SERIES: Philippians: Cheerful Sounds from a Jail Cell
The Great Exchange
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: A number of years ago the Chicago Daily News reported an unusual incident. It happened in the comfortable first-class compartment of a crowded London-bound train when a tall young man rose from his seat and pushed his way into the corridor and through the door into the next compartment. There he spoke to an obviously weary woman whom he had seen standing and swaying to the motion of the rolling car, holding a small child. “Take my seat,” was his gentle offer. “I’m not allowed in there,” she replied, “I only have a third-class ticket.” But he insisted: “You take my first-class ticket. I’ll take yours and find a seat in the carriage beyond.” Tickets were swapped and the young man disappeared down the passageway. He was Prince Charles, then the 19-year-old heir to the British throne.
There is another exchange, far more dramatic and far-reaching in its consequences than this one, and it is the subject of our text today. Certainly, one of the most theologically profound of all passages in the Bible, Philippians 2:1-11 is at the same time one of the most practical. Since it is impossible to do justice to it in one sermon, and since the practical section is based upon the theological, our procedure will be to examine the second half first, coming back to the first five verses next Lord’s Day. In other words, this morning we will focus our attention upon just the first two points in your outline.
Please pay attention to the Word of the Lord from Philippians 2:1-11:
Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
From our Scripture reading you no doubt grasped that the portion from verse 6 through 11 concerns an event which is often called the Incarnation, which simply means, “God in human flesh.” The Incarnation is an absolutely unique event in all of human history. Many mysteries surround it. And yet the concept of God becoming one of us is not as foreign to our thought processes as might at first be imagined.
Have you ever wished you could get inside the mind and heart of a pet and communicate with it on its own level? Certainly, there are some feelings you can share and there are some thoughts you can communicate, but there is so much of your life that is off-limits to an animal. You would have to become a dog or a cat or a hamster in order to reveal the full range of yourself to that pet.
In a sense this dilemma also faced God. For centuries and even millennia God communicated with His people through spoken words, through written words, through intermediaries, and through miracles. But always there seemed to be a distance between them. God’s people were constantly being tempted to worship idols and other visual representations of Him because they found it difficult to relate to an invisible deity.
So, God took the astounding step of becoming one of us through the Incarnation of His Son. Now for the first time in history God could be seen and felt and watched. In practical, everyday ways humans could see how God would react when faced with the problems, suffering, temptations, pleasures, and pressures of life.
It’s exciting, isn’t it, and tremendously honoring to the human species to think that God would become one of us. But let’s view this exchange from His perspective. What was it for Him? The answer is very clear in our text—It was a great humiliation, and the acceptance of this humiliation is offered to us as a pattern for us to follow in our behavior toward one another in the Body of Christ, which will be our theme next week.
Before analyzing our text, I want us to think back through the life of Christ to see in what ways the Incarnation was a humiliation for Christ. In other words, let’s look first at the historical facts.
The historical fact of Christ’s humiliation
There was humiliation in His conception and birth. Dr. James Boice asks that we use our imagination regarding the scene that must have taken place in heaven as the Incarnation of Christ approached. He suggests that rumors of Christ’s descent to earth must have been circulating around heaven and that for months the angels must have been contemplating the form in which Christ would enter human history. Would He appear in a blaze of light bursting into the night of the Palestinian countryside, dazzling all who beheld Him? Perhaps He would appear as a mighty general marching into pagan Rome as Caesar did when he crossed the Rubicon. Perhaps He would come as the wisest of the Greek philosophers putting the wisdom of Plato and Socrates to foolishness by a supernatural display of intellect.
But what do we find instead? There is no display of glory, no pomp, no marching of the feet of the heavenly legions! Instead, He steps down from the heavenly throne and becomes a baby in the arms of a poor peasant woman in a far eastern colony of the Roman empire. His mother is not even married, and the man to whom she is engaged is just a humble carpenter. Further, his place of birth is an animal stable in a little two-bit town, and his only visitors are unclean shepherds and cattle. At this display of divine condescension, the angels are amazed.[i]
There was humiliation in His growth and development. At the age of just a few months He was forced into exile with His parents because of an effort to kill Him. When He returned at about the age of two, His parents settled in a dirty little town with a poor reputation, where He began to learn the carpenter’s trade from His stepfather.
Have you ever thought what it would have been like for Jesus to grow up as a child in an ordinary home, even a godly one. Though perfect in his own attitudes and actions He undoubtedly had to put up with the petty jealousies of His siblings, with the aggravations of the neighborhood bully, with the inconsistencies of parental discipline.
