There is a lot going on in the world around us. With the election just around the corner groups are posturing and contending for political power. Some are legitimately expressing reasons for their position on issues. Others are rioting in the streets. There are so many lies in the media that it’s hard to know what we can believe. We don’t have the time and resources to investigate each allegation. We must work, make a living, and fulfill our personal responsibilities. It is an intense time, and most people feel the anxiety. On the one hand, we need to be informed and prepare for what may be coming in the days ahead.i On the other hand, we must maintain our peace by trusting the Lord with whatever happens. When your peace is disturbed, you know it’s time to get with the Lord and hear His voice.
Perhaps the most important thing we can do is to keep our minds stayed on the Lord. We have this promise in Isaiah 26:3: “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You” (NKJV).ii That’s one reason we continue to preach Christ and don’t allow ourselves to be overly influenced by the political upheaval. In our text today we will focus on Christ; we will learn from His example, and we will enjoy comfort in His exaltation Our text is in Philippians 2:5-11.
Before we get into the text, I want to read a little further in Isaiah 26 because it reinforces the call to trust in the Lord, and it reminds us of God’s sovereignty. These are important truths to keep in mind during these volatile times. The heathen may roar and imaging vain things. But ultimately God’s will shall prevail.iii Isaiah 26:3-6: “Trust in the LORD forever, For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength. 5 For He brings down those who dwell on high, The lofty city; He lays it low, He lays it low to the ground, He brings it down to the dust. 6 The foot shall tread it down --The feet of the poor And the steps of the needy" (NKJV). There are some high and lofty things that are coming down. There is a shaking that will bring down the arrogant. And it will be God’s doing. Isaiah 26 continues, “The way of the just is uprightness; O Most Upright, You weigh the path of the just. 8 Yes, in the way of Your judgments, O LORD, we have waited for You; The desire of our soul is for Your name And for the remembrance of You. 9 With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek You early; For when Your judgments are in the earth, The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness” (Isa. 26:7-9, NKJV). The judgments of the Lord often bring hard times. But they have a purpose. They are designed to teach righteousness. They help people realize there are consequences to their choices.
We are not in that ultimate shaking that will occur in the Tribulation Period.iv But we are in a time of shaking. We are in a time of sifting. As Jeanie mentioned last Sunday, the winds are blowing, and they will separate wheat from chaff.v Not long ago people could get up on Sunday morning and mindlessly go to church, passively sit through the worship, be entertained by the message, and go home unchanged. It was a weekly habit of token religion. That pattern has been broken. The responsibility to stay spiritually fed and alert falls more on the individual now. Anyone desiring to draw back from the Lord can do it more easily. Some will simply drift away and become entangled in other things. But we are persuaded of better things in you. We are persuaded that you will press in and remain faithful. We are persuaded that you will find a way to gather in His name and encourage one another in the faith—even if it is harder to do than it once was. I am reminded of the exhortation in Hebrews 10:23-25: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (NKJV). Even if we must gather in groups of ten, let us gather! Even if the bells and whistles. light shows, and entertaining music are absent, let us gather! Even if the surroundings are humble, let us gather! Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. We need one another in times like these.
In our text today we see the exaltation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We get to celebrate His triumph. We get to learn from His pathway to victory. Remember in the verses just prior to this Paul has told the Philippian Christians to walk in humility toward one another—to serve one another and do nothing out of selfish ambition. He continues with that thought in Philippians 2:5-11. I’m reading from the New International Version.
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”vi
We will consider: (I) Jesus’s Pathway of Humility in verses 6-8. (II) Jesus’s Exaltation by the Father in verses 9-11. (III) Our Personal Application of this passage as called for in verse 5.
I. Jesus’s PATHWAY of Humility:
Verse 6 begins with a declaration of Jesus’s state in heaven prior to the incarnation: “Who, being in very nature God.”vii This truth of Christ’s deity is reinforced throughout the New Testament.viii John begins his gospel with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Paul declared it in Colossians 1:15-20. The New Living Translation gives a clear sense of what Paul says in that passage. “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. 18 Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. 19 For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”
It was Jesus’s claim of deity that infuriated the Jewish leaders and got him executed.ix In John 10 they picked up stones to stone Him. Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me? ‘We are not stoning you for any good work,’ they replied, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God’” (10:32-33).
