The Humility of Christ — Philippians 2

0:01 Morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Let's begin our time in a word of prayer, shall we? Father, we come to you this morning.

0:09 We thank you for this time that we have to open your word and to study it. We ask that you be with us, that you fill this place with your spirit, that you open our minds and prepare our hearts for the things that you would reveal to us through your scriptures. We ask for your blessing on this time, and that in this time your son may be glorified. In Lord Jesus' name, amen. So we've wrapped up our study of second Corinthians.

0:41 And what we're going to do this morning will probably be a bit of a review for some of us. And maybe for others of us, you might hear some things that perhaps you haven't heard of before, a thing that you haven't thought of before. But even if this is a lot of old information, I I know that I am blessed when I hear things again, I I get reminded of things, and it always seems like it's the Lord's timing that, oh, I really needed that refresher. So our text this morning comes from Philippians chapter two. And what we're going to look at this morning, specifically, is the Lord Jesus Christ.

1:32 And I originally thought that I was going to take the first half of Philippians two as my base text, and then expand from there and go on from there. But as I was studying this, and I I realized that I didn't have a large section of text that I needed to get through, I got kind of bogged down in a couple of verses. So I hope that you can bear with me today. This is going be a little departure from the way I usually speak, and so we're we're going to be spending our time on just a couple of verses here. But they are very powerful verses, And I hope and pray that you will be blessed today as I was blessed this week, just studying two verses.

2:15 The verses in question from Philippians chapter two are six and seven. I will begin in verse five, there's a little bit of verse five, but mostly we're just talking about six and seven, and there's a little bit of eight and a little bit of nine, but mostly it's six and seven. In this passage, this is something that a lot of us can probably quote from memory or at least paraphrase pretty well. But this passage is known to most of us as one of the very profound and complete declarations regarding the Lord Jesus Christ's humility and his exaltation in his coming to this earth in the form of a man, and when he bore our sins on Calvary, how that all how that all plays out. And throughout this book of Philippians, just for a tiny bit of context, this is this is kind of a glowing letter.

3:20 Paul's writing to the Philippian church, and and and most of this is all good things. It's a lot of exhortation, but it's not it's not a very strong discipline letter. Joy is mentioned. I I forget how many times joy is mentioned in this book, but Paul talks a lot about rejoicing when he's writing to the Philippians. And something to remember is that we have, as Christians, so much to rejoice about because the Lord Jesus Christ was willing to come to this earth as a man, and not only stopping at the teaching and healing and the miracles, but going all the way to the cross as the paramount expression of his love for us.

4:04 For us before we were made his children, while we were still sinners. Not only does this section of text contain profound doctrine, but it points to Christ as the pure, perfect, and ultimate example that we are to follow, that we are to strive for. This chapter specifically, if you go to the beginning of the chapter, and and he... He's speaking about unity. That's actually the specific context inside the book.

4:41 When we get to the chapter because we're coming a little bit at more at the micro level. He's... Paul is is speaking about the humility of Christ as an example for how we should work out unity in the local assembly. There was some issues that they were having like we all would have. We have some differences of opinion.

5:02 Ray spoke about this last week as he was tying up, second Corinthians, and how unity is so important, especially, among the the family of believers. And unity not meaning identical sameness. I will also pray for you, those that prefer bland food as opposed to spicy food. And those of you that don't eat Chipotle, I'll pray for you on your way out. But, no, it's not the identical sameness, but it's the unity of mind.

5:36 It's the unity of belief. It's the unity that we are all believing the same thing. And through that unity then, we can work out and work together as brothers and sisters of Christ to the benefit of the growth of the assembly. Two people are specifically mentioned in chapter four. It's Euodia and Syntyche, are a couple of women that are mentioned later on.

6:04 Now, there could have been some others in the assembly that were struggling with some differences of opinion, and there was some clash going on. But bear that in mind, as we look at these next couple of verses, that's kind of the context, but that doesn't mean that has to be the only context. Even though we can look at Christ's example of humility as a way to practice the humility in order to achieve unity in the assembly, that's not the only application of this text. I will read, I will read our text, Philippians two, and I'll start in verse five. And, we won't get through a whole lot today, but we'll at least read this to get some context.

