Exhortation to unity: (4) Its highest motive and most powerful agent.
I. WHAT THE MIND OF CHRIST IS. It is the mind of perfect love manifesting itself in perfect humility.
II. WHY WE NEED IT. It is the only cure for our want of unity. Disunion comes from self-exaltation. Union from losing self in Christ. St. Paul here urges the highest motive to unity and the only method by which it can be secured. Controversies are hushed when we realize the presence and the example of the incarnate Christ.
III. HOW WE CAN HAVE IT. By uniting ourselves to him. So long as we are in our Father's house, all that he has is ours. The humility and the love of which Christ is full are imparted to us if we are in him. We must receive him if we would imitate him; for if we receive him he lives his life in us.
IV. WHAT IT WILL BE TO US. In the heat of controversy we shall learn to see that servant's form in our midst, set there as he once set a little child in the midst of his disciples disputing among themselves which should be the greatest. He is himself that little child; by his self-humiliation he for ever rebukes our self-exaltation.—V.W.H.