Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Philippians 2:5
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
5. Let this mind be ] R.V., Have this mind; adopting a reading different in form but scarcely so in import from that taken for the A.V., which fairly represents either reading.
In the great passage which follows we have a suggestive example of Christian moral teaching. One of the simplest and most primary elements of duty is being enforced, and it is enforced by appealing to the inmost secrets of the truth of the Person and Work of Christ. The spiritual and eternal, in deep continuity, descends into the practical. At the present time a powerful drift of thought goes in the direction of separating Christian theology from practical Christianity; the mysteries of our Lord’s Person and Work from the greatness of His Example. It may at least check hasty speculations in this direction to remember that such a theory rends asunder the teaching of the New Testament as to its most characteristic and vital elements. The anti-doctrinal view of Christianity is a theory of it started strictly and properly de novo. See further Appendix E.
which was] The verb is not in the Greek, but is necessarily implied. Meanwhile the sacred character which came out in the mysterious past (“ was ”) of the Lord’s pre-temporal glory, still and for ever is His character, His “mind.”
in Christ Jesus ] It is observable that he calls the Lord not only “Christ” but “Jesus,” though referring to a time before Incarnation. Historically, He had yet to be “anointed” ( Christ), and to be marked with His human Name ( Jesus). But on the one hand the Person who willed to descend and save us is identically the Person who actually did so; and on the other hand what is already decreed in the Eternal Mind is to It already fact. Cp. the language of Rev 13:8.
E. CHRISTOLOGY AND CHRISTIANITY (Ch. Php 2:5)
“A Christianity without Christ is no Christianity; and a Christ not Divine is one other than the Christ on whom the souls of Christians have habitually fed. What virtue, what piety, have existed outside of Christianity, is a question totally distinct. But to hold that, since the great controversy of the early time was wound up at Chalcedon, the question of our Lord’s Divinity has generated all the storms of the Christian atmosphere, would be simply an historical untruth.
“Christianity produced a type of character wholly new to the Roman world, and it fundamentally altered the laws and institutions, the tone, temper and tradition of that world. For example, it changed profoundly the relation of the poor to the rich It abolished slavery, and a multitude of other horrors. It restored the position of woman in society. It made peace, instead of war, the normal and presumed relation between human societies. It exhibited life as a discipline in all its parts, and changed essentially the place and function of suffering in human experience All this has been done not by eclectic and arbitrary fancies, but by the creed of the Homoousion, in which the philosophy of modern times sometimes appears to find a favourite theme of ridicule. The whole fabric, social as well as personal, rests on the new type of character which the Gospel brought into life and action.”
W. E. Gladstone (‘ Nineteenth Century,’ May 1888; pp. 780 784).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
F. ROBERT HALL ON Php 2:5-8. BAUR’S THEORY
The Rev. Robert Hall (1764 1831), one of the greatest of Christian preachers, was in early life much influenced by the Socinian theology. His later testimony to a true Christology is the more remarkable. The following extract is from a sermon “preached at the (Baptist) Chapel in Dean Street, Southwark, June 27, 1813” ( Works, ed. 1833; vol. vi., p. 112):
“He was found in fashion as a man: it was a wonderful discovery, an astonishing spectacle in the view of angels, that He who was in the form of God, and adored from eternity, should be made in fashion as a man. But why is it not said that He was a man? For the same reason that the Apostle wishes to dwell upon the appearance of our Saviour, not as excluding the reality, but as exemplifying His condescension. His being in the form of God did not prove that He was not God, but rather that He was God, and entitled to supreme honour. So, His assuming the form of a servant and being in the likeness of man, does not prove that He was not man, but, on the contrary, includes it; at the same time including a manifestation of Himself, agreeably to His design of purchasing the salvation of His people, and dying for the sins of the world, by sacrificing Himself upon the Cross.”
Baur ( Paulus, pp. 458 464) goes at length into the Christological passage, and actually contends for the view that it is written by one who had before him the developed Gnosticism of cent. 2, and was not uninfluenced by it. In the words of Php 2:6, a consciousness of the Gnostic teaching about the on Sophia, striving for an absolute union with the absolute being of the Unknowable Supreme; and again about the ons in general, striving similarly, to “grasp” the plerma of Absolute Being and discovering only the more deeply in their effort this kenma of their own relativity and dependence.
The best refutation of such expositions is the repeated perusal of the Epistle itself, with its noon-day practicality of precept and purity of affections, and not least its high language (ch. 3) about the sanctity of the body an idea wholly foreign to the Gnostic sphere of thought. It is true that Schrader, a critic earlier than Baur (see Alford, N. T. iii. p. 27), supposed the passage Php 3:1 to Php 4:9 to be an interpolation. But, not to speak of the total absence of any historical or documentary support for such a theory, the careful reader will find in that section just those minute touches of harmony with the rest of the Epistle, e.g. in the indicated need of internal union at Philippi, which are the surest signs of homogeneity.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
5 11. The appeal enforced by the supreme Example of the Saviour in His Incarnation, Obedience, and Exaltation
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus – The object of this reference to the example of the Saviour is particularly to enforce the duty of humility. This was the highest example which could be furnished, and it would illustrate and confirm all the apostle had said of this virtue. The principle in the case is, that we are to make the Lord Jesus our model, and are in all respects to frame our lives, as far as possible, in accordance with this great example. The point here is, that he left a state of inexpressible glory, and took upon him the most humble form of humanity, and performed the most lowly offices, that he might benefit us.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Php 2:5-11
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus–Observe
I. The picture. Majesty–condescension–suffering.
II. The lesson. Humility–love–self-sacrifice. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Lessons taught by the humiliation and exaltation of Christ
The apostle was exhorting the Philippians to imitate the humility and disinterestedness of the Saviour. But there could have been no force in the example if Jesus Christ had not been God.
I. A brief illustration of this impressive description of the redeemer.
1. Jesus Christ is here presented as subsisting originally in the splendour of Deity. Form of God must not be explained to mean any temporary manifestation such as the Theophanies of the Old Testament. Fire, e.g., is the symbol of Deity, as was the Shechinah, but not the form. That has an integral meaning.
2. He humbled Himself. Had He not done so God would never have been seen by His creatures. Notice the gradation.
(1) Subordination. He took the form of a servant.
(2) Human subordination.
(3) Obedient subordination.
(4) Self-sacrificing subordination.
3. Elevation.
(1) A name above every name.
(2) A dignity recognized by all.
II. The all important lessons.
1. Disinterestedness. Look not every one on His own things, etc. This is just what Christ did, and that, not because there was any worthiness in man, but out of love.
2. Self-sacrifice. There is no religion without an imitation of Christs self abandonment.
3. Perseverance. If anything could have stopped Christ in his work He would have been stopped.
Conclusion: Let, then, this mind be in you. I argue with you on the ground–
1. Of your Christianity. O Christian, from whence did you derive your name.
2. Of gratitude. What do you owe to Christ?
3. Of the intercession of Christ.
4. Of the great worth of the soul.
5. Of the glories of the kingdom of Christ. (T. Lessey, M. A.)
The humiliation and glory of Christ
I. Let us trace the humiliation and glory of Christ.
1. The point of departure, where is it? On earth or in heaven? In humanity or in Deity? Those who contend from the simply human view of the nature of Christ say that He began to condescend somewhere in His earthly lifetime, as if that could be a mighty argument for humility. No, we must begin where Paul begins. In the form of God can only mean possessing the attributes of God (2Co 4:4; Heb 1:3; Joh 1:1).
2. Being thus Divine, He did not deem His equality with God a thing to grasp at and eagerly retain. He emptied Himself of His heavenly glory, and having humbled Himself as a common man He humbled himself yet more, becoming obedient to the death which only the lowest malefactors could die.
3. Of course there could be no essential change in this humiliation. Jesus could never be less than Divine. The Divine glory dwelt within the human nature as within a veil. It shone out at times and then all was dark again. The glory of His boyhood was seen in the temple; of His manhood on the Mount of Transfiguration; He gave but a look in the garden out of His divinity and the soldiers fell back.
4. At the lowest point of the humiliation the ascent begins in the worship of the penitent thief, in the words of the soldier, in the reverence shown to His body, in His resurrection and triumphant ascension.
5. The name is the character, influence; and to that all creation shall do homage, because in some way affected by it.
II. The practical purpose.
1. The inculcation of humility. You see what Christ has done. Do likewise; be lowly, go down. Ah, the contrast between Christ and many who bear His name! He in greatness and glory coming down so far! We in our blindness and littleness, all struggling to rise.
2. If His life is the model of my own; if His cross repeats itself in the cross I bear for Him; then there comes to me a truer elevation. God hath highly exalted Him, and that is a pledge that those who have been with Christ in His humiliation shall together sit on His throne.
3. Wherefore work out your own salvation–by self-denial, humility, and this with fear and trembling, because it is the only thing you need fear about. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)
The supreme example of self-renunciation
These words are the grandest and most profound, and at the same time the most copious and unrestrained which St. Paul ever used on this subject, his final and finished formula of the Incarnation. It is wonderful to observe with what tranquillity, ease, and unconsciousness of effort this amazing subject is introduced. All comes as a matter of course. He does not say Behold, I show you a mystery. It flows as naturally from His pen as a simple motive for Christian duty, as if it were the commonplace of theological truth as familiar to them as to Himself. So, doubtless, it was.
I. There is one person here and one only. The name Jesus Christ is given to that Person, who, before the Incarnation, was in the form of God, and afterwards, in the form of a servant. He may be called by any name, Son of God or Son of man, but that name always signifies His Person as possessed of two natures. Accordingly, that Person may be the subject of two classes of predicates. The Divine nature never has a human attribute, nor the human a Divine, but the Divine-human Person may be spoken of as having both. So here St. Paul is referring to a thought of the Eternal Son which implied that He was not yet man. The example is that of Christ Jesus in the flesh, but its strength and obligation are based upon the fact that it was the divinity in Christ that began the mediatorial humiliation.
II. The pre-existent nature and form of being is here strikingly described. Paul uses an expression which indicates the relation of the Second Person of the Trinity to the First, that of eternal subordination without implying inferiority. As the Father cannot be without the Son, as being cannot be without its image, so the Godhead in the Second Person had its form–the essential attributes and glories of Deity which He might lay aside without losing the divinity of His Eternal generation.
III. The act of incarnation is attributed to that pre-existent person. He resolved to empty Himself of all the glories, prerogatives, and manifestations of the Godhead and animate a human nature. This was His own act. There was a concurrence of the Holy Trinity. The Father by an eternal necessity begetting His Son, begets Him again in indissoluble union with our nature. The Holy Ghost is the Divine instrument of the Fathers will in that office. But it was the Sons own act to conjoin with Himself this new man. Now, though our human nature is not an ignoble thing, yet His coming in the likeness of a nature that evil had defiled, was a condescension which might be termed a humiliation. His Divine repute was for a season suspended, and He was reputed among the transgressors.
IV. The reality of his assumption of human nature is set forth by three expressions.
1. Form of a servant. The entire history of our Saviours human existence was that of the mediatorial servant of God (Isa 42:1-25). As such He proclaimed Himself, and was proclaimed (Act 3:26). The term is parallel with form of God, and signifies that in His human nature His manifestation was that of the servitude of redemption. Our human nature was the towel with which He girded Himself (Joh 13:1-38). He took our humanity only that He might serve in it.
2. Likeness of men limits itself to the mere assumption of our nature, and indicates that He became man otherwise than others become men;, that His human nature was perfect, but it was representative human nature, likeness of men. So that the apostles careful definition leaves room for all that range of difference between Him and us that theology is constrained in reverence to establish.
3. Found in fashion as a man completes the picture of the Incarnation by realizing it and giving it location among men. He was all by which a man could be observed, judged, estimated. He was found numbered as one of the descendents of Adam.
V. The design of the wonderful descent (verse 8). The emptying ends with the Incarnation; but the example of self-renunciation is further exhibited.
1. The death of the cross was imposed on Him as a great duty. Much is here omitted because of the special purpose in view. Paul says nothing about our Lords birth under the Mosaic, nor His obligations as under the moral law, nor the endless indignities that He accepted. He singles out the one tremendous imposition that He should die for sin. Death was the goal of a great obedience. All other duties tended to this, and found in this their consummation.
2. This great obedience was voluntarily assumed in humility. It was not merely death, but a humiliating and cursed death. But to this He submitted, passive before men because inwardly passive before God.
VI. This spontaneous, perfect self-sacrifice is an example, the ruling and regulative principle, indeed, of all Christian devotion and service. That mans salvation required this is taken for granted, but is not dwelt upon. As an example, however, it may be viewed under two aspects.
1. As the perfect exhibition of self-renunciation.
(1) It is obvious that Paul lays great stress on the pre-incarnate condescension. He whose Deity was that of the Sons eternal exhibition of the form of His Father, did not reckon the display of His Divine glory, of the perfections equal with God, a thing to hold fast; but let them go for mans salvation, and lived among the conditions of human nature. This was His self-sacrifice. We dare not attempt to define here: there is a danger in two directions. We may so dwell upon the unchangeableness of the Divine nature as to reduce all the condescension to his incarnate estate; or we may so exaggerate the Divine self-sacrifice as to attribute an impossible abnegation of His Divine attributes. Enough that the New Testament does not reveal to us a Trinity inaccessible to those sentiments which we regard as the highest attributes of human virtue. The pattern of our loftiest human excellence is in God Himself.
(2) But we now descend to the exhibition of self-sacrifice in the mediatorial Man of sorrows. Concerning this the words teach us to mark its absolute perfection in every respect as an exhibition of self-sacrifice, and its absolute perfection also as a pattern to us. When he has brought the Redeemer down from His transcendent height, he exhibits Him with reverent joy and tenderness as the supreme pattern of sacrificing love. But he only refers to the mind that was in Christ, and that mind was the surrender of all and the endurance of all for the good of man. There is no detail of the Saviours sufferings.
2. The reality of the example to us. Elsewhere it is said that Christ in His meek endurance and self-sacrificing devotion left us an example. Paul shows that all who are Christs undergo in their degree His lot and share His destiny. If any man will serve Me, etc. Those who shall reign with Christ must first suffer with Him. The spirit of union with Christ imparts this first principle of the Saviours consecration; it must become the ruling principle in us also. (W. B. Pope, D. D.)
The great example
The apostle enforces the previous counsels to the cultivation of self-denying love by the argument strongest of all to the Christian heart, the example of the Lord Jesus.
I. God condescended to become man.
1. Christ did not change His nature, an impossibility, but His form, and in the surrender of this Divine dignity for us points to the duty of our surrender of ease, rank, repute, and even life, for the good of others.
2. The work of love seemed a greater thing than His retention of what was originally His own, and not an object of mere ambition.
3. So He emptied Himself of this form, the glory in which He was revealed to the angels, and to Moses, and Isaiah.
(1) By assuming the form of a servant, its opposite. The King became a subject.
(2) How He took that form is explained–being made in the likeness of men, not of a man; He was the representative of the race. Here, then, we have the mystery of mysteries. Our Redeemer is God, or our hope in Him were baseless, but His Deity was veiled in flesh.
II. As a man He went down into the depths of humiliation.
1. His obedience exhibits–
(1) The reality of His manhood. Subjection is conceivable only in a created nature.
(2) His exemplariness; as a servant of God, he is a member of the class to which all Christians belong.
2. His obedience led Him to the death of the cross, a death–
(1) The most cruel.
(2) The most disgraceful.
3. All this was voluntary.
III. In reward for His obedience He was crowned with glory and honour.
1. This was done by the Father who in the economy of Redemption represents the majesty of the God head.
2. This was done for the purpose of securing for Christ universal supremacy and homage.
3. The end of all was the glory of God the Father in conformity with the Sons prayer–Glorify Thy Son that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. Conclusion: The fitness of the wonderful paragraph as an argument to enforce the exhortation. All this was out of love for you. Imitate this love in its devotion, self-forgetfulness, humility. (R. Johnstone, LL. B.)
An appeal for the cultivation of a right spirit
This comprehensive passage can be used for theological purposes only by accommodation. It is a practical exhortation rather than a theological disquisition. Paul is not arguing a doctrinal point, or rebutting an heresy. There is no evidence that the Philippians were unsound. It is simply the groundwork for a powerful appeal for the cultivation of a right spirit. Pauls argument, based on the Messianic history, may be thrown into this shape. You Philippians have been a great joy to me, but my joy is not quite full. Your unanimity is not perfect. Let this mind be in you, etc. That mind was condescending, unselfish, most loving. Some of you imagine yourselves too elevated to mingle with others. But Christ, who was infinitely elevated, stooped to servitude and death. Let His mind, then, be in you, and nothing shall be done through strife and vain-glory. The highest should prove his highness by serving the lowly.
I. Every feature in Christian character may be carried back to and examined in the light of the whole history of Christ. The Christian is always representing or misrepresenting Christ.
II. These delineations of Christ reveal the true method of rendering service to man. Human deliverance and progress will remain a theory only until men come to work on the method here stated. Great philanthropic programmes must begin at Bethlehem, and comprehend the mysteries of Calvary if they would ascend from Bethany to the heavens. To serve man Christ became man. So in serving others we must identify ourselves with them. This identification with the race made Christ accessible to all classes. We too must go down.
III. Christs piety was not a mere index finger. Instead of saying, That is the way, He said, I am the way. Men fail when they say that instead of I, when they give a pronoun instead of the living substantive of their own sanctified character. Instead of seeing how the worlds misery looks after it has flown from a secretarial pen, and taken form upon the clean foolscap of a great society we should lay our own white hand on the gashed and quaking heart of humanity.
IV. Condescension is not degradation.
1. Was Christ degraded? Go into the territories of wretchedness and guilt upon any other business than that of Christ and you will be degraded. Benevolence will come forth unpolluted as a sunbeam.
2. More: How do you teach a child to read? By beginning at the rudimentary line, and accompanying Him patiently through all introductory processes. So Christ does in the moral education of the race.
V. Are we to come down to men or are men to be brought up to us? Both. We have here also a revelation of the glory which is in reserve for those who adopt Christs method. Christ had that glory of right: His followers bare it of grace. Christ promises exaltation to all who overcome. Conclusion:
1. God overrules the most improbable means to the accomplishment of the greatest ends.
2. The true worker is never finally overlooked. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great. Why? Because He hath poured out His soul unto death. In apparent weakness may be the sublimest mystery of power. A man may be conquering when in a very passion of suffering. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The mind of Christ
I. Its features. Humble–obedient–loving–self-sacrificing.
II. Its reward. Exaltation–honour–glory.
III. Its obligation. We are redeemed by Him–must be conformed to Him. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
Christ is our pattern
It is said that, thinking to amuse him, his wife read to Dr. Judson some newspaper notices, in which he was compared to one or other of the apostles. He was exceedingly distressed: and then he added, Nor do I want to be like them; I do not want to be like Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas, nor any mere man. I want to be like Christ. We have only one perfectly safe Exemplar,–only One, who, tempted like as we are in every point, is still without sin. I want to follow Him only, copy His teachings, drink in His Spirit, place my feet in His footprints, and measure their shortcomings by these, and these only. Oh, to be more like Christ!
How to obtain the mind of Christ
As certain silk worms have their silk coloured by the leaves on which they feed, so, if we were to feed on Christ, and nothing else but Christ, we should become pule, holy, lowly, meek, gentle, humble; in a word, we should be perfect even as He is. What wonderful meat this must be! O my brethren, if you have ever tried the flesh and blood of Jesus as your souls diet, you will know that I am not speaking vain words! There is no such sustenance for faith, love, patience, joy, as living daily upon Jesus, our Saviour. You who have never tasted of this heavenly bread, had better listen to the word, O taste and see that the Lord is good! (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The lesson of humility
The heathen had semblances or images of well-nigh every virtue. He had many excellences, here and there, which put Christians to shame. Wretchedly corrupt as life was upon the whole, still not individuals only, but even nations, had great single virtues. The heathen had self-devotion, contentment, contempt of the world, and of the flesh; he had fortitude, endurance, self-denial, abstemiousness, temperance, chastity, even a sort of reverence for God whom he knew not; but he had not humility. The first sin, the wish to be as God, pride, spoiled them all. Man, in his natural state, claims, as his own, what is Gods; and so he displeases God, whom he robs of His honour. And so the first beginning of Christian virtues is to lay aside pride. It is to own that we have nothing, that so we may receive all and hold all of God; and when, as being in Christ and partaking of His riches, we begin to have, still to own that, of our own, we have nothing. But not only in general or towards God have we need to be humble. It enters in detail into every Christian grace, so that well-nigh the whole substance of the Christian discipline is humility. Every mountain of human pride must be brought low, to prepare the Lords way; and so shall the lowly valley be exalted. Without humility, there can be no resignation, since humility alone knows its sufferings and sorrows to be less than it deserves; no contentment, for humility alone knows that it has more blessings than it deserves; no peace, for contention cometh of want of humility; no kindness, for pride envieth; and this St. Paul assigns as the very reason why love envieth not, that it is not puffed up, that is, is humble. How shall there, without it, be any Christian grace, since all are the fruits of Gods Holy Spirit, and He resisteth the proud and giveth grace unto the lowly? He dwelleth in the humble and contrite heart. If love be the summit of all virtue, humility is the foundation. He humbled Himself, because He loved us: we must he humble, in order to love Him; for to such only will He impart His love. The publican would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, and God was more pleased with the confession of sins in the sinner, than in the recounting of the virtues of the righteous. The Canaanitish woman was content with the portion of the dogs, and she had the childrens bread. The gate of life is low as well as narrow. Through the lowly portal of repentance, are we brought into the Church; and humble as little children must we again become, if we would enter the everlasting gates. Well indeed may the Christian be ashamed not to be humble, for whom God became humble. But this humility must be deep down in our nature, and so striking root downwards thou shalt bear fruit upwards; so laying a deep foundation, shall thy house remain. The tree falls with any gust of wind when the root is near the surface; the house which has a shallow foundation, is soon shaken. High and wide as the noblest trees spread, so deep and wide their roots are sunk below; the more majestic and nobler a pile of building, the deeper its foundation; their height is but an earnest of their lowliness; you see their height, their lowliness is hidden; the use of sinking thus deep is not plain to sight, yet were they not thus lowly, they could not be thus lofty. Dig deep then the foundation of humility, so only mayest thou hope to reach the height of charity; for by humility alone canst thou reach that Rock which shall not be shaken, that is Christ. Founded by humility on that Rock, the storms of the world shall not shake thee, the torrent of evil custom shall not bear thee away, the empty winds of vanity shall not cast thee down. Founded deep on that rock thou mayest build day by day that tower whose top shall reach unto heaven, to the very presence of God, the sight of God, and shalt be able to finish it; for He shall raise thee thither, who for thy sake abased Himself to us. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.)
The mind in Christ
The word mind generally denotes that power in man which conceives thought, weighs it, and forms conclusions. We speak of a strong mind, a disordered mind. Again, the word is used for the will power, as when we say, I have a mind to do it. At other times it is used for the heart or affections, e.g., A mind at rest, A joy of mind, A grief of mind. In the 7th of Romans it is used for the principle of grace in the heart. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind. Lastly, it is employed in a more comprehensive way, as in the text, where consecration of intellect, the aim of life, and temper of spirit are included. Christ Jesus is held up by the apostle as the model after which we should shape our Lives. As good parents train their children by example, so God our Father trains His children. Christ the Lord is at first the pattern of heavenly life to us, but becomes more the power of heavenly life within us. Christ answers all the requirements of an example to us. We need for such–
I. A being of boundless capacity. The Bible represents Christ as God and Creator. Look to created things and see the power of His being. The drop of water has all the power and freshness which He gave it on the morning of creation. The effect cannot be greater than the cause. The sun shines with the same fulness of warmth and light and life as when it waked the first germ into life, yet it is but the work of His fingers. But what are these as witnesses compared with the experiences of pure hearts who, in all generations, have been able to sing, The Lord is my light and my salvation?
II. One whose nature is like ours, and is at the same time above sin. Look to the glory and yet the humanity of His nature. Earth did not, it could not, lift itself toward heaven. He became Immanuel–God with us. He took upon Him the form of a servant, etc. The prostrate vine cannot lift itself again to clasp the tree and climb among its branches; but if the tree bow itself and unloose the tendrils from the roots and briers, the vine may find its place of rest and fruitfulness. This the tree cannot do; but God in Christ has thus bowed Himself to fallen man.
