Psalms 21:7

For Christ is of those who are humble-minded, and not of those who exalt themselves over His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He says, “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared [our message] in His presence: He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in thirsty ground; He has no form nor glory, yea, we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; but His form was without eminence, yea, deficient in comparison with the [ordinary] form of men. He is a man exposed to stripes and suffering, and acquainted with the endurance of grief: for His countenance was turned away; He was despised, and not esteemed. …

Let us compare with Scripture the rest of His dispensation. Whatever that poor despised body may be, because it was an object of touch and sight, it shall be my Christ, be He inglorious, be He ignoble, be He dishonoured; for such was it announced that He should be, both in bodily condition and aspect. Isaiah comes to our help again: “We have announced (His way) before Him,” says he; “He is like a servant, like a root in a dry ground; He hath no form nor comeliness; we saw Him, and He had neither form nor beauty; but His form was despised, marred above all men.” Similarly the Father addressed the Son just before: “Inasmuch as many will be astonished at Thee, so also will Thy beauty be without glory from men.” For although, in David’s words, He is fairer than the children of men,” yet it is in that figurative state of spiritual grace, when He is girded with the sword of the Spirit, which i …

He sends forth His disciples to preach the kingdom of God. Does He here say of what God? He forbids their taking anything for their journey, by way of either food or raiment. Who would have given such a commandment as this, but He who feeds the ravens and clothes the flowers of the field? Who anciently enjoined for the treading ox an unmuzzled mouth, that he might be at liberty to gather his fodder from his labour, on the principle that the worker is worthy of his hire? Marcion may expunge such precepts, but no matter, provided the sense of them survives. But when He charges them to shake off the dust of their feet against such as should refuse to receive them, He also bids that this be done as a witness . …

Valentinus, indeed, on the strength of his heretical system, might consistently devise a spiritual flesh for Christ. Any one who refused to believe that that flesh was human might pretend it to be anything he liked, forasmuch as (and this remark is applicable to all heretics ), if it was not human, and was not born of man, I do not see of what substance Christ Himself spoke when He called Himself man and the Son of man, saying : “But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth;” and “The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath-day.” For it is of Him that Isaiah writes: “A man of suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of weakness;” and Jeremiah: “He is a man, and who hath known Him?” and Daniel: “Upon the clouds (He came) as the Son of man.” The Apostle Paul likewise says: “The man Christ Jesus is the one Mediator between God and man.” Also Peter, in the Acts of the Apostles, …

This, he says, the Thracians who dwell around Hæmus, and the Phrygians similarly with the Thracians, denominate Corybas, because, (though) deriving the beginning of his descent from the head above and from the unportrayed brain, and (though) permeating all the principles of the existing state of things, (yet) we do not perceive how and in what manner he comes down. This, says he, is what is spoken: “We have heard his voice, no doubt, but we have not seen his shape.” For the voice of him that is set apart and portrayed is heard; but (his) shape, which descends from above from the unportrayed one, what sort it is, nobody knows. It resides, however, in an earthly mould, yet no one recognises it. …

In Isaiah: “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared in His presence as children, as a root in a thirsty ground. There is no form nor glory in Him; and we saw Him, and He had no form nor beauty; but His form was without honour, and lacking beyond other men. He was a man set in a plague, and knowing how to bear weakness; because His face was turned away, He was dishonoured, and was not accounted of. He bears our sins, and grieves for us; and we thought that He was in grief, and in wounding, and in affliction; but He was wounded for our transgressions, and He was weakened for our sins. The discipline of our peace was upon Him, and with His bruise we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray; man has gone out of his way. …

For Christ is of those who are humble-minded, and not of those who exalt themselves over His flock. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sceptre of the majesty of God, did not come in the pomp of pride or arrogance, although He might have done so, but in a lowly condition, as the Holy Spirit had declared regarding Him. For He says, “Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? We have declared [our message] in His presence: He is, as it were, a child, and like a root in thirsty ground; He has no form nor glory, yea, we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; but His form was without eminence, yea, deficient in comparison with the [ordinary] form of men. He is a man exposed to stripes and suffering, and acquainted with the endurance of grief: for His countenance was turned away; He was despised, and not esteemed. …

13. Give good heed to what follows, brethren, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made,” so as not to imagine that “nothing” is something. For many, wrongly understanding “without Him was nothing made,” are wont to fancy that “nothing” is something. Sin, indeed, was not made by Him; and it is plain that sin is nothing, and men become nothing when they sin. An idol also was not made by the Word; it has indeed a sort of human form, but man himself was made by the Word; for the form of man in an idol was not made by the Word, and it is written, “We know that an idol is nothing.” Therefore these things were not made by the Word; but whatever was made in the natural manner, whatever belongs to the creature, everything that is fixed in the sky, that shines from above, that flies under the heavens, and that moves in universal nature, every creature whatsoever: I will speak …

7. “But I am a worm, and no man” ( ver. 6 ). But I, speaking now not in the person of Adam, but I in My own person, Jesus Christ, was born without human generation in the flesh, that I might be as man beyond men; that so at least human pride might deign to imitate My humility. “The scorn of men, and outcast of the people.” In which humility I was made the scorn of men, so as that it should be said, as a reproachful railing, “Be thou His disciple:” and that the people despise Me.

3. “O God, we have heard with our ears; our fathers have told us the work that Thou didst in their days, and in the days of old” ( ver. 1 ). Wondering wherefore, in these days, He has seemingly forsaken those whom it was His will to exercise in sufferings, they recall the past events which they have heard of from their fathers; as if they said, It is not of these things that we suffer, that our fathers told us! For in that other Psalm also, He said this, “Our fathers trusted in Thee; they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. But I am a worm and no man; a reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.” They trusted, and Thou didst deliver them; have I then hoped, and hast Thou forsaken me? And have I believed upon Thee in vain? And is it in vain that my name has been written in Thy Book, and Thy name has been inscribed on me? What our fathers told us was this:

Not however that therefore we have from this an excuse, in that we are proud when living in the midst of men. For surely Abraham, when amidst Canaanites, said, “I am but dust and ashes;”and David, when in the midst of camps,“I am a worm, and no man;”and the apostle, in the midst of the world, “I am not meet to be called an apostle.” What comfort shall we have then; what plea, when even, having such great examples, we do not practise moderation? For even as they are worthy of countless crowns, having been the first that went the way of virtue, even so are we deserving of countless punishments, who not even after those that are departed, and are set before us in books, no nor even after these that are living, and held in admiration through their deeds, are drawn on to the like emulation.

15. These, then, are the words with which He prefaces the message, Go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God . I ask, Are they to be understood as His brethren with reference to the form of God or to the form of a servant? And has our flesh kinship with Him in regard to the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him, that we should be reckoned His brothers in respect of His divinity? No, for the Spirit of prophecy recognises clearly in what respect we are the brethren of the Only-begotten God. It is as a worm and no man that He says, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren . …