Philippians 2:5-11 Commentary

The most recent New International Version of the Bible offers a slight twist on this Sunday’s famous Epistolary Lesson. After all, while the 1985 edition of the NIV rendered Philippians 2:5 as, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,” a more recent translation reads, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”

However, one might argue that the “twist” was always present in the NIV but is simply highlighted in its newer edition. After all, in the 1985’s edition’s verses 1-4 Paul summons his readers to make his “joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  He then follows that with verse 5’s, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Because verses 1-4 provide the context for this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson, preachers might consider spending at least part of this week’s proclamation summarizing their invitation.

At the heart of Paul’s summons is his call to God’s adopted children to work for unity. He suggests that unity is partly grounded in a rejection of some common cultural practices. In verse 3 he summons his readers not, in the words of The Message’s paraphrase, to “push” their “way to the front or sweet-talk” their “way to the top.” The apostle goes on in verse 4 to invite Philippi’s Christians not to just look out for their own interests.

Unity also, however, grows, according to Paul, out of certain positive activities. In verse 2 he invites the Philippian Christians to agree with each other, love each other and work together. In verses 3 and 4 the apostle invites them to, what’s more, help their neighbors get ahead and lend them a helping hand.

This is such a radically counter-cultural agenda that this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s preachers may want to let the Spirit help us unpack society’s attitude toward our neighbors. Our culture gives at least implicit permission to do whatever’s legal to get ahead in the world, even if it means shoving others out of the way. Our culture insists that we lend our neighbors a helping hand only if it somehow benefits us. When our neighbors somehow displease us, it allows us to respond in kind – if not even more destructively.

What’s more, any care society calls us to show our neighbors grows largely out of its desire for what we often call “the common good.” We’re nice to each other because it makes for a friendlier and kinder society. We take an interest in our neighbors so they can join us in helping make our various neighborhoods better places for all of us.

In contrast, Paul summons Jesus’ friends to take our cues from Someone Else. Jesus Christ’s friends look to him to model for us the view and treatment of other people. Those who want to be unified with our fellow Christians take our cues from the Son of God incarnate.

Christians, in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s words, long for our “mindset [phroneite*] to be that of Christ Jesus” (5). And since we can’t do that on our own, we long for and plead with the Spirit to help us view both unity and our neighbors from the living God’s perspective.

In this Lenten season, however, we especially remember that that perspective, as Paul goes on to so eloquently write in Philippians 2:6-11, has a cruciform shape. That suggests that genuine Christian community for which Paul advocates in verses 1-4 grows best in the soil that is self-sacrifice.

Christ Jesus was the eternal Son of God. He always was “in very nature [morphe] God” (6). Christ Jesus had, according to The Message’s paraphrase, “equal status with God.” He was, quite simply, God. Yet Christ Jesus didn’t stubbornly insist on maintaining the visibility of that status. He, according to verse 6, didn’t “consider” [hegesato] his “equality with God [isa Theou] something to be used to his own advantage [harpagmon].”

Instead of clinging to his eternal status as God’s Son, Christ Jesus loosened his grip on that status. He “made himself nothing [heauton ekenosen] by taking [labon] the very nature [morphe] of a servant [doulou], being made [genomenos] in human likeness [homoiomati anthropon]” (7).

And perhaps especially during this Holy Week, God’s people remember how, what’s more, “being found [heuretheis] in appearance [schemati] as a man [anthropos], [Christ Jesus] humbled himself [etapeinosen heauton] by becoming obedient [hypekoos] to death [thanatou] – death on a cross [staurou].”

This is, of course, a veritable goldmine of theological riches. The eternal Son of God became the son of human parents. Christ Jesus, in fact, may have resembled his mom and, more broadly, his dad. He was obedient not just to his human parents and heavenly Father but also, in fact, all the way to the cross.

