The Humility of Christ

Introduction

One of my favorite books that I own is a big fat book called “A Puritan Theology” by Joel Beeke and Mark Jones. I had heard about this book online a while before I had the money to buy it. The funny thing was, pastor John already owned it, and the way Pastor John’s office used to be set up, you could see one of his book shelves through that window up there, and that book was sitting right there in the window. It was very sanctifying to be confronted by my covetousness every Sunday. In any case, I did save up my money and I did eventually buy the book. What the authors of the book try to do, rather successfully, is to create a systematic theology of the puritan movement. Each chapter focuses on a different area of theology as explained by specific puritans who were especially strong in that area, or who had noteworthy contributions. So for example, John Owen on communion with the triune God, or Stephen Charnock on the attributes of God. I know that I can nerd out on this kind of stuff, and not everyone is wired that way, which is fine, but the real strength of the book, and the strength of the Puritan movement as a whole, is actually found in the subtitle of the book. The full title of the book is “A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life.”

The Puritans understood that doctrine is not just for doctrine’s sake. It’s not just facts or ideas that we collect for ourselves so we can feel smart, or well read. Doctrine is not just to keep theologians and authors employed. Doctrine is for life, and all of doctrine is for all of life. It is out of what we know about God that we act. Our knowledge of God informs our worship, our prayers, our relationships, our assurance, our giving, our service, our obedience. There has always been this wrestling in the church between legalism and antinomianism. Between an improper application of the law on one hand, and lawlessness on the other. It was an issue during the time of the Puritans, and it is an issue now. As has been said from this pulpit before, the solution to legalism is not a little antinomianism, and the solution to antinomianism is not a little legalism, but the solution to both is the gospel. It is a deeper knowledge of the goodness of God. It’s not just an adjustment of our view of our work, but a richer view of God’s work. Of course the Puritans understood that doctrine is indeed for life because they got the idea from Paul. If you read Paul’s letters, he typically follows the pattern of laying out a doctrinal foundation; who God is, what he has done (gospel,) and then once that foundation has been laid he shifts to what we are to do. How do we live according to the knowledge that we have? Not in a way that is meritorious, but in a way that is in line with our position in Christ. In the case of the chapter in front of us - like we heard last week - Paul began in verses 1-4 with what we have received in Christ, and then he reasons “since we have received these things, peace, comfort, fellowship, affection, we are to act accordingly, in unity, and humility.” He then continues, starting in verse 5, to root our obedience in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The call to Christ mindedness

Verse 5 serves as a bridge between verses 1-4, and what comes next in verses 6-11. He says “Have this mind among yourselves...” a mind of unity, a mind of humilty, “Which is yours in Christ Jesus.” Pride, as we already know, was the sin that was laying at the heart of the disunity within the Philippian church, and Paul here is giving us the remedy. He is saying “humility is the answer, and here is the greatest example of that humility, Jesus Christ.” “Count others as more significant than yourselves, but first, see how Christ did.” You see, that is really the entire pattern of the new testament, and actually the whole of scripture. Our focus is constantly being directed to Jesus. Paul says in Colossians “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” To quote Thomas Goodwin “For if one promise belong(s) to you, then all do, for every one conveys the whole Christ in whom all the promises are made.” Christ is to be at the very center of all of our thoughts and actions. In thinking of Christ as our example, we know that we cannot copy Christ in every way. We cannot copy his redemptive acts. We cannot die vicariously for someone else. But, by God’s grace, we can copy the spirit of those acts. We can live sacrificially. We can live in a way that counts others needs as more important than even our own lives. As much as Paul is pointing to Christ as our example, He is not an example only. It is because he is our Lord and our Saviour that He is our example. If we are not joined to Jesus Christ, then all of our works are just mere formalism, and all of our doctrine, as orthodox as it might be, is dead. I have been using the word “copy” to talk about following Christ’s example, but a more appropriate word would actually be “participate.” We participate in the mind of Christ, because this mind is ours in Him. True humility acknowledges that our likeness to Christ does not come from our own moral effort, but it flows from our union with the humble Christ.

