ART. VI. THE EXALTATION OF JESUS. "Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Phil. ii, 9-11, Rev. Version. WHEN allusion is made in prophecy to our Lord's humiliation, it is usually found to be in close connection with that which is its counterpart-his exaltation. The contemplation of the one invites to the contemplation of the other. For instance, he who is described in Isaiah liii as God's "righteous servant" is not only foretold as "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," but is also set before us as at length having the divine promise fulfilled in regard to him: "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong." In this respect doctrinal statement is at one with prophetic. They both represent the Saviour's humiliation and exaltation as mutually explanatory. They both connect these two aspects of his work by a "wherefore." As the result and the direct reward of his selfabasement, he is "highly exalted." We have his own corresponding declaration too, given to his wondering disciples on the way to Emmaus, all the more significant as having been uttered in the time between his resurrection and ascension: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" In the present connection the exaltation, therefore, is alluded to as being a twin thought with the humiliation. In the apostle's mind the one inevitably suggests the other. But there is another reason, another purpose, in the reference. It continues the illustration and enforcement of the Christian duties of unselfishness and humility. It supplies a new motive for seeking earnestly these "best gifts "-even the motive of self-interest. Scripture is not slow to ply men even with such an appeal. It shows us how self-sacrificing meekness yields in the end its own solid and eternal gain. That earthly flower bears heavenly fruit. Our Lord himself has said, in the parable of the Wedding Guests (Luke xiv, 11), and again in that of the Pharisee and Publican (Luke xviii, 14), “Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." With the example of such teaching from the Great Teacher's own lips, the apostle does not hesitate, nor need we, to inculcate the duty of showing forth this lowliest and loveliest grace by an appeal to the reward which is at last to crown it. In our Lord's exaltation, therefore, we have the pattern and pledge of our own. But is there no heresy lurking in our thus explaining the particle "wherefore "-no tinge of Arianism in our thus regarding the Saviour's glory as the recompense of his obedience, and nothing more? Not in the least degree. He who is thus highly exalted is not viewed here as Son of God simply, in his own essence the infinite Being, through whom and in whom all things were created. As such, it is quite true, he could not be exalted, for he is over and above all. But he is contemplated as the God-man, in his totality, if we may dare so to speak. As Son of God he is now what and where he ever was; but having, by his humiliation, united humanity with divinity, he is now in the body of his humiliation highly exalted, even at God's right hand-" high-throned above all height." In this connection it is to be observed that the words run, not "God hath highly exalted him, and given him," but, as in the Revised Version, "God highly exalted him, and gave unto him.” The language, that is to say, describes a definite act—something that took place at a certain time and in a certain way, not the state or condition resulting from it. The act of giving, not the fact of having given, is what is emphasized. So similarly Eph. i, 22, and 1 Pet. i, 21, "God gave him glory." But there is yet another aspect of this mystery which we are invited reverently to scan. "Wherefore also God highly exalted him.” The previous verses show us what the Son of God did. He, the Lord of glory, "emptied himself"-"he humbled himself.” This verse now shows us what God "also"-God on his partdid. He exalted the Son of man. The Son of man did not exalt himself. He was " obedient" unto God, and God has rewarded his obedience. He humbled himself in assuming human nature, and therefore in that same nature God highly exalted him. This super-exaltation, then, is described as of God's favor. The following clause brings this out yet more clearly: "And gave unto him the name which is above every name." It is a free gift (xapínaro). The word, which in the New Testament is peculiar to Luke and Paul, means graciously to bestow; not merely to grant, but to grant as a token of loving approval. Our Lord "counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God." So far from grasping this for himself as of right, he emptied himself of it; and now he has received all this and more, for now it is as God-man that he receives it, as the free gift of the Father. It is a gift in answer to his own earthly prayer-a prayer in which he conceives his earthly ministry is already done: "I have glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Now, in dealing with such a theme as this, we ought ever to confess, and that with adoring awe, that we cannot attain to knowledge. "For knowledge is the swallow on the lake That sees and stirs the surface-shadow there, We have, therefore, when we speak at all, to have our words well ordered. They are nowhere better ordered than in a passage in Origen (Com. in Johan.