such treatment. These were the three steps in His humility. In Paul's
striking phrase, He "emptied out" of Himself all He had in glory with the
Father before coming to the earth; He decided to come to the human level
and live fully the human life of utter dependence; and He carried this to
the extent of being wholly dependent on the Father for righting the wrongs
done Him.[5]

This is God's plan for the human life. It is to be a dependent life. It
actually is a dependent life, utterly dependent upon Him. It is to be
lived so. Then only is the fragrance of it gotten. It is part of the
dependent life--the true human life--that we depend on the Father for
vindication when wronged, as for everything else.[6]

Our Lord Jesus chose to live this life. There was an entire absence of the
self-spirit, that is the self-assertive, the self-confident spirit. There
was a remarkable confidence in action, but it was confidence in His
Father's unfailing response to His requests or needs. This sense of utter
dependence was natural to Him; as indeed it is natural to man unhurt by
sin. And then He carefully cultivated it. As He came in contact with the
very opposite all around Him, He set Himself--indeed He had to set
Himself--to keeping this sense of dependence untainted, unhurt by His
surroundings.

Now there were three things which naturally grew out of this dependent
life, or which naturally are part of it. One was, the sense of His Father,
and of His Father's presence. In a perfectly simple natural way, He was
always conscious of His Father's presence. Is this the meaning--one
meaning--of "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall _see God_"? And
then He doubtless set Himself to cultivate this, as an offset to what He
found around Him. He would quietly look up and speak to the Father in the