There’s an apocryphal story that tells of an incident when Jesus was just a child. Some children called Him names, so He turned them into pillars of salt. The story reveals more about the story’s author than about Jesus, for it indicates how most of us would respond if we had supernatural power to deal with people we don’t like. But such is completely out of character for Jesus, and that is part of His humiliation—He accepted obnoxious behavior from others without fighting back.
There was humiliation in His life and ministry. 1 Peter 2:22-24 exhorts us to follow in Jesus’ steps, “who knew no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth, who, when He was reviled, reviled not in return, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously.” No one ever suffered more rejection than Jesus did, even from His own friends. John 1:12 says, “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.” Probably the most difficult thing about this was the fact that He knew in His own mind and heart that He was the creator, sustainer, sovereign, and Savior of the whole universe. But people wouldn’t believe Him when He tried to tell them who He was and what He could do for them.
There was humiliation in His passion and death. One need not read very far in the Gospels to perceive the terrible humiliation our Lord experienced in the last week of His life. He endured a kangaroo court, was abandoned by His friends, beaten and scourged, crowned with thorns, spat upon, ridiculed, executed in a slow and tortuous manner, and buried in a borrowed grave. There is clearly no one in the history of the human race who suffered more humiliation than Jesus from conception to death.
Now let’s turn from the historical facts to …
The theological meaning of Christ’s humiliation.
Let’s read the text again from verse 6-8: “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” The first truth we see here is that …
He was in very nature God from all eternity. When the NIV translates that first phrase, “Who, being in very nature God …,” it is doing some interpretation. Generally I am opposed to a translation doing unnecessary interpretation, but fortunately this time the interpretation seems to be correct.
The original actually says, “Who, although he existed in the form of God .…” The word for “form” is the Greek word morphe, from which we get our word “morphology.” It can refer to either the outward form or the inward form of something. Or another way of putting it is that it can refer to Christ’s mode of existence or to His essence.
If “mode of existence” is in view, then it must mean that He exchanged His “spirit form” for a bodily form. But if instead it refers to His essence, it must mean that Christ was, in His very nature, God. In view of the entire teaching of this text, as well as many parallel passages in the NT, I feel strongly that this verse is teaching the latter—that Jesus was in His very nature God from eternity past. One of those parallel passages in the next book of the NT, the book of Colossians, echoes the same truth: “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,” (Colossians 1:19), as does Colossians 2:9: “For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.”
The second truth taught in this section is …
He did not regard His eminent position as a priority matter. The verse goes on to say, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” This is a significant improvement on the King James rendering that we are so familiar with: “Who, being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” which reads as though equality with God is something Christ didn’t have but rightly thought He deserved. The fact is the passage is telling us that equality with God is something He already possessed, but He did not consider it something He had to hold onto at all costs.
What was this “equality” which Jesus was willing to relinquish? I do not think it is referring to His divine character or attributes or essence, for He could never relinquish that which was His very nature. Rather I think it refers to the glory and honor and divine privileges He enjoyed in Heaven with the Father in His pre-incarnate state. Think, for example, just of the worship and service of the angels that were at His disposal. What an incredible experience! But Christ never came to view His privileges and position as something He could not do without. He knew that His self-worth was not wrapped up in privileges or position.
Contrast that attitude with the attitude of the one who was the highest creation of God—Lucifer. In a passage that many Bible scholars believe refers ultimately to Lucifer, or Satan, he is quoted in Isaiah 14 as saying (at some point apparently long before the creation of man), “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” Lucifer coveted equality with God and grasped for it. Christ, on the other hand, had equality with God but was willing to give it up.
The third theological truth taught in our text is that …
He emptied Himself of the independent use of some of His divine attributes and prerogatives. (7) It is here in verse 7 where the toughest theological questions must be asked. The NIV reads, “He made Himself nothing.” The NASB is more accurate to the original when it reads, “He emptied Himself.” The Greek word for “emptied” comes from the Greek root, kenosis, and theologians have written thousands of pages debating various theories of what it means. Scholars often generate more heat than light, for sometimes the truth is so simple that we miss it looking for profound subtleties and nuances.
Certainly, when it says that Christ “emptied” Himself it cannot mean that He divested Himself of His deity, for at no time did He ever become less than God. Again and again during His earthly life, Jesus made claims of deity, for which the Jews tried to stone Him. Further, the emptying cannot even mean that He divested Himself of some of His divine attributes, for if He ever lost the attribute of love or holiness or grace or truth or power or any other characteristic that distinguishes God from all other beings, at that very moment He would become less than God.
