Philippians 2:5-8 - Alexander MacLaren

In Expositions of Holy Scripture, Maclaren writes in the 3rd section of The Descent of the Word the following: “It was not merely an act of humiliation and condescension to become man, but all His life was one long act of lowliness. Just as He ‘emptied Himself’ in the act of becoming in the ‘likeness of men,’ so He ‘humbled Himself,’ and all along the course of His earthly life He chose constant lowliness and to be ‘despised and rejected of men.’ It was the result moment by moment of His own will that to the eyes of men He presented ‘no form nor comeliness,’ and that will was moment by moment steadied in its unmoved humility, because He perpetually looked ‘not on His own things, but on the things of others.’ The guise He presented to the eyes of men was ‘the fashion of a man.’ That word corresponds exactly to Paul’s carefully selected term, and makes emphatic both its superficial and its transitory character.”

I’m hoping someone can shed a little light on exactly what he means by “its superficial and its transitory character” in that last sentence.

Thanks for any help.