It is this union with Christ that serves as the grounds for our fellowship in the church. Not shared interests, not our personalities, not the fact that we prefer a certain style of worship, or that we prefer pews over chairs, but our shared participation in Christ’s mind. This is one reason why division in the church is so grievous. God tells us that he hates divorce, and likewise he hates division among His people. Our confidence that we will be with God forever rests on the Father’s eternal love for His Son and our union with Him. For the Father to cast off those who are in Christ would be to reject His own beloved Son something that is both ontologically impossible and morally contrary to His nature, for God is faithful and never breaks His covenant.

The descent of Christ

This next section, verses 6-11 is often referred to as “The Christ Hymn.” You might have even heard the latin title the “Carmen Christi.” Scholars have used this title because of its poetic structure that seems to suggest it was an early Christian Hymn or a confession of faith. Whether it was written by Paul, or Paul is quoting a hymn that already existed we don’t really know. But in any case we can divide the hymn into two stanzas, the first, verses 6-8, detailing Christ’s humiliation, and the second, verses 9-11 referring to His exhaltation. Now, fair warning, this next bit is going to be a lot of theology per square inch. That might not be to the liking of some, but I’m not going to apologize for it. This should stretch our minds a bit. Sitting under the teaching of the Word of God is not just a passive thing that we just kind of listen to for 30, 40, 50 minutes. It requires that we engage our minds. Like Jesus himself said, we are to love God with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind. If at the end you find yourself thinking “I really don’t understand what he’s been talking about,” know that that is normal. We are talking about things that are beyond our human comprehension. We are talking about the mysteries of the infinite God. As it’s been said by Augustine, and Calvin, and others “we can apprehend Him, but we cannot comprehend Him.” In other words, we can know Him, but we cannot fully understand him.

So, starting in verse 6 “Jesus Christ, who was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” The word “form” here does not refer to mere appearances, but refers to the underlying reality. Just like how we will see a bit later how when he takes the “form” of a servant it doesn’t just mean that he appeared as a servant. He really became a servant. The NIV renders this verse as “who being in very nature God,” which I think really captures the idea better. Paul starts here because it is only in understanding the greatness and the holiness and the power of Jesus, that we can appreciate the depth of the humility of Jesus. There are many throughout history, and many false teachers out there today that would deny the full divinity of Jesus. I could spend a lot of time here but maybe that would be better discussed during our bible study. Scripture teaches us explicitly that Jesus was himself truly divine. In John 1:1 John says, “ In the beginning (think as far back as you can possibly think,) the Word, the Logos, Jesus, was with God, and He was God. He was in the beginning with God.” So, because of this, we know when Paul is telling us that "Jesus did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped,” he is not saying that Jesus was thinking of it as something to be desired, or to be reached for. He is saying that Jesus already had it, but that Jesus was willing to voluntarily lay it aside for the benefit of His church. He did not stand on His rights. He could have Stayed in heaven, in perfect communion and fellowship and unity with His Father.

But instead he “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men.” Christ did not remove His diety from himself, or His identity as God, but rather, he added to Himself a human nature. Think of it as subtraction by addition. Without surrendering any of His divine attributes, He took on true humanity like ours. He was born, he wore clothes, he grew up, he had brothers and sisters. He grew tired, and hungry. He wept and endured pain.