-quoted by Wordsworth on Eph. i, 22), which runs thus: "He is said to be exalted, as having wanted [been without] it before; but in respect only of his humanity: and he has a name given him, as it were a matter of favor, which is above every name, as the blessed apostle Paul expresses it. But in truth and reality this was not the giving him any thing which he naturally had not from the beginning; so far from it, that we are rather to esteem it his returning to what he had in the beginning, essentially and unalterably; on which ground it is that he, having condescended, oikovojuкās, to put on the humble garb of humanity, said, 'Father, glorify me with the glory which I had.' For he was always invested with divine glory, having been co-existent with his Father before all ages, and before all time, and the foundation of the world." But to return, what of "the Name," as the Revised Version rightly renders it? Name has been defined as the "summary of the person" (Vaughan). Though men often fail to see it, through the blinding effect of use, the conferring of a name is designed to have a deep significance. This holds good pre-em28-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. III. inently in the biblical conception of name-giving. We see this in the dealing of the covenant-God with his saints in the old dispensation, and in the dealing of our Lord with his followers in the new. The same idea is prominent here in God the Father's giving a name to God the Son after, and because of, his humiliation. Now, it has been held that the name given to the exalted Saviour is none other than the incommunicable name of Jehovah, or the name of the Lord proclaimed to Moses from out of the cloud on Mount Sinai (Exod. xxxiv, 6, 7); or, again, that it is the title "Son of God," he having been declared such "with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom. i, 4), or "the Word of God," or "King of kings and Lord of lords." Rev. xix, 13, 16. These solutions are not probable. Nor is the term "name" to be explained away as equivalent simply to dignity, majesty. The general context, as well as a reference to such passages as Acts ii, 36, iii, 26, ix, 5, suggests rather that the name is none. other than the name "Jesus." This was his indeed by divine command" before he was conceived in the womb." It is his still, for, as Peter's pentecostal sermon declares, "God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." And he delighted to claim it, in the very act of calling Paul himself to service: "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." But it is now, as it were, given anew, for that name which on earth was looked upon as the lowliest and most despised among men is now the highest in heaven, invested with all the glory of his accomplished work-a name far above that of prophet, priest, or king-a name above all angels and archangels—a name most blessed in this, that it can never be torn from the hearts of humble men. It is "the Name," for thus it stands solitary in its unapproachable grandeur in one New Testament passage (3 John, ver. 7), by believing on which men are saved, and for the sake of which, doing and enduring all things, they themselves shall at last overcome, and realize the promise vouchsafed to the victor, "I will give him the white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." The tenth verse carries on this thought, "that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth," or, as in the margin of the Revised Version, "things of the world below." This apparently signifies that throughout the limitless universe the whole intelligent creation will worship him. But who are these specifically who render this worship? It has been conjectured (Webster and Wilkinson) that the threefold division answers to that which the pagan world made of their deities (Iliad, iii, 276-279), and is here introduced as a gloss upon a passage which predicts universal submission to the one true God, as contrasted with the heathen objects of worship; intimating the subjection and homage of all spiritual powers and beings to Christ, as Lord of heaven and earth, the holder of the keys of "the invisible world and of death." This is altogether fanciful; so likewise is the other extreme--the view which understands the reference as pointing to Christians, Jews, and heathen. It is safer, upon the whole, to refrain from pressing the division too severely. The leading idea is simply universality-all creatures capable of rendering homage, whatever be the conditions of their existence. We may profitably compare Rev. v, 3: 'And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon." Compare also Rev. v, 13, which is even more to the point, as it speaks of adoration rendered. Angels and archangels, all heavenly intelligences who behold his face where he is in heaven-menwho are or are to be on earth, who have heard or are yet to hear about him—those who are asleep in the spirit world awaiting his coming, but even now rendering a present homage, the abode of departed spirits being popularly represented in ancient thought as the under-world. It seems better to exclude the idea of the spirits of evil here, for "the homage of impotence or subjugated malice" (Ellicott) is foreign to the thought of the passage. It is at least not suggested by bowing the knee, nor is it by the word Hades, which does not represent their abode. Besides, their homage could not be "in the name of Jesus," in whatever way we understand that phrase. But, following both the Received and the Revised Versions, others, notably Lightfoot, with considerable reason, relying upon Rev. v, 13, Eph. i, 20-22, Rom. viii, 22, understand things instead of persons. But while it is assured truth that all the universe, animate and inanimate, must render praise to the Redeemer, the figure of bowing the knee points only to intelligent homage, and so, too, |