7:51 In case any of you have this exact same bible, this is the Hebrew Greek New American Standard Study Bible by AMG Publishers. So they have some very helpful study tools. And and some of the things that they have in here, I found so helpful that I couldn't really reword it in any way to make it more clear. So if any of you are sitting there with this bible or have this at home and you see a little bit of what I'm saying echo what's in here, that's why. It's just that I I couldn't find better ways to put it than some of the ways that they had it.

8:20 So, that'll be sprinkled in here. So as Paul writes to us to have this attitude of humility. He's teaching unity through humility and sacrifice with Christ being held as our ultimate example. And it's helpful for us to notice that doctrine in the New Testament is never separated from duty. There's doctrine of the There's doctrine of the Christian walk that we are to follow, but there is always an aspect of duty that we have to follow to work it out.

9:04 There's always an aspect of we have to work at this. There's a part that we have to play in order to work this out. And this unity unity, if we... If you think about it, it's a lot easier to agree with someone when you're considering them higher than yourself and when you consider their opinion higher than your own. It's a lot easier to achieve unity.

9:27 And that's the aspect that we're looking at here. This mind, which was also in Christ Jesus. One way that we can describe the mind of the Lord Jesus is the way that Guy King described it, is, one, the selfless mind, two, the sacrificial mind, and three is the serving mind. The selfless mind, the sacrificial mind, and the serving mind. And that is, of course, not an all encompassing definition, but that suits for our purposes of the text today.

10:17 And that's about all we have in verse five, so we're going get right to the good stuff in six. Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. So let's get into some nitty gritty stuff here. So we've got... There's two aspects of Christ that were actually given in the New Testament.

10:38 Two aspects of Christ. One is that he is equal with the father, and one that he is unequal with the father. Let's get into that and make sure that we know where we stand on this. So in verse six of this text, this is preaching that Christ was equal with God. Of course he was.

11:04 And in gonna give you a couple cross references here, but in John, the gospel of John chapter 10, we have another look at this. John 10 and verse 30, Jesus said, I and the father are one, indicating equality. Now, we also have some references about the differences of Christ and the Father. If you turn a couple pages over to John chapter 14 and verse 28, here's this other aspect of Christ that we have to reconcile. You heard that it...

11:48 You heard that I said to you, I go away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the father, for the father is greater than I. You can also turn to Matthew 24. Matthew twenty four and thirty six. We'll take a look at this.

12:15 This is also Jesus speaking. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but the father alone. So which one is it? Is he equal with God or isn't he? And it's a little bit of a hypothetical question, but at first glance scripture does contradict itself, if you don't go any further than that.

12:40 So let's go a little bit further. We we definitely preach that Christ is equal with God and that there is no contradiction in in scripture. So with that being said, in John, if you go back to John chapter 10, and it's 28. And if we actually start a verse earlier in verse 29, my father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. One, the word there that is one, I and the father are one.

13:25 The Greek word there is hen. And it is a neuter gender. And so it does not mean one person physically. It means one in essence, one in power, one in quality. God, Jesus Christ cannot obviously be...

13:51 He he cannot be praying that his followers, that the disciples be one person. That wouldn't make any sense. So we can understand this as meaning that he wants them to be of one accord, one in essence, one in belief, one in quality. And he wants them to be like minded. So when he describes himself as being one with the father, so this equality with God, he's talking about not that he is the same person because there are three distinct persons of the Godhead.

14:24 But the one aspect and the equal aspect is that they are equal in power, equal in essence, equal in glory, equal in opinion, equal in pretty much every other way that you could think to describe it. They are one. In John seventeen eleven, and also in verses twenty one and twenty two of that chapter, That is where he is speaking of the disciples specifically. And I'll read that. Seventeen eleven.

