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The word "servant" does not convey to us the degree of degradation which it meant centuries ago. For service has been dignified since Christ was a servant. We know nothing now more honourable than Christian service. But He first taught us to call our servants "friends."

I. Look at SOME OF THE LAWS RESPECTING JEWISH SLAVES so as to estimate the humiliation of Jesus; and these were mild compared with those that obtained among the Romans.

1. No slave could have any right as a citizen. If injured he had no redress. As for our Saviour, when subjected to the most outrageous wrong, no arm of the law was outstretched for His defence. "His judgment was taken away."

2. The slave could hold no property. The Servant of servants had not where to lay His head; no money to pay His taxes; no clothes but such as privileged hands had made for Him.

3. The slave, in the eye of the law, was a mere chattel, which could be bought and sold; for the base sum of less than three pounds Judas sold his Lord.

4. At death the slave might be scourged and tortured as none other might, and the bitterest and vilest death was assigned to Him. See Jesus under the lash and on the cross the slave.

5. The law said the slave was nothing less than a dead man; Christ was "a worm and no man."

II. AS A SLAVE CHRIST HAD TWO DUTIES TO EXECUTE.

1. To His Father.

(1) God had made the power of Jesus to do His work depend on His faithfulness. "By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many." Had He not been righteous as a servant, He could not have justified the sinner.

(2) But how perfect was His course of servitude, how continuous, laborious, devoted (Psalm 40; cf. Hebrews 10): The Jewish slave wishing, for the love he bare his master, to continue in his service, had his ear fastened for a while with an awl to his master's door in token of his abiding always in his service. So Christ, in the language of the slave, loves to say, "Mine ears hast Thou opened," and adds the reason, "I delight," etc.

2. To His people. His time while He lived on earth was not His own but theirs. He was at every one's call. His day was all work for the creature; His night communion with the Creator. The smallest things were not beneath His attention (John 13.).

III. INFERENCES.

1. Of all the names a Christian can wear there is not one which places him so near his Master as this — a servant of God. St. Paul put it above his apostleship.

2. To own that title you must not regard it as a figure of speech.

(1) Your time is not your own.

(2) Your possessions — money, talents, power.

(3) Be clothed therefore with humility, and gird yourself with energy.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

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KJV: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

WEB: but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.