Paul begins with Christ’s place with the Father prior to His incarnation so we can appreciate the extent of His descent in the incarnation. He enjoyed the full honor, authority, and privilege with the Father as the second person of the Trinity. A common error of cults and false religions is the denial of Christ’s deity. They will often affirm Him as a teacher or even a prophet, but they refuse to acknowledge His deity. This is a point of doctrine that cannot and must not be compromised.x The globalists hate it as much as the Jews did who killed Jesus. It is a major obstacle to their one-world-religion agenda. Remember Jesus’s prayer in John 17. Listen to what He says to the Father in verse 4-5, “I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” It is impossible for us to grasp the height of that glory, just as it is impossible for us to fathom the depths of His suffering and shame on the cross. What Paul wants us to see here is the profound contrast between his place in glory as the second person of the Trinity versus the depth to which He stooped for our salvation. That’s why Philippians 1:6 begins with the divine pre-incarnate state of Christ.
He did not cling to the rights and privileges of His deity, but voluntarily set that aside in order to do the work of redemption. “6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.” He could have avoided the humiliation and suffering of His incarnation; He could have continued enjoying the advantages of His throne. He could have continued in His place with the Father without enduring the cross. But His love for you and me compelled Him to do otherwise. The Father sent Him because He loved us.xi The Son gladly obeyed because He loved us. For a time, He set aside the rights and privilege of deity so He could enter our world and save us. In 2 Corinthians 8:9 Paul puts it this way: “ For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” There, as here in Philippians, Paul is reminding Christians of Christ’s unselfish generosity as a model to be emulated.
Verse 7 declares the choice He made: “rather [rather than remaining in the comfort of heaven; rather than taking advantage of that position], he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.” The Revised Standard Version says he, “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”xii In His incarnation Jesus set aside His use of the divine attributes like omniscience and omnipotence.xiii For Him to enter into our human experience it was necessary for Him to do that.xiv To become a High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Heb. 4:15) it was necessary for Him to do that. To forge a pathway for our service to God it was necessary for Him to do that. In John 5:19 Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.” Again in 5:30 He said, “By myself, I can do nothing.” He lived and ministered as a man dependent on the Father. While on earth He did not perform miracles out of His own divinity, but by faith and dependence on the Father.xv F. B. Meyer wrote, “This is a profound truth which
it is necessary to understand if you would read rightly the lesson of our Savior’s life. Men have been accustomed to think that the miracles of Jesus Christ were wrought by putting forth His intrinsic and original power as God. . . .” Myer goes on to explain how Jesus lived a truly human life.xvi When Jesus healed the sick, He did it as a man full of the Holy Spirit. When Jesus wept, He did it as a man with human emotion. When Jesus suffered on the cross, He experienced it as a man unshielded from the pain and humiliation. His experience was fully human. It was empowered by the Holy Spirit; but it was fully human. And we are called to follow Him in our dependence on the Father in all that we do.
He became a servant.xvii We have already encountered this theme of servanthood. In the opening of the letter Paul described himself as a servant or slave – doulos. Here in 2:7 Paul uses the same word: “rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant [doulos].” Our text brings to mind Isaiah 52 and 53 as prophecies concerning Christ’s coming. Notice the consistencies in Isaiah 52:13: “See, my servant will act wisely [we see that in Phil. 2:6-8]; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted [we see that in verses 9-11 of our text].” The passage goes on to describe His humiliation and suffering. Isaiah 53:11 promises, “After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great. . . .” Isaiah foresaw it, and Paul looked back on it: Christ’s humiliation and exaltation.
Verse 8 expresses the essence of what Paul is communicating to the Philippians: the choice to humble Himself, rather than exalt Himself. “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” Consider how the Lord of Glory humbled Himself. He was born a helpless infant, dependent on Joseph and Mary and dependent on God the Father. He was not born in a palace, but in a barn. He was not born into privilege, but into poverty. He grew up as a child doing what His parents told Him to do. He worked with His hands to help provide for the family. Although He could confound scholars with His wisdom at twelve years old, He remained subject to His parents.xviii When He began His ministry, He did not choose men of wealth and power. He chose lowly fishermen and the tax collector, Matthew. There was no maneuvering or self-exaltation into prominence and esteem. He simply did the will of the Father and let the chips fall where they may.
He lived in unreserved obedience to the Father. Never let anyone tell you that Christianity is not about obedience. Yes, the strength to obey is found in the Holy Spirit, not in our own tenacity. But the decision to obey is ours. He works in our will toward that end (Phil. 2:12). But He never takes away the freewill He has given us. The popular message today is to side-step obedience in some way. Some replace it with a gospel of social justice: change society but let me continue in my sin. Some justify it as an avoidance of legalism. Legalism rests on self-reliance. It is a mindset that is to be avoided. But obedience to God’s word is not legalism. Others declare it unnecessary because of the imputed righteousness of Christ.xix That is inconsistent with the apostle’s teaching in the New Testament. Most of their exhortations are to Christians. Jesus lived in obedience to the Father, and we are called to follow that example.
