Philippians 2:1-11 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Philippians 2:1-11

• Philippians 2:1-4
• If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
  • The one danger which threatened the Philippian church was that of disunity
    • There is a sense in which that is the danger of every healthy church. It is when people are really serious and their beliefs really matter to them that they are apt to come into conflict with one another 
    • The greater their enthusiasm, the greater the danger that they may collide. It is against that danger Paul wished to safeguard his friends
  • In verses 3-4 he gives us three causes of disunity
    • Selfish ambition
      • There is always the danger that people might work not to advance the work but to advance themselves
      • It is extraordinary how time and again the great leaders of the Church almost fled from office in the agony of the sense of their own unworthiness
      • Far from being filled with ambition, the great leaders were filled with a sense of their own inadequacy for high office
    • Personal prestige
      • Prestige is for many people an even greater temptation than wealth. To be admired and respected, to have a seat on the platform, to have one’s opinion sought, to be known by name and appearance, even to be flattered, are for many people most desirable things
      • But the aim of Christians ought to be not self-display but self-obliteration. We should do good deeds, not in order that others may glorify us, but that they may glorify our Father in heaven. Christians should desire to focus people’s eyes not upon themselves but  on God
    • Concentration on self
      • If we are always concerned first and foremost with our own interests, we are bound to come into conflict with others. If for us life is a competition whose prizes we must win, we will always think of other human beings as enemies or at least as opponents who must be pushed out of the way
      • Concentration on self inevitably means elimination of others, and the object of life becomes not to help others up but to put them down
  • Faced with this danger of disunity, Paul sets down five considerations with ought to prevent disharmony
    • The fact that we are all in Christ should keep us in unity
      • No one can walk in disunity with other people and in unity with Christ. If we have Christ as a companion the wya, we inevitably become companions of others. The relationships we hold with other people are no bad indication of our relationship with Jesus Christ
    • The power of Christian love should keep us in unity
      • Christian love is that unconquered goodwill which never knows bitterness and never seeks anything but the good of others
      • It is not a mere reaction of the heart, as human love is; it is a victory of the will, achieved by the help of Jesus Christ
      • It does not mean loving only those who love us, or those whose we like, or those who are lovable. It means an unconquerable goodwill even to those who hate us, to those whom we do not like, to those who are unlovely
      • This is the very essence of the Christian life; and it affects us in the present and in eternity
    • The fact that they share in the Holy Spirit should keep Christians from disunity
      • The Holy Spirit binds individuals to God and to one another. It is the Spirit who enables us to live that life of love, which is the life of God; if we live in disunity with others, we thereby show that the gift of the spirit is not ours
    • The existence of human compassion should keep people from disunity
      • As Aristotle had it long ago, human beings were never meant to be snarling wolves but were meant to live in fellowship together. Disunity breaks the very structure of life
    • Paul’s last appeal is the personal one. There can be no happiness for him as long as he knows that there is dignity in the church with is dear to him
      • If they want to bring him perfect joy, they must perfect their fellowship. It is not with a threat that Paul speaks to the Philippian Christians, but with the appeal of love, which should always be the tone used
• Philippians 2:5-11
• 5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
  • In many ways, this is the greatest and most moving passage Paul ever wrote about Jesus. It states a favorite thought of his. The essence of it is in the simple statement Paul made to the Corinthians that, although Jesus was rich, for our sakes, He became poor. Here that simple idea is stated with a fullness which is without parallel
  • Paul is pleading with the Philippians to live in harmony, to lay aside their differences, to shed their personal ambitions and their pride and their desire for prominence and prestige, and to have in their hearts that humble, selfless desire to serve, which was the essence of the life of Christ. His final and unanswerable appeal is to point to the example of Jesus Christ
  • Greek is a far richer language than English. Where English has one word to express an idea, Greek often has two or more. In one sense, these words are synonyms; but they never mean entirely the same thing; they always have some special meaning. That is particularly true of this passage. Every word is chosen by Paul with meticulous care to show two things—the reality of the humanity and the reality of the deity of Jesus Christ. Let’s take the phrases one by one
    • Verse 6;
      • existing in the form of God
        • Two words are most carefully chosen to show the unchangeable deity of Jesus
          • The word for existing in the Greek word huparchein, which is not the common Greek word. It describes the very essence of every individual and that which cannot be changed. It describes that part of every one of us which remains the same. So Paul begins by saying that Jesus was essentially an unalterably God
          • He goes on to say that Jesus was in the form of God. There are two Greek words for form — morphe and schema, and they do not mean the same thing
            • Morphe is the essential form which never alters
            • Schema is the outward form which changes from time to time and from circumstance to circumstance
            • Roses, daffodils, tulips, chrysanthemums, primroses all have the same morphe—flowers
            • But their schema is different
            • The word Paul uses for Jesus being in the form of God is morphe; that is to say, His unchangeable being is divine However His outward schema might alter, He remained in essence divine
      • Did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited
        • The word translated exploited is harpagmos, which comes from the verb meaning to snatch or to clutch. The phrase can mean one of tow things, both of which are fundamentally the same
          • It can mean that Jesus did not need to snatch at equality with God, because He had it as a right
          • It can mean that He did not clutch at equality with God, as if to hug it jealously to Himself, but laid it down willingly for the sake of men and women
          • However we take this, it once again stresses the essential deity of Jesu
    • Verse 7
      • He emptied Himself
        • The Greek is the verb kenoun, which means literally to empty. It can be used of removing things from a container until the container is empty, of pouring something out until there is nothing left. 
