Philippians - Lesson 10

I. Two Structural Approaches

As we go verse by verse through Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 through 11, we're going to spend a little bit of time in verses 6 through 8. This is the part of the hymn or the poem where we take a look at the phrase equality with God. We look at in the form of God and in the form of slave, and we look at the phrase in human likeness.

We have to sort out how is Paul structuring this argument. I'm going to suggest two different ways that you can structure the hymn in the first half, and in structuring it slightly differently, you accent different emphases in Paul.

So, one way to think about this passage is to look at—now just read this to you, "Who being in the very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage." One stanza. Then a second stanza, "But he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant and being made in human likeness." Second stanza. Third stanza, "Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient to death, even death on a cross."

If you divide the hymn in this way, the emphasis falls on Jesus' Incarnation as becoming human and becoming a slave. Those two, slave and human, inform each other, and then both of them together are contrasted with Jesus' pre-existence that we find in the first verse.

But there's another way, one that I'm a little more partial to, that divides things a little bit differently, and it focuses on particular terms in the text. So, I suggest another way of looking at this would be to do it this way: "Who being in very nature or form of God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, but rather he emptied himself, taking the very form of a servant." That's one stanza.

Second stanza, "Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, and then death on a cross." Second stanza.

Why do I do it this way? Well, in the first stanza, you follow the term morphe or form—in the form of God, in the form of a servant or slave. Then the second stanza picks up this term "becoming" in the English. Although yes, being made, being made would be one translation of this Greek becoming: "becoming in the likeness of a human and becoming obedient to death." So, becoming in the likeness of humanity and becoming obedient to death.

II. Character of God

The reason I like this a little bit better, this way of dividing things up, is there's a strong—it emphasizes the strong contrast between form of God and form of slave. In other words, Paul is showing us the character of God. We might think Christ would use his own power as God to execute his will, kind of like the deities in the wider Greco-Roman world, that they just would for their self-aggrandizement use their power.

But in this case, the meaning that Paul is conveying is that God is not one to use his power as God to affect his own advantage. God gives himself. So, it emphasizes that Christ takes up the form of a servant or slave embracing service. This is who God is. Divine equality means self-giving, sacrificial self-giving. When we see Christ, we see God the Father. Jesus has told us that in the Gospel of John, among other places. Well, what does God look like? God looks like sacrificial self-giving.

Dive a little bit deeper in here. "Who being, who existed, who is existing in the form of God." That relationship, let me unpack that just a little bit here. Some translations will say "Who, although in the form of God, did not consider equality with God." Right. So, although in the form of God, that is Jesus, he didn't use the power of God to his own ends. But another way to think about how the language in the Greek can be understood is to see Paul saying precisely because he exists in the form of God, he thus does not grasp at things. And I like that because it emphasizes in yet another way that the character of God is the self-giving love to others.

So, when we think of the term morphe form, it's a term that takes its meaning from the context, and the context here for us is this phrase equality with God. And so I suggest that what Paul is saying here is precisely because he is in the form of God, he doesn't consider equality with God as a right that is used to his own advantage. We'll get to that in a moment, this how to translate something to be used to his own advantage.

Equality with God here likely refers to Christ's nature, the metaphysical essence, his Godness. And I say that because when you go down to the next verse, "taking the very nature or form of a servant," Paul is drawing then a contrast between slave and God. In the social world, you can't get further apart than that. And I think Paul is stressing then with this argument that the character of God is the selfless giving, this giving of the self.

You know, after 2,000 years of church history, maybe we're pretty comfortable with seeing God that way. But the Philippians would not have been. Their gods, their goddesses use their power to advance their own agenda, they would subdue others into submission, they would take advantage of weakness. So, for example, Artemis, or Diana as the Romans called her, she had a reputation of being hot-tempered. The gods and the goddesses thought only about themselves, and maybe every once in a while would think of those humans who were trying to honor them.

I think it's important to note here, "Who being very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage." I think it's important to realize Paul is not saying here that if Christ had wanted to, he could have acted in a selfish way, but instead he decides not to, you know, to set a good example for us. Paul's not arguing that; he's showing us what in fact the character of God is. So, the Philippians grew up in an environment, they live in an environment where, yeah, the gods can throw their weight around. But the one true God that we see in Christ Jesus is the self-giving, loving God, that's the true God.

There's a strange word that we find here in the first verse, translated sometimes as something, "not something to be used to his own advantage." I mean, that's how the phrase goes. It's not found anywhere else in the New Testament. But when it's used outside of the New Testament, the word itself can mean the act of robbery, or grabbing something, snatching at something, grabbing at an object, either grabbing at an object that one didn't have, or maybe clinging to an object that one rightly possesses. Some people argue that the word reflects more of an attitude towards what they had and continue to have.

But there's another way to think about this term, and it's actually to see it as part of an idiom that was used in this time. And in wider Greek usage, there was this idiom that was used that referenced an attitude that the person has towards something they have and will continue to have, but which they won't use to their advantage. So, I think Paul is probably using the meaning of this term as it's used within the idiom in Greek. And I think that's probably what the Philippians would have also picked up here, that this person, it's an attitude they have towards something that they have and will continue to have, but that they won't use to their own personal advantage.

The idea here is that being equal with God, having equality with God is exemplified by not using that almighty power to your own advantage, and instead emptying. As I mentioned in our last lesson, the emptying I think is best understood as emptying out of the glory that is heaven and coming to our earthly existence, inglorious, broken, fragile in this world of sin, and accepting the lack of reputation, the lack of social honor that comes with it.