Now this is where it gets really interesting, because here we have 1 being of God, in 3 persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and now the second person, The Son, has two natures. He is both truly God, and Truly man. We need to be able to distinguish between His two natures, but never seperate them. For example in regards to His knowledge, His knowledge was true and accurate but limited in His humanity, and yet he never ceased to be omniscient in His diety. This is a mystery to us. As people were wrestling with this in the early church, as you might imagine, a number of false understandings starting to spring up. You had those that taught that Jesus was not truly God, as I mentioned before. They were the arians. Then you had people that taught that Jesus only a phantom who appeared to be a man. They were fine with the divinity of Jesus but not His humanity. They were called the docetists. Then you had another group that said Jesus didn’t have 2 natures but he only had one that was neither divine nor human. The monophysites. And then you had another group, the nestorians that said He didn’t have two natures but he was actually two people! So what do we do with all that? Well one thing that the church did with it was in 451AD they held a council called the council of Chalcedon to discuss some of these things. And during that council they developed something called the Chalcedonian creed, which if you look at our church website, you will find that our church confesses that creed. It is a wonderful statement concerning the balance between both the humanity and divinity of Christ, and I would strongly encourage you to go and read it, especially if you are a member of this church. I am not going to read from it specifically right now, but I do want to read for you something very similar, which is found in chapter 8 paragraph 2 of our church’s teaching standard, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. Hear chapter 8: Of Christ the Mediator “The Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one substance and equal with Him who made the world, who upholds and governs all things He has made, did, when the fullness of time was complete, take upon Him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities of it, yet without sin; being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her: and the power of the Most High overshadowing her; and so was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham and David according to the Scriptures; so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion; which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.” Confessions like this one, and the Chalcedonian creed, and the Nicene Creed, and the Apostles Creed, are not authoratative in the way that scripture is, they are subserviant to scripture, but they are nonetheless vital for helping us to understand the scriptures, and for safeguarding us against error.

So why is this important? It’s important for a lot of reasons but I am going to mention 3 of them. 1, it’s important because every one of those heresies I mentioned from the early church are still alive and well today, in one form or another. And many of them are alive within the visible church. 2, the reason why it is important, is because our worship of God will never rise above our knowledge of God. God deserves to be worshipped for who He is, not who we imagine Him to be. Exploring the mysteries of God should excite us, and move us to love Him more. Thirdly we need to know these things so we can teach our children. They are going to go out into a world and against an adversary that wants nothing more than to keep them in bondage to sin. To offer them false Christs, and false gospels. We need to be ready when they have questions. We need to be ready when they hear something or read something or watch something that isn’t true. And some of those false messages might crop up in areas that you would least expect them.

Back to the text, Paul continues in verse 8 “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” To anyone around, Jesus looked like a normal man. Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 53 “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” One of the things that bothers me about movies or tv shows about Jesus, is that they always depict him as someone who stands out. He is usually shown as being tall and handsome, and he moves through the crowds in a way that almost makes him seem like he is floating. But scripture tells us that in his humility, he looked just like anyone else. He did all the things that everyone else did, except sin, obviously. We have been discussing some pretty heavy theology, but we have to be careful not to distill Jesus down to a set of thoughts or facts. He was a real man. The people around him all recognized his humanity, but what they didn’t recognize was His deity. Isaiah 53 also tells us that he was despised and rejected by men. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Yet when he was reviled he did not revile in return. Jesus humbling himself by becoming obedient is parallel to His emptying himself. Both are acts of His free will. He was lovingly obedient to His Father’s will throughout His whole life, but that obedience found its ultimate expression in His death. Even death on a cross as Paul says. When Jesus became a man, he came as both a priest and an offering. Jesus, the God of the universe, and the only man to have never done anything wrong, became sin, and to pay the penalty for sin he died the most painful, humiliating death, that man’s reprobate mind could engineer.

