage is that our God was capable of, and did actually perform, this amazing act of unselfish self-sacrifice for the good of man.
The second inference that we should draw is from the apostle's application of Christ's example to our human life. A life of self-sacrificing unselfishness is the most divinely beautiful life that man can lead. This one who is our Master and we are to obey is also who as our Example we are pledged to imitate. He is presented to us here as the great model of self-sacrificing unselfishness. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” is the apostle’s pleading. We must be careful though. This is not self-depreciation (that is, undervaluing ourselves), but self-abnegation (the denying of ourselves), that we are here exhorted to. If we would follow Christ, we must, every one of us, not in pride but in humility, yet not in lowness but in lowliness, not degrade ourselves but forget ourselves, and seek every man not his own things but those of others.

任大弟兄

Who does not see that in all human society, such a mode of life is where we find real help and health? There is, in contrast, another mode of life far more pleasing to our fallen human nature, an model based on arrogance, assumption, self-assertion, working through strife, and resulting in conquest,—conquest of a place for ourselves, a position, the admiration of man, power over men. We see its working on every side of us: in the competition of business life,—in the struggle for wealth on the one side, forcing a struggle for bare bread on the other; in social life,—in the fierce battle of men and women for places of prominence; even in the Church itself, and among the Churches, where, too, unhappily, arrogant pretension and unchristian self-assertion are also found. But it is clear that this is not Christ’s ideal, nor is it to this that He has set us His perfect example. “He made no account of Himself:” though He was in the form of God, He yet looked not upon His equality with God as a possession to be prized when He could by forgetting himself rescue those whom He was not ashamed to call His brethren.

Are there any whom you and I are ashamed to call our brethren? O that the divine ideal of life as service could take possession of our souls! O that we could remember at all times and in all relations that the Son of Man came into the world to minister, and by His ministry has glorified all ministering for ever. O that we could once for all grasp the meaning of the great fact that selfforgetfulness and self-sacrifice express the divine ideals of life.

And thus we are led to a third inference from the text: that it is difficult to overstate the self-sacrifice in the example of Christ, and what that calls us to for the good of our brethren. It is comparatively easy to recognize that the ideal of the Christian life is self-sacrificing unselfishness, and to agree that it is necessary for Christians, to subordinate self and to seek first the kingdom of God. But is it so easy to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we must read this not just broadly but in detail, and that it is to be applied not only to some of the more eminent saints but to all who would be Christ’s servants?—that it is required of us, and that what is required of us is not merely some self-denial but all self-sacrifice? Yet is it not to this that the example of Christ would lead us?—not, of course, to self-degradation, not to self-effacement exactly, but to complete self-denial, entire and ungrudging self-sacrifice? Is it to be unto death itself? Christ died. Are we to endure wrongs? What wrongs did He not meekly bear? Are we to surrender our clear and recognized rights? Did Christ stand upon His unquestioned right of retaining His equality with God? Are we to endure evils, permit ourselves to be driven into difficult situations, unresistingly sustain injurious and unjust attacks? What is more unnatural than that the God of the universe should become a servant in the world, ministering not to His Father only, but also to His creatures,—our Lord and Master washing our very feet? What is more abhorrent than that God should die? There is no length to which Christ’s self-sacrifice did not lead Him. Yet these words are dull and inexpressive; we cannot enter into thoughts so high. He who was in the form of God took such thought for us, that He made no account of Himself. He permitted this thought to enter, “I will die for men!” And so mighty was His love, so colossal His purpose to save, that He thought nothing of His divine majesty, nothing of His untainted blessedness, nothing of His equality with God, but, absorbed in us,—our needs, our misery, our helplessness—He made no account of Himself. If this is to be our example, what limit can we set to our self-sacrifice? Let us remember that we are no longer our own but Christ’s, bought with the price of His precious blood, and are henceforth to live, not for ourselves but for Him,—for Him in His creatures, serving Him in serving them. Let all thought of our dignity, our possessions, our rights, perish out of sight, when Christ’s service calls to us. Let the mind be in us that was also in Him, when He took no account of Himself, but, God as He was, took the form of a servant and humbled Himself,—He who was Lord,—to lowly obedience even unto death, and that the death of the cross. In such a mind as this, where is the end of unselfishness?
We must not, however, do the apostle the injustice. This is not a morbid life to which he calls us. The self-sacrifice to which he exhorts us, boundless as it is, going to all lengths and starting back blanched at nothing, is nevertheless not an unnatural life. After all, it does not result in the destruction of self, but only in the destruction of selfishness; it leads us not to a Buddha-like unselfing, but to a Christ-like self-development. Not to inactivity, but to activity. It would rather light the flames of a love within us by which we would literally “ache for souls.” The example of Christ and the exhortation of Paul demonstrated the unspeakable value they placed upon souls. Our Lord took no account of Himself, only because the value of the souls of men that burdened His heart. And following Him, we are not to consider our own things, but those of others. Why? Because everything earthly that concerns us is as nothing compared with the eternal welfare of souls.