So, in the first stanza, what I'm arguing is that Christ is declared as what we would say today, the second person of the Trinity. He's very nature God, and that Godness looks like self-giving. It looks like such an overflow of love that all of the attributes that are given to the gods and goddesses of that day, the abuse of power, the demand for honor is not at all who our God is as we see in Christ Jesus. And so he takes the very nature of a slave or servant, doulos.

III. Incarnation & Humanity

In the second stanza, there's a focus in a different way on Incarnation. Here, Paul talks about Christ taking up the likeness of a human. Jesus becomes a man, right? He uses here the plural for humanity in the likeness of men, becoming is how you might literally read the Greek in the order that Paul gives the words. So, he's taking up a human form.

The hymn, I would say, is drawing attention to the fact that Jesus embraces mortality because that's what taking on the form of a human would include: taking on a body. He who is immortal, who is preexistent with God, takes on corruptible flesh. There's no indication here that Paul in any way is saying that Jesus could potentially have a sinful nature. We know that Paul does not hold that Jesus had a sinful nature at all. He speaks totally against that in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "Jesus knew no sin." So, we'll keep that in mind as we read the hymn. This is claiming that Jesus embraced mortality, taking up corruptible flesh, a body, it's going to decay, putrefy in the grave.

One of the reasons that I divide the stanzas the way that I do is that I don't think Paul is making a claim that humanity is like slavery, right? I think the form of God and the form of slave, both grammatically and also from a conceptual standpoint, is a strong contrast that God has his own self-giving, loving character. That's what Paul wants to emphasize. And then he also wants to emphasize in the second stanza, human and human obedience. And so by making clear form of slave matches form of God, and becoming human and becoming obedient helps us understand what flourishing human life looks like. I think that's what Paul is getting at, and that's why I structure the hymn the way that I do.

No matter how you structure the hymn, there is irony happening here: God, a slave, a free man choosing crucifixion. So, the hymn overall in these two verses is stressing that God's character is defined as one who serves. Thus, the full human, the true human, is one who embraces obedience in service to God and then by extension to his or her community.

In our obedience to God, sometimes that pathway can lead in places we don't want to go, like obedience to death, even death on a cross. That's a humiliating death. God doesn't delight in a person's humiliations; not the point of Paul's argument here. It's that in God's eyes, he sees a person's worth and value in relation to their obedience to him and not with the structure of self-worth that the wider community, the wider culture argues for.

If we stay a little bit longer here in this notion of Christ and his obedience, the obedience of Christ is further emphasized in the way that I've structured the poem because in the normal course of things, a slave has to be obedient. That's the life of a slave. But if Paul is emphasizing becoming human and then becoming obedient, as I think he is, then it emphasizes that Christ as a free man who should be seeking honor, avoiding at all costs humiliation, yet embraced obedience to God. I would say the power of the hymn is in its critique of the world's picture of what a flourishing human looks like. Christ's actions, which are described by the writer of the book of Hebrews, Christ's actions are described as Christ ignoring the shame of the cross. This is in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 in Hebrews. So, this hymn is trying to reshape, in two different ways, reshape how we understand the character of God and then how we can live as true followers of God.

IV. Divine Vindication

It would be very sad if the hymn ended and "he became obedient to death, even death on a cross," full stop, but it doesn't stop there. The hymn goes on to, in one sentence, verses 9 through 11, where God now is the subject and not Christ, which was the subject in the first two verses of the hymn. Now God is the subject and God highly exalts. God gave, right? These are the verbs used with God as our subject. And there, there is a sense of reward. God exalted Jesus Christ to the highest place.

And I think it is important to note that this reward is a vindication of Christ's obedience. It is not that we should ever imagine that somehow Christ obeyed so as to earn a reward. Rather, we see God exalting Christ as an action of vindication that Christ's obedient death on the cross, we know, broke the power of sin, and his resurrection, which Paul will mention elsewhere, not directly here, that his resurrection is the firstfruits of the resurrection that all believers will share in his new and glorified body. We too will share in our new and glorified body. Philippians will talk about that in chapter 3. Paul will focus on that there. Here in the hymn, there is the exaltation that is in view.

Most likely Paul is drawing on Isaiah here, chapter 45, verses 23 and 24. Christ's name is above every name and every knee will bow, and this draws on Isaiah 45. It's interesting in Romans, Paul also quotes Isaiah 45 in the context of believers' work being judged at the end. So, we can, I think, be pretty confident that Paul knew Isaiah 45. So, in addition to Isaiah chapters 52 and 53, we can also pay attention to Isaiah 45 as we try to understand in a deep way this hymn.

V. Theological Encouragement

As we've taken a close look at the Christ hymn, I've read it from a theological perspective that embraces the reality of Trinity, even though Paul doesn't ever use the word "Trinity" here. I don't think that's imposing a later belief back onto the 1st century as much as it is trying to draw out what is there in the text itself.

We also, in this poem or hymn, I've talked about how in the midst of the rich theology and the detailed analysis of particular words, there's also a story or a narrative that is given here, a narrative of redemption. It's that narrative of redemption, that's the place where we enter back into the story.

So, while we've looked from verses 6 to 11 about who Christ is, how we can understand better the character of God, this is done in light of or with an eye to how we can better serve God, be better and more faithful disciples, and I would say rest in our sure, strong foundation that is God's love for us. So, it can be an encouragement, it can be a comfort; it's both of those all at once. Paul is going to, from this hymn, encourage Philippians then to live into this, to be even more encouraged at their faithfulness. So, this hymn, rich in theology, should be read as an encouragement for us to live into our own, participate in the life of Christ that is ours, as we follow him embracing the salvation that he gives.