Bible Study Series: The Book of Philippians
Bible Study Philippians 2:5-11 Ultimate Humility: God became a man!
By Fraser Gordon
Last time we looked at the first four verses of Philippians Chapter 2 which are about unity, lowering yourself, and putting others first. Paul was addressing the Philippian church because they had these issues among them. The greatest example Paul could give was the Lord Jesus Christ, how He lowered Himself for you and me so that He could bring us to God.
The foundation of an Egyptian home
This passage of scripture is very rich and deep. It's all about the greatness of God and how He sent His Son into the world to die for sinners like you and me. Our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, and our understanding of Him as an equal member of the Trinity can be very limited. There was a man in Egypt being shown around some ruins when he noticed a large temple column rising into the air with a small house on top of it. When he asked the guide how it got there, he was told that in the last century the column and surrounding area was covered with sand. One local farmer tried to find a solid foundation for his home. He scratched about and finally found a smooth stone surface and erected his home there. Now in the desert the wind constantly blows and anything permanent pulses the sand to shift away from it. The farmer thought the stone was merely lying in the sand but over time and after excavations were completed it was discovered the house was on top of a temple column 80 feet above the ground.
The parallel is that many people claim their lives are built on Jesus Christ but they may know as little about Him as the Egyptian knew about the foundation of his home. You see many people see Jesus just as a teacher, a good man's fine example. Yet they fail to see His origins as a co-equal member of the Trinity. God Himself.
Are you in good form?
Php 2:5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
The word ‘form’ is the Greek word morphe which means essence, nature, or character. In other words Jesus Christ showed the essence, the nature, and the character of God on earth. He was a visible expression of God himself. Scripture declares this about Him:
Joh 1.1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.
Here you have the declaration that the word was God and the word was with God.
Joh 1:3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
He was the creator. The Word that became flesh.
Joh 1:14 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 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
Colossians 1 says the same thing:
Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. 18 And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. 19 For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,
Another verse concerning the Lord Jesus Christ and His deity is in Hebrews.
Heb 1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high
This word ‘form’ means essence, character and nature. When I'm at the golf course talking to people I might ask them, ‘how is your form today?’, or, ‘are you in good form?’ Most of the time the answer is no. Good form would mean shooting consistent birdies but the reality is people shoot double bogeys. In other words, outwardly they cannot perform what they want to do. Inwardly we all want a birdie every hole, but outwardly doesn't match with the inward character. The Lord Jesus Christ was very different. He 100% always gave a full expression of what God was like. This is the part we have to get our head around - that the Lord Jesus Christ being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. He was 100% God and 100% man. He is an equal member of the Trinity but for 33 years, He laid that aside and gave a visible expression of what God was like.
A willing bondservant
Php 2:7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
The word for reputation is the Greek word ‘kenoo’ and it means to empty oneself. Jesus emptied himself, the question is of what? He was 100% God and 100% man; what is it that the Lord Jesus Christ emptied Himself of? The answer is that when He became a man He emptied himself of His rights to live and act as God. He became dependent on His Father so that the Father could live His life and express Himself through the Son. In His humanity He chose not to live and act as God, but to live in dependence on the Father. As God He was all knowing but as a man He laid that aside and didn't know everything. Isaiah 50 gives us a little inkling into this showing that Jesus had to learn from the Father. It is a prophetic chapter about the humiliation of the Holy One and from verse 4 it is about the Messiah, the one to come.
Isa 50.4 "The Lord God has given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear To hear as the learned. 5 The Lord God has opened My ear; And I was not rebellious, Nor did I turn away. 6 I gave My back to those who struck Me, And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.
That scripture is a direct connection to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. They pulled out His beard and struck His back. In becoming a man Jesus had to learn what it meant to submit to the Father and be obedient. Hebrews 5 tells us that He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. The greatness of the book of Philippians is that it brings out that Jesus made Himself of no reputation and took the form of a bond servant.
There's a little study in the title of bond servant. In Exodus 21 a bond servant was a slave that of his own free will chose to stay and serve his master. The master would take him to the judge, and also bring him to a doorpost and pierce the slave's ear. He would then serve his master freely forever. In Philippians 2.7 Paul writes about Jesus taking the form of a bondservant, this ties in with Isaiah 50 where it reads He has opened my ear which is a type of the bond servant having his ear pierced. Christ was a willing bondservant to the Father.
A normal man
Paul goes on to write in Philippians 2.7 and coming in the likeness of man. Jesus started in a high and exalted position and then came to earth as a bondservant, in the likeness of a man. The Lord Jesus Christ as a man didn't walk up and down the streets of Jerusalem with a halo over His head being pious. He was a normal man. Hebrews 1 tells us that He upholds all things by the word of His power and John 1 that without Him nothing was made that was made. He could have been born in a palace or at least somewhere nice. But no, of all the ways God could have chosen to send His Son, the creator of all things was born in a manger to parents that were righteous and faithful but poor. You see God's ways are not our ways. The false gods of other religions are always big and powerful with muscles on their kneecaps. But the Lord Jesus Christ was a normal man. Even Isaiah 53 says that there was nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. It doesn't mean that He was ugly it just means that he wasn't a standout movie star with all the good looks. He was a normal man with eyes, ears, kneecaps and a spleen. As normal as we are.
