Comments on Philippians 2:1-11

  Over my last several posts we’ve made our way through Philippians chapter 1. We’ve discussed Paul’s experiences in Philippi and the hardship he endured there. We mentioned the joy he could have because of the fact that his hardships led to a furtherance of the gospel. He also mentioned that there were those preaching Christ from envy and strife, but he could say that as long as Christ was being glorified, he could rejoice. Finally, at the end of the chapter, he mentioned again that suffering is a part of the Christian experience and that we can share in it together to make it more bearable. And so, chapter 2 begins:

Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

        Now I’ve said before and I will say again, if there is a “therefore” in the text we ought to ask ourselves: “What’s it there for?” Given everything that Paul had written up to this point we now find him writing about the encouragement and consolation that can be found in Christ. These “ifs” here are not calling into question whether these things exist, but rather the word holds more of the meaning of “since.” Because we know these things to be reality, we ought to behave in such a way that reflects that truth. There is encouragement to be found in Christ for those that are struggling. There is consolation of love to those that are hurting. There is fellowship in the Spirit with the believers because of Christ. There can be affection and compassion toward one another in the midst of trials because of His finished work. 

So Paul tells them, with these things in mind, to “make [his] joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” Paul understood that there is a difference between unity and uniformity. Unity comes from within as we each draw closer to Christ. Uniformity is bowing to outside pressure to meet a certain set of standards or criteria. The Christian experience, and what Paul was desiring for those in Philippi was unity in the Spirit. As we all study the Word we ought to be drawing closer to the mind of Christ. As we draw closer to the mind of Christ, our minds should be getting closer to each other as well and so we have unity because our thoughts begin to align with Christ’s. This doesn’t mean that we’ll each have the same service, or the same gift, but that the motives behind those actions will be unified. Paul states that his joy would be complete if he could see this working out in the Philippian church. 

He then commands them, given that they are to have the same mind, to not do anything from “selfishness or empty conceit,” or the KJV has here “strife or vainglory.” The believer, especially one who is growing closer to having the mind of Christ, should have no part of selfishness, no thoughts of their own glory in their heads. Paul had mentioned in the last chapter that some were preaching Christ in this way, but here the command is “Do nothing,” in this manner. If we think of Christ Himself, which Paul will get to here momentarily, we realize how foolish it would be for someone claiming to be a follower of His to act for his own glory. Christ’s actions included setting aside His glory, so those of us that are trying to have that same mind cannot be seeking our own. “But with humility,” I’ve heard it said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but rather thinking of yourself less often. If I am focused on thinking “oh, woe is me. I am unworthy of anything. I am so lowly,” I am still thinking of myself rather than the command here in this verse: “regard one another as more important than yourselves.” In chapter 1 Paul focused the reader’s attention on “Christ first.” Here in chapter 2, the next focus is on others.

In fact, Paul commands them, “do not look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” I appreciated what Ironside had to say here in his commentary and so I quote: “The man after the flesh ‘looks out for number one,’ as he puts it, and is fond of reminding himself, and his fellows, that ‘charity begins at home.’ But the Christian is exhorted to look, not on his own things, but on the things of others. A heavenly principle this, surely, and only to be attained by a heavenly man, one who walks in fellowship with Him who came from heaven to manifest His love for others.” As we strive to have the mind of Christ, our focus becomes first Godward, and next otherward. The world cannot understand this, and is often confused when Christians act not in their own self-interest, but that is what we are called to do. We imitate Christ when we put others before ourselves, when we seek their good instead of our own. Obviously, we can only do this through the power of the Holy Spirit which we received at salvation because the natural man hasn’t the capacity to do any of this when it comes down to it. He might be able to do good, thinking here of Bill Gates’ foundation “Good without God,” but the natural man is still doing this good for what he can get out of it, whether it be “good karma” or whatever else, it’s the motives behind the actions that matter. So, the motive behind taking care of others that the believer ought to have is unity with the mind of Christ.

And so we get to the main part of this passage. Our first four verses were about how important living for others is, and here Paul gets to the supreme pattern giver that we are to follow. Christ Himself. In the NASB: “Have this attitude” and in the KJV “Let this mind” but the thought is the same. Our word here is φρονέω which comes from φρήν which simply means mind. The first word has the thought of feeling, thinking, directing one’s mind toward, striving, to have understanding. So what are we supposed to understand? How Christ thought. Not only His actions, but the motives behind them. His complete focus on others despite deserving all glory Himself. The mind of Christ is the humble mind, the lowly mind. If we were all willing to take the same lowly place, there wouldn’t be the strife in the church that we see because we would each be considering the other rather than ourselves. 

