A. T. Jones
The Home MissionaryExtra 3 | November, 1891
(Reading for Monday, December 21, 1891)
Jesus is the example in all true living. Jesus is the example in all true service to God. With the mind we are to serve the law of God. Therefore says the scripture, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). So certainly as we will let this mind be in us, so certainly it will be in us; and so certainly as it is in us, so certainly it will do in us what it did in Christ; and so certainly that which appeared in him will appear in us.
What, then, did this mind do in Him? —“Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God” (Phil. 2:6). The idea conveyed in the word “robbery” may be made plainer by noting the different translations. The Emphatic Diaglott remarks that the original, — (άρπαγμός) Harpagmon—“being a very rare occurrence, a great variety of translations have been given,” cites the following: —
Clarke: “Did not think it a thing to be earnestly desired.” Cyprian: “Did not earnestly affect.” Wakefield, “Did not regard as an object of solicitous desire.” Sharpe:“Thought not a thing to be seized.” Kneeland: “Did not eagerly grasp.” Dickinson: “Did not violently strive after.” Turnbull: “Did not meditate a usurpation.”
From this it is easy to see that the idea conveyed by the word “robbery” is not a mistaken one; because the point stated is that though he was in the form of God, though he was the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and though he was indeed equal with God, he did not think that to be equal with God was a thing to be seized upon, and eagerly held fast, as a robber would grasp and hold that upon which he has seized.
Them Emphatic Diaglott adopts Turnbull’s translation, “He did not mediate a usurpation to be like God,” which, where government is involved, is nearer the idea of the original, as a robber of government is a usurper.
The thought, then, which is expressed in the verses is this: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be seized upon, to be violently striven for, and eagerly retained with solicitous desire, not a usurpation to be meditated, to be equal with God.” But he was already equal with God. He was already the one “Whose goings forth arefrom of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2). He was already the one who created all things “that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” (Col. 1:16). He was indeed already God, equal with God. What, then, caused his mind to run in this channel, and to think it not a thing to be seized upon, striven for, and eagerly retained, to be equal with God, —in other words, to be that which, by eternal and inalienable right he truly was? Something caused it; and when we discover that, we have the key to the whole situation.