A conversation between the Trinity
Php 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
Jesus Christ would have been the greatest missionary ever. You think about it. He left His place of glory, humbled himself, and came down to earth. Scripture declares that about us, we also saints are called to humble ourselves before a Mighty God. Don't ever ask God to humble you; we are called to humble ourselves. If God humbles us we might not enjoy His method. In Philippians 2.8 it says Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. This is a mystery and one of the things I love to ponder on. It wasn't an easy thing for God to become a man and lay aside all His rights. It was no easy path. He was 100% God, but also became 100% man.
I love the examples in scripture of the conversations between the Son and the Father. On the cross Jesus says, “My God My God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm 22 goes a little deeper into what Jesus experienced on the cross saying all His bones were out of joint and His heart melted like wax. Another example is Psalm 102 which we will have a look at. I love the commentary on it by William MacDonald who believes it is a prophetic conversation between God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit in the last hours on the cross. As a side note Hebrews 1.10 is quoted directly from Psalm 102.24-27 referencing the Lord Jesus Christ. William MacDonald writes that the first 11 verses are Jesus on the cross speaking to God.
Psa 102:1 A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the Lord. Hear my prayer, O Lord, And let my cry come to You. 2 Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble; Incline Your ear to me; In the day that I call, answer me speedily. 3 For my days are consumed like smoke, And my bones are burned like a hearth. 4 My heart is stricken and withered like grass, So that I forget to eat my bread. 5 Because of the sound of my groaning My bones cling to my skin. 6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert. 7 I lie awake, And am like a sparrow alone on the housetop. 8 My enemies reproach me all day long, Those who deride me swear an oath against me. 9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mingled my drink with weeping, 10 Because of Your indignation and Your wrath; For You have lifted me up and cast me away. 11 My days are like a shadow that lengthens, And I wither away like grass.
Jesus says because of your indignation and your wrath, and, you have lifted me up and cast me away. We need to grasp that God's plan for sending His Son into the world was that He would be made sin. On the cross the Lord Jesus Christ suffered the wrath of Almighty God which was poured on Him as He was made sin on our behalf. The just for the unjust, the righteous for the unrighteous, that we might have our sins paid in full by the Lord Jesus Christ. These first 11 verses speak about the anguish that Jesus is suffering as He's going through this. From verse 12 MacDonald believes the Father responds to the turmoil of the Son.
Psa 102:12 But You, O Lord, shall endure forever, And the remembrance of Your name to all generations. 13 You will arise and have mercy on Zion; For the time to favour her, Yes, the set time, has come. 14 For Your servants take pleasure in her stones, And show favour to her dust. 15 So the nations shall fear the name of the Lord, And all the kings of the earth Your glory.
The Father responds to the Son and says But you, O Lord, shall endure forever. In other words, have hope. That the work which we are doing has an everlasting time frame. Macdonald goes on to say that in verses 16-22 the Holy Spirit declares truths about a future reign of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennium.
Psa 102:16 For the Lord shall build up Zion; He shall appear in His glory. 17 He shall regard the prayer of the destitute, And shall not despise their prayer. 18 This will be written for the generation to come, That a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. 19 For He looked down from the height of His sanctuary; From heaven the Lord viewed the earth, 20 To hear the groaning of the prisoner, To release those appointed to death, 21 To declare the name of the Lord in Zion, And His praise in Jerusalem, 22 When the peoples are gathered together, And the kingdoms, to serve the Lord.
That's the Millennium, a future time frame where there will be righteousness and a just ruler over the Earth. Verses 23 and 24 is Christ again responding.
Psa 102:23 He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days. 24 I said, "O my God, Do not take me away in the midst of my days;...
Such was the anguish that Christ was going through that His days would be shortened.Now the Father responds to the anguish of the Son;
Psa 102.24 …Your years are throughout all generations. 25 Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. 26 They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. 27 But You are the same, And Your years will have no end. 28 The children of Your servants will continue, And their descendants will be established before You."
This Psalm is written from three different perspectives. The Son is in anguish on the cross and the Father encourages Him. He declares to Him that the work He is doing will continue for everlasting. It is a wonderful picture and I don't think we realise the depths of what Christ gave up to obey the Father's will. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Think about Jesus’s prayer in the garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26.39, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. As a man He was at the point of death nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will."
The committee meeting
Way back before creation there was a committee meeting between the Trinity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is why Revelation 13.8 speaks about Jesus as being the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Before anything was created They knew what was going to take place and They went ahead with plan A. The second member of the Trinity, as an equal member of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ, would lower himself and take on humanity. He would be born in a manger and live as a human yet give a full expression of the Father and then He would die a criminal. He had to become obedient, Hebrews 2.10 says to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. He lowered Himself not only to learn from the Father and lay aside His glory and deity, He also had to come to the point of death to be made perfect through the things that He suffered.