Paul continues holding Christ up as the pattern for our thoughts by pointing out that He was God from the beginning. He was worthy of all glory, honor, and praise. He had all privileges of deity from eternity past. Yet He saw this position not as something to hold tightly to, but to lay aside for us. He chose to take the low position, to step into His creation. We really can’t even comprehend how big a step down that was for Him, even comparing it to us trying to communicate with ants falls short. But He chose to take that step for us. I also wanted to mention this word: “form” here. In the Greek we have μορφή which is the form or appearance, but not just outwardly. You wouldn’t use this word to describe an actor playing a part, but rather two things that had the same substance. So Christ’s deity is affirmed.

The next verse tells us He “emptied Himself.” I want to take a second here to discuss what this could mean. There are some who would say that He emptied Himself of His deity. But this cannot be, as then He would cease to have been God. We know that if He were to change any aspect of His deity, He would no longer be God and so we have what is known in theology as the Hypostatic Union. Now that’s a big phrase to describe the Biblical truth that Christ was fully man and fully God. So since He could not have emptied Himself of His deity, what then did he set aside? The only reasonable answer here is that He set aside the privileges associated with His deity. In John 17:5, Christ prays “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” He had set this glory aside and Scripture only records brief instances when He lets it shine through. But while here on Earth He took the form (that is μορφή again) of a servant. John 13:5-17 shows us an amazing example of Him taking this low position. It reads:
Then He *poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.  So He *came to Simon Peter. He *said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” Peter *said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” Jesus *said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”  For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”

So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

We are reminded that His focus on others wasn’t simply a mental exercise, but rather something that had real life consequences. We read in Isaiah 11 of Christ as the “root of Jesse,” even though He was “great David’s greater Son.” He took the low place, He wasn’t a recognized or glorified king during His first time on Earth, though we know that is coming. He was Jesse, that Bethlehem farmer’s son as well. We can relate to Him because He didn’t come as someone great and powerful, but rather He came as a peasant boy. He saw fit to have the works that He did not be in His own power, but in dependence on the Spirit of God which we are all privileged to have because of His finished work.

To get back to our text here He was “found in appearance as a man,” and “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.” I know the verse doesn’t end there but I want to pause here and think about that. Jesus, having existed from eternity past in glory and honor, experienced death, for us. He did it in obedience to His Father’s will and so, not only did He pay for our sins, but He also gave us the example to follow. Not only did He experience death, which would have been outside His normal expectations anyway, but “even death on a cross.” Dying of natural causes can be painful, depending on those causes, but Christ died on the cross. The word excruciating comes from the Latin words “ex” and “crucia” literally meaning “from the cross.” The pain there was so bad that they came up with an entirely new word to describe it. Yet Christ endured that for us. In His humiliation, in the low place He took, because of His love for us, He died on that cross.

Thankfully the story doesn’t end there. Paul writes that because He did this, because He died in humiliation, “God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.” He humbled Himself, He chose the low place, and so God exalted Him. We have the same promise to us in James 4:10 “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”  Christ’s exaltation shows that God was fully satisfied with His finished work. We also can now see a Man in the glory, sitting at God’s right hand. Jesus Christ the Savior is high and lifted up because of the low place He took for our sakes. He is God’s equal and rightly deserves that place.

The next step of His exaltation is His name that everyone will bow to. Ironside noted here that when the lordship of Christ is in question, all intelligent creatures are mentioned : “those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,” shall bow to Jesus as Lord. We know from Matthew 7:21 that “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.” So there will be those “under the earth” (that is, demons and the unregenerate) that will still bow to Him. We can contrast this to Colossians 1:20 which reads, “and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I saw, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” So when reconciliation is in view, only things on earth and things in heaven are mentioned, but when His lordship is in question all three areas are mentioned. To quote Ironside directly, even those that “flaunted Christ’s authority on earth,” will have to “own it in hell!”

The next verse continues this thought that “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Again we can note that they won’t necessarily confess Him as Savior and so the thought that all people will be saved is not found here or anywhere else in Scripture, but they will confess Him as Lord. And what is the ultimate goal of this? Why will every knee bow and every tongue confess? The end of the verse tells us: “to the glory of God the Father.” This is the chief aim of man, to glorify God. Paul wrote three times in the first chapter of Ephesians “to the praise of His glory.” That was Christ’s goal here on Earth and ought to be ours as well. 

So, as far as practical application goes for us from this passage, we are to have the mind of Christ. To remember that He took the low place, as a servant, for us. We shouldn’t think it beneath us to take the low place as well. His step down was much farther than any humbling we could experience and so let us look to Him as the perfect example of humility. And let us do all things “to the glory of God the Father.