III. One who presents to us freshness and variety of mind and soul. We read, Thou hast the dew of thy youth. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Selecting as emblems those objects that are most expressive of life and beauty and blessing, the Saviour takes their name upon Himself. He is the Sun of Righteousness, The Star out of Jacob, The Morning Star, The Light of the World. And then coming to things of earth–He is the sheep that is dumb before her shearers, and is presently the Good Shepherd. He is the Lamb of God, etc. He is the Fountain Opened, The Tree of Life, The Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley. In short, He is light for the eye, sound for the ear, bread for food, water for thirst, peace for the troubled, and rest for the weary. Over against every door of the mind and every window of the soul He stands laden with riches and waiting for admission.
IV. We need in the culture of the mind and soul one who has surpassing wisdom. In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Conclusion: What are we to be like Him in?
1. In our aim in life.
2. In our spirit and temper. (E. P. Ingersoll.)
The mind in Christ
I. In Him.
II. In you.
III. In you by His Spirit.
IV. In you as a means of happiness and salvation. (cf. Lyth, D. D.)
The mind that was in Christ Jesus
Was–
I. Self-abnegating. If Christ, being God, for our sakes became man, may we not learn to forego, for the sake of each other, our own private advantages?
1. The rich may give to the poor, just as Christ for our sakes became poor.
2. The poor, themselves, should be helpful, just as Christ being poor was able to make many rich.
II. Condescending. He stooped from highest glory to our low estate, thereby teaching those who have the advantage of ability and attainments to condescend to the ignorance and incapacity of their less favoured brethren.
III. Non-complaining. Hence, the poor and ignorant should learn to cease from murmuring against those who have become better off by diligence, frugality, and sobriety, and to wear with cheerfulness the garb of poverty He wore, and receive with thankfulness the hardships He bore before them.
IV. Non-contentious. All, whatever their condition, should learn to contend less for their ownselves in the pursuit of this worlds advantages, and leave more room for their neighbours advancement and more cordially promote it. Industry is commendable, but grasping and jealousy are alien to the mind of Christ. We should let live as well as live.
V. Abhorrent of sin. So much so that He humbled Himself to the death of the cross to destroy it. The Christian, therefore, should mortify the affections of the flesh.
VI. Fearless of death. He encountered it with joy that He might deliver us from bondage unto the fear of death. (C. Girdlestone, M. A.)
Christs was–
I. A fearless mind. He braved–
1. Public opinion.
2. Persecution.
3. Death.
II. A self-denying mind: and such in us will enable us, like Him, to forego–
1. Present advantage for the good of others.
2. Popularity for the sake of principle.
3. Personal claims, profit and pleasure for usefulness.
III. A laborious mind. Christ was ever thinking, planning, devising for others.
IV. A broadly sympathetic mind. Helpfulness should be united with tenderness.
V. A patient mind. How He waited those thirty years; how He bore with the ignorance of His disciples, and the malignity of His murderers.
VI. A hopeful mind. He saw beyond the cross. He saw of the travail of His soul and was satisfied. (H. B. Rawnsley.)
I. What is meant by the mind of Christ? His view of things, and to have that mind is to think and feel about things as He did. He came down from heaven to study matters on the spot, and we can never have right views unless we take His point of view. But He came down not only to have right views but to rectify what was wrong. Hence, His standpoint was benevolent. He came not to judge but to save the world.
II. What was Christs mind when He became incarnate?
1. His view of man. This is seen sufficiently in the fact that He took mans nature. Creation gives us a high estimate of manhood. The Incarnation one far higher. God made it: God wore it.
2. His view of the soul. He thought it was worth shedding His blood for. How much are we willing to give to save a soul? We do so little because our estimate is so low.
3. His view of sin. He deemed it an evil so terrible that He must give His life to atone for it Ought not this to produce in us a due sense of its enormity.
4. His view of the world and its glory. He treated the offer of Satan with contempt, and told Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world. How contrary our own view.
5. His view of the use of time. I must work the works of Him that sent me, etc. What a lesson to the indolent and procrastinating.
6. His view of the obligations of religion. In childhood, while obedient to His parents, He recognized a higher authority than theirs. Wist ye not, etc. Later on, If any man love father and mother more than Me.
7. His view of wealth and poverty–The foxes have holes, etc.
8. His view of Gods Word–Man shall not live by bread alone.
9. His view in regard to His enemies–Father, forgive them, is the practical commentary on Love your enemies.
III. How are we to attain this mind?
1. Only by union with Him through faith.
2. This mind is to be cultivated by a diligent study of His precepts and example with the help of His Spirit. (J. W. Reeve, M. A.)
The imitableness of Christs character
1. That character as depicted by the evangelists is the perfection of beauty, and the more we contemplate it the stronger must be our convictions of the divinity of His religion.
(1) The evangelists were incapable of inventing it. Their history, character, training, prevented that; and, moreover, they present it artlessly, not as advocates, but as witnesses.
(2) Believing, then, as we must, Christ as thus described by friends and foes alike, perfect and without sin, the religion He taught must be Divine. No bad man would originate a good cause, and no good man a bad one.
2. Christs character is exhibited not for advocacy or admiration, but for imitation, and the best evidence of our interest in Him is our likeness to Him. Without this our religion is vain. The mind that was in Him, and is to be in us, was one of–
I. Eminent humility. Man fell by pride, and must be raised by humility.
1. Upon this Christ insisted. His first beatitude was on the poor in spirit. The condition of discipleship is to learn of Him who was meek and lowly in heart.
2. Christ combined the highest displays of dignity with unaffected lowliness.
3. This humility was uniformly displayed in self-denial, forbearance, forgiveness, gentleness, patience, submission.
II. Sublime benevolence. This was exhibited–
1. In the intense solicitude with which He regarded the interests of others; and if we would be conformed to the mind of Christ we must extirpate selfishness and live for the welfare of men.
2. In the work He undertook and the sacrifice He made. Some people manifest only feeling, but real charity like Christs is always practical.
3. In the spirit and temper which marked all His procedure. It did not confine itself to occasional great efforts.
III. Supreme devotion. If we want to know what the law of God requires we see it is Christ whose meat was to do Gods will and to finish His work. This principle–
1. Had all the constancy of influence on His mind in every transaction. It did not appear in peculiar forms or on special occasions.
2. It was manifested in the spirit of prayer.
3. It was marked by uniformity, and not by fits and starts.
Conclusion: Various considerations to enforce the imitation of this bright example.
1. It was the great design of the Saviour to secure this conformity to the virtues of His life, even by His mediation.
2. It was His command to do as He had done.
3. There is not a doctrine or principle of our religion that does not lead to this and present a motive.
4. All the tendencies and affections of every renewed mind are in harmony with this important claim.
5. Heaven will be the perfection of this conformity. (Joseph Fletcher, D. D.)
The obedience of Christ
By having the mind of Christ is not meant doing exactly as He did, but having the disposition so that had we been in His circumstances we should have done what He did, and so acting in our circumstances as He would act were He in them. Here His obedience is set forth for our imitation. Notice that it was–
I. Voluntary, not forced or reluctant. He made Himself, He took, He humbled Himself.
1. There was no compelling power in heaven, earth, or hell.
2. The inspiration of this obedience was love to God and man.
3. Human obedience to be of any value must be the free and joyful outcome of love.
II. Humiliating.
1. Obedience is easy when the path is agreeable and the end profit or renown. In Christs case the, pathway was the manger and the wilderness, etc., and the goal the cross.
2. There was no species of humiliation, sin only excepted, which Christ did not endure.
3. This is the first step in true human obedience, for before that can be rendered, pride, self-seeking, self-importance, must be subdued.
4. This can only be effected by the religion of Jesus.
II. Persevering–unto death.
1. The last term of our Lords obedience was the hardest and worst. His other trials, heavy enough, were only preparatory. Our obedience will be worthless unless we endure to the end. Forasmuch as Christ hath suffered for us, arm yourselves with the same mind. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The Christian temper
I. Humility.
1. This is important because it is the particular grace here inculcated, and is the root of all other graces.
2. Pride is natural to man and must be repressed in the believer by three considerations.
(1) What he was–a sinner, enemy of God, heir of hell, etc.
(2) What he is–a pardoned sinner, a child of God, but still imperfect, and with such weakness that he may well be humble (1Ti 1:15).
(3) What he shall be–like Christ; what cause for humble gratitude.
II. Piety.
1. This was eminently seen in Christ.
2. The natural man is ungodly.
3. The spirit of piety will render those acts of religion natural and pleasant which are intolerably burdensome to the unconverted.
III. Spirituality (Joh 3:6).
1. We derive our fleshly nature from our first parents. Natural men mind earthly things, while the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness unto them.
2. The believer, born from above, is spiritual, and minds heavenly things.
3. This constitutes the difference between the two, and determines the destiny of each (Rom 8:6).
IV. Contentment (Php 4:11-13). This is–
1. Generated by Divine grace.
2. Sustained by the Divine promises.
V. Meekness (Mat 5:5; 2Co 10:1). This meekness is not the effect of constitution or the calculation of self-interest; it is the gift of God working on the lines of Christs example.
VI. Mercy (Heb 5:2; Mat 5:7; Rom 9:23; Col 3:12).
1. To the souls of men.
2. To their bodies.
VII. Sincerity. This is the soul of all religion (2Co 1:12; Joh 1:48). Conclusion:
1. See how excellent is the religion of Jesus.
2. Learn the necessity of something more than morality.
3. How vain the profession of the gospel without its temper.
4. How far we come short of this example. (G. Burder.)
The problem of the age
(Pro 23:17 in connection with text):–Now, while Solomon lays down the broad general principles concerning the prime importance of ones theory of things, Paul, in this passage, gives a clear and terse expression to the Christian theory of human life, and urges its acceptance with the most intense earnestness–Have this mind, etc. Christ Himself stands out as the embodiment of the Christian theory. I propose to show that this theory is unique and contrary to the popular view of this age in–
I. Its method of estimating the value of man in this would.
1. It estimates him not by what is on him or around him or in his possession, but by what is in him. Be such in soul as Christ was.
2. I seriously question whether Christ, where He to appear as of old among men, would find many who would be willing to acknowledge themselves to be of His class in society. Would He have the shadow of a title to respectability in what the world is pleased to call the best society.
3. It is hard to gain any adequate conception of how belittling and degrading such modern views are. But whether we are aware of it or not, society is suffering the disastrous consequences of this lowering of the estimate of character. We are coveting the same things that made wreck of the old nations, and forgetting the thing that has distinguished the Christian from them. The only possible remedy is to be found in making Christs view our own, and shaping social life and intercourse according to that. Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
II. The Christian theory of life is unique, and contrary to the popular theory of this age in the supreme end that it proposes for human conduct. That end is absolute righteousness in conformity to the will of God. There is no escaping the fact that Christ exalted righteousness as the governing principle of the universe. Now there are two radically variant views concerning the supreme end of human conduct–that which finds it in God, and that which finds it in man. The latter is the outcome of our depraved nature. It may be traced along the line of heathen and materialistic thought from Epicurus to Herbert Spencer and Paul Janet. In its grosser form it makes the quest for happiness the supreme thing for man. Its positive rule is, Enjoy yourself; its negative, Dont get hurt. You cannot make men of breadth and stature on that basis. The view dwarfs and deadens humanity. The antagonistic view of Christianity finds the supreme end of human conduct and activity in connection with God. Virtue is righteousness, conformity to the law of the moral Governor. And yet, is it not true that, as we throw away Christs standard of manhood–character–we also cast aside His theory of the supreme rule of human conduct? Nay, does not the fact that we have repudiated that rule account for our present view of character? Does net the average man oftener ask the question, Will this make me comfortable? Will this secure my happiness? or, Will this increase my fortune? or, Will this enlarge my knowledge or culture? than the question, Is this right? It is this selfish, so called morality that has brought the degradation of character, the general corruption.
III. The Christian theory is unique and contrary to the popular theory in the law which it proposes for the attainment of the highest success in human life–the law of self-sacrifice. Man is born into the world the most helpless of animals, and, what is more, the most selfish of all animals. The problem of human life, for the parent, human and divine, is how to develop the generous manhood and womanhood out of this intensest of all animalism. Just here it is that man is most fearfully made. He can only gain by renouncing. He seeks for himself and his own selfish aims only, at the peril of ,missing all. The law of the gospel is, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, etc. Seek other things first, and you lose them all. He that loseth his life shall find it, etc. If the wretched and unsuccessful man will look into his heart he will find that he is breaking this great law of life, and is suffering for his breach of it. He is making too much of self, possessions, success, and is thereby forfeiting the very things he desires most. The human disappointment and unrest will continue with the resultant envy and strife until Christs law of self-sacrifice is accepted. With the mind that was in Christ Jesus, we shall find the true solution of the dark problem that has led so many into pessimism.
IV. The Christian theory is unique in the kind of life that it proposes to man for the satisfaction of his active nature: a life devoted to the glory of God in redemption. This was the supreme thing in the life of Christ. For this He obeyed, suffered, and died. On the ground of this God has highly exalted Him. And so in the gospel view, the work for which man is in the world. We have had our popular theories of moral reform without Christ; but if anything has been demonstrated by human history, the only universal and effective method of such reform is that which starts out from Christ and His gospel. When, and only when, you make the drunkard a real Christian, you make sure that he will be a temperate man. We have had our popular theories of education without Christ, but nothing now seems more certain than that they practically end in corruption and crime. We devote our powers with tremendous energy to the production and acquisition of wealth and the advancement of material civilization, with the inevitable result of overproduction and periodical depression, in which much of the fancied gain disappears. If one half the energy were expended in the higher line of gospel effort we might have steady increase of solid wealth with permanent prosperity, and all this in a world of constantly increasing purity and peace. Living on such principles our souls might grow as rapidly as our fortunes, instead of being blighted and dwarfed by covetousness. (Pres. D. S. Gregory.)
Pauls method of exhortation
Just as some orator, skilfully addressing a company of soldiers on the eve of battle, begins with admonition and ends with a picture; just as he would appeal to their manhood, their consistency, their honour, and their courage, as he would play upon their fear of disgrace and their contempt of poltroonery; just as he would follow up each motive with another and a more elevated one, until, at the last, he would invoke their patriotism and their love for their leader, alike and together, by unfurling the national ensign and showing them how he had caused to be painted across the folds the likeness of the face they knew; so here the apostle seeks to arouse Christian enthusiasm by quickly exhibiting the very image of the Captain of our salvation, and bidding us follow Him alone. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus] Christ laboured to promote no separate interest; as man he studied to promote the glory of God, and the welfare and salvation of the human race. See then that ye have the same disposition that was in Jesus: he was ever humble, loving, patient, and laborious; his meat and drink was to do the will of his Father, and to finish his work.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
5. The oldest manuscripts read,”Have this mind in you,” &c. He does not put forwardhimself (see on Php 2:4, and Php1:24) as an example, but Christ, THEONE pre-eminently who sought not His own, but “humbledHimself” (Php 2:8), firstin taking on Him our nature, secondly, in humbling Himself further inthat nature (Ro 15:3).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Let this mind be in you,…. The Arabic version renders it, “let that humility be perceived in you”. The apostle proposes Christ as the great pattern and exemplar of humility; and instances in his assumption of human nature, and in his subjection to all that meanness, and death itself, even the death of the cross in it; and which he mentions with this view, to engage the saints to lowliness of mind, in imitation of him; to show forth the same temper and disposition of mind in their practice,
which also was in Christ Jesus; or as the Syriac version, “think ye the same thing as Jesus Christ”; let the same condescending spirit and humble deportment appear in you as in him. This mind, affection, and conduct of Christ, may refer both to his early affection to his people, the love he bore to them from everlasting, the resolution and determination of his mind in consequence of it; and his agreement with his Father to take upon him their nature in the fulness of time, and to do his will, by obeying, suffering, and dying in their room and stead; and also the open exhibition and execution of all this in time, when he appeared in human nature, poor, mean, and abject; condescending to the lowest offices, and behaving in the most meek and humble manner, throughout the whole of his life, to the moment of his death.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Have this mind in you ( ). “Keep on thinking this in you which was also in Christ Jesus” ( ). What is that? Humility. Paul presents Jesus as the supreme example of humility. He urges humility on the Philippians as the only way to secure unity.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Let this mind be in you [ ] . Lit., let this be thought in you. The correct reading, however, is froneite, lit., “think this in yourselves.” Rev., have this mind in you.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Let this mind be in you” (touto phronelte en humin) “Think ye this (way) among yourselves” This mind, spirit, disposition, care, and attitude of Christ for others is here admonished as a pattern to be used, followed, and emulated among the Philippian brethren, and even children of God today, Joh 13:14; Mat 11:29.
2) “Which was also in Christ Jesus (ho kai en christo iesou) ‘Which (was) also (in thinking) in Christ Jesus,” 1Pe 2:21. Christ not only claimed meekness and lowliness but also lived and walked in this manner, 1Jn 2:6.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
5. He now recommends, from the example of Christ, the exercise of humility, to which he had exhorted them in words. There are, however, two departments, in the first of which he invites us to imitate Christ, because this is the rule of life: (102) in the second, he allures us to it, because this is the road by which we attain true glory. Hence he exhorts every one to have the same disposition that was in Christ. He afterwards shews what a pattern of humility has been presented before us in Christ. I have retained the passive form of the verb, though I do not disapprove of the rendering given it by others, because there is no difference as to meaning. I merely wished that the reader should be in possession of the very form of expression which Paul has employed.
(102) “ Pourceque l’imitation d’ iceluy est la regle de bien viure;” — “Because imitation of him is the rule of right living.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CHRIST, THE INCOMPARABLE
Php 2:5-11
THE phrase, Christ, the Incomparable, is extremely popular at present. It has come to be a custom with all liberal theologians, and almost a habit with outright infidels to pay tribute to the character of Jesus. Unitarians, and even atheists, have well-nigh exceeded evangelicals in their laudation of the Man from Nazareth; and the present-day higher critics all say Amen, when we pay tribute to Him. Renan said, In Jesus is condensed all that is good and exalted in all nature. Thomas Paine remarked, The morality that He preached has not been exceeded by any. Disraeli, the Jew, confessed, Jesus has conquered Europe and changed its name to Christendom. Rousseau remarked, If the life and death of Socrates were those of a martyr, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. When, therefore, a conservative talks either about the accomplishments or character of Jesus, he will find no liberal theologian, and but few infidels, to oppose him. It is only when we come to the question of His Deity, involving as it does, atonement for sin through sacrifice, cleansing by the shedding of Blood, that they revolt and reveal their real estimate of Christs claims.
It is a marvelous thing that any man could so live and die as to compel even His enemies to pay tribute to Him; as to force from the lips of the most malignant opponents masterly encomiums, and yet Christ has accomplished that. When Paul penned this Epistle to the Philippians this name was not so popular, and yet, by inspiration he proclaimed its coming power, and, for the moment, turned Prophet, and the civilized of all later centuries consent to the circumstance that he spake truthfully.
There are three things he says about this Incomparable One.
First of all, God gave to Him
AN INCOMPARABLE NAME
Let this mind he in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name (Php 2:5-9).
Did you ever ask yourself the question why God gave to Him a Name which is above every name? In how many respects is that an incomparable Name? I shall not attempt to answer that in full, but a few suggestions:
He was incomparable in mental ability. Every apocryphal gospel tells remarkable things about the youth of Jesus. The true Gospels mention little of His youth, but when it is touched, His mental abilities are uncovered. At twelve years of age His parents at the feast, in leaving, missed Him. After they had gone a great way toward home they made the discovery that the Lad was not with them, and went back, and it came to pass, that after three days they found Him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.
Again in the Word of God we are told that He grew, not only in stature, but in wisdom, and that is easily accepted as a fact. The moment His public ministry begins men stand astounded, and even His enemies consent never man spake like this Man. On one occasion, when He had finished with the delivery of certain parables, He came into His own country, and taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this Man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenters Son? is not His mother called Mary? and His brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this Man all these things?
He was a product of no school and yet His speech has given rise to the great schools of the centuries. He was the author of no code of laws, yet His declarations determine the righteousness of all law. He engaged in no philosophical speculations, yet all philosophers are compelled to sit at His feet. He formulated no distinct system of theology, yet the only theology worthy the attention of men, and calculated to do aught for a sinning, dying world, is that which is in the strictest keeping with His wonderful words. Truly, as Dr. Robert F. Horton, of the Old World, once said, Churches and theologieshe might have added, schools] have failed us and confused us, but when Christ speaks from the mount, all is clear.
He was incomparable in mighty accomplishments. Dwight Hillis never said a truer thing, than when he wrote, Our wonder grows apace when we remember that He wrote no book, no poem, no drama, no philosophy; invented no tool or instrument; fashioned no law or institution; discovered no medicine or remedy; outlined no philosophy of mind or body; contributed nothing to geology or astronomy, but stood at the end of His brief career, doomed and deserted, solitary and silent, utterly helpless, fronting a shameless trial and a pitiless execution. In that hour none so poor as to do Him reverence. And yet could some magician have touched mens eyes they would have seen that no power in Heaven and no force on earth for majesty and productiveness could equal or match this crowned Sufferer whose name was to be Wonderful.
The ages have come and gone; let us hasten to confess that the carpenters Son hath lifted the gates of empires off their hinges and turned the stream of the centuries out of their channels. His spirit hath leavened all literature; He hath made laws just, governments humane, manners gentle, even cold marble warm; He refined art by new and Divine themes, shaped those cathedrals called frozen prayers, led scientists to dedicate their books and discoveries to Him, and so glorified an instrument of torture that the very queen among beautiful women seeks to enhance her loveliness by hanging His cross about her neck, while new inventions and institutions seem but letters in His storied speech. Today His birthday, alone, is celebrated by all the nations. All peoples and tribes claim Him. None hath arisen to dispute His throne. Plato divides honors with Aristotle; Bacon walks arm in arm with Newton; Napoleon does not monopolize the admiration of soldiers. In poetry, music and art, and practical life, universal supremacy is unknown. But Jesus Christ is so opulent in His gifts, so transcendent in His words and works, so unique in His life and death, that He receives universal honors. His Name eclipses other names as the noonday sun obliterates by very excess of light.
He was incomparable in essential character. In all the days of my life I have never fallen upon an attack of the character of Christ until recently. Rousseau admired it, Paine paid it tribute, Hume honored it, and even our own man, Ingersoll, declared, For the Man Jesus, I have infinite respect. Even erratic minds denying the Deity of Christ and deriding the claims of the Church, never had the hardihood to decry His character. It remained for a modern, to attempt that defamation and exercise that blasphemy. The world for many centuries, so far as it has read the Scriptures at all, has been well-nigh a unit in its exalted judgment of Jesus. In fact, the picture given in the four Gospels is just exactly such as to confirm the basis for Dr. Carnegie Simpsons claim that no such character could ever have been conceived apart from its actual existence. He quotes J. S. Mills as having declared, It is no use to say that Christ, as exhibited in the Gospels, is not historical, and that we know not how much of what is admirable has been superadded by the traditions of His followers. It is no use, because, as Mills adds, Who among His disciples, or their proselytes [he might have added, Who among the poets and dramatists of all the world] is capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus or of imagining such a life and character? The only way in the world to account for their work is to suppose that they spoke in utter veracity. They had a model and they copied it faithfully, and because the model was faultless, the reproduction, being faithful, was perfect, also.
This character of Jesus becomes the more resplendent when one remembers the day in which He was born and lived. As another says, It was an hour when tyranny and crime had gone upon a carnival. It seemed as if despots had determined to leave on earth not one of the gifted children of song, or eloquence, or philosophy, or morals. Julius Caesar, the writer and ruler, had been murdered. Cicero, the orator, had been assassinated. Herod, who ruled over Christs city, murdered his two brothers, his wife, Marianne, slew the children of Bethlehem, and, dying, ordered his nobles to be executed, that mourning for the king might be widespread. Yet in such an era, when He saw a thousand wrongs to be achieved, Christ maintained His serenity, and reigned victorious over lifes troubles. And one might add, He provided a solution for every sorrow and a salvation from every sin.
But the Apostle speaks in the next place of
A CONQUERING NAME
He gave
Him a Name which is above every name; that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.
His triumph in Heaven is complete. Two schools of interpretersyea, twentyhave attempted the Book of Revelation. But the two great schools are Praeterists and Futurists. The first of these says that most of the things prophesied in the Book of the Revelation have passed already, and the second insists, Not so; they are all yet to come. Neither is right! Some of them have transpired and others of them are yet to come to pass. Two thousand years ago John, on the Isle of Patmos, was vouchsafed a vision of the open Heaven. He saw Jesus in His glorified estate. From Him he received messages for the seven Churches in Asia; and then the Faithful and True Witness turned his attention to the things which must shortly come to pass, and among them He granted to him a vision of the war in Heaven. Michael is shown going forth to war with the dragon,
and the dragon fought and his angels;
And prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in Heaven.
