14. I have been compelled to dwell briefly on
this, lest we should forget our Lord Jesus Christ is being treated of
as a Person of two natures, since He, Who was abiding in the form of
God, took the form of a servant, in which He was obedient even unto
death. The obedience of death has nothing to do with the form of
God, just as the form of God is not inherent in the form of a
servant. Yet through the Mystery of the Gospel Dispensation the
same Person is in the form of a servant and in the form of God, though
it is not the same thing to take the form of a servant and to be
abiding in the form of God; nor could He Who was abiding in the form of
God, take the form of a servant without emptying Himself, since the
combination of the two forms would be incongruous. Yet it was not
another and a different Person Who emptied Himself and Who took the
form of a servant. To take anything cannot be predicated of some
one who is not, for he only can take who exists. The emptying of
the form does not then imply the abolition of the nature: He
emptied Himself, but did not lose His self: He took a new form,
but remained what He was. Again, whether emptying or taking, He
was the same Person: there is, therefore, a mystery, in that He
emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant, but He does not come
to an end, so as to cease to exist in emptying Himself, and to be
non-existent when He took. The emptying availed to bring about
the taking of the servant’s form, but not to prevent Christ, Who
was in the form of God, from continuing to be Christ, for it was in
very deed Christ Who took the form of a servant. When He emptied
Himself to become Christ the man, while continuing to be Christ the
Spirit, the changing of His bodily
fashion, and the assumption of another nature in His body, did not put
an end to the nature of His eternal divinity, for He was one and the
same Christ when He changed His fashion, and when He assumed our
nature.