Clarke's Bible Commentary - Philippians 2:8
Verse 8. And being found in fashion as a man] kai schmati eureqeiv wv anqrwpov. This clause should be joined to the preceding, and thus translated: Being made in the likeness of man, and was found in fashion as a man. He humbled himself] Laid himself as low as possible: 1. In emptying himself-laying aside the effulgence of his glory. 2. In being incarnate - taking upon him the human form. 3. In becoming a servant - assuming the lowest innocent character, that of being the servant of all. 4. In condescending to die, to which he was not naturally liable, as having never sinned, and therefore had a right in his human nature to immortality, without passing under the empire of death. 5. In condescending, not only to death, but to the lowest and most ignominious kind of death, the death of the cross; the punishment of the meanest of slaves and worst of felons.
What must sin have been in the sight of God, when it required such abasement in Jesus Christ to make an atonement for it, and undo its influence and malignity!
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 8. And being found in fashion as a man , etc.] Not that he had only the show and appearance of a man, but he was really a man; for as here, denotes not merely the likeness of a thing, but the thing itself, as in ( Matthew 14:5 John 1:14), wv here, answers to the Hebrew k , which is sometimes by the Jews said to be wymdh Pk , and signifies likeness, and sometimes twtmah Pk , and designs truth and reality; which is the sense in which the particle is to be taken here: though he was seen and looked upon as a mere man, and therefore charged with blasphemy when he asserted himself to be the Son of God, he was more than a man; and yet found and known by men in common to be no more than a man, than just such a man as other men are; and so far is true, that his scheme, his habit, his fashion, his form, were like that of other men; though he was not begotten as man, but conceived in an extraordinary manner by the power of the Holy Ghost, yet he lay nine months in his mother's womb, as the human foetus ordinarily does; he was born as children are, was wrapped in swaddling bands when born, as an infant is; grew in stature by degrees, as men do; the shape and size of his body were like other men's, and he was subject to the same infirmities, as hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, grief, sorrow, and death itself, as follows: he humbled himself : by becoming man, and by various outward actions in his life; as subjection to his parents, working at the trade of a carpenter, conversing with the meanest of men, washing his disciples' feet, etc. and the whole of his deportment both to God and man, his compliance with his Father's will, though disagreeable to flesh and blood, his behaviour towards his enemies, and his forbearance of his disciples, showed him to be of a meek and humble spirit; he humbled himself both to God and man: and became obedient unto death , or until death; for he was obedient from the cradle to the cross, to God, to men, to his earthly parents, and to magistrates; he was obedient to the ceremonial law, to circumcision, the passover, etc. to the moral law, to all the precepts of it, which he punctually fulfilled; and to the penalty of it, death, which he voluntarily and cheerfully bore, in the room and stead of his people: even the death of the cross ; which was both painful and shameful; it was an accursed one, and showed that he bore the curse of the law, and was made a curse for us: this was a punishment usually inflicted on servants, and is called a servile punishment ; and such was the form which he took, when he was found in fashion as a man: this is now the great instance of humility the apostle gives, as a pattern of it to the saints, and it is a matchless and unparalleled one.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 5-11 - The example of our Lord Jesus Christ is set before us. We must resembl him in his life, if we would have the benefit of his death. Notice the two natures of Christ; his Divine nature, and human nature. Who being in the form of God, partaking the Divine nature, as the eternal an only-begotten Son of God, Joh 1:1, had not thought it a robbery to be equal with God, and to receive Divine worship from men. His huma nature; herein he became like us in all things except sin. Thus low, or his own will, he stooped from the glory he had with the Father befor the world was. Christ's two states, of humiliation and exaltation, ar noticed. Christ not only took upon him the likeness and fashion, or form of a man, but of one in a low state; not appearing in splendour His whole life was a life of poverty and suffering. But the lowest ste was his dying the death of the cross, the death of a malefactor and slave; exposed to public hatred and scorn. The exaltation was of Christ's human nature, in union with the Divine. At the name of Jesus not the mere sound of the word, but the authority of Jesus, all shoul pay solemn homage. It is to the glory of God the Father, to confes that Jesus Christ is Lord; for it is his will, that all men shoul honour the Son as they honour the Father, Joh 5:23. Here we see suc motives to self-denying love as nothing else can supply. Do we thu love and obey the Son of God?