        • Paul uses the most vivid word possible to make clear the sacrifice of the incarnation. The glory of divinity Jesus gave up willingly in order to become human. He emptied Himself of His deity to take upon Himself His humanity. It is useless to ask how; we can only stand in awe at the sight of Him, who is almighty God, hungry, weary, and in tears. Here, in human language stretched to its limits, is the great saving truth that the one who was rich for our sakes became poor
      • By assuming the form of a servant
        • The word used for form is morphe, which means the essential form
        • Paul means that when Jesus became human, it was not play-acting but reality. He was not like the Greek gods, as the stories go, became human beings but kept their divine privileges. Jesus truly became a man. But there is something more here
      • He had come as a man
        • The word translated as had come is a part of the Greek verb gignesthai. This verb describes a state which is not a permanent state. The idea is that of becoming, and it describes a changing phase which is completely real but which passes. That is to say, the humanity of Jesus was not permanent; ti was utterly real, but it passed
    • Verses 6-8 form a very short passage; but there is no passage in the NT which so movingly sets out the utter reality of the deity and the humanity of Jesus and makes so vivid the sacrifice that He made when He laid aside His deity and became human. How it happened, we cannot tell; but it is the mystery of a love so great that, although we can never fully understand it, we can blessedly experience it and adore it
  • It is always to be remembered that when Paul thought and spoke about Jesus his interest and his intention were never primarily intellectual and speculative; they were always practical. To him, theology and action were always bound together. Any system of thought must become a way of life. In many ways, this passage is one which extends to the very limits of the theological thinking in the NT; but its aim was to persuade the Philippians to live a life in which disunity, discord, and personal ambition had no place
  • Paul says of Jesus that He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross
    • The great characteristics of Jesus’ life were humility, obedience, and self surrender
    • He wanted not to dominate men and women but only to server them; He wanted not His own way but only God’s way; He wanted not to exalt Himself but only to renounce all His glory for the sake of the world
    • If humility, obedience, and self surrender were the supreme characteristics of the life of Jesus, they must also be the hallmarks of Christians. Selfishness, self-seeking, and self-display destroy our likeness to Christ and our fellowship with each other
    • But the self surrender of Jesus brought Him the greater glory. It made certain that one day every living creature in all the universe—in heaven, earth, and even in hell—would worship Him
    • Jesus won the hearts of men and women, not by forcing them through His power, but by showing them a love they could not resist. At the sight of this person who set aside His glory for all people and loved them to the extent of dying for them on a cross, human hearts are melted and human resistance is broken down
    • When people worship Jesus, they fall at His feet in wondering love. They don’t say, “I cannot resist a might like that”, but “When I survey the wondrous cross…”, “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.” Worship is founded not on fear, but on love
  • Further, Paul says that as a consequence of His sacrificial love, God gave Jesus the name which is above every name
    • One of the common biblical ideas is the giving of a new name to mark a new stage in a person’s life. Abram-Abraham, Jacob-Israel. The promise of the risen Christ to both Pergamum and Philadelphia is the promise of a new name
    • What then is the new name given to Jesus? We cannot be sure exactly what Paul was thinking, but most likely the new name is LORD
      • The great title by which Jesus came to be known in the early Church was kurios, LORD, which has an illuminating history
        • It began by meaning master or owner
        • It became the official title of the Roman emperors
        • It became the title of the Greek and Roman gods
        • It was the word by which the Hebrew Yahweh was translated in the Greek version of the OT
        • So when Jesus was called kurios, it meant that He was the Master and the Owner of all life; He was the King of Kings; He was the Lord in a way in which the gods of the old religions and the idols could never be; He was nothing less than divine
  • Philippians 2:11 is one of the most important verses in the NT. In it, we read that the aim of God is a day when every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
    • These four words were the first creed that the Christian Church ever had. To be a Christian was to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This was a simple creed, yet all embracing
    • Anyone who can say “For me, Jesus Christ is Lord” is a Christian. If we can say that, we mean that for us Jesus is unique and that we are prepared to give Him an obedience we are prepared to give no one else
  • So we come to the end of this passage; and when we come to the end, we come back to its beginning
    • The day will come when people will call Jesus Lord, but they will do so to the glory of God the Father. The whole aim of Jesus is not His own glory but God’s. Paul is clear about the lonely and ultimate supremacy of God
    • In I Corinthians  he writes that in the end the Son Himself shall be subject to the one who put all things in subjection under Him. Jesus draws men and women to Himself that He may draw them to God
    • In the Philippian church, there were some whose aim was to gratify the selfish ambition; the aim of Jesus was to serve others, no matter what depths of self-renunciation that service might involve
    • In the Philippian church, there were those whose aim was to focus people’s eyes upon themselves; the aim of Jesus was to focus people’s eyes upon God
  • So the followers of Christ must think always not of themselves but of others, not of their own glory but of the glory of God