His obedience initially took Him down, rather than up. The truth He declare brought disfavor from the powers that be. The more truth He gave them, the more they wanted to kill Him.
His obedience took Him all the way to the cross. It was a shameful, painful death. It was a death reserved for the worst criminals. A Roman citizen could not be crucified. But Jesus was beaten, crowned with thorns, and mocked as a fraud. He could have called legions of angels to His recue at any time. But love held Him there on the cursed tree. That blood had to be shed in payment for our sin.xx That blood provided a way of salvation for any sinner. It is available to you right now. The only thing you have to do is surrender to God and receive His gift of mercy. The cross of Christ is the only way of salvation. To reject that provision is to reject your only hope. To reject Christ is to reject your only way to God.xxi For there is salvation in no other name (Acts 4:12). He alone has the words of eternal life.xxii
In answer to Christ’s obedience God has highly exalted Him. We have considered the depths of His humiliation. Now look with me at the height of His exaltation. Again, we cannot comprehend the fullness of either. But God has been pleased to show us enough to bring joy and expectation to our hearts.
II. Jesus’s EXALTATION by the Father.
Verse 9 begins with the word “Therefore.” It is the pivotal point in the passage. The glory and honor described in verses 9-11 is because of what precedes that word “Therefore.” The life Jesus lived resulted in a “Therefore.” In fact, every life results in a “Therefore.” For some the “Therefore” will be “depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”xxiii For others the result will be “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . . Enter into the joy of your lord.” And the “Therefore” is an eternal “Therefore.” What will it be for you? Could anything be more important?
Jesus’s obedience was absolute and complete. Therefore, His exaltation is the highest. “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name.” Added to the glory He had before His incarnation is the honor of being the Savior of lost mankind. Gabriel’s instruction to Joseph was, “You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”xxiv Do you love the name of Jesus? Does it stir love and gratitude in your heart? Just the mention of that name thrills our soul. What a beautiful name it is to the redeemed of the Lord.
In Revelation 5 the curtain was pulled back and the apostle John saw into heaven. A mighty angel was crying out, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” John began to profusely weep because no one was worthy to open it. That scroll represented the title deed to creation and all that is in it.xxv Then an elder stepped forward and said to John, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.” This Lion of Judah is Jesus. This same Jesus shall return and rule this planet. Are you longing for His return? That is the proper stance of the believer—not as an escape from the challenges of life, but as a uniting with the groom. We used to sing the triumphant song: We Shall See the King. “We shall see the King, We shall see the King We shall see the King when He comes He’s coming in power, We’ll hail the blessed hour We shall see the King when He comes.”xxvi
There are honors that Jesus received because of His act of obedience in our behalf. He will forever be praised as our deliverer. The song of angels and men will be: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Rev. 5:12).
To Him is given the right to judge all people. In John 5:27 He told the Jewish leaders that the Father has “given him authority to judge all mankind because he is the Son of Man” (John 5:27 NLT). Pilot will one day stand before Him and give an account. Caiaphas will be at that judgment bar. So will Judas. No one will escape. Every man will bow the knee to Him. Even powers, principalities, and wicked spirits will bow. Not for salvation, but in acknowledgement of who He is! We so gladly bow to Him today. But we grieve to hear the blasphemous use of His name. We grieve at the knowledge that may oppose Him rather than serve Him. Even the thought that He is ignored by so many fills us with sorrow. How we long for all peoples to know His love and mercy now, so that they do not receive His justice on that day.
His exaltation is further described in Philippians 2:10-11: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [includes all of creation; angelic & human] 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”xxvii
III. Our Personal APPLICATION of this Passage.
In all the glory of this passage we must not lose sight of the context in which it was given. In the verses prior to this Paul has called the Philippians to an attitude of humility toward one another. He has warned them about living selfishly and the vain ambition that accompanies that. Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” Then he offers Christ’s example to reinforce those exhortations. Verse 5: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” as the KJV puts it. Or the NIV says, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”
You will also notice that Paul continues with this call to humility and obedience in verse 12: “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
The value of our text is only realized when we take it personal. Am I walking in humility with others? Am I living selfishly? Am I pursuing vain ambitions of self-promotion? Am I as concerned for the interests of others as my own interests? Those questions will drive sincere people to their knees. They will cause us to seek more grace. Our prayer becomes, “More love, Lord, we need more of your love in our hearts.” His grace is sufficient for us to live unselfishly.
