Transcript

Pastor Calvin Miller once shared this testimony: Following an exhausting time in North Carolina surrounded constantly by a few thousand students at a Bible camp, I was finally on the plane headed home.

Being totally wiped-out I thought, “Lord, thank you that I’m moving away from here.” And because the Bible is the last desperate defense, you pull it up around your face.

When you have your Bible around your face, everybody will leave you alone. It’s a frightening specter. Even the stewardess won’t ask you if you want peanuts.

I said to the Lord, “Lord, please, I just want to be alone for two or three hours before I get back to Omaha.”

Then I became aware of a young man crying in the seat beside me. He looked like a student, 19 or 20 years of age, and again I thought, “Lord, he’s not mine. My sinners are all on the ground in Omaha back home.”

He kept crying, and finally I put down my Bible and I said, “Son, I don’t know what the matter is, but if there’s anything I can help you with, I’d like to.”

He told me that his mother and his father and his little sister had all three been killed in a car accident in Asheville, North Carolina, the day before on vacation. Suddenly, my heart grew very still and silent. Then I felt the pain, or tried to.

I turned to him and said, “I don’t know what you must be feeling. I can’t imagine this, but I know Someone who understands it perfectly.”

I took the Bible behind which I’d been hiding and shared with him about Jesus Christ and was able to lead him to Christ in the air. But it was not my last act.

I got off the plane there, and I called someone I knew and asked him to meet him at the plane where he was going to be landing. He needed help that day. Yes, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” If He is a servant, then we are servants.

Christ is our example. His selfless concern for others is what we are to model as we obey God’s instruction from verses 3 and 4: “in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

Philippians 2:5: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”

In Isaiah 14, we learn about Satan’s pride when he rebelled against God at the beginning.

“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”

In Isaiah 14 we read about Satan’s desire to go up and rise to the highest point of God’s universe. Philippians 2 contains the counterpart to Satan’s words in Isaiah.

This chapter tells us of the descent of the Lord down from the highest position in heaven down to His death on the Cross. Then they carry the mind of the reader up again to see Him seated on the throne of His glory, exalted above all.

Satan proudly wanted to go up, up and up. But he will go down, down, down. Christ humbly said I will go down to the earth, become a man, die the death of the Cross.

As a result, God has lifted Him up and “God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9).

It is God’s will that we have Christ’s mind, to let His humble mind govern our thoughts and actions, to allow it dominate and control our lives. God wants the Church to have and maintain the same attitude as His Son.

Christ dwells in each believer. And 1 Corinthians 2:16 tells us that “we have the mind of Christ.” But even though He indwells us and we have His mind, it does not necessarily mean that He has control or governs each believer’s mind. By spiritual growth and transformation by the Spirit, we move toward this goal of letting Christ’s mind be in us.

In verse 2, Paul wanted the Philippian church to be “like-minded” with one another and here in verse 5 we learn that we need to be “like-minded” with Christ.

But as we are like-minded with Christ, and think according to His humble, loving, submissive mind, like-mindedness with one another will then take place.

Because under certain circumstances with people we are often tempted to and often do promote our self-interest, defend our rights, proudly assert our opinion as the authority.

But then we look at Christ. Who, in spite of His authority as God, His eternal glory, and rightful claim to worship and obedience, He willingly and humbly, stepped down from His throne, became a man, and died the death of the cross.

How much better would relationships be if we thought and acted with Christ’s mind of love and humility, laying aside our interests and rights, and putting others and their needs first? How much more would there be like-mindedness with others?

Philippians 2:6-8: “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.”

There are seven steps downward in Christ’s humiliation listed in verses 6-8 and there are seven steps upward in His exaltation listed in verses 9-11.

The seven steps downward are as follows: 1) “Thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” 2) “Made Himself of no reputation.” 3) “Took upon Him the form of a servant.” 4) “Was made in the likeness of men.” 5) “Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself.” 6) “Became obedient unto death.” 7) “Even the death of the Cross.”