任大弟兄

Therefore, our self-denial is not for our own sake, but for the sake of others. And so it is not to mere self-denial that Christ calls us, but specifically to self-sacrifice: not to unselfing ourselves, but to unselfishing ourselves. Self-denial for its own sake is in its very nature ascetic, monkish. It focuses our whole attention on self—self-knowledge, self-control—and can therefore result in nothing other than the very exalting of selfishness. At best it succeeds only in subjecting the outer self to the inner self, or the lower self to the higher self; and so inevitably falls into the slough of self-seeking, that it hides the selfishness of its goal by refining its ideal of self and excluding more outward elements. Self-denial, then, drives to the cloister; narrows and contracts the soul; murders within us all innocent desires, dries up all the springs of sympathy, and nurses and coddles our own self-importance until we grow so great in our own eyes as to be unconcerned by the trials and sufferings, the joys and aspirations, the strivings and failures and successes of our fellow-men. Self-denial, thus understood, will make us cold, hard, unsympathetic,—proud, arrogant, self-esteeming,—fanatical, overbearing, cruel. It may make monks and Stoics,—it cannot make Christians.
This is not what Christ’s example calls us to. He did not cultivate self, even His divine self: He, rather, took no account of self. He was not distanced from the world, driven back into the recesses of His own soul to brood over His own needs, until he felt that the sacrifice for His people seemed worth it. He was instead led by His love for others into the world, to forget Himself in the needs of others, to sacrifice Himself once for all upon the altar of sympathy. Self-sacrifice brought Christ into the world. And self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from but into the midst of men. Wherever men suffer, there will we be to comfort. Wherever men strive, there will we be to help. Wherever men fail, there will be we to uplift. Wherever men succeed, there will we be to rejoice. Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them. It means forgetfulness of self in others. It means entering into every man’s hopes and fears, longings and despairs: it means many sides to our spirit, many forms of activity, many feelings of sympathy. It means richness of development, of growth. It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives,—binding ourselves to a thousand souls by having so much sympathy that their lives become ours. It means that all the experiences of men shall hammer our souls and shall beat and batter these stubborn hearts of ours into suitableness for their heavenly home. It is, after all, then, the path to the highest possible development, by which alone we can be made truly men. Not that we shall undertake it with this end in view. This were to dry up its springs at their source. We cannot be self-consciously self-forgetful, selfishly unselfish. Only, when we humbly walk this path, earnestly seeking not our own things but those of others, we shall find the promise true, that he who loses his life shall find it. Only, when, like Christ, and in loving obedience to His call and to His example, we take no account of ourselves, but freely give ourselves to others, we shall find, each in his measure, the saying true of himself also: “Wherefore also God hath highly exalted him.” The path of self-sacrifice is the path to glory. Imitate the Incarnation.