Greek Textus Receptus
και 2532 σχηματι 4976 ευρεθεις 2147 5685 ως 5613 ανθρωπος 444 εταπεινωσεν 5013 5656 εαυτον 1438 γενομενος 1096 5637 υπηκοος 5255 μεχρι 3360 θανατου 2288 θανατου 2288 δε 1161 σταυρου 4716
Vincent's NT Word Studies
8. Being found in fashion as a man (schmati eureqeiv wv anqrwpov). Some expositors connect these words with the preceding clause, thus: being made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man; a new sentence beginning with He humbled Himself. The general sense is not altered by this change, and there is great force in Meyer's remark that the preceding thought, in the likeness of men, is thus "emphatically exhausted." On the other hand, it breaks the connection with the following sentence, which thus enters very abruptly. Notice being found. After He had assumed the conditions of humanity, and men's attention was drawn to Him, they found Him like a man. Compare Isaiah liii. 2. "If we looked at Him, there was no sightliness that we should delight in Him."
Fashion (schmati). That which is purely outward and appeals to the senses. The form of a servant is concerned with the fact that the manifestation as a servant corresponded with the real fact that Christ came as the servant of mankind. In the phrase in the likeness of men the thought is still linked with that of His essential nature which rendered possible a likeness to men, but not an absolute identity with men. In being found in fashion as a man the thought is confined to the outward guise as it appealed to the sense of mankind. Likeness states the fact of real resemblance to men in mode of existence: fashion defines the outward mode and form. As a man. Not being found a man not what He was recognized to be, but as a man, keeping up the idea of semblance expressed in likeness.
He humbled Himself (etapeinwsen eauton). Not the same as emptied Himself, ver. 7. It defines that word, showing how the self-emptying manifests itself.
Became obedient unto death (genomenov - mecri). Became, compare Apoc. i. 18. Unto. The Rev. very judiciously inserts even; for the A.V. is open to the interpretation that Christ rendered obedience to death. Unto is up to the point of. Christ's obedience to God was rendered to the extent of laying down His life.
Of the cross. Forming a climax of humiliation. He submitted not only to death, but to the death of a malefactor. The Mosaic law had uttered a curse against it, Deut. xxi. 23, and the Gentiles reserved it for malefactors and slaves. Hence the shame associated with the cross, Heb. xii. 2. This was the offense or stumbling-block of the cross, which was so often urged by the Jews against the Christians. See on Galatians iii. 13. To a Greek, accustomed to clothe his divinities with every outward attribute of grace and beauty, the summons to worship a crucified malefactor appealed as foolishness, 1 Cor. i. 23.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
2:8 {In fashion} (schmati). Locative case of scema, from ecw, to have, to hold. Bengel explains morfe by _forma_, homoiwma by _similitudo_, scema by _habitus_. Here with scema the contrast "is between what He is in Himself, and what He _appeared_ in the eyes of menw (Lightfoot). {He humbled himself} (etapein"sen heauton). First aorist active of tapeinow, old verb from tapeinos. It is a voluntary humiliation on the part of Christ and for this reason Paul is pressing the example of Christ upon the Philippians, this supreme example of renunciation. See Bruce's masterpiece, _The Humiliation of Christ_. {Obedient} (hupkoos). Old adjective, giving ear to. See #Ac 7:39; 2Co 2:9. {Unto death} (mecri qanatou). "Until death." See "until blood" (mechris haimatos, #Heb 12:4). {Yea, the death of the cross} (qanatou de staurou). The bottom rung in the ladder from the Throne of God. Jesus came all the way down to the most despised death of all, a condemned criminal on the accursed cross.