The seven steps upward are as follows: 1) “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him.” 2) “Given Him a name which is above every name.” 3) “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” 4) “Of things in heaven.” 5) “And things in earth.” 6) “And things under the earth.” 7) “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

In instructing the Body of Christ to let Christ’s mind of selflessness and humility be in us, Paul describes the descent of Christ step by step by step. First he starts with Christ being God, where the descent downward in His humiliation started from.

He wrote of Christ, “Who being in the form of God.” “Being” speaks of existing and Paul points to eternity past here that Christ always existed in the form of God.

As John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Christ is from eternity. He is uncaused. He is the uncreated One, existing eternally as God. Christ ever was, and is, and ever shall be fully God.

He pre-existed time and creation. He did not have a beginning. He existed before becoming man.

“Being” is in the present tense in the Greek text, and points to the Lord’s continuing existence with the full nature of God. His full deity is not something that Christ gave up, when He became a man. In becoming man, He continued “being” God.

“Form” does not speak of shape, but of essence. In eternity past, He existed in the same form as God, perfectly equal with Him. Jesus Christ is God, who was and is eternally one in nature, essence, and majesty with God. He possesses the very being and the very nature of God and has always possessed that.

And here’s the first step down, that Christ “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” The term “robbery” means a thing gained by robbery or a thing seized, clutched, grasped or clung to.

Paul shows that the equality Christ had with God was not something He had to grasp after, clutch, or cling to, i.e., it was not something He had to hold on to in order to attain it, or to hold on to in order to retain it.

Equality with God was and is His by right of His glorious Person; it isn’t something He must grasp after. Equality with God is Christ’s by the very essence of His Being. It’s who He is; He is fully God.

Contrast this with Satan, and with Adam, who considered equality with God something to be seized. Satan wants to be like the Most High.

Adam sinned because he wanted to be “as gods, knowing good and evil.” Satan and Adam tried to become like God by grasping after it.

But Christ didn’t need to grasp after being equal with God, because He is God.

And Christ “thought it not robbery,” or He did not consider His majesty or high and glorious position as the divine Son as something to be held onto or clung to, but something He was willing to selflessly relinquish for the redemption of man.

Though He had all the rights and privileges and honors of being God, He didn’t clutch them. He existed as God in equality but He refused to cling to that favored position.

He refused to cling to all the rights and honors and glory that went with it. He was willing to give it up, for us. Christ looked to us and our need, out of His infinite love and grace.

And having “thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” Paul says He “made Himself of no reputation.” This speaks of Christ “emptying Himself.” Being equal with God didn’t lead Christ to fill Himself up, it led Him to empty Himself.

Imagine this, that Christ who is God, who owns everything, who can do everything, who has a right to everything, who is fully satisfied within Himself…He emptied Himself.

He emptied Himself of His privileges and prerogatives as God Almighty. He gave up the worship and adoring presence of angels. He gave up all of the shining brilliance of the glories of heaven. He emptied Himself of the personal riches of His glory.

As 2 Corinthians 8:9 states, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was RICH, yet for your sakes He became poor…”

And in becoming a servant and taking on flesh in His incarnation it necessarily involved that He also “emptied Himself” of His heavenly glory and heavenly majesty.

But He did NOT empty Himself of His Deity, which is impossible. He didn’t exchange deity for humanity. He didn’t stop being God and start to become just a man instead.

Jesus Christ was fully God prior to becoming man and the incarnation did not change this fact. He laid aside the expression of Deity but not the possession of His Deity. He was both fully God and fully man.

The Son of God became the Son of Man. And in light of the reality of Christ being God Almighty, His incarnation then is the most profound possible humiliation.

E. Stanley Jones once wrote: “The early Christians did not say in dismay: ‘Look what the world has come to,’ but in delight, ‘Look what has come to the world.’”

This should continually astound us; that the eternal Son of God took on flesh and came to this world to be the sinner’s Savior.