15:02 And I am no more in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world, speaking of the disciples, and I come to thee holy father, keep them in thy name, the name which thou hast given me that they may be one even as we are. Not one person, not physically actually one person because that would be ridiculous, but one in opinion. So if we come back to our text in Philippians, to although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. So equality there, we're talking about not that he's the same person as the father, but that they are one in essence, one in power, one in glory. And we have...

15:55 We're gonna get into this and and and I I want to be careful. We have to be very careful when we interpret this passage because when we look into the humbling of Christ and in verse seven, which we'll get to in just a second, when he emptied himself. So how do we look at this aspect of Christ coming to earth and taking the form of a man? How do we take that stand and say that he was still God and did not strip himself of any aspects of his deity, because we hold that he definitely did not. So next we have the illustration of how Christ humbled himself and in his death revealed this definitive example of the selfless mind and attitude by performing this absolute work of love for others, and not just any others, not just friends, not just people you know.

16:51 It was fierce enemies as we were. Although Jesus Christ was God incarnate and could have avoided death, he did not do it for the sake of man, for our sakes. He did not avoid death. He went willingly and died willingly for us. We're still in verse six.

17:49 The Greek word is a word that we don't really have a good don't really have a good translation of that in English. It's a it's a word that means always was. Always was. Being in his essential form as God, which we know John one verse one. John chapter one verse one, he was in the beginning with the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

18:18 Always was. Never lost it. He just always was that, and he kept being that. So that's the existed. It's not that he existed past tense, and now he isn't.

18:28 It's existed, always was, and he continues to be that because nothing changed. He existed in the form of God and did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. Now the grasped word, I'm reading out of this is the new American standard. Most translations have this as robbery, and robbery actually is the better word there. Kind of like it is in English, can use robbery as a noun and as a verb.

18:54 The Greek word is harpagmos, and it means to be forcibly taken, or you have the object of plunder that is eagerly coveted. You have an object that you really want, and so it's forcibly taken as robbery. Okay? That's that's the meaning of the Greek word there, harpagmos. So if Christ did not regard the equality with God a thing to be forcibly grasped, it was not a thing...

19:28 It was not an object of plunder. Why? Because he always had it. He never lost it. He didn't take it from time to time.

19:40 He always had it. And so it was not it wasn't robbery in any sense of the word. And he also didn't have to grasp it and hang on to it to maintain it. He always had it from before the world was. He continued to have it, and then he didn't have to work to maintain it because he was.

20:09 The essence of his deity was not something taken from time to time. It's something that he never lost, and it was something that he never has lost or will lose. So when Christ came to earth and took the form of a man, he never lost the deity. He existed in the form of God, did not regard the equality with God a thing to be grasped. So when he was here, he still had that equality with God.

20:38 Now, equality not being one the same person, because he's not the same person. There's three distinct persons. But the equality with God, all of the aspects of deity, all the aspects of God, all of the attributes of God were all there, still there. So what we're discussing here, we have... And and what we're looking at then is his positional equality and his personal equality.

21:04 And you can think about personal, I'm sorry, positional, you know, literal, like physical position or or if you want, circumstantial equality. So his his personal equality with God is what we've just discussed, that he had, always had, never lost. But his positional equality or his circumstantial equality, as we get into verse seven about how he emptied himself, his positional equality is one of the things that he emptied himself of. And we can explain it maybe this way. Since before the world began, Christ was with the father in heaven.

21:48 In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Right?

21:55 We hold that and we understand that as truth. So he was with the father in heaven and when he came here, when he took the shape of a human being, he was no longer in heaven. And God did not... Jesus Christ, who is God, but Jesus did not pop back up to heaven at night. He did not come down here, kind of do his thing, and go back up to heaven.

22:27 He came to earth as a man and took all the aspects of being a man, which included not, you know, making trips back and forth. He stayed here. Why? That was necessary. That was part of taking the form of the man and everything that comes with it, which is, you know, you you you're not experiencing the joys of heaven anymore, not physically not being there.

22:53 It's not that he wasn't God anymore, it's not that he couldn't. He could have made trips back and forth. He could have, but he didn't because it would have... Presumably, it would have made his time here on earth a little bit easier, I imagine. While on earth, Jesus Christ was cruelly treated, he was rejected, he was homeless.