And the great dragon was cast down, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And I heard a great voice saying in Heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
And they overcame him by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time (Rev 12:7-12).
Where Christ is, this arch-fiend cannot reign; he cannot even remain.
He will accomplish the supremacy of the earth.
At the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, AND THINGS IN EARTH O, how that declaration from Pauls pen fits into the teaching of the Old Testament worthies. The Psalmist, catching a vision of the ages to come, wrote,
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before Him; and His enemies shall lick the dust.
The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall render presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
Yea, all kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him.
For He will deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper (Psa 72:8-12).
Daniel, also, you remember, says,
I saw in the night visions, and, behold, One like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near before Him.
And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a Kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed (Dan 7:13-14).
This is that of which Paul wrote in 1Co 15:24-25:
Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet.
All civilization moves to one end, whether it knows it or not; and all Christianization has one object, whether it be thoroughly apprehended or not, and that is the conquest of Christ in this world, and the making of a new earth in which dwelleth righteousness. And it shall be done! I know the discouragements of the days intervening, and I know how the delays trouble even the dutiful. I know how apostates from the faith filch the place of genuine prophets, and yet I know, on the authority of Gods Word, from prophecies which have already found a fulfilment, that we move directly to this conquering by the Christ! God shall bring it to pass. Some one has said, The century plant takes a hundred years for root and trunk, but blossoms in a night. And nations also shall in a day be born into culture and character. And this same writer says, And every knee shall bow to the Name that is above every name, and He whom God has lifted to the worlds throne shall, in turn, lift the world to a place beside Him.
His victory over hell will be acknowledged. There are some people who seem to think that hell is to beat Heaven out; that the final victory is to be with the underworld. The text says not so; At the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and THINGS UNDER THE EARTH. I believe Satan and his entire host perfectly understand that fact. To me that is the interpretation of the speech of the devils at the sight of Jesus. They trembled when He drew nigh, begged Him not to torment them before the time, as if it were perfectly understood that there was a time fixed when every devil that had ever allied himself with the great Dragon, and become a permanent rebel against the Divine government, should cringe at the mention of His conquering Name, and perish at the touch of His conquering hand. We wonder, after all, if that is not the interpretation of Rev 20:10, where Satan and his associates and all followers, find their fate in the pit, hurled thence by the mighty Son of God. His is a conquering Name! At its mention everything of earth is destined to bow; at its mention every saint and angel of Heaven will fall on the face; and at its mention every devil in hell will fear and flee away; then every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
His, then, is
A GOD-GLORIFYING NAME
It would be an interesting study indeed to run the Scriptures through and see in what respects the Name of Jesus glorifies God. O, there are so many! Let me pick out three of these and with that finish.
In that Name men are saved from sin. Thou shalt call His Name, Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins. There is an eighth wonder in the world today, namely, the denial of sin. The denial of the most evident, the most potent fact of human experience and sane observationSIN! It is the author of all sorrows; it is the occasion of all doom; it is the call for hell. The whole world is under its blight. Not one noble man has escaped; not one fair woman has gone unscathed. Discouragement, disease, despair and death lie over the earth like a pall.
The Name that is an antidote for sin, the man that can withdraw its sting, is the Name, the Man, that brings to God the greatest glory. In the Orient one of the commonest effects of sin is blindness. Consequently when the disciples of Jesus saw one totally stricken by this affliction they addressed their Master, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, The effect upon him is more remote, it has come down a greater distance, but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. And Christ healed him, and God was glorified.
The blind are everywhere, the lame lie at many gates, the fevered are found under a multitude of roofs, the deaf, the dumb, the demonized. O, how sin has made havoc with the sons of men. Dwight Hillis spake truly when he said, Long ago Cleopatra, the daughter of supreme beauty, received sin into her arms, counting it to be an angel of light; but alas, sin broke her heart, and soon she welcomed the viper to her bosom. It was sin that wrecked the palace of David. It was sin that ruined the genius of Solomon. It was sin that stole the purple from Alcibiades and gave him instead the robe of a slave. It was sin that, serpent like, crawled over the threshold of the palaces in Rome and left its slime within court and banqueting hall. Sin was the flame which blackened the Doges palace in Venice. Sin was the earthquake that toppled down the treasure houses of Florence. For Bacon sin was a worm in the bud of his heart. For Byron sin was moth and rust that consumed the mind. For Shelley, sin was a Vandal that grew by the rapine and murder of the poets soul.
We are told that when the work of excavation was done in the streets, and the houses of Pompeii were uncovered, and the gathered treasures in bronze and marble and ivories and mosaics were assembled in a museum, not one single object of them all had escaped some form of injury. The Winged Mercury had arms and legs broken, the white forehead of Venus had a black stain, every precious tablet was cracked to a greater or less degree, while the very rolls found in Plinys tomb had their writings too faded to read. This is only a type of the havoc sin has made in men. The chief products of the Divine Artist, broken, scarred, stained, are we all. And Christ came to replace, to heal, to cleanse, to save. No wonder the men who looked upon Him in the old day when He both recovered the sick and forgave the sinner, glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion. O, His is a God-glorifying Name!
He glorifies God by transforming the saved. His work is not that of reformation only; it involves transformation.
For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren.
We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord (2Co 3:18).
Henry Drummond in his matchless booklet, The Greatest Thing in the World, speaks wonderfully of this transformation, accomplished while we behold the face of the transfigured Christ, and looking on Him, grow like Him in character. Horace Stanton says, In the gallery of the Vatican at Rome, said to contain of art more genuine treasures than any other on the earth, there hangs a work which stands not only supreme above those others there; but, by the consenting judgment of three centuries and a half, at the head of all the oil paintings in the worldthe Transfiguration by Raphael. It was in the noonday of his life that he began it, and the sublimest conceptions of that peerless spirit are here displayed. A genius of amazing brilliancy, in imagination never yet surpassed, but tender, sensitive, and reverential, was portraying that single scene when the Saviour was manifested to the disciples in His future celestial light, the only time that earthly eyes had yet seen Him in His glory. And, as the artist bent his might upon it, the splendid vision rose, in drawing, grouping, and dramatic power, a work unequalled. It is called the grandest picture ever limner wrought. But, as the last lines were almost done, God called Raphael. And, over his shadowy bier, they hung this picture; its colors still wet upon the canvas, the last work of that lifeless hand. What a funeral was thisthat graceful figure covered with the painters cloak, the throng of mourners kneeling weeping there; but over all, the breathing beauty and immortal radiance of that Heavenly scene, which showed the luster of the Transfigured Christ.
As Raphael in art, so we in spirit, speech and life, may delineate the transfiguration of our Lord.
And, at our death, the luster of Christcrowned and regnantshall fall on us, to give each his proper splendor. For, as there is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, though many stars may draw their radiance from that one central sun; so Christs glory shall be chiefest, and each of us will have a proper share, all unlike one another, though we all shall be like Him.
Yet once more, God receives glory in that Christ is Lord over death and the grave. He is our hope of a resurrection. When Lazarus lay dead and was revivedthe great New Testament type of the resurrection of the saintsJesus said to Martha,
Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Then they took away the stone. * * And Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me.
And I knew that Thou hearest Me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me.
And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth?
and the glory of God was revealed.
Ah, men, He is the Lord of life out of death; of victory over the grave. In His Name saints shall conquer against the last enemy, and troop up in bodies incorruptible, powerful, glorious, spiritual. I have attempted at times, in speaking of the resurrection, to tell my auditors something of what the resurrection body will be. It was an impossible proposition! The most physically perfect Man the world ever saw was Jesus on the day of the crucifixionin His prime at thirty-three years of age, uncorrupted by sin, untouched by any infirmity of body, soul or spirit; and in that body, risen from the dead, one finds the model in the likeness of which all saints shall come forth.
Stanton tells us that in the museums of Europe, you see statues of Antinous, that young man of antiquity who was noted for his symmetry and grace. There is the Apollo Belvidere, an artists sublime conception of the Godlike form. In Frankfort you visit Danneckers famous group of statuary, Ariadne on the Panther. It is in a building especially erected for it. There is the lithe and agile beast. Upon his back the beauteous maiden sits. The drapery half reveals, and half conceals her fine proportions. The expression on her face is most sweet. The crimson curtains, which surround the alcove, mellow the light, so that she almost seems to live. The group is mounted on a revolving pedestal. And, as it turns, you survey it from every sidematchless in its perfect beauty. The Antinous shows the ideal mould of man; the Ariadne the ideal form of woman. But who shall prove that, in the coming world, yea in the Millennium of this world, every man and every woman will not be as beautiful of face and figure as the Antinous and the Ariadne? Those Greek statues were largely representations of the living figures seen in the gymnasia. They were illustrations of the superb physiques of the actual persons of that day. Modern statues are largely copied from them. But surely the figures of the glorified children of God in the New Jerusalem, will be as beautiful as were those of the children of men in ancient Greece.
This is the first resurrection.
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.
It is a glorious prospect, and God Himself, is glorified in the sure promise of Christs victory over death and the grave, and He will be in its final and unspeakable realization.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Php. 2:5. Let this mind be in you.The apostles word reminds us that he had already counselled his readers to be likeminded amongst themselves. Each to each, and all to Christ, this verse seems to say. What followsto Php. 2:11is the very marrow of the gospel.
Php. 2:6. Who, being in the form of God.R.V. margin, being originally. Form here implies not the external accidents, but the essential attributes. Similar to this, but not so decisive, are the expressions used elsewhere of the divinity of the Son (2Co. 4:4; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3). Similar is the term The Word. Thought it not robbery.Did not deem His being on an equality with God a thing to be seized onand retained as a prize (Ellicott). Yet did not regard it as a prize, a treasure to be clutched and retained at all hazards (Lightfoot). This interpretation of the two eminent bishops is accepted by the R.V., the Speakers Commentary, and is the common and indeed almost universal interpretation of the Greek Fathers (Lightfoot, flatly contradicted by Beet). Meyer (followed by Beet), Cremer and Hofmann contend for the active meaningrobbing. To be equal with God.The Jews considered Christs peculiar claim of Sonship as a making Himself equal with God (Joh. 5:18).
Php. 2:7. But made Himself of no reputation.R.V. emptied Himself. The emphasis is upon Himself. In contrast to the idea lying in robberythat of emptying the treasures of some one elseit was Himself whom He made bare. And took upon Him the form of a servant.By taking the form of a slave. Note the antitheses in these verses (6, 7), being in the form of God, took the form of a servant, equality with God, emptied Himself. And was made in the likeness of men.Lit. becoming in similitude of men. The word likeness (A.V. margin, habit) differs from form and fashion. There is, of course, no support for the Docetic teaching that Christ was only seemingly a man.
Php. 2:8. In fashion.The entire outwardly perceptible mode and form. Men saw in Christ a human form, bearing, language, action, mode of life, wants and their satisfaction, in general, the state and relations of a human being so that He was recognised as a man (Meyer). Form (in Php. 2:6-7) is that which is intrinsic and essential. Fashion is that which is outward and accidental. Became obedient unto death.Does not mean that He humbled Himself so as to become a cringing slave to the King of Terrors; but that His obedience to God went to the uttermost limitas far as deatheven the death of the cross. That is, the death of the accursed, the death reserved for malefactors. Jewish hatred still speaks of Christ as, The man who was hung.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Php. 2:5-8
The Humiliation of Christ a Pattern of Supreme Unselfishness.
I. The humiliation of Christ was no violation of His divine essence.Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (Php. 2:6). Thought it not a prey to be seized upon. As He was in Himself truly and properly God, it could be no object of desire or ambition to claim equality with God. Being God He could not undeify Himself. His divinity remained with Him through the whole course of His self-imposed humiliation. It was this that constituted both the mystery and the greatness of the humiliation.
II. The humiliation of Christ was a voluntary incarnation in human formBut made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (Php. 2:7). He emptied Himself, not of His divinitythat was impossiblebut of the outward and self-manifesting glories of the Godhead. He took the form of a servant by being made in the likeness of man. He remained full of divinity, yet He bore Himself as if He were empty. A native preacher among the Oneidas, addressing his fellow-converts, said: What are the views you form of the character of Jesus? You will answer, perhaps, that He was a man of singular benevolence. You will tell me that He proved this to be His character by the nature of the miracles He wrought. He created bread to feed thousands who were ready to perish. He raised to life the son of a poor woman who was a widow, and to whom his labours were necessary for her support in old age. Are these then your only views of the Saviour? I will tell you they are lame. When Jesus came into the world He threw His blanket around Him, but the God was within.
III. The humiliation of Christ reached its climax in a career of obedience even unto death.He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Php. 2:8). He fulfilled all the demands of law and of God. He shrank not from deathdeath in its most shameful and ignoble form, the death of the cross. He was numbered with the transgressorsnot an honourable death, but like the degrading execution of criminals. He went to the realm of the dead and revolutionised it. Hitherto death had reigned supreme, an unbroken power. The prison-house of the dead was fast locked. None returned. Now One comes there who has the keys of Hades and of death. He opens the door and sets the captives free. Meekness in suffering, prayer for His murderers, a faithful resignation of His soul into the hands of His heavenly Father, the sun eclipsed, the heavens darkened, the earth trembling, the graves open, the rocks rent, the veil of the Temple tornwho could say less than this, Truly, this was the Son of God? He suffers patiently; this is through the power of grace; many good men have done so through His enabling. The frame of nature suffers with Him; this is proper to the God of Nature, the Son of God (Bishop Hall).
IV. The humiliation of Christ is an example of unselfishness to all His followers.Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Php. 2:5). The apostle does not put forth himself as an example, but Christ. Christ gave His all for us, and we should give our all to Him, and our best service for the good of others. No one can follow Christ until he has first found Christ. Some try to imitate Christ before they have savingly found Him. To look at Christ as our Example only, and not as our Redeemer, is not to see Him as He is. Without faith in Christ as our Redeemer we cannot really follow His example. Without the grace of Christ there can be no imitation of Christ. A little girl once presented to a celebrated statesman a small bouquet of ordinary flowers, the only one she could procure at the season. He inquired why she gave him the bouquet. Because I love you, the child answered. Do you bring any little gifts to Jesus? he asked. Oh, said the child, I give myself to Him.
Lessons.
1. The unselfish are always humble.
2. The humble are patient in doing and suffering.
3. Humility is the pathway of exaltation.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Php. 2:5-8. The Incarnate Deity.
I. That Christ did not seek to retain an appearance of divine glory and co-equality.
II. He divested Himself actually of His appropriate and descriptive ensigns of divine nature and government.
III. He entered upon a course of responsible subordination.
IV. He united Himself to human nature by a perfect incarnation.
V. He stooped to the most extreme depression of state.
VI. He reduced Himself to the necessity of death.
VII. He yielded to death in a peculiar form.
Lessons.
1. How admirable is the expedient of the Redeemers incarnation!
2. What a sublime example does the conduct of the Saviour afford.R. W. Hamilton.
Php. 2:5. The Christian Temper the Same Mind which was in Christ.
I. Some things in which we cannot consider Christ as an example.All those graces in us which suppose our guilt and fallen state could not be exemplified to us by our Saviour.
II. Some things related of Christ we must not pretend to imitate.What He did under the character of Messiah was peculiar to Himself, and not designed to put us on doing likewise.
III. Why Christians should copy the mind and temper of Christ.
1. It was the design of God to set His Son before us as the model of the Christian temper.
2. He was a pattern admirably fitted to be proposed to our imitation.
(1) He was an example in our own nature.
(2) His circumstances and conduct in our nature adapted His example to the most general use.
(3) His example was perfect, so that it has the force of a rule.
3. The relations in which we stand to Christ and the concern we have with Him lay us under the strongest engagements to endeavour a resemblance. He is our friend, our Lord and Master, our Head, our Judge, the model of our final happiness.
Lessons.
1. Christianity in its main design is a practical thing.
2. We see the advantages we have by the gospel beyond any other dispensation for true goodness.
3. How inexcusable must they be who are not recovered to a godlike temper and conversation by this most excellent dispensation!
4. With what care and attention should We study the life of Christ!J. Evans. D.D.
Christ our Pattern.
I.
The mind of Christ was a pure mind.
II.
A self-sacrificing mind.
III.
A lowly mind.
IV.
A forbearing mind.
V.
A constant mind.
VI.
A prayerful mind.Preachers Magazine.
Php. 2:6-7. Christ the Redeemer.This which the Son of God did and underwent is the one fact of heaven and earth, with which none in creation, none in history, none in your own personal being, can for a moment be compared, but in the presence and in the light of which all these ought to be contemplated and concludedthat it is the great object of faith and practice. Of faithfor upon the personal and hearty reception of it as the foundation of your life before God, that life itself, and all its prospects, depend; of practicefor high above all other examples, shining over and blessing while it surpasses them, is this mighty example of the Son of God. Oh, brethren, how the selfish man and the selfish woman and the selfish family ought to depart from such a theme as this, downcast for very shame, and abased at their unlikeness to the pattern which they profess to be imitating! Oh that this question might be fixed and rankle like a dart in their bosoms, even till it will take no answer but the surrender of the life to Him, and, by the daily grace of His Spirit, living as He lived!Alford.
Php. 2:8. Christs Crucifixion
I. As an historical fact.It is quite certain.
II. As displaying in its circumstances every variety of human character.
III. As accompanied by striking prodigies.The darkened sun, the quaking earth, the cleft rocks, the rent veil, the opened graves.
IV. As furnishing an illustrious example of the passive virtuesTaught us how to suffer and to die.
V. As being the brightest manifestation of self-denying and self-devoting love.
VI. As constituting the sole meritorious cause of human salvation.Who is the sufferer? The Son of God. Why does He suffer? As a prophet, as a martyr, as an example? Yes; but chiefly as a sacrifice for sin.
VII. As producing the most wonderful moral transformations.On individuals, on communities, and on Christendom.G. Brooks.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
5. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Translation and Paraphrase
5. Let this way of thinking continue among you, (that same feeling) which also was in Christ Jesus (when he came to earth).
Notes
1.
The final and strongest appeal for unity is the example of Jesus Christ.
2.
2:5 can either be read as the closing verse of the paragraph Php. 2:1-5, or as a starting verse to Php. 2:5-11. Either way it is rich in meaning.
3.
This verse introduces Php. 2:6-11, which is a paragraph with some of the deepest theological thoughts in the New Testament in it.
Notice carefully, however, that Paul did not employ theology to satisfy our curiosity about divine secrets, but to get us to live lives in which discord, selfish ambitions, and disunity are excluded.
4.
We hear much about heart transplants. Christians must have mind transplants; the mind of Christ must replace our old sinful minds.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(5-8) From a practical introduction, in the familiar exhortation to follow the example of our Lord, St. Paul passes on to what is, perhaps, the most complete and formal statement in all his Epistles of the doctrine of His great humility. In this he marks out, first, the Incarnation, in which, being in the form of God, He took on Him the form of a servant, assuming a sinless but finite humanity; and next, the Passion, which was made needful by the sins of men, and in which His human nature was humiliated to the shame and agony of the cross. Inseparable in themselves, these two great acts of His self-sacrificing love must be distinguished. Ancient speculation delighted to suggest that the first might have been, even if humanity had remained sinless, while the second was added because of the fall and its consequences. Such speculations are, indeed, thoroughly precarious and unsubstantialfor we cannot ask what might have been in a different dispensation from our own; and, moreover, we read of our Lord as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8; see also 1Pe. 1:19)but they at least point to a true distinction. As the Word of God manifested in the Incarnation, our Lord is the treasure of all humanity as such; as the Saviour through death, He is the especial treasure of us as sinners.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
[4.
The Doctrine of the Great Humility of Christ (Php. 2:5-11).
(1) THE VOLUNTARY HUMILIATION OF THE LORD, first in His incarnation, next in His passion (Php. 2:5-8).
(2) THE CORRESPONDING EXALTATION OF HIS HUMANITY, to bear the Name above every name, which all creation must adore (Php. 2:9-11).]
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Illustration in the self-denial of Christ, Php 2:5-11.
a. His voluntary self-humiliation, Php 2:5-8 .
5. This mind Identity in disposition between them and Christ, especially in his self-denying sacrifice for others. This is the point for the illustration and enforcement of which the example of Christ is adduced. We may observe,
(1) That the incarnate Christ alone is here spoken of ought to be beyond all question. He existed in the form of God before he took the form of a servant. His becoming man was preceded by a self-divestiture, and this again by thinking a certain thing no robbery. It is, then, the pre-existent Christ whose action in self-humiliation is here described; and we have before us, in succession, his ante-mundane glory, his voluntary abasement, and his subsequent exaltation.
(2) The form of God cannot mean his divine nature or essence, although its possession is implied, because in taking humanity he did not put off his Godhead; nor his extraordinarily miraculous powers, for he retained them in his incarnate state; nor yet again his attributes of omnipotence and omniscience, for he did not divest himself of them. It is rather the majesty and glory in which God dwells and appears to the eyes of the angels, manifesting his infinite perfections, the splendour and visible “light which no man can approach;” (1Ti 6:16😉 the glory which Christ had with the Father “before the world was,” (Joh 17:5,) with the myriads of attending angels, the worship and honour paid him, and his whole state of heavenly royalty.
(3) That Christ is equal with God is here an asserted fact. He who has the form of God must be on an equality with him in every respect, and especially in the possession of this form, which is the particular thing in contrast with the form of a servant which he chose instead.
(4) Thought it not robbery, etc. This clause is better translated, he deemed not his being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped at, that is, grasped and exclusively retained for himself. Christ had a clear right both to his Godhead, and the glorious mode of manifesting himself in which the inhabitants of heaven were wont to see him. Equally clear was his right to retain that glory and to appear the God forever. Had he been moved by selfishness instead of love had he looked only on his own things and not also on the things of others he would have held fast his glorious state, and appeared on earth in all his majesty. This is just what he did not do. Conceive him as deciding whether he will retain his glory or become man, and we see him thinking the glory a thing not to be seized and firmly held, if by laying it aside he can better save men. His self-denying motive is thus apparent.
(5) Instead of an eager clinging to his right of his majestic glory in an appearance among men, he, on the contrary, made himself of no reputation, or, better translated, he emptied himself. But of what did he empty himself? Not his divine nature not his essential equality with God not his attributes not his absolute right to his glory: of these he could not divest himself. He did not cease to be God, but he laid aside, phenomenally, the form of God, vailing his ineffable glory, hiding his awful majesty, and foregoing the exhibition of himself to men as God.
(6) The mode and extent of this self-divestiture appear in the contrast of his assumed with his previous condition. He had the form of God, he took the form of a servant of God instead. His appearance before men was as a servant who obeys, and not the Infinite King who commands. Still further, he was made in the likeness of men. Jesus of Nazareth was true man, but the eternal Logos took that humanity upon him.
(7) The description thus far is of the condescension of our Lord from his pre-mundane glory to his self-emptying in his incarnation. It is now of his self-humiliation after having taken humanity and vailed his glory, that is, as the incarnate Logos. In this state, with all the outward semblance of a man, he humbled himself yet further, by becoming obedient to the will of God unto the suffering of death; and, as if this were not going sufficiently low, even to the death of the cross, the severest in pain and the most revolting in its shame. Higher than he was he could not be; to a lower depth of humiliation he could not go. A more powerful argument against “ strife,” “ vainglory,” and all self-seeking could not be framed.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,’
We may translate more literally, ‘Be thus minded (phroneite) in/among yourselves which also in Christ Jesus’. The thought here is not simply that they were to see what Jesus Christ did as an example which they were to follow, although it included that, but that they were to see it as something into which they were to actually enter by experience. This is made clear in Php 3:15 where Paul speaks of entering into the resurrection and suffering of Jesus Christ, and calls on them to be ‘thus minded’. This was thus a call to have the mind of Christ and as a result to set their minds so as to enter into His death and resurrection by experience, something which above all would foster oneness among them. We can compare how in Rom 8:5-6 Paul speaks of those who live according to the Spirit as having the mind of the Spirit, and adds that to have the mind of the Spirit is life and peace’, where the idea of having the mind of the Spirit is that they fully enter into the experience of the Spirit at work within them and thus let the Spirit be active through them. In consequence he could similarly say, ‘with the mind I serve the law of God’ (Rom 7:25), indicating that his mind, heart and will were continually set to do the will of God. In other words, with his mind he was committed to God’s principle of direction because he was in Christ, reckoning himself to be dead to sin but alive to God through Jesus Christ his Lord (Rom 6:11).