Paul explains how He came down another step and that Christ “took upon Him the form of a servant.” He gave up something and He took on something: the form of a servant.

The way of humility and being a servant is not the way of the world. The world tells us to take and take advantage of others, to climb over others if needed, to look out for yourself first, and to make yourself happy.

But God’s ways are not man’s ways. His ways are higher. And joy is found in following His ways. Joy is found in humility and serving others and thinking like Christ.

Christ willingly left and laid aside His position of glory and honor, and took on the form of a servant. He didn’t put on a servant’s garment and looked like one; He became a servant in its fullest and truest sense.

The One who had the right to everything had and owned nothing and became a servant. He is King of kings, Lord of Lords, rightful heir to David’s throne, God in human flesh, but He had no advantages, He had no privileges in this world. He came as a servant.

Throughout His earthly ministry we see how “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister…” He served so many, serving tax collectors, the demon-possessed, the blind, the lame, the deaf, the sick, the sorrowing, the unrighteous, the self-righteous, and even His disciples when He washed their feet.

He came as a servant to man and as a servant to God, wholly given to His Father’s will in serving and carrying out His plans and purposes in providing salvation for all.

As a further step down, Christ “was made in the likeness of men.” He became a man, truly human. He had all the attributes of humanity. He was true man.

He was so obviously like other men His brothers and sisters didn’t even believe Him to be God’s Son. Christ’s enemies thought He was just a man, and rejected His Deity.

In taking on flesh, the Lord experienced all that a human does with birth, growth, hunger, thirst, weariness, and human emotions, etc.

He was true man, yet as Paul puts it, He was “in the LIKENESS of men,” because there were differences also. His humanity was not all there was to Him.

He was sinless. He had a fully human nature but that nature was not sinful. Every other human being has a sin nature. At the same time, Christ had a divine nature as well as a human nature. He was God manifest in the flesh; Deity and humanity united in one.

And we should remember that taking on flesh was sacrificial. He permanently became man for us. He is forever the “one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”

Continuing the downward descent, Paul wrote that “being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself.”

“Fashion” speaks of that which comprises outward manner of life, appearance, actions, language of humanity in general. Isa. 53:2 says of Him, “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”

Christ appeared to other people just as any other man. There were no visual clues in His “appearance” that He was either sinless or divine.

His appearance was like all others. Outwardly, He was no different from other men. He was “found” to be, or recognized by others as true man.

He looked like a man; He talked like a man; He walked like a man; He acted like a man; He was a man. He was in the appearance of a man, who was also God.

In His humanity, in His personal attitude during His life while on earth, “He humbled Himself.” He went down even further.

We’ve seen how as the Son of God He humbled Himself in leaving heaven’s glory in taking on flesh, but even as the Son of man in His life on earth Paul says He went even lower, humbling Himself and looking on the needs and things of others and willingly serving.

And then He went even lower in His humility, “and became obedient unto death.”

In our minds, because we have limits for how far we would allow ourselves to be put down, somewhere along the line and at some point of Him coming from the highest position in glory and then going lower, lower, and lower in His humility, we would think He would have said, “Stop…that’s enough.” But He never did. His humility and love is infinite.

And His submission and perfect obedience to the Father took Him all the way to death. The mark of a servant is obedience and Christ the Servant was obedient to the Father’s will always. He was obedient unto death, which was His purpose and destiny in coming to this world, to die and to save sinners.

And in His humility, He was obedient unto death, “even the death of the Cross.” The word “even” calls attention to the shocking aspect of His death. He came all the way down, all the way to death; and not just any death, but death on a cross. This is the bottom. He came from the highest glory to the lowest place of humiliation.

The Cross was a form of execution that was without equal in its pain and humiliation. It was a cruel, horrible death of public shame and suffering. It was a bloody, agonizing death. The cross was capital punishment reserved for the worst criminals.

But Christ selflessly thought of you and me and did this for us and died for all. And our Lord’s death on the Cross was voluntary, vicarious, and victorious as He conquered sin and death for us by His death, burial and resurrection.