While preachers may spend time mining these riches, we might also choose to let the Spirit guide us to devote more time to exploring what Christ’s self-sacrifice means for Christians’ “mindset.” How might God’s dearly beloved people’s attitude toward both unity and our neighbors imitate Jesus’?

We might begin by noting that while none of us are gods, God has graced us with the remarkable status of being God’s image-bearers. God created us to in some fundamental ways imitate God. But Paul reminds his readers that those who would imitate Jesus don’t choose to cling to that status for our own benefit.

In pursuit of the unity for which God longs among God’s people, we, instead, relentlessly ask ourselves how we might make ourselves our neighbors’ servants in order to point them to the living God in Jesus Christ. To that end we plead with the Spirit to so transform us that we become willing to do anything that honors God for the sake of unity and our neighbors’ well-being. Jesus’ followers do that even if such servanthood ultimately costs us everything.

However, in verse 11 it’s not just that the description of the “downward” trajectory of the Son of God ends. It’s also that Paul no longer talks about what Christ Jesus’ “mindset” looks like. He, in fact, doesn’t talk anymore about the attitudes toward unity and our neighbors Jesus’ friends should cultivate. Now the apostle talks not about what Jesus did, but about what God the Father did to and for him.

Because of Christ Jesus’ obedience, God, as Paul celebrates in verse 11, “exalted him to the highest place [hyperypson] and gave [echarisato] the name [onoma] that is above [hyper] every name.” God gave to the risen and ascended Christ the place he’d always deserved but willingly surrendered for his adopted siblings’ sake. The Father granted him not just the status but also the name that far surpasses every other status and name.

Now, according to verse 10 and 11, the only proper response is for the whole creation, including God’s dearly beloved people, to bow before Christ Jesus in submission and worship. After all, the Father exalted the Son so that “at the name of Jesus [en to onomati Iesou] every knee [pan gony] should bow [kampse] in heaven [epouranion] and on earth [epigeion], and every tongue [pasa glossa] acknowledge [exomologesetai] that Jesus Christ is Lord [KYRIOS], to the glory [doxan] of God the Father.”

Among other things, Paul’s use of superlative and universal language grabs our attention. It’s not just that Jesus deserves to have his followers bow before him in humble worship. It’s also that, as the apostle insists, every last part of creation and every one of its creatures should bow before Christ Jesus is complete adoration.

In fact, Paul goes on, it’s not even just that Jesus deserves to have all of creation and each of its creatures worship him. It’s not even that he deserves to have his friends confess that he is Lord. It’s also that Jesus deserves to have every last one of the tongues in heaven and earth call out in praise that he is, as The Message paraphrases this, “the Master of all.” One day all of creation and its creatures will, in fact, worship the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, however, such worship is the privilege of all whom God has adopted as God’s children.

That announcement, in a sense, brings Paul’s summons to foster a Christ’s mindset (5) full circle. Part of our worship of and submission to Christ Jesus involves cultivating like-mindedness and having the same love (2). Part of what it means to confess that Jesus is Lord is to value others above us and look to others’ interests (3). This, after all, brings God the Father part of the glory God deserves.

*I have here and elsewhere added in brackets the Greek words for the English words the NIV translation uses.

[Note: In addition to these weekly sermon commentaries on the CEP website, we also have a resource page for Lent and Easter with more preaching and worship ideas as well as sample sermons on the Year C Lectionary texts.]

Illustration

Rhys Bowen’s Evan Above’s Evan Evans is Llanfair, Wales’ constable. It’s a village whose Christians don’t humbly consider others better than themselves. After all, at the end of Llanfair’s street two rival chapels stand across from each other. One’s sign reads “‘Vengeance is mine,’ says the Lord.” The other, “Forgive your enemies. Turn the other cheek!”

When one pastor came out with a new billboard quote, Bowen says the other rushed “straight to his Bible to contradict or better it. ‘There was no animosity more passionate than that between rival Christians’ (italics added), Evans thought.”