<p>2:8- see on Heb. 2:3.</p><p><i>And being perceived as a normal man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death- </i>&ldquo;Became obedient&rdquo; suggests that in His mind the Lord worked down and down, until He came to the final humility of the cross. Likewise Heb. 2:9 describes how Christ was &quot;made lower&quot; than Angels- the same Greek word is translated &quot;decrease&rdquo;. He was decreased lower than the Angels &quot;by the suffering of death&quot;; perhaps because previously the Angels had been subject to Him, but in His time of dying he was 'decreased' to a lower position?</p><p>He wasn&rsquo;t a God who came down to us and became human; rather is He the ordinary, very human guy who rose up to become the Man with the face of God, ascended the huge distance to Heaven, and received the very nature of God. It&rsquo;s actually the very opposite to what human theology has supposed, fearful as they were of what the pattern of this Man meant for them. The pre-existent view of Jesus makes Him some kind of Divine comet which came to earth, very briefly, and then sped off again, to return at the second coming. Instead we see a man from amongst men, arising to Divine status, and opening a way for us His brethren to share His victory; and coming back to establish His eternal Kingdom with us on this earth, His earth, where He came from and had His human roots. Take a passage must beloved of Trinitarians, Phil. 2. We read that Jesus was found (<i>heuretheis</i>) in fashion (<i>schemati</i>) as a man, and He humiliated Himself (<i>tapeinoseos</i>), and thereby was exalted. But in the next chapter, Paul speaks of <i>himself</i> in that very language. He speaks of how he, too, would be &ldquo;found&rdquo; (<i>heuretho</i>) con-formed to the example of Jesus in His death, and would have his body of humiliation (<i>tapeinoseos</i>) changed into one like that of Jesus, &ldquo;the body of his glory&rdquo;. We aren&rsquo;t asked to follow the pattern or <i>schema</i> of a supposed incarnation of a God as man. We&rsquo;re asked to follow in the path of the Lord Jesus, the Son of man, in His path to glory. Repeatedly, we are promised that <i>His</i> glory is what we will ultimately share, at the end of our path of humiliation and sharing in His cross (Rom. 8:17; 2 Cor. 3:18; Jn. 17:22,24). The more we think about it, the idea of Jesus as a Divine comet sent to earth chimes in with some of the most popular movies. Think of <i>Superman</i> and <i>Star Trek</i>- the hero descends to earth in order to save us. Or take the &quot;Lone Ranger&quot; type Westerns, set in some wicked, sinful, hopeless town in the mythical American West... and in rides the outsider, the heroic cowboy, and redeems the situation.&nbsp;The huge success of these kinds of story lines suggests that we like to think we are powerless to change, that our situation is hopeless and beyond human salvation... an outsider is needed to save us, as we look on as spectators, feeling mere pawns in a cosmic drama. And this may explain the attraction of trinitarianism and a Divine comet-like Christ who hit earth for 33 years. It breeds painless spectator religion... go to church, hear the Preacher, watch the show, come home and spend another rainy Sunday afternoon wondering quite what to do with your life. Yet the idea of a <i>human</i> Saviour, one of us rising up above our own humanity to save us... this demands so much more of us, for it implies that we're not mere spectators at the show, but rather can really get involved ourselves.</p><p><i>Even the death of the cross</i>- Our Lord Jesus seems to have gone through seven stages of progressive humbling of himself, rungs up (down) the ladder, before He was <i>made </i>perfect (complete) by His sufferings (Heb. 2:10); which equate with the seven aspects of His glorification which this hymn goes on to list. The climax of His humiliation was being obedient not only to death, but even to the death of the cross. In our Lord's progression towards that ultimate height, of laying down his life for others, we see our ultimate prototype. He stepped progressively downwards in the flesh, that He might climb upwards in the Spirit. So Philippians 2:6-9 describes the progressive humiliation of the Lord Jesus on the cross (not in His birth, as Trinitarian theology has mistakenly supposed. Note the allusions back to Isaiah 53). <i>There </i>He was supremely &quot;in the form of God&quot;, but notwithstanding this He took even further the form of a servant. In that blood and spittle covered humility and service, we see the very form and essence of God. My understanding of Phil. 2:8 is that being in the form of God, being the Son of God and having equality with God are parallel statements. The Lord understood being 'equal with God' as some kind of idiom for His Divine Sonship (Jn. 5:18; 10:33; 19:7). He was in God's form, as His Son, and He therefore didn't consider equality with God something to be snatched; He had it already, in that He was the Son of God. In other words, &quot;He considered it not robbery to be equal with God&quot; is to be read as a description of the exaltedness of His position as Son of God; not as meaning that it never even occurred to Him to try to be equal with God. He was equal with God in the sense that He and the Father were one, spiritually, and on account of the fact that Jesus was the begotten Son of the Father. This interpretation depends upon understanding 'being equal with God' as an idiom for being the Son of God; it doesn't, of course, mean that 'Jesus is God' in the Trinitarian sense. There, on the cross, the Lord Jesus was the form of God, equal with God in that sense, the only begotten Son. And yet on the cross His form was marred more than that of any man, He finally had no form that could be desired (Is. 52:14; 53:2). And yet this was the form of God. <i>He</i> was contorted and marred more than ever, there was no beauty in <i>Him</i> that men should desire Him, in those hours in which His Son suffered there. The Lord Jesus then had the form of God, although in His mind He had taken the form of a servant. The Lord made Himself a servant in His mind; He looked not on His own things, but on those of others (Phil. 2:4,7). This is the context of Philippians 2; that we should have the <i>mind</i> of Christ, who disregarded His own status as Son of God and humbled Himself, even to death on the cross, so that we might share His status. His example really is ours, Paul is saying (which precludes this passage describing any 'incarnation' at the birth of Christ). The Lord had spoken about the crucial need for a man to humble himself if he is to be exalted (Lk. 14:11); and this is evidently in Paul's mind when he writes of Christ humbling Himself and then being exalted. He saw that the Lord lived out on the cross what He had asked of us all. If that example must be ours, we can't quit just because we feel rejected and misunderstood and not appreciated by our brethren. <i>For this is the very essence of the cross we are asked to share. </i>See on Jn. 19:19.</p><p>Trinitarian theology uses Phil. 2 to justify their 'V-pattern' view of Christ- that He was high in glory in Heaven, then descended briefly to earth, and then returned to high glory in Heaven. All such talk of a V-pattern, albeit on the lips of eloquent churchmen and theologians, is frankly a serious missing of the point. Phil. 2- and the whole teaching of Jesus- is that the true greatness is in humility, the servant of all becomes Lord of all. The pinnacle, the zenith, the acme- was in the humility of the cross. The New Testament presents the death of Christ as His final victory, the springboard to a J-curve growth, involving even literal ascent into Heaven. What seemed to be defeat turned out to be the ultimate victory.</p>