We also have a reliable test of righteousness here. In our nation there are groups pushing for more privilege. Insisting on more recognition and respect. And they are violent in their demands. Then they claim to have the moral high ground. They claim their stand for social justice should be supported on moral grounds. But I ask this one question. Are their activities consistent with the attitude of heart called for in our text? Their message is: “If you don’t give me advantages and prominence, I will burn your buildings down. I will desecrate your monuments. I will destroy your cities.” That is altogether inconsistent with Jesus’s attitude of heart in our text. You tell me that your cause is righteous. And there may be injustices that need to be addressed. But then you push and shove, intimidate and strive for power and dominance. It does not add up to righteousness when I measure it by the word of God. The end does not justify the means. We must always pursue righteous objectives through godly means. Here in our passage we are told how to do it.
Anytime you’re aggressively exalting yourself, you are out of step with God’s ways. Proverbs 25:27 says, “. . . to seek one's own glory is not glory.” Jesus did not seek His own glory. He
lived for the glory of the Father.xxviii The result was glory from the Father. As a result, the Father exalted Him. This is the pattern we are given in the text. We are to humble ourselves and live in obedience to the Lord. He will exalt us in due time if we do that.xxix Jesus taught the principle in Luke 14:11: “For whoever [this works for everybody] exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
ENDNOTES:
i Genesis 41:35-36; Proverb 6:6; 27:3, 12; acts 11:27-30.
ii All Scripture quotes are from the New International Version unless indicated otherwise.
iii Psalm 2; Isaiah 40:22-31.
iv Heb. 12:25-29; Rev. 6:13.
v Matt. 3:11-12.
vi Popular scholarship that focuses on this passage being an early hymn tend to be more of a distraction than a help. While the passage is poetic, Gordon Fee provides sound reasons for attributing the authorship to Paul (Fee, 192-194).
vii There is “no precise equivalent” in English to the Greek word morphe. However, Fee writes, “Morphe was precisely the right word for this dual usage, to characterize both the reality (his being God) and the metaphor (his taking the role of a slave), since it denotes ‘form’ or ‘shape’ not in terms of the external qualities that are essential to it. Hence it means that which truly characterizes the given reality” (emphasis his). Gordon Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, N. B. Stonehouse, F. Bruce, G. Fee, and J. Green, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995) 204.
viii See also John 5:18; Heb. 1.
ix Mark 14:60-64.
x Jude 1:3.
xi John 3:16. The cross was conceived by the Father out of His love for us. The cross was not an act to persuade the Father to forgive us. It was His plan for making that possible. He gave His own Son to make a way for you and me.
xii While Paul uses morphe in reference to Christ becoming a servant, he uses homoioma to express Christ’s likeness to man (“being born in the likeness of men” RSV). This could reflect Paul’s preservation of the fact that even though Jesus became fully human, He did not cease to be divine and He was without sin (Rom. 8:3; Heb. 4:15). Fee, 213-214.
xiii From the Greek word ekenosen in verse has emerged the theological discussions about kenosis. The early Church Fathers laid an important foundation for our understanding by insisting that Jesus became fully man while remaining fully God. This is essential truth for orthodox Christianity.
xiv See also Richard W. Tow, Authentic Christianity: Studies in 1 John (Bloomington, IN: Westbow Press, 2019) 237-243.
xv Had He been operating in His divinity, the temptation (Luke 4:1-13) would have been meaningless.
xvi F. B. Meyer, Devotional Commentary on Philippians (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1984) 85-87.
xvii See Mark 10:45 and John 13:14-15.
xviii Luke 2:40-52. Jesus did His first miracle in John 2:11 turning the water into wine. Apocryphal accounts of Jesus working miracles as a child are contrary to the revelation we have in Scripture.
xix “A gospel of grace, which omits obedience, is not Pauline in any sense; obedience, after all, is precisely the point made in the application that follows (v. 12).” Fee, 227.
xx Heb. 9:22.
xxi John 10:1-18.
xxii John 6:68.
xxiii Matt. 7:23 (NKJV).
xxiv Matt. 1:21 (NKJV).
xxv W. A. Criswell, Expository Sermons on Revelation, vol. 3: Revelation 4-10 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978) 65. Adam had relinquished it to Satan through his disobedience. Christ redeemed it through His obedience (1 Cor. 15:24-28; 2 Cor. 5:19).
xxvi Hymns of Glorious Praise (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1969) 144.
xxvii Paul is quoting from the Septuagint: Isaiah 45:23.
xxviii John 7:18; 8:50.
xxix James 4:10; 1 Pet. 5:6.
