Philippians 2:1-13
We are continuing to look at this wonderful letter of joy to the Philippians. Outside of the gospels, it would be difficult to find a more quoted passage in all of Scripture than vv.6-11 from today’s reading. Today’s reading’s two main themes we have explored before and will continue to explore: humility and unity.
It is sometimes called the Christ Hymn, as it is thought that Paul may be quoting from a very early hymn from the earliest time of the early Church. If this is so, it tells us a lot about how the early church worshipped! These verses have generated and shaped endless debates about the nature of Christ's humanity and divinity, how his salvation works, and its relationship to the Christian life.
Vv. 1-5, and 12-13, the verses surrounding the Christ Hymn, can’t be understood outside the context of this hymn to Christ. Paul’s purpose in this central passage is to tell who Christ actually is and to reveal his nature. The verses at the beginning and end of today’s reading give a pattern of thinking and living for believers - one grounded in the way of Jesus described in the hymn - the way of humility and servanthood. God the Son, Jesus Christ, despite being the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, became a humble human being, a servant to all, despite actually being God.
In last week’s reading from Ch. 1, Paul wrote that we are “to live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” (1:27). Building on this in 2:1-5 Paul narrows in to appeal for community unity and individual humility. He asks his hearers to “make his joy complete” by being “of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (2:2). The emphasis on unity is hard to miss.
Along with unity, in v. 3 Paul appeals for humility. Believers are to be characterized not by “selfish ambition or conceit,” but by “humility”. This means regarding others and their interests more highly than our own interests. In the context of this reading this humility is grounded in Christ’s “humbling himself” to the point of crucifixion in v.8.
And this is the wondrous story of what redemption means. It is the story of Jesus’ insertion of himself into the depths of our own bondage and despair in slavery to sin. That is slavery to trying to please ourselves (which we never can, incidentally. We will always want something else that we think will please us more!).
This is the story of God with us, told from the standpoint of the Word becoming flesh - his coming in human form as a slave! Last week's lesson gave us a glorious picture of free citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, and of the boldness and freedom of Paul's and the Philippians' witness to the gospel.
Today, we hear of Christ himself taking the form of a slave, humbling himself even to the point of death by crucifixion, the execution reserved for slaves and traitors in the Roman Empire. The great mystery is that liberation comes from Christ's voluntary submission to bondage, which is his entry into our bondage. This entry by Christ into our slavery is the heartbeat of what Paul is really wanting the Philippians to understand in the verses that begin and end today's passage.
If we want to become like Christ, we begin by hearing how Christ became like us and continues to come among us. Then, and only then, are we ready to hear about how we are to imitate Christ.
The movement in this drama is one of descending and ascending; of going down and rising up. First it tells of Christ's descent from a position of being in the form of God and equal with God, to being in the form of a slave, in the likeness of human beings, in the appearance of an individual, obedient even to the point of death by crucifixion. Having been raised on a cross, Christ is exalted even higher by God, so that all creation will bow down and confess him as Lord.
Exalted means ‘raised up’, so this raising back up of Jesus to where he always was, will bring all people and things to himself. Jesus says in John 12:32 that “when I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.” Our powerful Saviour also will transform our body of humiliation to be like his body of glory, so that we ourselves are caught up into the same divine movement of descending in humiliation and then being raised to glory. This happens when we believe, not when we die!
For this very reason, the story of Christ also moves from separation to solidarity, and from difference to likeness, as Christ moves into the most despairing depths of human experience. In the form of a slave, he mirrors back to us the reality of our own enslavement to sin and death.
Please get this my friends! Jesus comes very near, so near that he "gets under our skin." This is the "kindness" of God, that God becomes one of our “kind”. This is the incarnation, God becoming flesh that we celebrate at Christmas, and it is the source of the life-changing and transforming power that leads Paul to write "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (2:13).
A better way to read it might be, "God is the one working in you, in both the willing and the working." The Greek word translated "work" is the source of our word, "energy" or "energize." Not that we have to do “works” to achieve salvation.
God gives us the desire and the energy to bring about Christ's compassion in the world. The "you" is plural, it is said to the Church, showing that God is among us, having come among us as a slave, as one who serves. This divine coming down to our level to be our friend and companion is not only an example for us in our dealings with one another, but the actual motivating power operating in and through all our relationships with others.
Similarly, the "salvation" we are to work out is not our private, individual destiny, that is sorted by God the moment we believe. But rather, the quality of our corporate life as it is lived under the rule of the King and Saviour, Jesus.
Paul, in the first 4 verses today, has described this quality of life in terms of mutual love and affection, sharing in the Spirit, unity, humility, putting others first - and all of this "in Christ" (2:1-4). Here is real "quality of life!" And it is a public and shared life. This is the Church!
Just as last week's reading to the Philippians told us to let our manner of life be worthy of the gospel so that it is a public demonstration of the meaning of salvation, so immediately following today's lesson, Paul tells us we "shine as stars in the world" (2:15).
The "fear and trembling" (2:12) evoked by Christ's incarnation, death and exaltation tell us we are in the presence of God. God’s revelation of himself results in this transformed community we call Church, and the Church itself becomes a manifestation of God's presence in the world.
Finally, the incredible story of salvation brought about by Christ is true reality. Everything stemming only from the world is not true reality. It is fake, a work of evil to tempt us away from the beauty and life of reality.
Real and true life, that is life in Christ, is not a television show or a movie; it is not virtual reality; it is God's action in the flesh, invading our world, raising us up into the saving work of God, making us also participants, actors in the drama. No longer mere spectators, we truly become part of the Lord’s salvation story for the whole world, where every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord, and every knee shall bow to the glory of God the Father. Amen