A further example of this can be found in Col 3:2-4 where Paul declared, ‘if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds (phroneite) on things above, and not on things on the earth, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ Who is our life appears, than shall we also appear with Him in glory.’ Once again the thought was of entering by commitment and experience into the resurrection of Christ and its consequence, having first entered into His death. This was to have the mind that was in Christ Jesus.
Here then was the call to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Him (Mat 16:24), in such a way as to be empowered by His resurrection life, after having submitted themselves to death with Him (compare Php 3:10; Rom 6:3-11; Gal 2:20), the final consequence being that they would share the glory of Christ. Indeed as Eph 1:19 to Eph 2:10 makes clear, there was a sense in which they already shared in that glory, for in the spiritual realm (the heavenlies) they had already been raised and seated with Christ. But the assurance here was that one day it would come to full fruit in body as well as in spirit.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
A Description Of The Pathway Of Humility And Selflessness Followed By Jesus Christ, And Its Final Glorious Consequence ( Php 2:5-11 ).
Paul has previously emphasised ‘the Gospel’ (Php 1:5; Php 1:27 (twice)), but now he portrays it in all its fullness. It is that we can and should follow Jesus Christ in denying ourselves, taking up the cross and following Him (Mat 16:24; Mar 8:34), entering personally into His humiliation and death, and subsequently into His resurrection (Php 3:10-11). For we must not see in these words simply a call to see Christ as a glorious example. Rather they are a call to have the same mind-set of Christ in following Him fully into the full-time, unstinting service of God and men, through our own humiliation, death and resurrection in Christ. They are a commitment to total self-sacrifice in the name of Christ, through entering into His humiliation and death, which will result in new resurrection life and final glorification. They are a commitment to having ‘the mind of the Spirit’ (Rom 8:2-11). And that is that ‘If Christ dwells in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness’, something which will lead on to final resurrection (Rom 8:10-11).
This is stressed here in Philippians by the words, ‘Let this mind be in you —’ or ‘Be minded in this way’. This is not just a call to consecration, it is a call to constant, unwavering consecration based on the cross. It is a call to enter into the experience of Jesus Christ Himself. It is a call to walk as He walked as we enter spiritually into His death and resurrection (Php 3:10-11; Rom 6:3-11; Gal 2:20). And it begins with an emptying of ourselves in an act of total self-surrender to the will of God, so that we receive the mind of Christ (1Co 2:16), the mind of the Spirit (Rom 8:4-6; Rom 8:9-11).
Compare how ‘having the mind of the Spirit’ in Rom 8:4-6; Rom 8:9-11 involves having the Holy Spirit at work within us producing His mind within us. In the same way here having ‘the mind of Christ’ involves having Christ within us producing His mind within us as he walks the way of humility and the cross.
The background to this portrayal is found in those verses which speak of our personally and experientially entering into Christ’s death and resurrection. Consider, for example, Php 3:10-16; Rom 6:3-11; Gal 2:20; Eph 2:1-10; 1Pe 4:1-2. To enter into the mind of Christ is to ‘reckon ourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Rom 6:11). Thereby we are both justified (reckoned as righteous) before God, and sanctified (set apart as holy that we might be made holy) by Him.
It is indeed significant that the greatest portrayal of the true Godhood and manhood of Christ to be found in Scripture (as found here in Philippians) is at the heart of such a call to surrender. It is a reminder that true Christian doctrine, while meanwhile being true in itself, is intended to affect the whole of our lives and to become a part of our living experience. Thus while we can see this as a great Christological statement, it would be a distortion of Paul’s purpose in stating it if we saw it only as that. It is rather also a call for all of us to ‘follow in His steps by full participation in the cross and resurrection’. We are to enter into Christ because He has entered into us. In approaching these verses many simply race on to consider what they tell us about our Lord Jesus Christ, ignoring the context. But it is very important to consider that the verses are equally intended to tell us what we ought to be. Thus every line should hammer its way into our hearts and our experience. It is not only describing the path taken by Christ, it is describing also the path that we must be determined to take from this moment on.
However, if we are to so apply it to ourselves, we must first have a thorough understanding of what it involved for Him, and we intend therefore first to examine what it tells us about Jesus Christ, before we then stress its application to ourselves. But in doing so we must urge that the reader does not overlook the main object of the passage.
Php 2:6-11 have been seen as an ancient creed which Paul either himself wrote for the churches, or which he took up from an already well-known creed and fashioned for his purpose. Further than that we cannot say. But there can be no doubt about its credal form and we may paraphrase it as follows;
“Who, essentially existing continually (huparchown) in the unchanging revealed nature (morphe) of God,
Did not count the being on an equality with God a snatching (or ‘a thing to be grasped at’),
But emptied himself, taking the unchanging revealed nature (morphe) of a servant,
Being made in the very likeness of men,
And being found as having a more temporary but real form (schema) as a man,
He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross.
For which reason also God highly exalted him,
And gave to him the name which is above every name,
That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
Of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth,
And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD,
To the glory of God the Father.
Our first question then must be, what does this tell us about the essential nature of Jesus Christ? As can be seen the creed divides into two parts, the first describes His deliberate taking of ‘the way down’ until He reaches the very lowest point of all at the cross. The second describes the resultant way up until He attains the pinnacle as LORD.
The first statement, “Essentially existing continually (huparchown) in the unchanging revealed nature (morphe) of God”, makes clear His absolute total divinity. The present tense of the verb huparchown makes clear that His existence was a continual one, and was therefore seen as unrestricted by time, while in such a context huparchow can only refer to essential being. Compare its use in 1Co 11:7 where man ‘is essentially’ (huparchown) the image and glory of God, being that from the very beginning, whereas the woman ‘is derivably’ (estin) from the image of the man. Morphe thus indicates permanent essential form in contrast with temporary changing form (schema – Php 2:8). As men look at the morphe, they see the one who has that ‘morphe of God’ as being fully and permanently revealed by it. Morphe reveals the essence. No Greek words could have made Jesus’ divine nature more certain. It is a reminder of His words in Joh 17:5, ‘And now, O Father, glorify Me, with the glory which I had with you before the world was’. Of Him we can say on the basis of these words in Philippians, ‘From everlasting to everlasting, You are God’.
Elsewhere Paul describes this movement from His pre-incarnate state in terms of ‘being rich’ and ‘becoming poor’, when he declares, ‘You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet He became poor, so that we through His poverty might be made rich’ (2Co 8:9). In this verse ‘was rich’ can only signify His pre-incarnate state. So these words in Corinthians can be seen as a summary of the application of Php 2:6-11 to God’s people. He did this so that we could become ‘rich’.
Note how this phrase and the one that follows (He was essentially God and yet was not holding on to Godhead) is paralleled in the passage with the fact that He is declared by all creation to be ‘LORD’, to the glory of God the Father (Php 2:11). His willing submission is seen as bringing Him final honour, and as bringing glory to His Father.
The second statement, ‘Did not count the being on an equality with God a snatching’ (harpagmos), thus an act of robbery, or a thing to be ‘grasped at’ or ‘taken advantage of’. Thus it could equally be translated as ‘did not think it robbery to be equal with God’. It is literally ‘did not thing equality with God harpagmos’, with harpagmos (a snatching, something which could be snatched for personal advantage, a committing of robbery) indicating something that if grasped would be seen by others as a snatching, or something available to be snatched or taken advantage of, or as an act of robbery. With regard to Him it could not be seen in that way.
Whichever way we take it, it is not saying that Jesus considered equality as a prize which He had not yet obtained. Rather it indicated that it could be seen as something which was His by right so that, if He did decide to bask in it, it would not have been seen as in any way incongruous or unacceptable. Nevertheless it was something that He chose not to do. So the idea is not that He was being commended because, having no right to it, He did not determine to seize it or cling on to it at all costs. It is rather saying that He did have the right, had He wished, to maintain the position and status of equality with God, but in the light of His destiny chose for a time not to do so. He did not snatch at it for personal advantage. To give a lesser illustration, the choice facing every king on his throne is whether to cling on to his exclusiveness, or whether alternatively to descend among his people and be one with them. Jesus chose the latter course to the uttermost.
The third statement, ‘But emptied himself, taking the unchanging revealed nature (morphe) of a servant (doulos)’, demonstrates that the king relinquished His exclusiveness, and, descending among His people, even became a slave among them. Notice what the emptying involved. The One Who had the morphe (essential nature) of God took on Him the morphe (essential nature) of a servant. The One Who was by right the Master became the slave. The Creator became the servant of creation. Thereby He ‘emptied Himself’ of all that distinguished Him from man, and took on Himself the permanent nature and status of a servant, a status which He still enjoys (Luk 12:37). For He had come to serve (Mar 10:45), and to be the Servant King.
We must, however, beware here of too much speculation. It is so easy theoretically to speak of Him ‘divesting Himself of His Godhood’ as though that was something that He could easily do, in the same way as a man divests himself of his clothes at night. But it must be recognised that just as no man does or can divest himself of his essential being, neither could God divest Himself of His essential and eternal Being. In God’s case that would indeed be a contradiction in terms, for the essence of God is that He is and always must be eternal. He cannot cease to be what He is. Thus God could not divest Himself of Godhood. This is both a fact of His nature and is also true by definition.
So Jesus did not cease to be God, nor lose His eternal attributes. Rather He ‘emptied Himself’ by setting aside the use of His eternal attributes, and the outward status that was His, so that He could live as a man among men, and as a slave of all. He turned His back on His exclusivity, and became like the lowest of the low. How far He subsequently used His own divine powers while on earth, as opposed to being the channel of the powers of the Father and the Spirit, must always be indeterminable, although He did make clear that He had those powers (Joh 5:21). It is not for man to know or discern the full intricacies of the working of the Godhead, for they are one in threeness. What we do know is that He was ‘made in all points like as we are, and yet without sin’ (Heb 4:15), walking continually and uniquely in cooperation with His Father (e.g. Joh 5:17; Joh 5:19) and with the Holy Spirit (Mat 10:28). In a very real sense ‘God was there in Christ and was reconciling the world to Himself’ in a unique way (2Co 5:19). This is the very heart of the Gospel.
The fourth statement, ‘Being made in the very likeness of men’, indicates that He took on Himself true manhood. It is a contrast with Adam’s having been made ‘in the likeness of God’ (Gen 1:26), that is, as having a spiritual nature. It is confirming that just as Adam’s spiritual nature was genuine, so is Jesus’ human nature genuine, the difference being that Jesus Christ moved ‘downwards’ from Godhood to manhood, while Adam moved ‘upwards’ from being a living creature to having a spirit. Notice the contrast between His being a servant and His being man. He could have come as a servant without becoming man, and He could have come as man without becoming a servant. What He chose to do was to become both. Compare Mar 10:45, where He ‘came not to be served but to serve’, and to perform the greatest of all service in giving His life ‘as a ransom instead of many’. The latter was, of course, only possible because He was God. No finite man would have been sufficient to cover the cost of the whole of redeemed mankind.
The fifth statement, ‘And being found as having a real but temporary form (schema) as a man’, again indicates His essential and genuine manhood. We translate ‘having a temporary form’ because it is in contrast to His permanent form as God. Nevertheless it is still saying that He was revealed as man precisely because He was man. We may translate as, ‘having the appearance of man’ as long as it is recognised that the appearance was seen as demonstrating the underlying reality. He ‘appeared as a man’, NOT ‘He appeared to be a man’. ‘Schema’ does not just mean outward appearance. It indicates a real form which reveals the reality beneath, even though of a temporary nature as compared with morphe which is more permanent. Morphe is the ‘form’ that reveals the essential being, schema is the form that the morphe takes at a particular period in time. Compare how a man is always essentially ‘man’, but may take up different ‘forms’ (schema) throughout life such as infant, child, teenager, adult, and so on. Thus Jesus is God throughout all His existence, but He becomes man at one stage in His existence, remaining so permanently from then on until the final end, although moving from pre-resurrection to post-resurrection manhood meanwhile. As God He sits on His Father’s throne. As man He sits on His own throne at God’s right hand (Rev 3:21). Note how Paul avoids using the word morphe of His manhood. That might have been to suggest that having become man He was somehow no longer God. But that was not true. In His morphe He was God, but he had taken the form (schema) of man. He was both God and man.
The sixth statement, ‘He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross’, makes absolutely clear His real manhood. He could only die because He had truly become man, for His Godhood could not die. In this regard we can compare how in a man his body may die, but in one way or another his spirit lives on. In the same way the body of Jesus died, but His Godhood lived on. The stress here, however, is on the fact that in dying as a man He also fulfilled His position as a servant (doulos), and followed in the way of obedience. This emphasis on obedience must not be overlooked. Full submission and obedience as a human being was central to what He had come to do (Rom 5:19; Heb 5:8; Heb 10:5-10. Being obedient He humbly took the lowest way and died the death of a slave (doulos). Crucifixion was looked on as the way of executing the lowest of the low (slaves and insurrectionists). Thus He became the ultimate servant. We can compare here the description of the Servant in Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12 who also gave His life as a ransom and as a guilt offering for many (Isa 53:10). And while LXX uses pais for servant, doulos is used in parallel to it in other Greek versions and in sources used by the New Testament writers (pais and doulos have been shown to be largely, although not completely, interchangeable). Here Jesus was fulfilling the prophecy of the Coming Servant to the utmost. Here we have reached the nadir of His descent into manhood, as He demonstrated through suffering and death that it was true manhood. Notice how these final phrases summarise the depths to which He was willing to go in three emphatic stages. ‘He humbled Himself (compare Isa 53:7 a) — and became obedient to death (Isa 53:7 b) — even death on a cross’. He humbled Himself as the servant of all, He obediently accepted the path of death (only One Who was God could choose to die, compare Joh 10:11; Joh 10:15; Joh 10:17, while only One Who was man could die), and He finally and most excruciatingly actually suffered death on a cross. In other words in this God was revealed as both true servant who will face up to the fullest demands of servitude, and willing sacrifice Who will offer up Himself, and in this we get to the very centre of the heart of God.
We cannot, however, leave this statement without drawing attention to one more thing which to Paul was central to the Gospel, and that is that to a Jew ‘death on a cross’ was the utmost in shame because it indicated being under the curse of God. To the Jew it was abhorrent. No greater humiliation could be conceived. And in Gal 3:10-13 Paul takes up the idea in order to illustrate how by His death on the cross Jesus Christ took on Himself the curse that was on all men for breaking the Law. ‘Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ (Gal 3:13).
The seventh statement begins the second stanza which expresses what would result from His obedience and humiliation. ‘For which reason also God highly exalted him’. ‘For which reason’ stresses the connection with what has gone before. It was because of what Jesus chose to do, and because of the pathway of obedience that He was willing to take (‘Father, not My will but yours be done’ – Luk 22:42), going down even to the lowest possible level, that ‘God highly exalted Him’. What was involved in that is described in what follows. He was to be lifted to the highest possible position. Compare Isa 52:13, where this was intended to be the destiny of the Coming Servant of God, and Isa 57:15 where it is God Who is ‘the high and lofty One’. Servanthood and Godhood combine for the One who had the form of both God and servant. Nor must we overlook the fact that this exaltation by the Father was necessary as a full vindication of Jesus. By this it was being made clear that far from Jesus’ humiliation reflecting the Father’s displeasure, it was necessarily (‘for this reason’) followed by vindication, indicating that what He had suffered had all been part of a necessary purpose within the will of God.
The eighth statement, ‘And gave to him the name which is above every name,’ raises the question as to what is ‘the Name above every Name’. To a Jew there could be only one answer to that question, it was YHWH (‘the One Who is’), which translates into Greek as ‘LORD’, the Name emphasised by God to Moses in the form ‘I am’ (Exo 3:13-15), the Name of God from earliest times (Gen 4:26), the Name that Jesus applied to Himself in Joh 8:58 as the I AM, for YHWH was what was constantly indicated in the Old Testament when ‘the Name’ was spoken of. And this Name was to be ‘given’ to Jesus. Not because He had not enjoyed it before, but because He had relinquished it on becoming man. He had deliberately chosen to be reduced in status. The giving of a name indicated the approval of the giver. Thus God the Father was by this indicating His approval of the return of the Son to ‘the glory which I had with You before the world was’ (Joh 17:5) on equal terms with Himself.
A less careful consideration of the passage might suggest to some that the Name above every Name was ‘Jesus’, but a moment’s thought will demonstrate that this could not be so. It is true that in our modern day the name Jesus is in many parts of the world seen as distinctively applying only to Jesus Christ, and such people might thus be prepared to give it this honour. But that is not true, for example, in South America where many males are given the name Jesus, and certainly in 1st century AD the name Jesus (Hebrew – Joshua) was very popular among Jews. It could not have been described therefore as a unique ‘Name above every Name’. It was rather a name borne by tens of thousands of people. In another context ‘the name of Jesus’ could have been seen as signifying ‘what Jesus essentially is’, but in this context a specific Name is required (the Name above every Name). Another possibility might have been the Name Immanuel (Isa 7:14). But there is no reason specifically why that should be called ‘the Name above every Name, and Paul clearly expected it to be understood. Everything points to that Name being YHWH.
But what other grounds have we for thinking that ‘the Name above every Name’ is the Name of YHWH? A further reason is that the creed goes on to say that it was the Name at which ‘every knee would bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD to the glory of God the Father’. This is partly a citation from Isa 45:22-24 where the words were specifically spoken of YHWH. It was YHWH to Whom every knee would bow, and every tongue would swear. Thus Jesus Christ is here seen as receiving the honour due to YHWH in the very way described in the prophets.
The third reason is because it is specifically stated in Php 2:11 that Jesus Christ is to be confessed as ‘LORD’. Now ‘LORD’ was the Greek word which was used to translate the Hebrew name YHWH in the Greek Old Testament, and was thus the Name of God. Thus, combined with the fact that YHWH was to the Jews unquestionably ‘the Name above every Name’, the Name which must never be pronounced (which was why LXX used ‘Lord’), there can really be no doubt that this was the Name to be given to Jesus. This is confirmed by verses such as 1Co 8:6, where we read ‘for us there is One GOD, the Father — and One LORD, Jesus Christ –’. Here Paul basically equates the God, the Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ, for to the Greeks ‘one LORD’ would undoubtedly have indicated divinity just as ‘one GOD’ did (1Co 8:5), while, as we have seen, to the Jew ‘LORD’ in a divine context indicated the Name of YHWH. It is a reminder that when Jesus is called LORD in a context with the divine in mind it signifies that He is YHWH just as the Father is God and YHWH.
This fact is further confirmed by the fact that in Isa 45:21 we read, ‘Was it not I, YHWH? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Saviour, there is none besides me.’ There YHWH is described as the only Saviour. It is thus all the more significant that Jesus is regularly spoken of as the Saviour, and even as ‘God and Saviour’ (Tit 2:14; 2Pe 1:1), and we should further note how in Tit 2:10 to Tit 3:7 ‘God our Saviour’ and ‘Jesus Christ our Saviour’ are spoken of intermittently in parallel terms. Note also how in 1Ti 1:1 ‘God our saviour’ is paralleled with ‘Jesus Christ our hope’, both conveying the same basic idea, that they are our Saviour and our Hope for the future.
The ninth statement is ‘That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow.’ As we have seen the citation is from the Old Testament where every knee was to bow to YHWH the Saviour. So the clear thought is that Jesus will receive the honour due to YHWH, and that YHWH is ‘the name of Jesus’ given to Him by God. The picture is of a suzerain lord before whom his people come to pay fealty and yield their submission (compare Rev 5:8; Rev 5:12-13). It would have a particularly encouraging significance for the Philippians if they had already had to face challenges to bow the knee to Caesar and to own him as ‘Lord’, that is, as their god. Here then was the antithesis of that, that one day their persecutors themselves would have to bow the knee to Jesus Christ and admit that it is He Who is Lord. It must have given the Philippian Christians a great sense of security.
The tenth statement is, ‘Of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth.’ The description is all inclusive. All heavenly beings, all created things on earth, and all the dead will bow the knee to Jesus, owning Him as LORD. None are excluded. It is absolute victory. ‘Things under the earth’ indicates the bodies of men which have been buried and have not yet risen.
The eleventh statement is, ‘And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is LORD’. Here was the ultimate accolade, the confessing of Him as ‘LORD’, in other words as YHWH, the Creator and Lord of Heaven and earth. Note the description ‘Jesus Christ’ which differentiates Him from any other Jesus. This confirms that the Name above every Name was not simply the name ‘Jesus’, because that name is seen as having to be qualified. Confessing as ‘lord’ was the way in which men swore fealty to their rulers. Here that fealty is being sworn to Jesus Christ as Lord by all in Heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the underworld below this earth where the bodies of the dead await the resurrection. He is seen as Lord of all.
The twelfth and final statement is ‘to the glory of God the Father’. This is an indication of the absolute unity of the Triune God. Jesus being given the highest honour and acclaimed as YHWH is not seen as detracting from the Father but as giving added glory to the Father as the Son is restored to the glory which He had with the Father before the world was (Joh 17:5). Indeed this was all a part of the eternal plan which was now in process of fulfilment, bringing increased glory to the whole Godhead. All things were being gathered together in Christ so that ultimately God might be all in all (Eph 1:10; 1Co 15:24-25; 1Co 15:28).
It also answered the question of anyone who asked, ‘if Jesus Christ was declared to be YHWH would that not detract from the glory of the Father?’ ‘Never!’ Paul replies. ‘Rather it adds to His glory.’
The Application.
Having first examined what the passage tells us about the status and significance of our LORD Jesus Christ we must now consider the ideas in their wider context, for to Paul this was not just a theological statement, important though it was as that, but something into which each Christian must enter as a part of the whole church. It was reinforcing the call to all of them to humility and oneness in Php 2:1-4.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Example of Christ’s Humility.
Christ’s state of humiliation and its lesson:
v. 5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
v. 6. who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
v. 7. but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men;
v. 8. and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. His admonition to meekness and humility the apostle supports in the most emphatic manner: After this manner think in yourselves that also was in Christ Jesus. The Christians should have this mind, this opinion, concerning themselves, they should let this manner of thinking govern their view of life. As they were ready to make great sacrifices for the sake of Christ. so let them display the same quality in the common concerns of daily business and social intercourse. Jesus, in His work, in His office as Savior of the world, should be continually before their eyes. The mind of Christ should live in the Christians. This is the argument with which the apostle clinches his entire argumentation and admonition. The Christians will be able to follow the entire exhortation of Paul if they always have the example of Christ in their minds.
Now Paul draws his picture of Christ: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God). Jesus is here represented as the Son of God incarnate, in His capacity as Savior of the world, as man among men, who alone can be an example to men. This man, Jesus Christ, found Himself in the form of God, Mar 16:12; Php_3:21 ; Rom 8:29; Php_3:10 ; Rom 12:2; 2Co 3:18; Mat 17:12. His form, His external appearance, which, of course, included His nature, was that of God. Only one that has the nature of God, who in His essence is God, will also have divine form. This form of God includes every manner of manifestation of His divinity, everything wherein the divinity is shown, Joh 1:14. It is the divine glory and majesty which includes all the divine attributes and qualities, especially His omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence. They are a part of God’s essence, they are the divine majesty, the sum total of God’s glory. Thus the eternal Son of God, in His incarnation, found Himself in the form of God, invested with all His glory and majesty. He was not merely clothed with divine form and glory, but He possessed this glory and majesty as His own. He not only stood on the same level with God, He was identical with God. But He did not count it a prize to be on an equality with God. For the sake of saving sinners, Christ regarded the wonderful prize of His divinity, with all its manifestations, lightly. He did not make use of His glory and majesty as a prize or spoil to be held by Him at all costs, even after His incarnation; He did not make a show of the majesty and glory that were His, as a victor might display his spoils. He did not make use of the possessions which His human nature had gained according to vagrant fancies; He did not make a shop of His divinity, merely for the sake of gaining favor and making impressions.
