Philippians 2:8 - Exposition

And being found in fashion as a man . He humbled himself in the Incarnation; but this was not all. The apostle has hitherto spoken of our Lord's Godhead which he had from the beginning, and of his assumption of our human nature. He now speaks of him as he appeared in the sight of men. The aorist participle, "being found ( εὑρεθείς )," refers to the time of his earthly life when he appeared as a man among men. Fashion ( σχῆμα ), as opposed to form ( μορφή ), implies the outward and transitory. In outward appearance he was as a man; he was more, for he was God. He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death; translate, as R.V., obedient. The participle implies that the supreme act of self-humiliation consisted in the Lord's voluntary submission to death. the obedience of his perfect life extended even unto death. "He taketh away [literally, 'beareth,' αἴρει ] the sin of the world;" "The wages of sin is death;" therefore he suffered death for the sin which, himself sinless, he vouchsafed to bear. Here we may remark in passing that this connection of death with sin must have made death all the more awful to our sinless Lord. Even the death of the cross. No ordinary death, but of all forms of death the most torturing, the most full of shame—a death reserved by the Romans for slaves, a death accursed in the eyes of the Jews ( Deuteronomy 21:23 ).