The exhaltation of Christ

But that wasn’t the end of the story. The next word that Paul uses is one of the most wonderful words in this entire passage. Paul continues “Therefore...” In other words, In direct response to Christ’s obedience, “ God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above very name.” The word that is used here that we translate as exalted only occurs in this one instance, and it is only ever applied to Jesus. The word actually communicates the idea of being “super-exalted,” it is “more-than-exhalted.” So in response to Christ’s humble obedience, God super-exalted him back to His rightful place. His exaltation begins with His resurrection. It is the Father’s public declaration that the Son’s atoning work was complete, and accepted. Christ’s humiliation ends when he enters the tomb, and His exaltation begins when he exits the tomb. It is the beginning of the reversal of the downward momentum of Christ’s ministry. The rule that God laid down in James 4:10, he applies to himself. “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. Christ’s human nature, which he still has, which was once subject to weakness and death, is now glorified. He is the first fruits of a new creation. Next in His exaltation is his ascension. Honestly I don’t think we talk about this enough. We often think of the incarnation, and the resurrection, but not His ascension. Christ’s ascension is His return to the glory that He shared with His Father from the beginning, but now as the God-Man. It is not just a change of location, but a change of status. He is the triumphant King returning home in victory. The ascension also marks the beginning of His heavenly ministry to us, as our great high priest. Christ’s exaltation reaches its climax in His coronation as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. What we also call “his session,” or “his sitting down.” He is seated at the right hand of His Father because His work is complete, and it is from his throne that He rules the nations, intercedes for His people and pours out His Spirit. God has “bestowed on Him a name that is above every name.” That name is the divine title Lord. The covenant name of Yahweh. Throughout the scriptures he is also called The Lord of the Sabbath, The Lord of Glory, and My Lord and My God. It is at the proclamation of this name that “every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of the father.” Notice the movement of Pauls language, from High to low. Every knee in heaven (the angels,) every knee on earth (all of the physical created order,) but also under the earth (even the demons will bow the knee to King Jesus.) It is not the redeemed only, but all of creation. The difference is that the redeemed will do so joyfully, gleefully, worshipfully. But the damned will do so not penitently, but remorsefully. Hear the book of Revelation. Chapter 6 starting in verse 15 “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” Every tongue will confess that Christ Jesus is who he always was, The Lord God, Yahweh. Paul tells us that So united are the persons of the Godhead that the act of worshipping the Son glorifies the Father. I have heard some people say that we are always to pray to the father, through the son, by the Spirit, and that is the only way to do it. We can see that general pattern in scripture, but this ignores many examples we have of people praying to Jesus or the Spirit directly. Most notably when Stephen was being stoned and he prayed “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” The glory of the Son does not compete with the Father’s, it magnifies it.

Brothers and sisters, the Christ that Paul presents before us in Philippians is not merely an example to imitate, but He is the very engine, the powerplant by which we live out our Christian lives. The call to humility and unity is not a call to grit our teeth and try harder, it’s not a call to just “do more.” It is not a new law for us to obey, but a call to abide in the one who humbled himself in obedience for us. And we will be looking at what abiding in Christ looks like next week, Lord willing. It is only as we are united to Christ - who being in very nature God, took the form of a servant, became obedient unto death, and was exalted high above all of creation - that we can begin to reflect His mind among one another. Anything else is worthless.

When Paul tells us to “have this mind among yourselves” he is reminding us that this mind is already ours in Christ Jesus. What God commands he also provides. The Christ who stooped to wash his disciples feet, now reigns from His throne in heaven as His kingdom breaks out into history, through His Spirit united church.

Let us remember that the path to Christian maturity follows Christ’s own example. The last will be first, and the first will be last. The one who gives up his life will gain it. The valley is the place of vision. The meek will inherit the earth. Just as Christ’s humiliation led to His exaltation, so too our humble submission to Him will one day give way to glory. “If we suffer with Him” Paul says “we will also reign with him.”

And when that day comes - when every knee bows, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord - there will be no division, no pride, no striving for position, no forming our own little cliques. There will only be one song being sung by all of creation. “Worthy is the lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”

Until that day, let us live now as citizens of the heavenly kingdom of God, here on earth. Let us put on the mind of Christ - thinking of others before ourselves, serving one another in love, and finding our joy not in being recognized, but in being faithful. For the Lord who humbled himself for us is the same Lord that will one day lift us up to be with him in glory.