23:24 So did the father experience those things? No. So this positional or this circumstantial equality is one of the things that... One of the ways in which Jesus Christ emptied himself in verse seven. When he went back to heaven after the resurrection, of course, this positional equality was fully restored.

23:52 But while he was here for his thirty some years of ministry, he did not experience the joys of being in heaven. Not that he was separated from the father, he was only separated from the father at Calvary when the when God the father turned his back as He bore our sins and became sin. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? God the Father only turned His back on Christ then. It was not any of His time while He was on ministry, so He was still, of course, in full communion with the Father.

24:22 But he wasn't actually in heaven, he was here in bodily form. Edwin Gifford said it this way, thus it is not the nature or essence, but the mode of existence that is described in the second clause. And one mode of existence may be changed for another, though the essential nature is immutable. Let us take Paul's own illustration in second Corinthians eight nine, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that through his poverty might become rich. Here in each case, there is a change of the mode of existence, but not of the nature.

25:08 When a poor man becomes rich, his mode of existence is changed, but not his nature as a man. It is so with the son of God, from the rich and glorious mode of existence, which was the fit and adequate manifestation of his divine nature, he, for our sakes, descended in respect of his human life to the infinitely lower and poorer mode of existence, which he assumed together with the nature of man. That was a mouthful. That was a mouthful. But if that helps you to...

26:08 And if he had assumed the sin nature, he... Well, I wouldn't even need to stand here. If he assumed the sin nature, he could not have died in my place because he would have had his own sins to pay for. So he did not he did not assume the sin nature of man, but he assumed everything else of being a man, including, you know, not going back up to heaven during his ministry and making those trips back and forth and among other things. He took all of the the physical, the mental suffering that we all experience.

26:40 We do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, was points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Hebrews. As we get into verse seven, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men. I also have a Schofield bible, so if any of you have that bible, here's a quote. There is nothing in this passage that teaches that the Lord Jesus emptied himself of either his divine nature or his divine attributes, but only of the outward and visible manifestation of the Godhead.

27:23 God may change form, but he cannot cease to be God. At all times, his divine attributes could be exercised according to his will. So we are told here in verse seven what he actually voluntarily did in order to make this humiliation unto death possible. He emptied himself. The verb emptied himself in Greek is ekhanose, which is from the word keno, in the active form.

28:03 And what that means as we interpret this is that no one took away from him what he was. But being himself God voluntarily emptied himself. In John seventeen five, read something from John 17. John 17 and verse five. And now, this is Jesus Christ speaking.

28:37 This is again part of his, the high priestly prayer. And now glorify thou me together with thyself, father, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. So this provides a little a little bit of meaning for us to how we interpret Philippians two seven. Prior to his death, Jesus was asking the father to glorify him in a position next to him. That's the literal meaning of of the Greek there because Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God the father.

29:22 Literally, it's the position next to the father. And Jesus Christ is asking that God the father glorify him with the glory which he had. The Greek word there is icon, which means from all the way back in the past before the world was. The glory which he had, not just in English, which in general means past tense, but this goes all the way back before we can't go back any farther. That's the Greek word there.

29:55 So glorify me in the position next to you with the glory which I had from eternity And the glory, specifically, is the Greek word. And it comes from the verb, means to think or to recognize. So the glory is the recognition that the Lord Jesus had with the father before the world was even created and before he came into the world. That's the doxa glory. The Lord Jesus lacked this glory.

30:36 He lacked this recognition from men when he was here. He was not recognized by men while he was here as the incarnate God. Although, he never lost his recognition as long as the father was concerned. This is my son with whom I am well pleased. Hear him.

30:57 He said that at the baptism of Jesus Christ, and he said that at the transfiguration. So the Lord Jesus never lost that. So he didn't empty himself of any of that, but he did not have the recognition while on earth. He was not receiving that from men. And it was his to enjoy again when he went back to heaven.

31:22 So this all gets fully reinstated. The doxa glory gets reinstated when he goes back to heaven. So that can be part of this meaning of how he emptied himself. Taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man. So taking upon him, or better put, when he took the form of a servant.

