"The incarnation was not an 'emptying' of Christ's deity, but an addition to it--a 'taking on' of his humanity, so that he is both fully God and fully man, and the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus Christ is the greatest humiliation that will ever take place. The Sovereign Creator-King of the universe willingly condescended to his fallen creation and wrapped his divinity in human flesh. He lived as one of us, below us even, as our servant, and submitted himself to death on the cross for those who were by nature his enemies. So the thrust of Paul's argument here to the Philippians is, that since Christ, who is eternally God, voluntarily renounced the privileges of his divine majesty to selflessly serve and sacrifice himself for those who did not deserve it, then we should be willing, as recipients of that undeserved grace, to humble ourselves and serve one another as he served us." |