Rather what it must mean is that He emptied Himself of the independent use of some of His divine attributes and prerogatives during the time He was on earth. He submitted His will to the will of the Father and accepted the limitations that becoming a human demanded.
Let me share some specific ways in which Jesus emptied Himself. As God He possessed the divine attribute of omnipotence, but He refused to exercise His omnipotence to stop His own executioners. Listen to Matt. 26:53-54, where Jesus says to Peter, who has just lopped off the ear of the high priest’s servant in a rare moment of misplaced courage, “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”
Or take the divine attribute of omniscience. As God, Jesus was omniscient (see John 2:25), but there was at least one thing He chose not to know, namely the time of His own second coming, Matt. 24:36. Now I grant you it sounds a bit strange to say that one can choose not to know something, while at the same time being omniscient, but that seems to be the teaching of Scripture. I do not pretend to understand it all perfectly.
Or take the divine attribute of omnipresence. One of the limitations of humanity that Jesus accepted was being localized in one place, but at times, when it was in accord with His father’s will, He could walk through doors or simply materialize in the midst of His disciples.
Or take the preincarnate glory that Jesus enjoyed. When He became a man, His glory was necessarily veiled. In John 17:5, just before He was to give His life, Jesus prayed to the Father, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” For a while it was veiled, but it was never lost.
This is what Christ’s emptying refers to—the surrender of the independent use of some of His divine attributes and prerogatives. It was a matter of great humiliation for the creator and sustainer of the universe to adapt Himself to these limitations of the human family.
A fourth truth from our text is that …
He took upon Himself the very nature of mankind. We have already seen that Jesus was in very nature God, but now it is made explicitly clear that He was at the same time in very nature man. Three statements are made in our text that convey this truth. Look at them in verses 7 & 8: “taking the very nature (or form) of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man….” When you put all three of those statements together you cannot help but conclude that Jesus Christ was fully man, just as He was fully God.
The key word in that first phrase is morphe, the exact same word that is used in verse 6 to describe Christ’s deity. If His essence was God, it was also, to the same extent, man. He was the God-man, the only one in all of history to possess the full nature of God and the full nature of mankind at the same time.
The key word in the second phrase is “human likeness,” and it refers to His outward appearance. It conveys the additional thought that Jesus did not just have human feelings or intellect or outlook on life, but He also looked like a human. He was born a Jewish baby, and as He grew, He looked like others of His race. I imagine He had dark hair and a larger than average nose.
The key term in the third phrase is “appearance,” and seems to refer more to the realm of human experience. Jesus was not only human inwardly in all His feelings and emotions; He was not only human outwardly in the sense of physical appearance, but He was also human in the sense that He endured all that we endure in this world—its pressures, its longings, its circumstances, its influences for good and for evil. There was nothing about being human that was not also part of Jesus’ experience.
How comforting this should be to every Christian. Christ was like us, and He experienced all that we experience. He knows our problems; He knows our temptations; He knows our sufferings; He knows our disappointments; He knows what it’s like to have brothers and sisters; He knows what it’s like to work at a trade; He knows what it’s like to be hungry, thirsty, weary and sleepy; He knows what it’s like to weep and to rejoice. And because of all that, He can help us. As Hebrews 4:15 puts it, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.”
Two chapters earlier the same writer expresses the same truth this way: “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18)
If I may digress for a moment, I have clear recollection of some pretty heated debates in seminary as to whether Jesus was posse non pecare or non posse pecare. These are Latin phrases that mean “able not to sin” and “not able to sin.” Mankind is, of course, non posse non pecare, “not able not to sin,” but some students and professors would go to the wall arguing that Jesus was impeccable, i.e., He could not sin.
It’s kind of a shame when we waste our time debating such matters when there’s a world out there that is on a freight train to Hell, but the fact is that the Scriptures teach, and they do so on at least four occasions, that Jesus did not sin. It is a relatively easy thing in Greek to say, “He was not able to sin,” but the Scriptures never say that. I think the reason is that when you say He was not able to sin, you immediately remove the value of His sympathetic priesthood. Of what comfort is it to me to know that Jesus endured the same temptations I endure if there was no possibility for Him to fall? No, our text says that Jesus was in very nature human, and the only thing that distinguished Him from me and from you is that He did not sin.
So far we have seen that:
Jesus was in very nature God from all eternity.
He did not regard His eminent position as a priority matter.
He emptied Himself of the independent use of some of His divine attributes
and prerogatives.
He took upon Himself the very nature of man.