This resolution of Christ found its expression in His life: But emptied Himself, assuming the form of a servant, being made in likeness of men, and in habit found like a man; He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Here the completeness of Christ’s self-renunciation is brought out. He emptied Himself, poured out His contents, though not His substance. He voluntarily gave up something, waived His right, renounced its use for the time being. Not that Jesus, during His earthly ministry, had merely prophetic gifts, as those given by God to the prophets of old. By His own almighty power Jesus performed the great miracles which are recorded of Him. It is true, indeed, that He and the Father are one, and that He received the works from the Father, but it is true, also, that He performed them in His own power. But He voluntarily divested Himself of the unbounded, continual use of His divine majesty. He did not give up the divine nature, but only its unlimited use. He might often have helped Himself, but He chose not to make use of His glory, because He wanted to be the Savior of the world. He deliberately assumed the form of a servant, that was the way in which He emptied Himself. Not that His incarnation was a degradation, a humiliation, but the fact that He became a poor, lowly, humble man, that he took upon Himself the likeness of our sinful flesh and bore the misery of fallen mankind in His body. He seemed altogether like other people of His day and time. The peculiar weaknesses of the flesh He also endured, hunger, thirst, faintness, etc. These are attributes of men in their present sinful condition, weaknesses that are the result of sin. And the fact that He became subject to these natural affections of man shows that He divested Himself of His divine glory, renounced its full and continual use. Thus there is a double nature in Christ, that of God and that of a true human being. He might have come down on earth as a glorified, sinless man, like Adam before the Fall. And there is not only a double nature in Christ, divine and human, but also a double form of being, the form of God and that of a servant, of a poor, lowly human being. These were not successive states, but they were present at the same time in the person of Christ. That was Christ’s condition, an example for all Christians.
The humiliation of Christ proceeded by degrees; the longer He lived, the more thoroughly He emptied Himself, the more completely He was clothed with the form of a servant. He became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. The greatest and most serious ill which sinful flesh is heir to is that of death, since death represents the culmination of all evils caused by sin. Christ’s death was one of an especially cursed nature, that on the cross. In this respect His humiliation went beyond the usual experience of sin-laden human beings. He died a cruel death, not that of a Roman citizen, but that of a base criminal, of a slave. This represents the last, the most abject degree of degradation. But He was willing to undergo all; He put aside, for the time being, the glory which was His, in order to be to the full extent, in the complete meaning of the term, the Savior of the world. He died as one that laid down his life of his own free will. The fact that His death was a willing sacrifice, and for that reason was so valuable, is stressed here. Note: Just as Christ showed Himself a shining example of humility, so the Christians should learn of Him. They should also, for the sake of love for Christ and their brethren, waive their rights, not be over insistent upon their rights, their honor, and their interests. They should learn to suffer also the evil, the wrong which is committed against them, willingly and gladly. Thus will they show the spirit of Christ among themselves and toward one another, thus will they preserve Christian love and harmony, thus will they live as it becometh the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Php 2:5. Let this mind be in you, For the same temper of mind ought to be in you which was in Christ Jesus. Heylin. To support his doctrine, and to enforce obedience to it, the Apostle sets before the Philippians the example of Christ, and in livelycolours represents his great humility: he shews them how much he descended below himself for their sakes; how infinitely great he was, and how truly low he made himself; bynature, how much higher than the highest; by choice, how much lower than the lowest. It should be observed, that, in the succeeding verses, the Apostle points out to us three different states and conditions of Christ: the first is his state of infinite dignity, from which, in some sense, he descended, expressed in the words, Who being in the form of God, Php 2:6. The second is, the state of humility to which he descended, in these words, He made himself of no reputation, Php 2:7. The third is, the glory and exaltation of his human nature, intimated in those words, Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, Php 2:9. These three states and conditions of Christ are essential to the Apostle’s argument; for take away any one of them, and the example which the Apostle would propose is lost. For instance, if you remove the first state, that of his natural and infinite dignity and excellence, the second state will be no longer a state of humiliation; nor Christ any longer an example of humility: for if he was not better than a servant before he was a servant, his being a servant was his lot and condition, not his choice; it would have been owing to the order of nature and providence, and not to his humility; and he would have been no more humble in being born to be a servant, than others who are born to the same state. It is implied in the argument, that he was in possession of whatever belonged to his state of dignity and excellence, before he underwent any thing that belonged to his state of humiliation. For his voluntarily descending, in some sense,from his dignity to a lower and meaner condition, is the very act and real ground and foundation of his humility. It is likewise necessarilyimplied in the argument, that he underwent whatever belonged to his state of humiliation, before he enjoyed any thing that belonged to the state of exaltation of his glorified humanity; because hisexaltation was the effect and reward of his humility; and being purchased and obtained by his humility, it could not be antecedent to it. Consequently, it necessarily follows, that his natural state of infinite dignity, and his acquired state of exaltation, are two perfectly different states; since one was evidently antecedent to, the other as evidently consequent to, his humiliation: whence it follows, that his being in the form of God, being the dignity he was possessed of before his humiliation, does not belong to him in virtue of any thing that he did or suffered, nor is any part of that glory to which he was exalted, or which he received after, or upon account of his sufferings.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Phi 2:5 . Enforcement of the precept contained in Phi 2:3 f. by the example of Jesus (comp. Rom 15:3 ; 1Pe 2:21 ; Clem. Cor . I. 16), who, full of humility, kept not His own interest in view , but in self-renunciation and self-humiliation sacrificed it, even to the endurance of the death of the cross, and was therefore exalted by God to the highest glory; [90] this extends to Phi 2:12 . See on this passage Kesler in Thes. nov. ex mus. Has. et Iken . II. p. 947 f.; Schultens, Dissertatt. philol . I. p. 443 ff.; Keil, two Commentat . 1803 ( Opusc . p. 172 ff.); Martini, in Gabler’s Journ. f. auserl. theol. Lit . IV. p. 34 ff.; von Ammon, Magaz. f. Pred . II. 1, p. 7 ff.; Kraussold in the Annal. d. gesammt. Theol . 1835, II. p. 273 ff.; Stein in the Stud. u. Krit . 1837, p. 165 ff.; Philippi, d. thtige Gehors. Chr . Berl. 1841, p. 1 ff.; Tholuck, Disp. Christol. de l. Phi 2:6-9 , Halle 1848; Ernesti in the Stud. u. Krit . 1848, p. 858 ff., and 1851, p. 595 ff.; Baur in the theol. Jahrb . 1849, p. 502 ff., and 1852, p. 133 ff., and in his Paulus , II. p. 51 ff. Exo 2 ; Liebner, Christol . p. 325 ff.; Raebiger, Christol. Paulin . p. 76 ff.; Lechler, Apost. u. nachapost. Zeitalt . p. 58 ff.; Schneckenburger in the Deutsch. Zeitschr . 1855, p. 333 ff; Wetzel in the Monatschr. f. d. Luth. Kirche Preuss . 1857; Khler in the Stud. u. Krit . 1857, p. 99 ff.; Beyschlag in the Stud. u. Krit . 1860, p. 431 ff., and his Christol. d. N. T . 1866, p. 233 ff.; Rich. Schmidt, Paul. Christol . 1870, p. 163 ff.; J. B. Lightfoot’s Excursus, p. 125 ff.; Pfleiderer in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr . 1871, p. 519 ff.; Grimm in the same Zeitschr . 1873, p. 33 ff. Among the more recent dogmatic writers, Thomasius, II. p. 148 ff.; Philippi, IV. 1, p. 469 ff.; Kahnis, I. p. 458 ff.
.] sentiatur in animis vestris . The parallelism with the which follows prohibits our interpreting it intra vestrum caetum (Hoelemann, comp. Matthies). The passive mode of expression is unusual elsewhere, though logically unassailable. Hofmann, rejecting the passive reading, as also the passive supplement afterwards, has sadly misunderstood the entire passage. [91]
. .] sc . . On , comp. the Homeric , , which often occurs with , Od . xiv. 82, vi. 313; Il . xxiv. 173. is not cum maxime , but the simple also of the comparison (in opposition to van Hengel), namely, of the pattern of Christ.
[90] Christ’s example, therefore, in this passage is one of self-denial , and not of obedience to God (Ernesti), in which, in truth, the self-denial only manifested itself along with other things. It is, however, shown by the very addition of , that Paul really intended to adduce the example of Christ (in opposition to Hofmann’s view); comp. Rom 15:3 . Christ’s example is the moral, ideal, historically realized. Comp. Wuttke, Sittenl . II. 224; Schmid, Sittenl . p. 355 ff.; and as early as Chrysostom.
[91] Reading , and subsequently explaining the as a frequent expression with Paul for the ethical Christian quality (like in Phi 4:2 ), Hofmann makes the apostle say that the readers are to have their mind so directed within them, that it shall not be lacking in this definite quality which makes it Christian . Thus there would be evolved, when expressed in simple words, merely the thought: “Have in you the mind which is also the Christian one.” As if the grand outburst, which immediately follows, would be in harmony with such a general idea! This outburst has its very ground in the lofty example of the Lord. And what, according to Hofmann’s view, is the purpose of the significant ? It would be entirely without correlation in the text; for in the would have to be taken as local , and in the , according to that misinterpretation, it would have to be taken in the sense of ethical fellowship , and thus relations not at all analogous would be marked.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2145
CHRISTS HUMILIATION
Php 2:5-8. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. [Note: This subject might well be treated thus:1. What the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. 2. What he expects us to do for him; i. e. to have the same mind toward others as he has had toward us and to manifest it, as far as possible, in the same way; accounting nothing too much to do or suffer for the salvation of men.] ONE of the strongest characteristics of our fallen nature is selfishness. The one desire of an unregenerate man is to gratify self. Even those actions in which he seems to have most respect to God or to his fellow-creatures, will, if carefully examined, and weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, be found to have self for their principle, and self for their end. This disposition being so deeply rooted in the heart, we cannot but expect that it should operate to a certain degree, even after the evil of it is discerned, and after its allowed dominion has ceased. Doubtless there were many pious Christians in the Roman Church, as well as Timothy: yet St. Paul complained that all of them, excepting him, were in some degree under the influence of a selfish spirit, and sought their own things rather than the things of Jesus Christ. Against this thing therefore he cautioned the Philippians in a most affectionate manner; beseeching them, with all earnestness, to fulfil his joy, in being all of one accord and of one mind; exhorting them to esteem others better than themselves; and not to look every man on his own things, but also on the things of others. To give the greater weight and efficacy to his exhortations, he then reminded them of the conduct of Christ towards them, and recommended it as the best pattern for their conduct towards each other: Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.
The words of the Apostle lead us to consider the humiliation of Christ in a twofold viewAs a fact to be believed, and as a pattern to be imitated.
I.
Let us consider it as a fact to be believed
The two leading steps of Christs humiliation were, his incarnation and his death
Previous to his incarnation, he existed in a state of inconceivable glory and bliss. He had a glory with the Father before the worlds were made. He was in the bosom of the Father from all eternity. He was the brightness of his Fathers glory, and the express image of his person. It was in and by him that God, on various occasions, appeared to men; and hence it is that the Apostle calls him the Image of the invisible God; not only because he bore a peculiar resemblance to the Deity, but chiefly because the Godhead, which was never seen in the person of the Father, was seen by many in the person of Christ. We are informed, in the text, that Christ was not only in the form of God, but that he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, or, as the words more strictly mean, to be as God [Note: The Greek is not as in Joh 5:18, but , which means as. This is unanswerably shewn by the references which Dr. Whitby on the place has made to passages in the Septuagint, where it is so translated.]. He assumed to himself all the titles, attributes, and perfections of the Deity. He claimed and exercised all the divine prerogatives. He performed by his own power all the works which are ever ascribed to God. And in all this he was guilty of no presumption; because he was truly One with the Father, in glory equal, in majesty co-eternal. To understand the Apostle as saying, that Christ, while he was only a mere man, did not think of the robbery of being equal with God, is to represent him as commending a creature for his humility in not aspiring to an equality with God; a greater absurdity than which could not enter into the human mind. As Christ, when he took upon himself the form of a servant, became really man, so when, previous to his incarnation, he was in the form of God, he was really and truly God. To this the Scriptures bear ample testimony: they declare that before he was a Child born and a Son given, he was the mighty God, even God over all, blessed for ever. And therefore, when he became incarnate, ho was God, manifest in the flesh; he was Emmanuel, God with us.
But this glory he, in infinite condescension, laid aside. Not that he ceased to be God; but that he veiled his Deity in human flesh. As, previous to his descent from Mount Tabor, he divested himself of those robes of majesty wherewith he was then arrayed; so, for the purpose of sojourning among men, he emptied himself [Note: .] of all his divine splendour, either hiding it altogether from human eyes, or only suffering a ray of it occasionally to beam forth for the instruction of his disciples; that, while others saw him but as a common man, they might behold his glory, as the glory of the only-begotten of the Father. He did not, however, assume our nature in its primeval state, while yet it bore the image of its Maker; but in its fallen state, encompassed with infirmities: he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh; and was in all points like unto us, sin only excepted.
But there was yet a lower state of degradation to which our blessed Lord submitted for our sakes, which also is mentioned in the text, and which was the very end of his incarnation; being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death.
When our Lord vouchsafed to take our nature into an immediate union with himself, he became from that moment subject to the law, even as we are. More especially, having substituted himself in the place of sinners, he was bound to fulfil the precepts which we had broken, and to endure the penalties which we had incurred. He was to be the servant of God in executing his Fathers will; and the servant of man, in performing every duty, whether of obedience to his earthly parents, or of subjection to the civil magistrate. He knew from the beginning how arduous a course he had to run; he beheld at one view all that he must do, and all that he must suffer, in order to accomplish the purposes of his mission; and yet he freely undertook our cause, saying, I come, I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart. And with the same readiness did he persevere even unto death. When the extremity of his sufferings were coming upon him, he implored indeed the removal of the bitter cup, provided it could be removed consistently with his Fathers glory and mans salvation. But this he did, to shew that he was really man; and to instruct his followers how to demean themselves in seasons of deep affliction. By this we see, that it is our privilege to make our requests known to God, and to implore such a mitigation of our troubles as shall render them more supportable, or such an increase of strength as may enable us to endure them. Cheerfully however did he resign himself to the will of his heavenly Father; and though twelve legions of angels were at his command to deliver him, yet did he continue fixed in his purpose to give his own life a ransom for us. Notwithstanding the death of the cross was the most painful and ignominious of any, yet to that did he submit for us; nor did he cease from filling up the measure of his sufferings, till he could say, It is finished.
This then is the fact affirmed by the Apostle; a fact, which we should have considered as absolutely incredible, if God himself had not plainly declared it, and confirmed his testimony by the most indubitable evidence. We are now therefore warranted to affirm, that it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation. And though the frequency with which it is mentioned, causes it in too many instances to be heard without any emotion, sure we are, that the more it is contemplated, the more it will fill us with wonder and amazement. If we would but consider that the God of heaven and earth assumed our sinful nature, and died the accursed death of the cross, in order to redeem us from death and hell; if we would but suffer this thought fully to occupy our minds, methinks we should become like those in heaven, who cease not day and night to make it the grand subject of their united praises.
II.
The more immediate view with which the Apostle introduced the subject of our Lords humiliation, to which we also wish at this time to draw your attention, was, that he might set it before the Philippians as a pattern to be imitated.
It is not possible for us in all respects to imitate this bright original, since we have no glory which we can lay aside; nor is it optional with us whether we will become subject to the law or not. But, though we cannot perform the same act that Christ did, we may have the same mind which was in him: and beyond all doubt we ought to resemble him in these two particulars; in feeling a tender regard for the welfare of mens souls; and in being ready to do or suffer any thing for their good.
1.
We should feel a tender regard for the welfare of mens souls. When, in consequence of the fall of man, there remained no possibility of his restoration to God s favour and image, by any thing which he could either devise or execute, this blessed and adorable Saviour looked upon us with pity: his bowels yearned over us; and though he had not interested himself on behalf of the angels that sinned, yet, he determined to interpose for us, and by a marvellous effort of his grace to save our souls alive. Let me ask then, what is now the state of the heathen world? Is it not that very state to which the whole race of man was reduced by the transgression of Adam, and by their own personal iniquities? They are under a sentence of death and condemnation. They know of no way of reconciliation with God. Being without Christ, they are altogether without hope. And though we will not presume to say that none of them are saved; yet we must affirm that their condition is most pitiable, and that the notions which obtain in the world respecting the extension of Gods mercy to them, are awfully erroneous. For if they can be saved without Christ, why could not we? And then why did Christ ever come into the world? If it be said, that Christ has purchased mercy for them though they knew him not, then we ask, Why did the Apostles go forth to preach to the Gentile world? Why did they submit to such numberless hardships and labours at the peril of their lives, to bring the heathen into the fold of Christ, if they thought that they could attain salvation in their present state, or that any considerable number of them would be saved? The Apostles knew little of that which we falsely term, charity. They believed that there was no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ: and therefore they felt towards the heathen world as they would have done towards a crew of mariners perishing in the ocean: they went forth at the peril of their own lives, willing to endure any thing themselves, if they might but succeed in saving some of their fellow-creatures. Ought not we then in like manner to compassionate the heathen world? Should not our head be waters, and our eyes a fountain of tears, to run down day and night for their perishing condition? What infidelity must there be in our minds, or what obduracy in our hearts, if we can look upon their state without the tenderest emotions of pity and grief!
2.
But to our compassion we must add also a willingness to do and suffer any thing for their good. When our Messed Lord beheld our misery, he flew from heaven on the wings of love to succour and relieve us. And though in order to effect his purpose he must disrobe himself of his majesty, and become like one of us, a poor, weak, necessitous creature, yea, and in our nature must submit to death, even the accursed death of the cross; he accounted nothing too valuable to forego, nothing too painful to suffer, in order to rescue us from destruction. He undertook even to be made a curse for us, in order to redeem us from the curse of the law. Thus should we not rest in listless wishes for the good of the heathen, but exert ourselves to the utmost to save their souls. What if we cannot all go forth like the Apostles; cannot some of us give liberally of our substance in order to provide them the means of instruction? cannot others afford their time and attention in order to concert measures for the establishing and conducting missions? Cannot others testify their readiness to devote themselves to this great work, saying, like the Prophet Isaiah, Here am I, send me? But in the disposition to fulfil this last, this most essential and urgent, duty, there is amongst us a general, a lamentable deficiency. After inquiries made in every part of England, none have as yet been found by us, endued with that union of talents and of zeal which is requisite for the work. Many, who in some respects appear fit for the office of missionaries or catechists, are so fond of their ease and worldly comforts, so fearful of encountering difficulties and dangers, so ready, like Moses, to plead their want of fitness, when their backwardness, it is to be feared, arises rather from cowardice or sloth; that there is danger lest the ardour of those who are zealous to promote the object of missions should be dumped, through a want of opportunity to exert itself with effect. It is true, (and blessed be God it is so!) that of late years several societies have arisen to promote this glorious work: and fears have been entertained, lest one should interfere with another. But what are the efforts of all of them combined, when compared with the demand there is for such exertions? If the millions of heathens who are yet in darkness be considered, the endeavours used for their instruction are scarcely more than as a drop to the ocean.
It may be said perhaps, Why are we to waste our strength upon the heathen? Is there not scope for the labours of all at home? I answer, It is well for us that the Apostles did not argue thus: for if they had not turned to the Gentiles till there remained no unconverted Jews for them to instruct, the very name of Christ would probably long since have been forgotten among men. We confess there are great multitudes in our own land as ignorant as the heathen: but yet they have the Bible in their hands; and there are in every part of the kingdom, some who are both able and desirous to instruct them. However ignorant therefore, or abandoned, thousands are amongst us, there is hope respecting them, that sooner or later their feet may be guided into the way of peace. But as for the heathen, what hope can there be respecting them? for How can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how can they hear without a preacher? Besides, the more our love abounds towards the heathen, the more will the zeal of others be provoked for the salvation of our neighbours; and the more confidently may we hope for the blessing of God upon their pious endeavours.
Let then all such excuses be put away; and let all exert themselves at least in prayer to the great Lord of the harvest, and entreat him day and night to send forth labourers into his harvest.
To enforce what has been said, we would call your attention to some additional considerations
Consider then, first, what would have been the state of the whole world, if the same mind had been in Christ that is in us? Had he been as indisposed to effect the salvation of mankind as we are to promote that of the heathen, would he have left his glory for them, would he have relinquished all the blessedness which he enjoyed in the bosom of his Father? would he have debased himself to such a degree as to take upon himself their fallen nature? would he have substituted himself in their place, and borne all their iniquities in his own person, and have become a curse for them? for them who, he knew beforehand, would murder him as soon as they should have it in their power? NoThen where would Adam, and all the generations that have passed in succession to the present hour, have been at this moment? They would all, without one single exception, have been wailing and gnashing their teeth in hell: and all future generations to the end of time would have lived only to fill up the measure of their iniquities, and to receive at last their tremendous doom. But, adored be his name! he looked not on his own things so much as on the things of others: and, in consequence of his self-denying exertions, millions are already before his throne, and myriads, countless as the sands upon the sea-shore, shall yet be added to their number, to be monuments of his love, and heirs of his glory. Shall we then any longer persist in our supineness? Shall we not rather exert ourselves to the utmost to imitate his love?
Consider, next, how we are indebted to the benevolence of our fellow-creatures. We forbear to notice the kindness of the Apostles, because they were expressly commissioned to preach the Gospel to every creature, whether of their own, or of any other nation. We will rather advert to an instance more immediately parallel to our own case. For many centuries after Christianity was promulged, our ancestors were bowing down to stocks and stones; as we ourselves also should have been, had not some pious Christian come, at the peril of his life, to bring us the glad tidings of salvation. Suppose he had argued, as we are apt to do, What can I do among that savage race? There are people enough of my own country to occupy all my care; and I may fulfil my duty to God among them, without encountering all the difficulties, and exposing myself to the dangers, which I must expect to meet with in such an undertaking. How awful, in that case, would have been our present condition! O Christians! think of all that you enjoy in Christ Jesus, your present consolations, your future prospects; think of these things, and say, I owe all, under God, to him who first set his foot on our inhospitable shores, to shew unto us the way of salvation; his example stimulated others; and thus the handful of corn that was scattered on the tops of the mountains, has grown up like the woods of Lebanon, or the piles of grass upon the earth. Blessed, for ever blessed, be God for his labours of love! Who can tell then what may arise from the labours of one society, or even of a single individual? We may not see very extensive benefits in our day: and probably this was the case with respect to him who first visited Britain. But could he now behold from heaven the fruit of his labours, how would he rejoice! would he think that he had exercised too much self-denial, or patience, or diligence, in the cause of God? Would he repent of his exertions? Would he not rather repent that he had not stepped forward sooner, and been more earnest in this blessed work? Be ye then in earnest, my beloved brethren. We have lost too much time already; and millions, though unconscious of their wants, are now crying to us, as it were, Come over to Indiato Africaand help us. O that a holy zeal might this day inflame our breasts; and that we might requite the labours of those who have instructed us, by endeavouring to extend the benefits derived through them, to the remotest corners of the earth!
Consider, further, how Kindly Christ will accept such labours at your hands. He tells us respecting things of a mere temporal nature, that what we have bestowed on others for his sake, he will accept as conferred on himself; I was hungry, and ye fed me; naked, and ye clothed me; sick and in prison, and ye visited me. And will he not much more acknowledge himself indebted to us for the spiritual blessings we confer on others? I was in darkness, and ye enlightened me; I was far from God, and ye brought me near; I was perishing, and ye saved me. O what a thought is this! how animating! how impressive! Are there any amongst us that will not seek such an honour as this? Stir up yourselves then, my brethren; and let us all join with one heart to secure at least this testimony from our blessed Lord, knowing assuredly that we shall receive our reward, not according to our success, but according to our labour.
Lastly. Consider, how necessary it is to resemble Christ, if ever we would participate his glory. It is not by our profession that we shall be judged in the last day, but by our true character exhibited in our practice. Think not that the formal, the careless, the supine, shall meet with tokens of Gods acceptance: it is the man who abounds in works and labours of love for Christs sake, who shall be honoured with the approbation of his Judge. It is not he who bears the name of Christ, but who has within him the mind of Christ, who shall be counted worthy to dwell with him for ever. He himself tells us, that not he who merely says, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of our Father which is in heaven.
If then ye cannot be moved by more ingenuous considerations, reflect on this: and tremble, lest after all your profession of Christianity, you prove only as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Let those whose consciences condemn them for their past inactivity, cry mightily to God for the pardon of their sins, and the renovation of their souls. And may God pour out upon us this day a spirit of faith and love; that we may feel a holy ambition to engage in his service: and may all the endeavours, whether of this or any other society, be abundantly blessed, to the enlargement of the Redeemers kingdom, and to the salvation of many souls! Amen and Amen.
