The antithesis to this word is "exalted" (see Luke 1: 52; Isa. 52: 13; and James 1: 9). The

humbling of Christ, as set out in Phil. 2: will explain the humiliation of the believer in

Phil. 3: Of the Lord it is written, "He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto

death, EVEN THE DEATH OF THE CROSS". The believer's humiliation is conformity

to His death, and that death the death of the cross. Those whose god is their belly know

nothing of this body of humiliation. Instead of being conformed to the death of the cross,

they are the enemies of the cross; instead of their minds being set upon the citizenship in

heaven, their minds are fixed on earthly things. Instead of their humiliation being the

passport to the likeness of the glory of the exalted Christ, they glory in that which is their

The out-resurrection and the prize of the high-calling we saw were connected with the

fellowship of His sufferings, and conformity to His death. The power that alone could

enable one to run this race is called "the power of His resurrection". The transformation

of the body to the likeness of the body of His glory is connected with previous

humiliation, and the power that accomplishes it is the energy whereby He is able even to

subdue all things unto Himself.

We have on more than one occasion endeavoured to make it clear that there is no

uncertainty attaching to our hope. Readers must distinguish between the "hope" and the

"prize" and not dim the glory of the one, by their felt unfitness for the other. Sufficient

we feel has now been brought forward in these articles to give all true Bereans enough to

test for themselves, and we earnestly pray that walk and witness of all may be so worthy

that at the end we may be able to say, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my

course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown". Let us each

remember the example of the apostle, let us lay aside every hindering weight, let us

beware of the flesh, let us forget the things behind, let us remember the mark, let us "so

run that we may obtain". We hope to conclude this series with a few words dealing with

one or two difficulties.

The subject which we have considered in the previous twenty articles has not been

without its difficulties; we have been encouraged from time to time to realize that readers

were stirred to question the exposition of the subject, and in this concluding article we

propose dealing with just a few outstanding difficulties. We shall not be able to answer

each correspondent individually, but as many of the difficulties are of a similar nature, we

believe that the following answers will embrace the majority.

Many have a difficulty regarding this subject by reason for failure to distinguish

clearly Prize from the Hope. In an early article of this series we endeavoured to draw the

distinction between "the Hope", and "the Prize", and said, "There can be no greater