Philippians 2:9-11: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given 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; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Our Lord said in Matthew 23:12: “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” This was true of our Savior, and will be true of us also, as we humble ourselves and serve others in this life.

“Wherefore” looks back to Christ’ voluntary humiliation and condescension and His obedience and death. In light of His humility, love, and sacrifice He has now been given the place of highest honor.

Christ did not exalt Himself, however, but rather He humbled Himself and took on the form of a servant to die the death of the Cross. It was God the Father who exalted Him.

In view of the Son’s submission to the depths of humiliation, God the Father raised Him to the height of exaltation. “Highly exalted” means He “super-exalted” Him.

Christ as God was exalted in the past. But now, Christ, as the God-man, has been raised up, glorified and exalted to the pinnacle of authority at God’s right hand, “far above all.”

Revelation 5:11,12 gives us a glimpse into heaven and His exaltation: “and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne…and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory, and blessing.”

On earth, Christ was crowned with thorns, but now He is crowned with all glory and honor. The Father’s exaltation of the Son also attests to all of God’s absolute satisfaction with Christ’s work of redemption. The Cross was the perfect, all-sufficient, once-for-all sacrifice for sin, and all anyone has to do is to place their trust in it to be saved.

In our Lord’s exaltation, His name has been exalted. The Father has given Him a name which is above every name. Jesus Christ is incomparable and so is His name.

In these verses we learn of Christ’s humiliation in leaving heaven’s glory to take on flesh, and now the name of His humiliation has been lifted up and is above every other name.

While His name was a common Jewish name at that time, because Christ humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross, His name is now above all others. “Jesus” means simply “Savior,” and this name of “Jesus” is now above every name, because that name is forevermore identified with what He accomplished at Calvary.

Paul says “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” Men bow themselves before gods and kings in recognition of their authority.

One day, before the One who is Lord and God and King of kings, all will bow at His sacred and beautiful name of “Jesus.”

As God has highly exalted Him, all the billions upon billions of people from all history who have ever lived, will one day bow to Him, both the believing and unbelieving. Paul mentions the 3 places where all people from all history are currently found.

“Things in heaven” refer to the believing living in heaven. “Things in earth” refer to both the believing and unbelieving currently living on earth. “Things under the earth” are all the unbelieving in hades awaiting judgment in the center of the earth.

All people from these 3 places will one day bow to Him. For the believing this is no problem at all, we willingly bow to Him and acknowledge that He is Savior and Lord. And when we see Him in glory, we will fall down before Him and at His name we will gladly bow.

Today, God is giving all the opportunity to bow the knee to Him in their heart, and believe in His finished work, and submit to Him and what He’s done at the Cross for them.

We can either bow now or bow later to Christ. To believe and bow now means salvation. To reject the gospel and bow later means condemnation and judgment.

The unbelieving who die in their sins will bow at the Great White Throne Judgment, when they stand before the Lord. But if the lost wait to bow then, it will be too late.

They will bow the knee before His sovereign authority. But this will not result in salvation. Subjugation is not salvation.

After they bow, Christ will cast them into the lake of fire, to forever be separated from Him, and they will suffer in torments for eternity.

And not only will all bow in submission to Him, verse 11 says that someday, the entire universe will agree with God the Father on the testimony which He has given of His Son.

“Every tongue” will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Every human being who ever lived and every angelic being will acknowledge his title and confess that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

The holy angels in heaven, the redeemed in heaven and on earth, all the unbelieving on earth and in hades, and all the demons and even Satan himself will all bow and will all confess that Jesus Christ is very God of very God and sovereign Lord over all.

The exaltation of Christ, the universal bowing and confession of His Lordship is all “to the glory of God the Father” because when the Son is honored, the Father is honored.

And may we honor the Son by bowing our hearts and yielding our wills to Him and His Word, and by allowing the mind of Christ to direct us and thus finding the joy that comes from humbly, selflessly, and sacrificially serving and putting others first like Him.