32:25 And in verse eight, the principal verb is itapenosan, which is he humbled himself. Those are the principal verbs. And so all the other verbs then are participles, which means that the actions indicated by those verbs are dependent or serve the actions indicated by the principal verbs. You all with me? Right?

32:47 Right. So there's there's secondary verbs and there's principal verbs. So if we were to interpret this a little bit better, to to change kind of the way this is interpreted to help you understand the difference in the verbs there, so we could translate it this way. Who, Jesus Christ, being, having always been in the form of God, he did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but himself, he emptied when he took the form of a servant, when he became in the likeness of men, and when he found himself in shape as a man, he humbled himself when he became obedient unto death, or until death, the death of the cross. If we if we break up the Greek a little bit and kind of put it in that way, it doesn't doesn't read very nicely in English, but that's that's a little bit closer to what the Greek actually means here.

33:53 When he took the form, the word form, which is also in verse six, the word form there is morphe. The Greek word morphe, which means essence, but it's it's what one really is. What one truly is, not necessarily what they appear on the outside. It is it... So it's it's kind of like how all squares are rhomboids, but not all rhomboids are squares.

34:23 Right? Rhombuses. Morphe is, how can I put it? It's what you truly are inside regardless of how you look on the outside. So I could stand here and tell you that I'm 31 years old.

34:50 And I could also, which is truly reflective of what I am, I could also dye my hair white, put on a wig, have a beard, and put on makeup, and make look like I was 80 years old, and tell you that I was 80. I look like I'm 80, but it does not actually reflect what I really am inside, which is 31. Okay? So kind of crudely put. Okay?

35:13 That's how we're looking at the word morphe. So in verse six, when he existed in the form of God. He existed in the form. So form there means that is what he was, and that is also how he appeared. So they coincided.

35:29 But when in verse seven, he took the form of a bond servant. I'm sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. So he took the form of a bond servant. So he also was a bond servant. So he truly was a bondservant inside.

35:42 And when he came here, he looked like a bondservant because he was veiling the glory that was his. Now, we have two other words here similar to the word form, being made in the likeness of men, and then in verse eight, the appearance of man. In verse seven, the word translated likeness is the word schema, which means shape, just shape, that's all it is. And in verse eight, it's the word translated appearance. I'm sorry.

36:19 I misread my notes. So in verse seven, the word likeness is which means likeness, and then is what means shape in verse eight. I'm sorry. Is just the appearance and pure external shape, irrespective of anything inside. So when he's saying that he took the form...

36:42 I'm sorry, not the form. When he was made in the likeness, that's what I have in the New American Standard, the likeness of men in the appearance as a man, that was purely an external view that reflected nothing of what was inside. Because inside was God, pure, equal, total God. That was then veiled. That's part of the emptying himself aspect, is that he did not show his glory and his...

37:18 He did not display a visible manifestation of that glory. We know, we understand from multiple places in scripture that no human could survive even looking at it. Moses' face was radiant after getting... Just kind of being in his presence but not even looking at it, you know. And he took Elijah and went like this and held him in the cleft of the rock and, you know, just let some of his spirit pass by.

37:57 He became like a human, taking upon himself the likeness of flesh. His morphe, number one, was God, and number two, his morphe was of a bondservant, but his schema or his homoia is that of human, of man. Just his external shape, just the shell was of a man. What he did was to empty himself of the positional equality with God and to veil the glory of his deity in a body of human flesh. The glory's all there, though it's hidden.

38:32 It was seen a little bit at the Mount Of Transfiguration. Some of his glory was seen, a very little bit, or or the disciples would have been burned to ashes. There's no moment in the life of Christ on earth when he did not possess all of the attributes of his deity. We will not strip Christ of any aspect of God while he was here on earth. He was not just a man.

39:03 He was a man in just appearance, but he always had full deity. The Lord Jesus Christ, being the son of God, could not and did not claim to be the father. However, they are distinct persons. He did not claim to be the father, but he could and did claim to be God. Put a little bit too simply maybe, is that a human son cannot claim to be his father, but he can claim to be a human being, is the same as his father.