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
XXV
THE DEITY OF CHRIST
Phi 2:5-11
Attention was called, at the close of the preceding chapter, to that highest of all motives to unity, humility and self renunciation the example of our Lord Jesus Christ in his voluntarily divesting himself of the glory and prerogatives of his heavenly estate, and his assumption of a human nature in order to secure our salvation and the highest glory of the Father. We may here, if anywhere, pause to reflect on Paul’s uniform method of preaching doctrine, never as a mere theory, but always with a practical end in view. His exhortations to obedience and morality and unselfish love are all based on a solid foundation and doctrine. The senseless modern cry, “Let us have more humanity, more morality, and less dogma,” was to him as unthinkable as a house without foundation, or a stream without a source. On the other hand, mere abstract dogma, or theoretic theology, without reforming power on the life, was but as sounding brass or tinkling cymbal. Between his dogmatic theology and a holy life was an essential and indissoluable relation.
The doctrines involved in Phi 2:5-11 . This is by far the greatest and most instructive passage in the letter, and the second most important in the whole Bible, especially if it be considered, as it must be, with the parallel passages (Joh 1:1-5 ; Joh 1:9 ; Joh 1:14 ; Col 1:15-20 ; Heb 1:2-13 ) because it expresses the love of the Son for sinful man, and his honor toward the Father. Only one other outranks it (Joh 3:16 ) which expresses the Father’s love toward sinful man, and only one other comes next to it (Rom 15:30 ) “The love of the spirit” expressed in the deeds of John 14-16. The three embody the love of the trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Strangely enough, Aryans and Socinians rely on this passage to make good their denial of our Lord’s essential deity, saying, “He counted not equality with God a thing to be grasped, and his exaltation was an achievement and not inherent,” and one party of the Gnostics cite it in denial of his real humanity, saying, “He had only the form, or likeness, of a man,” and the destructive critics quote it to support their undervaluation of our Lord’s testimony to the integrity and inspiration of the Old Testament, saying, “He emptied himself, and hence his views of the Old Testament have no more authority than the views of any other pious Jew of his time.”
There are some real difficulties in the passage, but none that affect its incalculable value as revealing our Lord’s Father, his real humanity, his great work of redemption on the cross, his consequent exaltation to universal sovereignty, and his restoration to original glory. It is my purpose here to state briefly the main points of the teaching of the passage, referring somewhat to the differences of interpretation. While I bear in mind that this is a study in New Testament English and so must not encroach on the domain of New Testament Greek, yet, without pedantry, I must refer to certain Greek words which underlie all the various English renderings. So essential deity and humanity, and his great work of human redemption. The definements and subtilities of scholarly critics in handling this passage, and their infinitesimal details of divergence, constituting a vast and tedious literature, accentuate the proverb: “The more I know of expert scholarship the more I like common sense.” And yet (I state it for the reader’s satisfaction), the best of them and the bulk of them of all ages, nations, and denominations, coincide in their conclusion that the passage does teach what the average mind gathers in a moment, the existence of our Lord prior to his incarnation, his equality in nature with the touching this phase lightly, I name the crucial Greek words of the text, which are as follows:
1. Morphe , translated “form,” e.g., “existing m the form of God, taking the form of a man” (Phi 2:6-7 ).
2. Huparchon , rendered “existing,” “subsisting,” or better still, “originally subsisting” (Phi 2:6 ).
3. Harpagmon , rendered “robbery” in common version; “prize” in the Canterbury Revision; “a thing to be grasped” in the American Standard Revision; “something to be clung to,” in the Twentieth Century (Phi 2:6 ).
4. Ekenosen , rendered “emptied” himself.
5. Homoiomati , rendered “likeness of men” (Phi 2:7 ).
6. Schemati , rendered “fashion of men.”
The Twentieth Century translation thus renders the whole passage: “Let the Spirit of Jesus be yours also. Though from the beginning he had the divine nature, yet he did not look upon equality with God as something to be clung to, but impoverished himself by taking the nature of a servant, and becoming like other men. Then he appeared among us as a man, and still further humbled himself by submitting himself even to death, yes, death on the cross! And this is why God raised him to the very highest place and gave him the name which ranks above all others, so that in honor of the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Observe three merits of this Twentieth Century rendering:
1. It alone brings out the true meaning of huparchon , namely, “From the beginning.” The word certainly means “originally existing, or subsisting,” like John’s “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
2. Its “impoverished himself” instead of “emptied himself” brings the passage in line with a previous statement of the same general fact by Paul: “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty, might become rich” (2Co 8:9 ).
3. The rendering is in smooth running, everyday English. Observe also that the only difference between the common version and the revised version on the one hand, and the American Standard, Bible Union (edited), and the Twentieth Century on the other hand in rendering the noun harpagmon , does not affect the deity of our Lord, for all teach that, but only the time when the “emptying” commences, for if the American Standard be right, then the emptying commenced in the thought of the Son when he counted not equality with God a thing to be grasped, the emptying merely resulting from the thought.
The author believes that the common version more closely follows the grammatical construction, for harpagmon has the active sense, while the rendering, “a thing to be grasped,” being passive, would call for another form of the noun, harpagma .
In other words, the American Standard derives its rendering, not from the form of the noun, but from what it regards as a contextual demand. The only other use of the word in Greek literature, sacred or profane, is its employment by Plutarch “On the education of boys” where it has the active sense. Hence the earlier scholars and versions, and the most conservative modern scholars, sustain the common version. But all these renderings agree in attributing essential deity to our Lord) if not by positive affirmation, at least by the strongest implication. The idea of the expression “form of God” may be gathered from a comparison with other Pauline expressions, “The express image of his person,” “the effulgence of his glory,” and with the Logos of John.
From the author’s sermon before the Southern Baptist Convention, 1908, this passage is cited:
HIS RELATIONS TO THE FATHER
“These relations are expressed in the words image, effulgence, form, Logos, Son. When our text says, ‘Who is the image of the invisible God,’ and another passage says, ‘The very image of his substance,’ it cannot mean less than that he is the visible of the invisible God.
“To illustrate: Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and it sufficeth us.’ He replied, ‘When thou hast seen me thou hast seen the Father.’ And when it is said, ‘Who being the effulgence of God’s glory,’ is not that, at least, the saying forth, the outshining of the divine glory which must be another way of saying, ‘He is the visible of the invisible’?
“Of kindred meaning is the expression, ‘Existing in the form of God.’ Form is the apparent, the phenomenal. So Logos, or the Word, is the revelation of the Father’s mind, heart, and will, the unveiling of the hidden. Of like purport is the declaration: In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’
“But we must hark continually back to his nature the Word was God,’ lest by the weakness of the terms image, effulgence, form, and Logos, we account him only a manifestation.”
We may rest assured that Paul’s teaching here concerning our Lord must be construed in harmony with his teachings in Colossians and Ephesians written such a short time later. It is needful to give a word of caution against interpreting too much or too little into the Kenosis, “He emptied himself” (A.V.), “Made himself of no reputation.” There is no room for dogmatism in a matter necessarily so mysterious, but
1. It is certain that he did not divest himself of his deity, for then he would not be the God-man, nor could it be said, “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
2. We know that he laid aside his heavenly glory, for he prays: “And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (Joh 17:5 ).
3. We know that he laid aside the riches of that heavenly estate, as Paul says, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be made rich” (2Co 8:9 ).
4. We know that he laid aside his equality with the Father, completely subordinating his own will to the will of the Father: “Not my will but thine be done,” “I came to do the will of him that sent me,” and became a bond servant.
5. We know that he did not resort to his inherent omnipotence to work miracles in his own behalf, or to avert disaster from himself, or to relieve himself from the perplexities and burdens of a real humanity. Indeed, all his miracles were wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit.
6. In the same way he relied on the Holy Spirit, whom he received without measure at his baptism, for his superhuman knowledge. The inspiration of all the prophets was less than his. “He knew what was in man,” and spoke by infallible authority of all the Old Testament books. So that the radical critics but advertise their own folly and infidelity in undervaluation of his testimony concerning Old Testament books and their meaning. No matter how far he emptied himself of his own inherent omniscience, that in no way affects the testimony of one who received the Spirit without measure. All the resources of Deity were at his command, through the Spirit, so far as they bore upon his mission.
The key passage, in interpreting his original status, and the emptying himself, is the preceding verse: “Not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others. Have this mind in you which was also in. Christ Jesus.” Christ did not look to his own things, i.e., his equality with the Father, and the riches and glory of his heavenly state, but “emptied himself, etc.” Here again we must be cautious of putting too much stress on the word, “emptied,” for it is Paul himself who only a little later affirms: “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” The “emptying” is not absolute, but only a temporary and voluntary suspension of exercise, a holding in abeyance for the time being. It was doubtless this consideration that influenced the conservative translators of the common version thus to render the passage. “Made himself of no reputation.” His humiliation consisted:
1. In his incarnation, i.e., taking “the form of a bondservant,” and rendering absolute obedience to the will of the Father.
2. An obedience even unto death.
3. Yea, the death of the cross. In this obedience he not only magnified the law in its precepts, demonstrating that it was holy, just, and good, but also magnified its penal sanctions by “bearing in his own body the sin of the world.”
His exaltation consisted:
1. In his resurrection, thereby demonstrating all his high claims asserted in his lifetime, and demanding that angels who had worshiped him in his original glory and in his incarnation should now worship his glorified humanity (Heb 1:6 ).
2. His ascension and reception into heaven.
3. His enthronement there as King of kings and Lord of lords, and his anointing with the oil of gladness above his fellows.
4. His session there until all his enemies are made his footstool (Psa 110:1 ) and until he comes as final judge at the last and great and general judgment.
5. At which time every knee bends to him, and every tongue confesses that he is Lord.
Two things in this exaltation call for further explanation:
1. The name that is above every name, what is it? Is it the name, Jesus, or the name of Jesus, a new name bestowed on Jesus? Two reasons oppose the former, namely:
(1) His name “Jesus” was given at his incarnation, but this is a name at his exaltation, and expressive of it.
(2) If the writer meant the name “Jesus,” then it would seem that this word should have been in the dative, but “Jesus” is in the genitive and the expression is “in the name of Jesus.” The author thinks that the name given to Jesus is, as expressed in Rev 19:16 , “King of kings and Lord of lords,” which is expressive of his exaltation.
2. What is meant by “every knee” and “every tongue”? When does this take place? The expression in its context, calls for the highest degree of universality, and can mean no less than every human being, good and bad, and every angel, good and fallen) without exception in either case. It means that all of them will recognize and confess his universal sovereignty. All this will occur at his final advent when he shall sit on the white throne of the general judgment and shall fix the final status of all moral intelligences. This is indeed an achievement, not by the Son as originally subsisting, but by the Son veiled in humanity and obedient unto death.
QUESTIONS
1. What is Paul’s method of presenting doctrine?
2. How would he have regarded the modern cry, “Give us more humanity and morality and less dogma,” and the custom of some to present theology as an abstract system?
3. What can you say of the rank of the passage, Phi 2:5-11 , and what two others may be classed with it, and why?
4. What are three heresies are strangely drawn from this passage?
5. What is the crucial Greek words of the passage, and how rendered in American Standard Revision?
6. What are three excellencies in the “Twentieth Century” rendering?
7. What are two examples of usage only in Greek literature of harpagmon , and what its form in both active and passive, what the renderings in the English versions cited, which the most grammatical, and
8. What is the only practical difference between these renderings, and their effect on the teachings of the passage as to Christ’s original deity?
9. What is the idea of the various terms “form,” “image,” “effulgence” and Logos?
10. What caution given in interpreting “He emptied himself”?
11. Was this emptying absolute, and if not, what?
12. Cite six particulars as expressive of the “emptying,” negative and positive.
13. What is the key passage in interpreting this paragraph?
14. In what did his humiliation consist?
15. In what did his exaltation consist?
16. What is the name above every name, and why?
17. What is the meaning of “every knee” and “every tongue”?
18. When is this “bending of every knee” and “confession of every tongue”?
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Ver. 5. Let this mind be in you ] We should strive to express Christ to the world, not as a picture doth a man in outward lineaments only, but as a child doth his father in affections and actions. Our lives should be as so many sermons upon Christ’s life,1Pe 2:91Pe 2:9 .
5 11 .] The exhortation enforced, by the example of the self-denial of Christ Jesus . The monographs on this important passage, which are very numerous, may be seen enumerated in Meyer.
Think this in (not ‘ among ,’ on account of the . . following. On the reading, see various readings, and Fritzschiorum Opuscula, p. 49 note) yourselves, which was ( ) also in Christ Jesus (as regards the dispute, whether the or the be here spoken of, see below. I assume now, and will presently endeavour to prove, that the Apostle’s reference is first to the taking on Him of our humanity, and then to his further humiliation in that humanity): who subsisting (originally: see on and , Act 16:20 . Less cannot be implied in this word than eternal pr-existence. The participle is hardly equivalent to “although he subsisted,” as Ellic., still less “inasmuch as he subsisted;” but simply states its fact as a link in the logical chain, “subsisting as He did;” without fixing the character of that link as causal or concessive) in the form of God (not merely the nature of God, which however is implied : but, as in Heb 1:3 , the . . . cf. Joh 5:37 , , with Joh 17:5 , . “Ipsa nature divina decorum habebat infinitum in se, etiam sine ulla creatura illam gloriam intuente.” Beng. See also Col 1:15 ; 2Co 4:4 . That the divine nature of Christ is not here meant, is clear: for He did not with reference to this , Php 2:7 ) deemed not his equality (notice , not , bringing out equality in nature and essence, rather than in Person) with God a matter for grasping . The expression is one very difficult to render. We may observe, (1) that holds the emphatic place in the sentence: (2) that this fact casts into the shade, as secondary in the sentence, and as referring to the state indicated by above: (3) that strictly means, as here given, the act of seizing or snatching (so in the only place in profane writers where it occurs, viz. Plut. de Puerorum educ. p. 120 A, . , . . One thing must also be remembered, that in the word, the leading idea is not ‘snatching from another ,’ but ‘snatching, grasping, for one’s self :’ it answers to above), not ( ) the thing so seized or snatched: but that here, , i.e. a state , being in apposition with it, the difference between the act (subjective) and the thing (objective) would logically be very small: (4) that is no new thing, which He thought it not robbery to be , i.e. to take upon Him , but His state already existing, respecting which He &c.: (5) that this clause, being opposed by to His great act of self-denial, cannot be a mere secondary one, conveying an additional detail of His Majesty in His pr-existent state, but must carry the whole weight of the negation of selfishness on His part: (6) that this last view is confirmed by the , taking up and corresponding to above, Phi 2:3 . (7) Other renderings have been: ( ) of those who hold , as above to be virtually identical with before, Chrys. says, . , . , , . , , , , , . . And so in the main, c., Thl., Aug.: Beza, “ non ignoravit, se in ea re ( quod Deo patri coequalis essel ) nullam injuriam cuiquam facere, sed suo jure uti: nihilominus tamen quasi jure suo cessit ” and so Calvin, but wrongly maintaining for a subjunctive sense: ‘ non fuisset arbitratus :’ Thdrt., , . , . , . . , , . : and so, nearly, Ambr., Castal., all.; Luther, Erasm., Grot., Calov., all., ‘ He did not as a victor his spoils, make an exhibition of &c., but ’. ( ) of those who distinguish from : Bengel, ‘ Christus, quum posset esse pariter Deo, non arripuit, non duxit rapinam, non subito usus est ilia facultate :’ De Wette, ‘Christ had, when He began His Messianic course, the glory of the godhead potentially in Himself, and might have devoted Himself to manifesting it forth in His life: but seeing that it lay not in the purpose of the work of Redemption that He should at the commencement of it have taken to Himself divine honour, had He done so, the assumption of it would have been an act of robbery:’ Lnemann (in Meyer): ‘ Christus, etsi ab terno inde dignitate creatoris et domini rerum omnium frueretur, ideoque divina indutus magnificentia coram patre consideret, nihilo tamen minus haud arripiendum sibi esse autumabat existendi modum cum Deo qualem, sed ultro se exinanivit .’ And in fact Arius (and his party) had led the way in this explanation: . See this triumphantly answered in Chrys. Hom. vi. in loc. Indeed the whole of this method of interpretation is rightly charged with absurdity by Chrys., seeing that in we have already equality with God expressed: , ; . ; , , , ; , ; (8) We have now to enquire, whether the opening of the passage will bear to be understood of our Lord already incarnate . De Wette, al., have maintained that the name cannot apply to the . But the answer to this is easy, viz. that that name applies to the entire historical Person of our Lord, of whom the whole passage is said, and not merely to Him in his pr-existent state. That one and the same Person of the Son of God, , afterwards , gathering to itself the humanity, in virtue of which He is now designated in the concrete, Christ Jesus. So that the dispute virtually resolves itself into the question between the two lines of interpretation given above, on which I have already pronounced. But it seems to me to be satisfactorily settled by the contrast between and . These two cannot belong to Christ in the same incarnate state. Therefore the former of them must refer to his pr-incarnate state.
Phi 2:5-11 . THE CONDESCENSION AND EXALTATION OF CHRIST. As to form, Phi 2:5-10 appear to be constructed in carefully chosen groups of parallel clauses, having an impressive rhythm (see J. Weiss, Beitr. , pp. 28 29).
Phi 2:5 . ought probably to be rejected with the best group of MSS. , as the harder reading, has much in its favour, but is far better attested, . . . The ordinary translation runs, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus”. This means the supplying either of ( ) or in the latter half of the verse after . Certainly any past tense (passive) of is not only very harsh, but, when analysed, yields no appropiate sense. is scarcely less harsh, for it would presuppose (not alone) as the antecedent of . Deissmann (following Hfm [92] ) supplies ( cf. parallel construction in 2Ti 1:5 ), and translates, “Have this mind within your community (so also Hoelemann) which ye have also in Christ Jesus”. This keeps the local meaning with both occurrences of (for we have here the common Pauline phrase . . as the sphere of the Christian life). It gives a vivid force to . It gets rid of the apparently superfluous use of after . And is, of course, the easiest word to supply. The sense is thoroughly apt. Christians then, as now, were often different in their ordinary dealings and relations from what they were in their strictly Christian life. The two spheres were at times kept distinct. Those who professed to have made great sacrifices for the sake of Christ might never dream of making even the slightest for a brother. The keenest zeal may be displayed in religious work, accompanied by singular laxity of principle in the common concerns of daily business and social intercourse. At first sight the interpretation, perhaps, repels by its unfamiliarity. But it appears less difficult than the other possible expositions. For Lft [93] and Vinc. practically ignore the difficulty, the former taking = . . . But that begs the question. Kl [94] thinks it impossible to separate the two spheres. (See Dsm [95] , Das N.T. Formel , etc., p. 113 ff.; also Zahn, Luthardt’s Zeitschr. , 1885, p. 243, who quotes with approbation Victorinus ad loc., Hoc sentite in vobis quod sentitis in Christo. ) [O. Hain, SK [96] , 1893, pp. 169 171, following the same lines, takes the second = imperat. “As indeed ye must have in Christ Jesus.” This is difficult to arrive at.] . Correct N.T. writers would usually employ . Classical authors use .
[92] Hofmann.
[93] Lightfoot.
[94] Klpper.
[95] Deissmann ( BS. = Bibelstudien, NBS. = Neue Bibelstudien ).
[96] Studien und Kritiken .
Philippians
THE DESCENT OF THE WORD
Php 2:5-8 R.V..
The purpose of the Apostle in this great passage must ever be kept clearly in view. Our Lord’s example is set forth as the pattern of that unselfish disregard of one’s own things, and devotion to the things of others, which has just been urged on the Philippians, and the mind which was in Him is presented as the model on which they are to fashion their minds. This purpose in some measure explains some of the peculiarities of the language here, and may help to guide us through some of the intricacies and doubtful points in the interpretation of the words. It explains why Christ’s death is looked at in them only in its bearing upon Himself, as an act of obedience and of condescension, and why even that death in which Jesus stands most inimitable and unique is presented as capable of being imitated by us. The general drift of these verses is clear, but there are few Scripture passages which have evoked more difference of opinion as to the precise meaning of nearly every phrase. To enter on the subtle discussions involved in the adequate exposition of the words would far exceed our limits, and we must perforce content ourselves with a slight treatment of them, and aim chiefly at bringing out their practical side.
The broad truth which stands sun-clear amid all diverse interpretations is–that the Incarnation, Life, and Death are the great examples of living humility and self-sacrifice. To be born was His supreme act of condescension. It was love which made Him assume the vesture of human flesh. To die was the climax of His voluntary obedience, and of His devotion to us.
I. The height from which Jesus descended.
The whole strange conception of birth as being the voluntary act of the Person born, and as being the most stupendous instance of condescension in the world’s history, necessarily reposes on the clear conviction that He had a prior existence so lofty that it was an all but infinite descent to become man. Hence Paul begins with the most emphatic assertion that he who bore the name of Jesus lived a divine life before He was born. He uses a very strong word which is given in the margin of the Revised Version, and might well have been in its text. ‘Being originally’ as the word accurately means, carries our thoughts back not only to a state which preceded Bethlehem and the cradle, but to that same timeless eternity from which the prologue of the Gospel of John partially draws the veil when it says, ‘In the beginning was the Word,’ and to which Jesus Himself more obscurely pointed when He said, ‘Before Abraham was I am.’
Equally emphatic in another direction is Paul’s next expression, ‘In the form of God,’ for ‘form’ means much more than ‘shape.’ I would point out the careful selection in this passage of three words to express three ideas which are often by hasty thought regarded as identical. We read of ‘the form of God’ verse 6, ‘the likeness of men’ verse 7, and ‘in fashion as a man.’ Careful investigation of these two words ‘form’ and ‘fashion’ has established a broad distinction between them, the former being more fixed, the latter referring to that which is accidental and outward, which may be fleeting and unsubstantial. The possession of the form involves participation in the essence also. Here it implies no corporeal idea as if God had a material form, but it implies also much more than a mere apparent resemblance. He who is in the form of God possesses the essential divine attributes. Only God can be ‘in the form of God’: man is made in the likeness of God, but man is not ‘in the form of God.’ Light is thrown on this lofty phrase by its antithesis with the succeeding expression in the next verse, ‘the form of a servant,’ and as that is immediately explained to refer to Christ’s assumption of human nature, there is no room for candid doubt that ‘being originally in the form of God’ is a deliberately asserted claim of the divinity of Christ in His pre-existent state.
As we have already pointed out, Paul soars here to the same lofty height to which the prologue of John’s Gospel rises, and he echoes our Lord’s own words about ‘the glory which I had with Thee before the foundation of the world.’ Our thoughts are carried back before creatures were, and we become dimly aware of an eternal distinction in the divine nature which only perfects its eternal oneness. Such an eternal participation in the divine nature before all creation and before time is the necessary pre-supposition of the worth of Christ’s life as the pattern of humility and self-sacrifice. That pre-supposition gives all its meaning, its pathos, and its power, to His gentleness, and love, and death. The facts are different in their significance, and different in their power to bless and gladden, to purge and sway the soul, according as we contemplate them with or without the background of His pre-existent divinity. The view which regards Him as simply a man, like all the rest of us, beginning to be when He was born, takes away from His example its mightiest constraining force. Only when we with all our hearts believe ‘that the Word became flesh,’ do we discern the overwhelming depths of condescension manifested in the Birth. If it was not the incarnation of God, it has no claim on the hearts of men.
II. The wondrous act of descent.
The stages in that long descent are marked out with a precision and definiteness which would be intolerable presumption, if Paul were speaking only his own thoughts, or telling what he had seen with his own eyes. They begin with what was in the mind of the eternal Word before He began His descent, and whilst yet He is ‘in the form of God.’ He stands on the lofty level before the descent begins, and in spirit makes the surrender, which, stage by stage, is afterwards to be wrought out in act. Before any of these acts there must have been the disposition of mind and will which Paul describes as ‘counting it not a thing to be grasped to be on an equality with God.’ He did not regard the being equal to God as a prey or treasure to be clutched and retained at all hazards. That sweeps our thoughts into the dim regions far beyond Calvary or Bethlehem, and is a more overwhelming manifestation of love than are the acts of lowly gentleness and patient endurance which followed in time. It included and transcended them all.
It was the supreme example of not ‘looking on one’s own things.’ And what made Him so count? What but infinite love. To rescue men, and win them to Himself and goodness, and finally to lift them to the place from which He came down for them, seemed to Him to be worth the temporary surrender of that glory and majesty. We can but bow and adore the perfect love. We look more deeply into the depths of Deity than unaided eyes could ever penetrate, and what we see is the movement in that abyss of Godhead of purest surrender which, by beholding, we are to assimilate.