We have a high priest saints who knows what we are going through. He has endured, He has suffered and He was made perfect. He intercedes for us continually. He was obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. When the Father sent the Son into the world, He didn’t just live a good life and die of old age. He died in His prime, in the most barbaric and brutal way for a man to die. I think it was the Persians who crucified people first and then the Romans took over and perfected the pain and suffering. To the Jew, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree Gal 13.3. The Lord Jesus Christ was made a curse for you and me. He was crucified on the cross and Philippians says that this obedience was even to the death on the cross, the most humiliating way for a person to die. Normally it took days to die after being flogged and tortured. They would suffocate in their own blood because of the position they were held up on the cross and because of that their breathing did a lot of slow internal damage. It was a brutal way to die over a long period of time.
Going down to come up
So the Lord Jesus Christ went from a great and glorious position to going down, down, down. He left heaven and all the glory of the angels surrounding and praising Him. He came down and took on humanity. He lived the perfect life and was then made sin. He came down, down, down. Now we come to verse nine where God raises Him up, up, up. This is His exaltation, He came down to do the will of the Father and now He is going up.
Php 2:9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
He went down and now He's going up. He comes up as the eternal Saviour of the world, the Saviour of our souls. He is given a higher role, now our High Priest who continually lives to make intercession for those that come to Him through faith. He is given dominion over all things. God has highly exalted Him which means to exalt above and beyond all measure. That is to do exceedingly more and abundantly than is required. Jesus Christ is highly exalted and God has given him dominion over all things.
What is the world coming to?
Php 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
People will often say ‘what on earth is the world coming to?’ It's actually coming to this verse. If anyone ever says that to you, you can say, “I know what it's coming to, it's coming to Philippians 2.10. All of humanity and every created thing, whether it is in heaven, on Earth or the demonic realm under the Earth will bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what this earth is coming to. That's where we're all heading. Paul may very well have been quoting from Isaiah 45.
Isa 45:21 Tell and bring forth your case; Yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, A just God and a Saviour; There is none besides Me. 22 "Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. 23 I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out of My mouth in righteousness, And shall not return, That to Me every knee shall bow, Every tongue shall take an oath. 24 He shall say, 'Surely in the Lord I have righteousness and strength. To Him men shall come, And all shall be ashamed Who are incensed against Him. 25 In the Lord all the descendants of Israel Shall be justified, and shall glory.' "
God says He is the only God, look to Him and be saved. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess or take an oath. In Philippians Paul writes that every knee will have to bow and declare who He is. This is what God is saying about the Lord Jesus Christ, that every knee is going to bow and declare Him Lord. God is giving Him the highest name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow.
Php 2:11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The Lord Jesus Christ has a lot of names. He's called Jesus obviously, which means Saviour. But there are many others with that name. He's Messiah, the Anointed One, Son of Man, Son of God, he has been called a prophet, a priest, a king, the teacher, the Alpha and Omega. But the highest of all names is Lord. God has exalted Him and raised Him high above all things. He's raised him up, up, and up. He has given him the exalted name Lord. In Hebrew it means Adonai, Jehovah, or Yahweh.
Act 2:36 "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."
That is His title, Lord and Christ, Saviour, but also God himself. The word for Lord is Yahweh or Jehovah, the highest name that there is. In Philippians 2.11, Paul writes the same thing as Peter, that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus left His highest position and came down, down, down. In His exaltation God has raised him up, up, up and given Him dominion over all things. Every knee will have to bow to Him. He has taken his rightful place back as an equal member of the Trinity and He is treated as God Himself. Every tongue will declare Him to be Lord. This is what the world is coming to.
Act 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
Conclusion
This is a wonderful little passage of scripture and it starts with Let this mind be in you. Remember the context of our passage is about humility and humbling ourselves. It is about lowering ourselves and putting others first and the greatest example Paul could find was the Lord Jesus Christ. He was an equal member of the Trinity yet for our sake He lowered himself and took on humanity. That is a big lowering. He became obedient to the Father's will which was another lowering and laid aside His right to act and live as God. He humbled himself to the Father's will and lowered Himself even further to the death of the cross. But God raised Him up. Unity in our churches and among our Christian brothers and sisters starts by lowering ourselves in the same way the Lord Jesus Christ lowered Himself for you and me. Christ is our greatest example, and we are called to humble ourselves as He humbled Himself So that others might be saved.
Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you Lord for your goodness to us that you were willing to die in our place. You came to live as a man and be rejected as a man for us. We thank you for your salvation that you paid a price that we could never pay. We thank you for all of the great eternal work that you have done. And we glorify your name. We thank you that the Father has exalted you and raised you up and we bow the knee, let us bow the knee to you here and also when we are redeemed. Thank you for your goodness and make Jesus more and more real to us in our experience for His sake. Amen.
God bless.