Philippians 2:5-11 Commentary

In some ways Philippians 2:5-11 resembles taxes and my beloved Detroit Tigers’ mediocrity: each predictably comes around once a year – at least to preachers who follow the Revised Common Lectionary. As a result, this is now at least the ninth time I’ve had the privilege of writing a commentary on this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. There’s, candidly, not much new under this extraordinary hymn’s “sun.”

Thankfully, then, the Spirit graced me with something our pastor, the Rev. Dr. Hal Bennett said in a recent fine sermon on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. He pointed to the deliberateness of Jesus’ actions before and during that meeting. Pastor Hal noted that Jesus, among other things, voluntarily passed through territory populated by Samaritans rather than skirting it as at least some of his Jewish contemporaries seemed to do.

This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson reminds Jesus’ friends that our adopted Elder Brother didn’t just give up the heavenly realm’s glory in order to come to earth to rescue God’s creation and creatures. He also did so completely voluntarily. The eternal Son of God wasn’t somehow coerced into or forced to become incarnate for the sake of God’s dearly beloved people. He willingly entered our world in order to rescue us.

But, of course, this voluntary surrender had a specific context. Though this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson doesn’t describe that context, wise preachers will look for ways to identify some of it. We’ll look for and perhaps share reasons why Jesus willingly surrendered everything in order to rescue us from our sin, sins and sinfulness.

This Sunday’s other RCL lessons provide some Scriptural evidence for widespread rejection of God’s incarnate Son. Its Matthean gospel lesson, of course, especially provides a veritable goldmine of reasons for Jesus’ incarnation. One of Jesus’ friends betrayed him. Another denied knowing him. All of Jesus’ friends abandoned him to his suffering. The religious leaders and Roman authorities teamed up to have him crucified. Jesus suffered so profoundly on our behalf that he felt even his Father completely abandoned him.

But, of course, Jesus’ followers don’t have to look much farther than today’s headlines to see why Jesus needed to rescue our world. War continues to rage throughout the Middle East as well as eastern Europe. The Epstein files reveal a systematic abuse of power by rich and famous people. Church leaders almost daily resign over one form of misconduct or other. Those who preach on Philippians 2:5-11 may want to mine the news for the most recent evidence of our world’s need for the Son of God to voluntarily surrender the heavenly realm’s glory in order to live, die and rise again from the dead to rescue God’s creation, creatures and image-bearers.

Yet these are just glimpses of the creational and creaturely mess Jesus willingly entered in order to redeem what God made and loves. They offer windows to the horror for which the eternal Son of God willingly traded the heavenly realm’s glory. Guided by the Holy Spirit, preachers might let our hearers and us briefly sit with and contemplate this before moving on.

But, of course, we move on because Jesus in a real sense “moved in.” In verse 6 Paul marvels how Christ Jesus “being in very nature [morphe*] God, did not consider equality with God [isa Theou] something to be used to his own advantage [harpagmon].” The eternal Son of God had every right imaginable to remain in the beauty and splendor of the heavenly realm’s glory. Yet the apostle reminds us he refused to cling to that glory. In the paraphrase of The Message, Christ Jesus “didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.””

Instead, the eternal Son of God “made himself nothing [ekenosen] by taking the very nature [morphen] of a servant [doulou], being made in human likeness [homoiomati anthropon]” (7). Christ Jesus voluntarily emptied himself, essentially hollowing out himself. Of course, he remained both fully God and fully human. But this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson focuses on Jesus’ humanity. It reminds us that Jesus willingly allowed himself to be a slave for the sake of the creation and its creatures.

That humiliation carried itself to its natural but horrifying conclusion. “Being found in the appearance [schemati] of a man,” Paul wonders in verse 8, Christ Jesus “humbled [etapeinosen] himself by becoming obedient [hypekoos] to death – even death on a cross [staurou]!” The eternal Son of God didn’t, in other words, let his incarnation play itself out in a relatively “natural” death. He didn’t exchange his glory for a death of old age in bed or some kind of sudden death. No, Christ Jesus carried out his servanthood to the nth degree by allowing others to crucify him as an ordinary criminal. He let others torture him to death for crimes he never even considered committing.

“Therefore,” marvels the apostle in verse 9, “God exalted him to the highest place [hyperypsosen].” God didn’t just restore the Son to his former glory. God arguably lifted him to an even more exalted place, the highest imaginable place. Translators seem to almost struggle to translate this unique Greek word hyperypsosen (“the highest place”). The Message paraphrases that place as “beyond anyone or anything, ever.”

Yet that place’s primary meaning seems to be attached to the name God gave the exalted Son of God. “God,” writes Paul in verses 9b-11, “gave him the name [onoma] that is above [hyper] every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow [kampse], in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge [exomologesetai] that Jesus Christ is Lord [KYRIOS], to the glory of God the Father.”

Preachers might note a couple of things about this extraordinary profession. The contrast it draws between Christ Jesus’ incarnation and exaltation is breathtaking. While Christ Jesus voluntarily traded the heavenly realm’s glory for the incarnation’s misery, God gave it all back – plus more – to him. After all, it’s not just that the heavenly hosts and earthly saints now acknowledge him as Lord. Someday soon every last creature will also acknowledge his lordship.

This, however, raises questions about that profession. Paul insists every last knee will bow. But does he mean that literally? And if so, does that mean some knees will bow before Christ Jesus only reluctantly? Or does the apostle somehow hold out hope that every tongue will someday voluntarily profess that Jesus Christ is Lord?

What’s more, preachers may point to the abundance of this Sunday’s Lesson’s superlatives. Paul repeatedly uses some form of the word hyper (“above”) and pan (“every”). It’s almost as if even the inspired apostle’s language fails him as he tries to capture the extraordinary exultation of the ascended Christ.

Preachers might close this message by returning to this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s opening exhortation to God’s dearly beloved adopted children. “In your relationships with one another,” Paul summons us in verse 5, “have the same mindset [phroneite en] of Christ Jesus.” By creating us in God’s image and loving us beyond measure, God grants to Jesus’ friends an extraordinary kind of “glory.”

Yet the apostle summons us to be willing to imitate Christ Jesus by willingly trading that glory for loving servanthood to our neighbor. Even if that means being at least figuratively if not literally giving our lives for them.

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

Illustration

The voluntary nature of Jesus’ surrender of his heavenly glory stands in stark contrast to the United Kingdom’s Prince Andrew’s loss of British royalty’s “glory.” After all, Andrew’s surrender was involuntary. King Charles formally stripped his brother Andrew Mountbatten Windsor of the title of prince. The UK’s Gazette, further, announced the former prince was also compelled to give up his designation of “his royal highness” because of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Of course, the line between voluntarily doing something and being compelled to do it can seem to be rather thin. I recently read that Andrew responded to his “demotion” by insisting that he’d already stepped back from his royal responsibilities anyway. It’s almost as if he implied that he’d previously voluntarily given up his royal glory.

It may be too speculative to wonder if the eternal Son of God felt compelled to give up his heavenly glory in order to become incarnate. But even if that’s the case, it was in no way due to an external compulsion. If the Son of God somehow felt “compelled” to come to earth to rescue God’s creation and its creatures, it was by force, but `by his passionate love for them.