Then comes the wonder of wonders, ‘He emptied Himself.’ We cannot enter here on the questions which gather round that phrase, and which give it a factitious importance in regard to present controversies. All that we would point out now is that while the Apostle distinctly treats the Incarnation as being a laying aside of what made the Word to be equal with God, he says nothing, on which an exact determination can be based, of the degree or particulars in which the divine nature of our Lord was limited by His humanity. The fact he asserts, and that is all. The scene in the Upper Chamber was but a feeble picture of what had already been done behind the veil. Unless He had laid aside His garments of divine glory and majesty, He would have had no human flesh from which to strip the robes. Unless He had willed to take the ‘form of a servant,’ He would not have had a body to gird with the slave’s towel. The Incarnation, which made all His acts of lowly love possible, was a greater act of lowly love than those which flowed from it. Looking at it from earth, men say, ‘Jesus was born.’ Looking at it from heaven, Angels say, ‘He emptied Himself.’
But how did He empty Himself? By taking the form of a slave, that is to God. And how did He take the form of a slave? By ‘becoming in the likeness of men.’ Here we are specially to note the remarkable language implying that what is true of none other in all the generations of men is true of Him. That just as ‘emptying Himself’ was His own act, also the taking the form of a slave by His being born was His own act, and was more truly described as a ‘becoming.’ We note, too, the strong contrast between that most remarkable word and the ‘being originally’ which is used to express the mystery of divine pre-existence.
Whilst His becoming in the likeness of men stands in strong contrast with ‘being originally’ and energetically expresses the voluntariness of our Lord’s birth, the ‘likeness of men’ does not cast any doubt on the reality of His manhood, but points to the fact that ‘though certainly perfect man, He was by reason of the divine nature present in Him not simply and merely man.’
Here then the beginning of Christ’s manhood is spoken of in terms which are only explicable, if it was a second form of being, preceded by a pre-existent form, and was assumed by His own act. The language, too, demands that that humanity should have been true essential manhood. It was in ‘the form’ of man and possessed of all essential attributes. It was in ‘the likeness’ of man possessed of all external characteristics, and yet was something more. It summed up human nature, and was its representative.
III. The obedience which attended the descent.
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.
The lifelong humbling of Himself was further manifested in His becoming ‘obedient.’ That obedience was, of course, to God. And here we cannot but pause to ask the question, How comes it that to the man Jesus obedience to God was an act of humiliation? Surely there is but one explanation of such a statement. For all men but this one to be God’s slaves is their highest honour, and to speak of obedience as humiliation is a sheer absurdity.
Not only was the life of Jesus so perfect an example of unbroken obedience that He could safely front His adversaries with the question, ‘Which of you convinceth Me of sin?’ and with the claim to ‘do always the things that pleased Him,’ but the obedience to the Father was perfected in His death. Consider the extraordinary fact that a man’s death is the crowning instance of his humility, and ask yourselves the question, Who then is this who chose to be born, and stooped in the act of dying? His death was obedience to God, because by it He carried out the Father’s will for the salvation of the world, His death is the greatest instance of unselfish self-sacrifice, and the loftiest example of looking on the ‘things of others’ that the world has ever seen. It dwindles in significance, in pathos, and in power to move us to imitation unless we clearly see the divine glory of the eternal Lord as the background of the gentle lowliness of the Man of Sorrows, and the Cross. No theory of Christ’s life and death but that He was born for us, and died for us, either explains the facts and the apostolic language concerning them, or leaves them invested with their full power to melt our hearts and mould our lives. There is a possibility of imitating Him in the most transcendent of His acts. The mind may be in us which was in Christ Jesus. That it may, His death must first be the ground of our hope, and then we must make it the pattern of our lives, and draw from it the power to shape them after His blessed Example.
Let, &c. Literally Mind, or think, this. Greek. phroneo, as in Php 2:2.
you = yourselves, i, e, your hearts.
also, &c. = in Christ Jesus also.
Christ Jesus. App-98.
5-11.] The exhortation enforced, by the example of the self-denial of Christ Jesus. The monographs on this important passage, which are very numerous, may be seen enumerated in Meyer.
Think this in (not among, on account of the . . following. On the reading, see various readings, and Fritzschiorum Opuscula, p. 49 note) yourselves, which was () also in Christ Jesus (as regards the dispute, whether the or the be here spoken of, see below. I assume now, and will presently endeavour to prove, that the Apostles reference is first to the taking on Him of our humanity, and then to his further humiliation in that humanity): who subsisting (originally: see on and , Act 16:20. Less cannot be implied in this word than eternal pr-existence. The participle is hardly equivalent to although he subsisted, as Ellic., still less inasmuch as he subsisted; but simply states its fact as a link in the logical chain, subsisting as He did; without fixing the character of that link as causal or concessive) in the form of God (not merely the nature of God, which however is implied: but, as in Heb 1:3, the . . . -cf. Joh 5:37, , with Joh 17:5, . Ipsa nature divina decorum habebat infinitum in se, etiam sine ulla creatura illam gloriam intuente. Beng. See also Col 1:15; 2Co 4:4. That the divine nature of Christ is not here meant, is clear: for He did not with reference to this , Php 2:7) deemed not his equality (notice , not , bringing out equality in nature and essence, rather than in Person) with God a matter for grasping. The expression is one very difficult to render. We may observe, (1) that holds the emphatic place in the sentence: (2) that this fact casts into the shade, as secondary in the sentence, and as referring to the state indicated by above: (3) that strictly means, as here given, the act of seizing or snatching (so in the only place in profane writers where it occurs, viz. Plut. de Puerorum educ. p. 120 A, . , . . One thing must also be remembered,-that in the word, the leading idea is not snatching from another, but snatching, grasping, for ones self:-it answers to above), not () the thing so seized or snatched: but that here, , i.e. a state, being in apposition with it, the difference between the act (subjective) and the thing (objective) would logically be very small: (4) that is no new thing, which He thought it not robbery to be, i.e. to take upon Him,-but His state already existing, respecting which He &c.: (5) that this clause, being opposed by to His great act of self-denial, cannot be a mere secondary one, conveying an additional detail of His Majesty in His pr-existent state, but must carry the whole weight of the negation of selfishness on His part: (6) that this last view is confirmed by the , taking up and corresponding to above, Php 2:3. (7) Other renderings have been:-() of those who hold , as above to be virtually identical with before,-Chrys. says, . , . , , . , , , , , . . And so in the main, c., Thl., Aug.:-Beza, non ignoravit, se in ea re (quod Deo patri coequalis essel) nullam injuriam cuiquam facere, sed suo jure uti: nihilominus tamen quasi jure suo cessit-and so Calvin, but wrongly maintaining for a subjunctive sense: non fuisset arbitratus: Thdrt., , . , . , . . , , . : and so, nearly, Ambr., Castal., all.;-Luther, Erasm., Grot., Calov., all.,-He did not as a victor his spoils, make an exhibition of &c., but. () of those who distinguish from : Bengel,-Christus, quum posset esse pariter Deo, non arripuit, non duxit rapinam, non subito usus est ilia facultate: De Wette, Christ had, when He began His Messianic course, the glory of the godhead potentially in Himself, and might have devoted Himself to manifesting it forth in His life: but seeing that it lay not in the purpose of the work of Redemption that He should at the commencement of it have taken to Himself divine honour, had He done so, the assumption of it would have been an act of robbery:-Lnemann (in Meyer): Christus, etsi ab terno inde dignitate creatoris et domini rerum omnium frueretur, ideoque divina indutus magnificentia coram patre consideret, nihilo tamen minus haud arripiendum sibi esse autumabat existendi modum cum Deo qualem, sed ultro se exinanivit. And in fact Arius (and his party) had led the way in this explanation: . See this triumphantly answered in Chrys. Hom. vi. in loc. Indeed the whole of this method of interpretation is rightly charged with absurdity by Chrys., seeing that in we have already equality with God expressed: , ; . ; , , , ; , ; (8) We have now to enquire, whether the opening of the passage will bear to be understood of our Lord already incarnate. De Wette, al., have maintained that the name cannot apply to the . But the answer to this is easy, viz. that that name applies to the entire historical Person of our Lord, of whom the whole passage is said, and not merely to Him in his pr-existent state. That one and the same Person of the Son of God, , afterwards , gathering to itself the humanity, in virtue of which He is now designated in the concrete, Christ Jesus. So that the dispute virtually resolves itself into the question between the two lines of interpretation given above,-on which I have already pronounced. But it seems to me to be satisfactorily settled by the contrast between and . These two cannot belong to Christ in the same incarnate state. Therefore the former of them must refer to his pr-incarnate state.
Php 2:5. , let the mind be) He does not say , think ye, but , cherish this mind.- , in Christ Jesus) Paul also was one who had regard to what belonged to others, not merely what belonged to himself: ch. Php 1:24 : and this circumstance furnished him with the occasion of this admonition. He does not, however, propose himself, but Christ, as an example, who did not seek His own, but humbled Himself. [Even the very order of the words, as the name Christ is put first, indicates the immense weight of this example.-V. g.]
Php 2:5
Php 2:5
Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:-The exhortation to them is to cherish the spirit of Christian fellowship among themselves which corresponds to the fellowship they enjoyed in Christ Jesus.
[It was not an appeal to Christ as the outstanding example of humility that was in question here, although that is implied all through the passage that follows. It is not the Jesus that walked on earth but the Christ incarnate and exalted that is in Paul’s mind, and the unity that he pressed upon the Philippian church was to be achieved by the growth of that spirit of fellowship which it had already experienced in its relation to Christ himself. The foundation truth of the exhortation is that Christians must become like Christ in character; apply the same rule to themselves that they see and approve in Jesus. It is not always that Christians put Christ into their business and social relations, or feel the same call for consecration that they love to note in him. The keenest zeal may be displayed in religious work, accompanied by singular laxity in common concerns of daily business and social intercourse. Some people are piously humble on the Lords day, but follow the ways of the world during the week.]
Mat 11:29, Mat 20:26-28, Luk 22:27, Joh 13:14, Joh 13:15, Act 10:38, Act 20:35, Rom 14:15, Rom 15:3, Rom 15:5, 1Co 10:33, 1Co 11:1, Eph 5:2, 1Pe 2:21, 1Pe 4:1, 1Jo 2:6
Reciprocal: Gen 14:13 – the Psa 85:13 – shall set Psa 119:47 – I will delight Pro 15:33 – and Mat 23:11 – General Mar 1:35 – General Mar 10:45 – came Joh 10:4 – he goeth Act 27:34 – for this Rom 15:2 – General 1Co 6:17 – General 1Co 10:24 – seek Gal 4:19 – Christ Eph 3:18 – able Eph 3:19 – to know 2Pe 1:8 – in you
CHRISTIAN HUMILITY
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
Php 2:5
What is the humility for which the Christian must strive? If the Bible seems to give an uncertain answer, remember there is a great distinction between the teaching of the Old Testament and that of the New.
I. The great distinction.In the Old Testament, for the Jew humility meant a feeling towards God only; towards a man who was rich or powerful he would bow down, but he felt no regard for him. Even those who were described as poor and humble were often full of pridepride of wealth, pride of birth, pride of intellect, pride of virtue. Turning next to the New Testament, we see that while the words humble and humility are not often found in it, yet the quality they represent can be found on almost every page. There was the example of Jesus and of St. Paul, His chief follower. In the Epistle to the Philippians St. Paul condemns instances of pride as enemies of the Christian life. St. Paul, after enumerating his own qualifications, condemned all boasting when he said, Howbeit, what things were gain to me I counted loss for Christ; and the same thought is brought out elsewhere when he says, If I must needs glory, I will glory in my infirmities.
II. In what does this Christian humility consist, and how does it answer to some current ideas on the subject?It does not mean the repudiation of the powers that God had given to man: that would be ingratitude. St. Paul gratefully recognised his gifts. Nor does it mean that a man must distrust himself, as those who, to avoid doing wrong, do nothing. St. Paul lent no countenance to any such idea. The Roman Church has always insisted upon the submission of the intellect of all its sons to those in authority above themthe layman to the priest, the priest to the Bishop, the Bishop to the Popebut how far such submission was from St. Paul we may see from his Epistle to the Galatians. It is ours to seek to know and to obey the truth, and that demands a large measure of independence of thought and action. To submit ones intellect to another is not true, but false, humility. Wherein, then, did St. Pauls humility consist? Three points may be observed which will help us.
(a) He valued few things so much as his own independence of thought and faith, yet he sacrificed it for the sake of others. He was prepared to be all things to all men that he might save some.
(b) He was accused by his own converts at Corinth of deceit and unfairness, yet he suppressed his natural feelings of indignation and answered their charges.
(c) He occupied a foremost place among the rulers of Jerusalem, yet he placed all his gifts at the service of each little Church; and, lest they should begrudge the cost of food and lodging, he worked with his own hands for his own support. Thus we see that St. Pauls humility was simple, direct, unaffected.
III. We pass on to consider the example of the Lord Himself.But one incident will suffice, that of the washing of the disciples feet, and we lay stress upon the teaching of the words If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one anothers feet. What can we learn from this?
(a) That perfect humility is consistent with the full recognition of power.
(b) That as there could be no question of self-discipline in our Lords case, me see that the action was right and beautiful in itself. It was an act done to poor fishermen. Is there, then, such great worth in man? Yes; and that brings us to the root of the matter, for nothing is more prominent in our Lords teaching than the value He set upon individual souls. Thus we see that Christian humility has two aspects: it bows with the deepest reverence before the Majesty of God, as in the Old Testament; and it recognises, as in the New, the brotherhood of man.
IV. How, then, shall we describe the humble Christian?He is one who knows that the nature which all men share is something very great and very precious; and he learns this truth, not from the Psalms, but from the Gospel of the Incarnation. He is one who knows that the value of each single soul is equal to his own. That is one way of stating the truth, but there is another. Let us turn our prose into the poetry of St. Paul by quoting that wonderful passage from another of St. Pauls Epistles, changing only the word charity into humility, thus: Humility suffereth long and is kind, and so on to the end of the poem. Is it not plain that humility is nothing but charity in its earthly aspect? Humility is charitys earthly cloak, but it will fall from her shoulders when she enters the courts of the King Whose name is Love.
Rev. Canon Glazebrook.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
CHRIST THE PATTERN IN SERVICE
Behold My servant! (Isa 42:1). Ich dien (I serve) is the motto of our royal prince, but it is also the motto of the Prince of princes.
Let us endeavour to contemplate our Blessed Lord as the servant of the Father; in His descent; His dependence; His devotion.
I. Let us contemplate Him in His descent.If we would understand what it cost the Lord of glory to become a servant, we must remember who He was and who He is. What is the great hindrance to service? It is unwillingness to stoop. How the Master by His blessed descent has abased the pride and self-consciousness of men! How He bids us take the lowest place, that we may lift up those we go down to seek!
II. We see more fully this lesson of humility when we consider our Lords dependence.The Son can do nothing of Himself. Oh, wondrous pattern of an emptied life! Then, if this be so, do I not see the necessity of being self-emptied? If I am to live a life of faith, must I not be self-emptied? Christ emptied Himself of His glory; must not I be emptied of my meanness?
III. Consider the devotion of His life of service.
(a) Its voluntariness.
(b) Its unobtrusiveness.
(c) Its compassionateness.
(d) His sternness.
(e) His laboriousness.
(f) Its faithfulness.
Sacrifice lies at the foundation of service. To this He calls us; may we hear His voice, obey His Word, follow His example, and accept His power, for His names sake.
Rev. E. W. Moore.
Illustration
Sweetly sings George Herbert:
Hast thou not heard that my Lord Jesus died?
Then let me tell thee a strange story.
The God of power, when He did ride
In His majestic robes of glory,
Resolved to light, and so one day
He did descend, unrobing all the way.
The stars His tire of light, and rings obtained,
The clouds His bow, the fire his spear,
The sky His azure mantle gained.
And when they asked what He did wear,
He smiled, and said as He did go,
He had new clothes a making here below.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
THE MIND OF CHRIST
Here St. Paul is discussing mainly the necessity of certain Christian duties and certain Christian virtues, and he points to the example of the God-Man, Christ Jesus.
I. The model.The mind which was in Christ Jesus. It was
(a) Disinterested.
(b) Humble.
(c) Gracious.
II. The imitation.Let this mind be in you: the same moral and spiritual excellences. His thoughts, desires, motives, actions, must all be ours. A higher or better model to imitate we could not have; and a less perfect one would neither have sufficed for Him nor for us. Is it possible to copy it? Yes. The standard is highexceedingly high; but it is not altogether above and beyond us. By longing for it, praying for it, and believing for it, we shall gradually and certainly come unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. Our mind a transcript of His mind, His heaven will ultimately be our everlasting home (1Jn 3:2-3).
Illustration
Those are true and beautiful words, which the little shepherd boy was singing at the bottom of the valley, in the Pilgrims Progress:
He that is down, needs fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride:
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
(Php 2:5.) , -For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Codices A, B, C1, D, E, F, G, have , and the Vulgate and Syriac support the reading. The reading is found in C3, J, K, and many other codices, and is adopted by Alford. But has high uncial authority, and cannot well be overthrown by any internal argument derived from the structure of the sentence. The probability is that the syntactic difficulty suggested as an emendation. The particle is not found in A, B, C1, and is omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf. Meyer suggests that the omission was caused by regarding the of the last verse as the beginning of this one. If it be genuine, its meaning is more than explicative, or as Ellicott renders, verily. It enforces, or gives a reason for the previous injunction. We should expect the sentence to run thus- Have ye this mind in you which Christ had also in Him; whereas the clause reads-which also was in Christ Jesus. The passive aorist must be supplied, and not , as is done by Hoelemann. , after the relative, indicates a comparison between the two parts of the clause. Klotz, Devarius, vol. ii. p. 636. The phrase is not-among you, nor is it in any sense superfluous. It points out the inner region of thought which this feeling is to occupy. This mind is not a superficial deduction, nor a facile and supine conviction, but a feeling which cannot be dislodged, and which manifests its vitality and power in its incessant imitation of Christ’s example. The pronoun , placed emphatically, refers, in our opinion, to the duty inculcated in the preceding verse. The meaning is not, that every feature in Christ’s character should have a counterpart in theirs, as if the apostle had generally said, Let the same mind be in you as was in Christ Jesus-ita animati estote, ut Christus Jesus erat animatus. Nor is the reference directly, as Keil and others suppose, to the lowliness of mind already inculcated in 5:3; it is rather to the self-denying generosity and condescension enjoined in the previous verse, though these certainly can have no place where self-seeking and vainglory occupy a ruling position. Thus Victorinus-imitantes Dominum, nos de aliis potius cogitemus, quam de nobis ipsis.
Now, the example of Christ is living legislation-law embodied and pictured in a perfect humanity. Not only does it exhibit every virtue, but it also enjoins it. In showing what is, it enacts what ought to be. When it tells us how to live, it commands us so to live.
What the apostle means by the mind which was in Christ Jesus, he proceeds to explain. His object, in the following paragraph, is neither to prove Christ’s Divinity, so as to confirm their faith, nor to argue the perfection of His atonement, so as to brighten their hopes. It is not his intention to dwell on His manhood, with a demonstration of its reality; or to adduce His death with evidence of its expiatory worth; or to dilate on His royal glories, with a summons that every one should look up and worship. His purpose is in no sense polemical. His appeal is not to the merits of His abasement, but to the depth and spirit of it; not to the saving results of His service, but to the form and motives of it. In short, he developes that mind which was in Christ, and which was manifested in His self-denying incarnation and death. The apostle’s text is-Look not every man at his own things, but every man also at the things of others; and his argument is, Not only is this your duty, because there is precept for it; but it is your duty, because there is the noblest of all models for it. It was truly exemplified by Him -Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant.
The form of God on the one hand, and obedience to the death on the other, are the two termini; or the extent of our Lord’s self-denying grace is measured by the distance between equality with God, and a public execution on a gibbet. The question depends to a great extent on the reference in the clause-Who being in the form of God. Is it after He was born that the apostle so describes Him? Is it of the man Jesus, as He was among men, that this is predicated, or does the apostle take a backward step, and point to the previous impulse which had brought Him down to earth to be one of ourselves? Is the form of God descriptive of His incarnate dignity- -or of His simple Divinity prior to His assumption of humanity- ? Many maintain the former view, that it is solely of Jesus in His earthly state that the apostle speaks. But as the incarnation is not referred to till the next verse, and in the words-He emptied Himself, and took on Him the form of a servant; may it not be fairly inferred, that what is said of Him in the preceding clauses, describes Him as He was before this period of self-divestment, this assumption of a bondman’s aspect, and His subsequent humiliation? De Wette argues from the use of the historic name Christ Jesus, the antecedent to . But by what other name could the apostle designate Him? For it is to the Mediator that he refers; so that while he gives Him His official designation and human name, may he not under these concrete terms include His pre-existent state? Though first applied to Him infleshed, these names designated a person who combined in His mysterious constitution divinity and humanity. What violation of propriety is there in saying that Christ Jesus was a possessor of the glory of the Godhead anterior to His incarnation? The application of these epithets does not, therefore, necessarily limit the apostle’s allusion to one aspect of our Lord’s nature and career. The names are given to the ascended Saviour in Php 2:10 th and 11 th, for He still wears humanity, though He is now seen to be equal with God. Nor can it be objected, as on the part of Philippi, that because the historical Jesus alone is our model, there can be on that account no descriptive allusion to His higher nature. For what made Him become the historical Jesus-what induced Him to discharge the functions of the Christ, and take the name of Jesus? The very application to Him of the names of Jesus Christ, presupposed a mind in Him, which prompted Him to leave the glories and felicities of His Father’s bosom-a mind which, in our place and circumstances, we are summoned to imitate, though at an infinite distance. For the apostle does not propose a literal imitation of our Lord’s example in all its various steps down to crucifixion. That would be an impossibility. It is true that no man can imitate Christ’s incarnation; but it is equally true that no one can, in its nature and purpose, imitate His death. But it is not the action, so much as the spirit of it, that the apostle delineates, and Christians may be summoned to possess in their own spheres and limits, as well the condescension that brought Him down to the manger, as the self-abasing generosity which led Him to the Cross. It is another extraordinary statement of Philippi, that as the humiliation here spoken of was put an end to by the ascension, then, if that humiliation is held to consist of His assumption of our nature, it must follow that when He ascended, He left our nature behind Him. But we do not hold that it lay solely in the incarnation, and every one sees that the glorification of the incarnate nature was as really the termination of its inferior state, as would have been its abandonment. The historical title, Christ Jesus, suggested the lesson which the apostle wished to impress, for it belonged to the Saviour in His state of condescension and suffering; and it still identifies the Man of sorrows with Him who was in the form of God, and with the exalted Lord, to whom has been given the name above every name.
As this passage has long been a chosen field of challenge in polemical warfare, we need not wonder that so many names can be quoted on both sides of the view which we have been considering. For the opinion which we have defended are Chrysostom and the Greek expositors; of the Reformation period and subsequently, Beza, Vatablus, Zanchius, Clarius, Calixtus, Cocceius, Crocius, Aretius; among the Catholics, Estius and a-Lapide; and among others of later date, Semler, Storr, Keil, Usteri, Kraussold, Hufnagel, Seiler, Lnemann, Mller, Hoelemann, Rilliet, Pye Smith, Neander, Meyer, Ellicott, Alford, Lechler, Beelen, and Bisping. Among those who hold the opposite doctrine are to be found Novatian and Ambrose among the Latin Fathers; Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Piscator, Hunnius, Cameron, Musculus, Calovius, Le Clerc, Grotius, Bengel, Vorstius, Zachariae, Kesler, Heinrichs, van Hengel, Am Ende, Rheinwald, Matthies, Baumgarten-Crusius, De Wette, Philippi, and Conybeare.
Php 2:5. This mind does not mean that the mind of man can be equal to that of Christ. The original word is PHRONEO, and a part of Thayer’s definition at this place is, “to seek one’s interests or advantage; to be of one’s party, side with him.” As Jesus was unmindful of himself and thoughtful of others, we should be likeminded.
The Apologists Bible Commentary
Philippians 2
5-11Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (ESV).
F u r t h e r R e a d i n gArticles… Beyond the Veil of Eternity: The Importance of Philippians 2:5-11 in Theology and Apologetics James White
Php 2:5. have this mind in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. He has already said be of the same mind, be of one mind, and thus pointed towards a grand ideal. He now sets forth that ideal, as it has once been seen embodied in Christ, the great Exemplar.
That is, this humble mind. Here the apostle presses the duty of humility, from Christ’s example; he was a perfect pattern of humility when here on earth: example therefore should recommend this grace and virtue to us, which was so orient in the life of Christ, whose humility was as conspicuous as his innocency; and accordingly the apostle descends in the next verse to give particular instances of the humility and humiliation of the Son of God.