Now the fifth truth is that …
He humbled Himself to the point of absolute obedience and submission. (8) Verse 8 says, “He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” The greatest humiliation that Jesus experienced was the humiliation of dying like a common criminal. Here is the One who came to seek and to save the lost; here is the One who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly; here is the One who came to offer righteous rule to an oppressed people. And what do they do with Him? They put Him to death in the most demeaning, excruciating manner known to mankind.
But our passage indicates that this was not just an atrocity perpetrated upon Him; it was something He voluntarily accepted as an act of obedience. Only a divine being, of course, can accept death as obedience; for ordinary people, it is a necessity. The reason He accepted it, even knowing the incredible suffering that a cross-death entailed, is that it had a great purpose in the plan of God; in fact, it had a three-fold purpose.
First, Jesus died to remove sin, and He did so by bearing sin’s penalty on Himself. Hebrews 9:26 says, Christ “hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
A second purpose for Christ’s death was to satisfy divine justice. The justice of God calls for the punishment of sin, and the proper punishment for sin is death. Jesus paid that penalty, satisfied God’s justice, and permitted us to become friends with God instead of His enemies.
A third purpose for Christ’s death was to reveal God’s love. We hear a lot about love today, but most of it seems to be lustful love or selfish love, or emotional love. God’s love is a love that sees the sorry condition of mankind and moves to rectify that condition and make us like His Son. There’s hardly a verse in the Bible that speaks of God’s love without speaking in the same context, sometimes even in the same sentence, of the cross. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”(John 3:16) “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the satisfaction for our sin.” (I John 4:10)
The final truth we want to look at this morning is this:
His acceptance of humiliation resulted in His exaltation to the highest place. (9-11). Look at the text: “Therefore (because of His willingness to humble Himself and empty Himself) God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The exaltation of Christ is the capstone of the Great Exchange. He was willing to exchange His glory for humiliation, so God exchanged His humiliation for exaltation. Did you notice that whereas Jesus was the subject of verses 6-8, He is now the object, and God is the subject. He humbled Himself; God highly exalted Him. By the way, there is a principle here that applies to us as well as to Christ: “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” (I Peter 5:6). The person who exalts himself will be humbled (witness Pharaoh, King Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman, and Herod), but the one who humbles himself under God will be exalted.
At first glance one might be led to think that the Name that is above every name is the name “Jesus,” and some of our modern worship choruses have taken it that way. But the Greek grammar, as well as the total sense of this passage, makes it clear that the name that is above every name is the name “LORD.”
When we came to St. Louis I noticed a sign in the yard of a little Episcopalian church at Dougherty Ferry and Ballas Rd. The sign said in large blue letters, “Jesus Is LORD.” I commented to my wife that it was a great sign but seemed a bit out of place in the yard of an Episcopalian church. It wasn’t long before I learned that this particular Episcopalian congregation was evangelical with an evangelical pastor, who has become my dear friend, Don Wilkinson. I want that same sign to be displayed at Carman and Weidman one of these days, “Jesus Is LORD.”
You see, “LORD” (all caps) was the personal name of Israel’s God. It was so sacred that though the Jews could write it, they were not allowed to speak it. Whenever they came to those four letters, YHWH, translated “Yahweh” or “Jehovah” in English, they would speak it as “Adonai,” which is another, less personal, name for God. Here Paul is claiming that Jesus, exalted to the highest place by God, has been given the personal name for God.
Oh, He has many other glorious names: He is Lord of Lords, King of Kings, Alpha and Omega, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Messiah, Ancient of Days, the Door of the Sheep, the Chief Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, the Lamb Without Spot or Blemish, the Lamb Slain Before the Foundation of the World, The Light of the World, The Tree of Life, the Word of Life, the Bread That Came Down From Heaven, The Resurrection, the Way, the Truth, the Life, Immanuel, the Rock, the Bridegroom, Redeemer, Beloved, etc., but the name He has that is above every name is the name, LORD.
And why has God exalted Him to that place and given Him that name? So that every knee should bow, whether above the earth (the angels, the cherubim, the seraphim), or on the earth (including all human beings), or under the earth (including all the damned in hell, both human beings and evil angels), and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD. Friends, Jesus is LORD whether you believe it or not.
Further, you will someday bow the knee to Him whether you choose to or not. Still further, you will someday acknowledge His Lordship whether you acknowledge it today or not. But it makes a great deal of difference whether you do so voluntarily now or do so because you are forced to moments before you are banished from God’s presence forever.
Won’t you accept Him now, if you have not already done so? “Now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Cor. 6:2)
DATE: July 3, 1988
Tags:
Incarnation
Humiliation
Deity
Divine attributes
Kenosis
Exaltation
[i] James Montgomery Boice, Philippians, 128.