39:41 Right? Another little... Probably a little too crude and a little too simple, but maybe you can... It helps you get the idea a little bit. The claim to a sameness of nature is consistent and intelligible in the case of the divine sonship of the son of God.

40:01 But a claim to sameness of personality would be a contradiction, both in one case and the other. They are not the same person. Three distinct persons of the Godhead. But of note, there is such a similarity between Jesus Christ and the father that the one who has seen the son has seen the father, as John writes in his gospel. But that's a very different thing from absolute identical sameness.

40:31 But their essence is so equal that he who has seen the son has seen the father. We're going in circles yet. This is this is where we get to the limit of what the human mind can comprehend here. So I'm I'm trying my hardest, but I pray the spirit will will give you the wisdom to interpret this as as he wills. But the identity of his essence with the father was absolutely essential to the person and the work of Jesus Christ as being the redeemer of the human race.

41:10 It was absolutely essential that he had that equality with God. The Greek word is hen, in case you didn't write it the first time. We all know the... Well, not we all, probably most of us know. I should stop making assumptions when I'm up here.

41:55 And the reason there's a question mark there is because I sat for a couple of days looking at those verses trying to think about what to say about them. And the furthest I got was that words in general, English probably more specifically, is just woefully inadequate to express much at all. There's much better, like, there's a reason why this was written in Greek. Because other languages have have a lot better, much more descriptive words in them than English does. But even the other languages don't give us enough of what we need here.

42:41 Therefore, also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name, which is above every name. It's the name that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow. You ever think about this maybe as perhaps as a parent and you're... You have a child that has done some sort of accomplishment, some really incredible accomplishment and you're so proud of them. Or even as a child looks at one of their parents and says, you know, looks at something that your dad did or something that your mom did, and this is ridiculous and amazing and you're so proud of it, you know, and you're like telling your friends, it's like my dad, fill in the blank.

43:43 Right? I look at this these these couple of verses and I read them with pride. I look at this and say, God has exalted him and given him the name which is above every name. He has given him the name. My savior, my redeemer was given the name.

44:10 That at the name, the I am, the he is, every knee should bow. That's my savior. That is my redeemer. That is my example of humility and sacrifice that I am to follow. He was the only one to ever achieve that level of ultimate humility, of ultimate sacrifice, of ultimate selflessness.

44:47 He is the living example that we have to follow, and he is the redeemer and the savior that we can claim as our own. God has highly exalted him and given him the name. There's nothing else to say. I'm going to close with a quote from John MacArthur about a little bit of this passage. Verse five, Paul says, what I'm asking for is this attitude that was in Christ Jesus.

45:22 Christ is our model. He says, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. He had it. He did nothing from selfishness. Everything he did really was fulfilling the father's will, and the father's will was being expressed for our sake.

45:39 He did nothing for empty conceit. Not hardly. They spit on him and killed him. With humility of mind, he regarded others as more important than himself. You say, did he really do that?

45:54 Yes, he did. He regarded others more important than himself. He did not look on his own things, on his own interests, but on the things of others, and he set aside his own importance and looked at others as superior in the sense that he died to give them life. He is the living model of the principles in verses three and four. This wonderful passage starting in verse five shows us the beauty of Christ revealed.

46:22 He is our model. So I said, the standard is high. The only one who ever lived it to perfection was Jesus Christ, but it is ours to pursue. It is our example to pursue. Let's think about that and pray.

47:01 We ask for your blessing on the things that you have taught us today, that you would impart on our hearts the things that are from you and the things that you need us to understand. We ask that you would impart these on our lives in a way that we can try to understand you and that it can affect our lives, the way we live our lives because we have a smaller, little bit incrementally more understanding of you and your person. We ask that you help us as we struggle in our daily walk, in our daily lives. We struggle with so many things, and we ask that we continue... That you help us to continue to hold Christ at our center as he is our perfect example.

47:52 We thank you for all these things in your son's name. Amen.