The Mind of Christ
To do that, he had to give up the power, glory and worship which belonged to him as God. The American Standard Version says he “emptied” himself. The idea is that he sacrificed his glory and took the nature of man. John told the early church, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” ( Joh 1:1 ; Joh 1:14 ; Joh 17:5 ; 2Co 8:9 ). To come to earth as a man, Christ truly had to empty himself of all the splendor of the Godhead.
There are two senses in which Christ took the form of a servant. First, man was created as a servant. His whole existence is fulfilled in obedient service to God ( Ecc 12:13 ). When Jesus took man’s likeness, he took the form of a servant. Second, he came to serve man, not be served ( Joh 13:1-17 ; Luk 22:24-27 ; Mark 9:35; 10:43-35 ). As God, he did not have to die, but he chose to lay down his life for our sakes ( Php 2:7-8 ; Joh 10:17-18 ; Heb 2:14-15 ). He did it because of the joy that would result from his sacrifice, despite having to suffer the worst death known ( Heb 12:2 ; Deu 21:22-23 ; Gal 3:13 ). To come to earth, Jesus gave up the form that naturally accrues to being God and took the figure of a man ( Joh 4:24 ; Luk 24:39 ). Jesus is now glorified man, which we hope to be one day ( 1Jn 3:2 ).
Php 2:5-6. Let this mind The same humble, condescending, benevolent, disinterested, self-denying disposition; be in you which was also in Christ Jesus The original expression, , is, literally, Be ye minded, or disposed, as Jesus was. The word includes both the mind and heart, the understanding, will, and affections. Let your judgment and estimation of things, your choice, desire, intention, determination, and subsequent practice, be like those in him; who being , subsisting; in the form of God As having been from eternity possessed of divine perfections and glories; thought it not robbery Greek, ; literally, did not consider it an act of robbery, , to be equal things with God He and his Father being one, Joh 10:30; and all things belonging to the Father being his, Joh 16:15; the Father also being in him, and he in the Father. Accordingly, the highest divine names, titles, attributes, and works, are inscribed to him by the inspired writers: and the same honours and adorations are represented as being due to him, and are actually paid to him, which are given to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit. As the apostle, says Macknight, is here speaking of what Christ was before he took the form of a servant, the form of God, in which he is said to have subsisted, and of which he is said (Php 2:7) to have divested himself when he became man, cannot be any thing which he possessed during his incarnation, or in his divested state; consequently, neither Erasmuss opinion, that the form of God consisted in those sparks of divinity by which Christ, during his incarnation, manifested his Godhead; nor the opinion of the Socinians, that it consisted in the power of working miracles, is well founded. The opinion of Whitby, Doddridge, and others, seems better founded, who, by the form of God, understand that visible glorious light in which the Deity is said to dwell, 1Ti 6:16; and by which he manifested himself to the patriarchs of old, Deu 5:22; Deu 5:24; and which was commonly accompanied with a numerous retinue of angels, Psa 68:17; and which in Scripture is called the similitude, Num 12:8; the face, Psa 31:10; the presence, Exo 33:15; and the shape (Joh 5:37) of God. This interpretation is supported by the term , form, here used, which signifies a persons external shape or appearance. Thus we are told (Mar 16:12) that Jesus appeared to his disciples in another , shape, or form: and Mat 17:2, , He was transfigured before them; his outward appearance or form was changed. Further, this interpretation agrees with the fact. The form of God, that is, the visible glory, and the attendance of angels above described, the Son of God enjoyed with his Father before the world was, Joh 17:5; and on that, as on other accounts, he is the brightness of the Fathers glory, Heb 1:3. But he divested himself thereof when he became flesh. However, having resumed it after his ascension, he will come with it in the human nature to judge the world. So he told his disciples, Mat 16:27. Lastly, this sense of , is confirmed by the meaning of , (Php 2:7,) which evidently denotes the appearance and behaviour of a servant.
Php 2:5-11. The Kenosis and the Exaltation.The word Kenosis has become a technical term in Christian theology for the self-emptying of Christ. Its origin in that relation is derived from the present important passage, where we read that He emptied (Gr. ekensen) himself (Php 2:7). The previous verses leading up to this passage indicate its spirit; the example of Christ is to be cited in order to enforce the duty of humility and the opposite to self-assertion. Paul would have his friends cultivate the same mental disposition that was in Christ. In illustrating this he first speaks of our Lords original condition previous to His life on earth as being in the form of God. The word rendered form indicates essential characteristics, therefore real Divinity. Nevertheless He had no ambition, for He did not grasp at equality with God, for the original word (RV prize) means literally booty, such as a robber might seize. On the contrary, He emptied Himself of what He already possessed, came down to the essential characteristics of servitudethe same word for form being used again. This seems to mean that certain Divine qualities were abandoned and certain human limitations accepted when Christ was seen in the likeness of a man. This last expression does not mean that He was not a real man, that He only assumed a human appearance (a view known in theology as docetic (p. 916), for merely apparent, not real humanity). Although the words would bear that signification, the context, as well as Pauls plain teaching about Christ coming in the flesh (e.g. Rom 1:3; cf. born of a woman, Gal 4:4), forbid it; for Paul has just said that He took on Him the essential form, i.e. the real characteristics of a servant. Moreover, the apostle goes on to speak of Christs death as an actual fact. This he takes as a further stage of self-limitation, especially since it was the shameful death of crucifixion. Christ submitted to it in obedience to the will of God. Therein lay its value in Gods sight. Then, in return for this self-emptying, culminating in the obedience that went as far as submission to crucifixion, God honoured Christ by giving Him the highest of names, viz. the name Lord, in order that He might receive the homage of the whole universe.
The above line of interpretation differs from some other interpretations: viz. (a) Luthers view that the whole passage refers to the life of Christ after the Incarnation. Against this, note that the passage moves in the historical order of events. (b) The idea that the equality with God was a previous possession implied by the form of God. This gives a non-natural idea to the word rendered prize, which means something to be seized, and not at present in hand. (c) The denial that the form of God was given up. This makes the Incarnation, as assuming the form of man, an addition to the previous state, not a self-emptying, and therefore runs counter to the drift of the passage.
2:5 {2} Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
(2) He sets before them a most perfect example of all modesty and sweet conduct, Christ Jesus, whom we ought to follow with all our might: who abased himself so much for our sakes, although he is above all, that he took upon himself the form of a servant, that is, our flesh, willingly subject to all weaknesses, even to the death of the cross.
The example of Christ 2:5-11
This paragraph is the most important one in the epistle and the most difficult to interpret.
"By anyone’s reckoning, Php 2:6-11 constitutes the single most significant block of material in Philippians." [Note: Ibid., p. 39.]
Paul introduced an illustration of what he meant, namely, the example of Jesus Christ. He wanted his readers to remember that the very qualities he had been advocating were observable in the Lord Jesus. This verse introduces one of the great Christological passages in the New Testament (Php 2:5-11).
". . . the secret of Christian joy is found in the way the believer thinks-his attitudes." [Note: Wiersbe, Be Joyful, p. 9.]
Chapter 7
THE MIND OF CHRIST (CONTINUED).
Php 2:5-11 (R.V.)
IT proves hard to make us aware of the sin and the misery involved in the place commonly allowed to Self. Some of the conspicuous outrages on Christian decency we do disapprove and avoid; perhaps we have embarked in a more serious resistance to its domination. Yet, after all, how easily and how complacently do we continue to give scope to it! In forms of self-assertion, of arrogance, of eager and grasping competition, it breaks out. It does so in ordinary life, in what is called public life, and, where it is most offensive of all, in Church life. Hence we fail so much in readiness to make the case of others our own, and to be practically moved by their interests, rights, and claims. There are certainly great differences here; and some, in virtue of natural sympathy or Christian grace, attain to remarkable degrees of generous service. Yet these also, if they know themselves, know how energetically self comes upon the field, and how much ground it covers. Many among us are doing good to others; but does it never strike us that there is a distant and arrogant way of doing good? Many in Christian society are kind, and that is well; but undoubtedly there are self-indulgent ways of being kind.
Having to deal with this evil energy of self, the Apostle turns at once to the central truth of Christianity, the person of Christ. Here he finds the type set, the standard fixed, of what Christianity is and means; or rather, here he finds a great fountain, from which a mighty stream proceeds; and before it all the forms of self-worship must be swept away. In bringing this out the Apostle makes a most remarkable statement regarding the Incarnation and the history of our Lord. He reveals, at the same time, the place in his own mind held by the thought of Christ coming into the world, and the influence that thought had exerted on the formation of his character. He bids us recognise in Christ the supreme exemplification of one who is looking away from his own things-whose mind is filled, whose action is inspired by concern for others. This is so at the root of the interposition of Christ to save us that the principle becomes imperative and supreme for all Christs followers.
We have to consider the facts as they presented themselves to the mind of Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, that we may estimate the motive which he conceives them to reveal, and the obligation which is thus laid upon all who name the name of Christ and take rank among His followers.
The Apostle, let us first observe, speaks of the Incarnation as that reveals itself to us, as it offers itself to the contemplation of men. To involve himself in discussion of inner mysteries concerning the Divine nature and the human, and the manner of their union, as these are known to God, is not, and could not, be his object. The mysteries must be asserted, but much about them is to continue unexplained. He is to appeal to the impression derivable, as he maintains, from the plainest statement of the facts which have been delivered to faith. This being the object in view, determines the cast of his language. It is the manner of being, the manner of living, the manner of acting characteristic of Christ at successive stages, which is to occupy our minds. Hence the Apostles thought expresses itself in phrases such as “form of God,” “form of a servant,” and the like. We are to see one way of existing succeeding another in the history of Christ.
First, our Lord is recognised as already existing before the beginning of His earthly history; and in that existence He contemplates and orders what His course shall be. This is plain; for in the seventh verse He is spoken of as emptying Himself, and thus assuming the likeness of men. For the apostle, then, it was a fixed thing that He who was born in Nazareth pre-existed in a more glorious nature, and took ours by a notable condescension. This preexistence of Christ is the first thing to consider when we would make clear to ourselves how Christ, being true man, differs from other men. In this point Paul and John and the writer to the Hebrews unite their testimony in the most express and emphatic way; as we hear our Lord Himself also saying, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and speaking of the glory which He had before the world was. But what manner of existence this was is also set forth. He “existed in the form of God.” The same word “form” recurs presently in the expression “the form of a servant.” It is distinguished from the words “likeness,” “fashion,” which are expressed by other Greek terms.
Frequently we use this word “form” in a way which contrasts it with the true being, or makes it denote the outward as opposed to the inward. But according to the usage which prevailed among thinking men when the Apostle wrote, the expression should not be understood to point to anything superficial, accidental, superimposed. No doubt it is an expression which describes the Being by adverting to the attributes which, as it were, He wore, or was clothed with. But the word carries us especially to those attributes of the thing described which are characteristic; by which it is permanently distinguished to the eye or to the mind; which denote its true nature because they rise out of that nature; the attributes which, to our minds, express the essence. So here. He existed, how? In the possession and use of all that pertains to the Divine nature. His manner of existence was, what? The Divine manner of existence. The characters through which Divine existence is revealed were His. He subsisted in the form of God. This was the manner of it, the glorious “form” which ought to fix and hold our minds.
If any one should suggest that, according to this text, the pre-existent Christ might be only a creature, though having the Divine attributes and the Divine mode of life, he would introduce a mass of contradictions most gratuitously. The Apostles thought is simply this: For Christ the mode of existence is first of all Divine; then, by-and-by, a new form rises into view. Our Lords existence did not begin (according to the New Testament writers) when He was born, when He was found in fashion as a man, sojourning with us. He came to this world from some previous state. One asks from what state? Before He took the form of man, in what form of existence was He found? The Apostle answers, In the form of God.
To Him, therefore, with and in the Father, we have learned to ascribe all wisdom and power, all glory and blessedness, all holiness and all majesty. Specially through Him the worlds were made, and in Him they consist. The fulness, the sufficiency, the essential strength of Godhead were His. The exercise and manifestation of all these were His form of being. One might expect, then, that in any process of self-manifestation to created beings in which it might please Him to go forth, the expression of His supremacy and transcendence should be written on the face of it.
The next thought is expressed in the received translation by the words “thought it no robbery to be equal with God.” So truly and properly Divine was He that equality with God could not appear to Him or be reckoned by Him as anything else than His own. He counted such equality no robbery, arrogance, or wrong. To claim it, and all that corresponds to it, could not appear to Him something assumed without right, but rather something assumed with the best right. So taken, these words would complete the Apostles view of the original Divine pre-eminence of the Son of God.
They would express, so to say, the equity of the situation, from which all that follows should be estimated. Had it pleased the Son of God to express only, and to impress on all minds only, His equality with God, this could not have seemed to Him encroachment or wrong.
I think a good deal can be said for this. But the sense which, on the whole, is now approved by commentators is that indicated by the Revised Version. This takes the clause not as still dwelling on the primeval glory of the Son of God, and what was implied in it, but rather as beginning to indicate how a new situation arose, pointing out the dispositions out of which the Incarnation came. “He counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.” To hold by this was not the great object with Him. In any steps He might take, in any forthgoings He might enter on, the Son of God might have aimed at maintaining and disclosing equality with God. That alternative was open. But this is not what we see; no holding by that, no solicitude about that appears. His procedure, His actings reveal nothing of this kind. What we see filling His heart and fixing His regard is not what might be due to Himself or assumed fitly by Himself, but what might bring deliverance and blessedness to us.
On the contrary, “He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.” In the Incarnation our Lord assumed the “form” of a servant, or slave; for in the room of the authority of the Creator now appears the subjection of the creature. He who gave form to all things, and Himself set the type of what was highest and best in the universe, transcending meanwhile all created excellence in His uncreated glory, now is seen conforming Himself to the type or model or likeness of one of his creatures, of man. He comes into human existence as men do, and He continues in it as men do. Yet it is not said that He is now merely a man, or has become nothing but a man; He is in the likeness of men and is found in fashion as a man.
In taking this great step the Apostle says, “He emptied Himself.” The emptying is perhaps designedly opposed to the thought of accumulation or self-enrichment conveyed in the phrase “He counted it not a prize.” However this may be, the phrase is in itself a remarkable expression.
It seems most certain, on the one hand, that this cannot import that He who was with God and was God could renounce His own essential nature and cease to be Divine. The assertion of a contradiction like this involves the mind in mere darkness. The notion is excluded by other scriptures; for He who came on earth among us is Immanuel, God with us: and it is not required by the passage before us; for the “emptying” can at most apply to the “form” of God-the exercise and enjoyment of Divine attributes such as adequately express the Divine nature; and it may, perhaps, not extend its sense even so far; for the writer significantly abstains from carrying his thought further than the bare word “He emptied Himself.”
On the other hand, we are to beware of weakening unduly this great testimony. Certainly it fixes our thoughts on this, at least, that our Lord, by becoming man, had for His, truly for His, the experience of human limitation, human weakness and impoverishment, human dependence, human subjection, singularly contrasting with the glory and plenitude of the form of God. This became His. It was so emphatically real, it became at the Incarnation so emphatically the form of existence on which He entered, that it is the thing eminently to be regarded, reverently to be dwelt upon. This emptiness, instead of that fulness, is to draw and fix our regard. Instead of the form of God, there rises before us this true human history, this lowly manhood-and it took place by His emptying Himself.
Various persons and schools have thought it right to go further. The word here used has appeared to them to suggest that if the Son of God did not renounce His Godhead, yet the Divine nature in Him must have bereaved itself of the Divine attributes, or withheld itself from the use and exercise of them; so that the all-fulness no longer was at His disposal. In this line they have gone on to describe or assign the mode of self-emptying which the Incarnation should imply.
It does not appear to me that one can lay down positions as to the internal privations of One whose nature is owned to be essentially Divine, without falling into confusion and darkening counsel. But perhaps we may do well to cherish the impression that this self-emptying on the part of the eternal Son of God, for our salvation, involves realities which we cannot conceive or put in any words. There was more in this emptying of Himself than we can think or say.
He emptied Himself when He became man. Here we have the eminent example of a Divine mystery, which, being revealed, remains a mystery never to be adequately explained, and which yet proves full of meaning and full of power. The Word was made flesh. He through whom all worlds took being, was seen in Judea in the lowliness of that practical historical manhood. We never can explain this. But if we believe it all things become new for us; the meaning it proves to have for human history is inexhaustible.
He emptied Himself, “taking the form of a servant,” or bond slave. For the creature is in absolute subjection alike to Gods authority and, to His providence; and so Christ came to be, He entered on a discipline of subjection and obedience. In particular He was made after the likeness of men. He was born as other children are; He grew as other children grow; body and mind took shape for Him under human conditions.
And so He was “found in fashion as a man.” Could words express more strongly how wonderful it is in the Apostles eyes that He should so be found? He lived His life and made His mark in the world in human fashion-His form, His mien, His speech, His acts His way of life declared Him man. But being so, He humbled Himself to a strange and great obedience. Subjection, and in that subjection obedience, is the part of every creature. But the obedience which. Christ was called to learn was special. A heavy task was laid upon Him. He was made under the law; and bearing the burden of human sin, He wrought redemption. In doing so many great interests fell to Him to be cared for; and this was done by Him, not in the manner of Godhead which speaks and it is done, but with the pains and labour of a faithful servant. “I have a commandment,” He said, as He faced the Jews, who would have had His Messianic work otherwise ordered. {Joh 12:49}
This experience deepened into the final experience of the cross. Death is the signature of failure and disgrace. Even with sinless creatures it seems so. Their beauty and their use are past; their worth is measured and exhausted; they die. More emphatically in a nature like ours, which aims at fellowship with God and immortality, death is significant this way, and bears the character of doom. So we are taught to think that death entered by sin. But the violent and cruel death of crucifixion, inflicted for the worst crimes, is most significant this way. What it comprehended for our Lord we cannot measure. We know that He looked forward to it with the most solemn expectation; and when it came the experience was overwhelming. Yes, He submitted to the doom and blight of death, in which death He made atonement and finished transgression. The incarnation was the way in which our Lord bound Himself to our woeful fortunes, and carried to us the benefits with which He would enrich us; and His death was for our sins, endured that we might live. But the Apostle does not here dwell on the reasons why Christs obedience must take this road. It is enough that for reasons concerning our welfare, and the worthy achievement of the Fathers Divine purposes, Christ bowed Himself to so great lowliness. A dark and sad death-a true obedience unto death-became the portion of the Son of God. “I am the Living One, and I was dead.” So complete was the self-emptying, the humiliation, the obedience.
“Therefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him the Name that is above every name.” For still we must think of Him as One that has come down into the region of the creatures, the region in which we are distinguished by names, and are capable of higher and lower in endless degrees. God, dealing with Him so situated, acts in a manner rightly corresponding to this great self-dedication, so as to utter Gods mind upon it. He has set Him on high, and given Him the Name that is above every name; so that Divine honour shall be rendered to Him by all creation, and knees bowed in worship to Him everywhere, and all shall own Him Lord-that is, partaker of Divine Sovereignty. All this is “to the glory of the Father,” seeing that in all this the worthiness and beauty of Gods being and ways come to light with a splendour heretofore unexampled.
So then we may say, perhaps, that as in the humiliation He who is God experienced what it is to be man, now in the exaltation He who is man experiences what it is to be God.
But the point to dwell on chiefly is this consideration-What is it that attracts so specially the Fathers approbation? What does so is Christs great act of self-forgetting love. That satisfies and rests the Divine mind. Doubtless the Sons pure and perfect character, and the perfection of His whole service, were on all accounts approved, but specially the mind of Christ revealed in His self-forgetting devotion. Therefore God has highly exalted Him
For in the first place, Christ in this work of His is Himself the revelation of the Father. All along the Fathers heart is seen disclosed. It was in fellowship with the Father, always delighted in Him, that the history was entered on; in harmony with Him it was accomplished. Throughout we have before us not only the mind of the Son, but the mind of the Father that sent Him.
And then, in the next place, as the Son, sent forth into the world, and become one of us, and subject to vicissitude, accomplishes His course, it is fitting for the Father to watch, to approve, and to crown the service; and He who has so given Himself for God and man must take the place due to such a “mind” and to such an obedience.
Let us observe it then: what was in Gods eye, and ought to be in ours, is not only the dignity of the person, the greatness of the condescension, the perfection of obedience and patience of endurance, but, in the heart of all these, the mind of Christ. That was the inspiration of the whole marvellous history, vivifying it throughout. Christ, indeed, was not One who could so care for us, as to fail in His regard to any interest of His Fathers name or kingdom; nor could He take any course really unseemly, because unworthy of Himself. But carrying with Him all that is due to His Father, and all that befits His Fathers Child and Servant, the wonderful thing is how His heart yearns over men, how His course shapes itself to the necessities of our case, how all that concerns Himself disappears as He looks on the fallen race. A worthy deliverance for them, consecrating them to God in the blessedness of life eternal-this is in His eye, to be reached by Him through all kinds of lowliness, obedience, and suffering. On this His heart was set; this gave meaning and character to every step of His history. This was the mind of the good Shepherd that laid down His life for the sheep. And this is what completes and consecrates all the service, and receives the Fathers triumphant approbation. This is the Lamb of God. There never was a Lamb like this.
How all this was and is in the Eternal Son in His Divine nature we cannot suitably conceive. In some most sublime and perfect manner we own it to be there. But we can think of it and speak of it as the “mind of Christ”: as it came to light in the Man of Bethlehem, who, amid all the possibilities of the Incarnation, is seen setting His face so steadily one way, whose life is all of one piece, and to whom we ascribe grace. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Therefore God has highly exalted Him; and given Him the Name that is above every name. This is the right way. This is the right life.
Are we followers of Christ? Are we in touch with His grace? Do we yield ourselves to His will and way? Do we renounce the melancholy obstructiveness which sets us at odds with Christ? Do we count it our wisdom now to come into His school? Then, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, this lowly, loving mind. Let it. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Do nothing through strife or vainglory. In lowliness of mind let each esteem the other better than himself. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and envy, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven you. If there is any comfort in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, let this be so. Let this mind be in you; and find ways of showing it. But, indeed, if it be in you, it will find ways to show itself.
The Church of Christ has not been without likeness to its Lord, and service to its Lord, yet it has come far short in showing to the world the mind of Christ. We often “show the Lords death.” But in His death were the mighty life and the conclusive triumph of Christs love. Let the life also of Christ Jesus be manifest in our mortal body.
We see here what the vision of Christ was which opened itself to Paul, -which, glowing in his heart, sent him through the world, seeking the profit of many, that they might be saved. This was in his mind, the wonderful condescension and devotion of the Son of God. “It pleased God to reveal His Son in me.” “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus.” “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that though He was rich yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich.” “He loved me and gave Himself for me.” And in various forms and degrees the manifestation of this same grace has astonished, and conquered, and inspired all those who have greatly served Christ in the Church in seeking to do good to men. Let us not separate ourselves from this fellowship of Christ; let us not be secluded from this mind of Christ. As we come to Him with our sorrows, and sins, and wants, let us drink into His mind. Let us sit at His feet and learn of Him.
A line of contemplation, hard to follow yet inspiring, opens up in considering the Incarnation of our Lord as permanent. No day is coming in which that shall have to be looked upon as gone away into the past. This is suggestive as to the tie between Creator and creature, as to the bridge between Infinite and finite, to be evermore found in Him. But it may suffice here to have indicated the topic.
It is more to the point in connection with this passage to call attention to a lesson for the present day. Of late great emphasis has been laid by earnest thinkers upon the reality of Christs human nature. Anxiety has been felt to do full right to that humanity which the Gospels set before us so vividly. This has been in many ways a happy service to the Church. In the hands of divines the humanity of Christ has sometimes seemed to become shadowy and unreal, through the stress laid on His proper Godhead; and now men have become anxious to possess their souls with the human side of things, even perhaps at the cost of leaving the Divine side untouched. The recoil has carried men quite naturally into a kind of humanitarianism, sometimes deliberate, sometimes unconscious. Christ is thought of as the ideal Man, who, just because He is the ideal Man, is morally indistinguishable from God, and is in the closest fellowship with God. Yet He grows on the soil of human nature, He is fundamentally and only human. And this, it is implied, is enough; it covers all we want. But we see this was not Pauls way of thinking. The real humanity was necessary for him, because he desiderated a real incarnation. But the true original Divine nature was also necessary. For so he discerned the love-the grace, and the gift by grace; so he felt that the Eternal God had bowed down to bless him in and by His Son. It makes a great difference to religion when men are persuaded to forego this faith.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Greek Text of Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians and Phillipians
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Apologists Bible Commentary
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary