5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it [b]robbery to be equal with God, 7 but [c]made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
1. A Plea For Loving Others. (Philippians 2:1-2)
2. A Principle For Loving Others. (Philippians 2:3,4)
3. A Pattern For Loving Others. (Philippians 2:5-11)
In Christian theology we speak of both the humiliation of Christ and then the exaltation of Christ. During the Holy Week of Lent season, which Palm Sunday kicks off we find Christ going through the valley of His most extreme humiliation. This great Christological passage in Philippians 2 traces out that extreme humiliation.
Of course we are mindful that Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the humiliation. It is true that the crowds are jubilant with praise upon Christ entering but that Jesus sees this not as exaltation but as humiliation is recorded in Luke’s Gospel 19,
41 And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, 42 Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.
Scripture records Jesus weeping only three times. Once @ Lazarus Tomb (John 11), once here, and once in Gethsemane (Hebrews 5:7-9). Each time in connection to death. First, Lazarus’s death, then here over the prospects of Jerusalem’s death, and over His own death in Hebrews.
So, it is easy to read the Palm Sunday passage and not see the beginning pangs of this week of Humiliation. However, Christ is experiencing profound sadness and the humiliation he suffers from here on out just continues to intensify.
The text this morning talks about Christ humbling himself but the Greek word in this text is ἐταπείνωσεν (etapanosin – hard a and o) and communicates a humbling that moves into humiliating.
To make or bring low, humble, humiliate; pass: To be humbled. From tapeinos; to depress; figuratively, to humiliate.
I bring this out because too often in our Christian world we often mean by the word “humble” the idea of somebody willing to forego applause, or somebody who is willing and even happy to take the lower position or perform tasks that are not noticed. And that is all well and good but during this descent into humiliation that begins on Palm Sunday our Lord Christ is moving beyond humble to genuinely humiliating.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here because the Cross becomes the apex of the humiliation ritual that our Lord Christ undertakes in order to meet the just demands for the trespassing of God’s just standard.
There is ever increasing degrees of humiliation in this passage.
The first movement of humility here mentioned is the incarnation.
Paul’s statement that Christ was “in the form of God” are words that would have been understood at his time as saying with stark explicitness the deity of Jesus Christ. The phraseology in Greek that St. Paul uses was the linguistic coin of his day. The phraseology was first popularized by Aristotelian philosophy and as such, it was the most natural way of expressing the divinity of Jesus Christ.
The word “Form” as in “being in the form of God” is the equivalent to our saying “Christ Jesus having the specific character of God. In the Greek thought of that time “Form” was that body of qualities which distinguished Christ from all other spiritual beings. It is a way of directly saying that “the incarnate Christ was God.” If Jesus Christ was not in the form of God He would not be God, not having those characterizing qualities which make God God.
Note Humiliation in passage
Note Exaltation in passage
Talk about Kenosis
emptied
ἐκένωσεν (ekenōsen)
Verb – Aorist Indicative Active – 3rd Person Singular
Strong’s 2758: (a) I empty, (b) I deprive of content, make unreal. From kenos; to make empty, i.e. to abase, neutralize, falsify
Some versions translate “made himself of no reputation.” Other’s translate “emptied himself.” Some versions render this “he made himself nothing.” I prefer the “he made of Himself no reputation.”
Often this passage will be made to say too much as if this emptying means that Jesus Christ surrendered His divine nature. This, of course, would be a mistake. The emptying of Himself here points more to the abasement of Himself then the deletion of His divine qualities.
All illustrations fail when we come to these kinds of truths but I often think of Mark Twain’s “The Prince & The Pauper” with this passage. If you remember Tom Canty and Prince Edward looking like doubles switch themselves. Prince Edward takes on the Pauper’s Tom Canty’s life. He remains Prince Edward with all of his dignity as King but no one recognizes Him and no one pays him deference save one soldier returning from war but that only in order to humor the now King Edward. In the story the Prince, quite w/o realizing what he was doing emptied himself. Christ, quite realizing what He was doing emptied or abased Himself. He still retained His Kingship but very few recognized him. His glory does periodically break out but on the whole, in His person, his glory is banked and He is not recognized for who He is and all this so that He might honor the Father.
The important thing to note for our purposes this morning is that when Christ empties himself we should not read that as Christ loses his Divine nature. It is perhaps better to think rather than Christ losing His divine nature he instead adds a human nature to His one person.
But of course, you do see the humiliation here, don’t you?
That’s the journey of our Lord Christ’s humiliation was not merely low, but lowest. A humiliation that moves from cradle to cross only intensifying with the passage of time.
This “making of Himself no reputation” is repeated in every ancient orthodox creed and confession?
Why? Because this humiliation matters. It’s what makes redemption real. Why insist on all this humiliation of the Messiah? Well, first and most important it was what the OT Scriptures taught to expect. (Isaiah 53)
Secondly, the alternatives don’t provide a redemption where there is a substitute who pays the penalty for sin. All the early cults tried to avoid this humiliation;
Docetism said Jesus just “appeared” to suffer — a divine hologram playing at humanity.
Gnosticism couldn’t imagine God wearing flesh — it saw the physical world as flawed and unworthy.
Arianism claimed Jesus wasn’t fully God, just a next-level creation.
But without the humiliation of Christ beginning in the incarnation and reaching its apex during Holy Week and Good Friday, we remain dead in our trespasses and sin. The wages of sin being death, there had to be a God-Man who would die as humiliated and cursed on a tree.
And so when we consider the Lenten season, we are reminded once again that it is not primarily about us. Yes, we rightly remind ourselves of the need for ongoing repentance. Yes, we rightly remind ourselves of the reality of our suffering with Christ. Yes, we deny ourselves during this season, but all of this is really second tier. Lent screams at us the suffering and humiliation of Christ. A suffering and humiliation that begins with the incarnation moves on to the Cross, and ends in the grave.
Now we pivot to talk more about the next level of humiliation the Philippians passage speaks of and that is the Cross. Our Lord Christ in His Humiliation, the Holy Spirit says, became obedient to death … even the death on the Cross.
Doubtless there are exceptions but by and large must moderns are not familiar with just exactly the humiliation that was found in anybody being crucified.
“In 1986, The American Medical Association published an article titled “The Physical Death of Jesus Christ”. It details the entire process of Jesus’ trial to His death on the cross. In Luke 22, before Jesus is arrested, it is written that He was in great distress & sweating blood. Although rare, it is recognized as Hematidrosis, caused by high amounts of stress. One can literally sweat blood.
At the time, the crucifixion was considered the worst death for the worst of criminals. But this is not all Jesus faced. The Lord Christ endured whipping so severe that it tore the flesh from His body. He was beaten so horrific that His face was torn & His beard ripped. A crown of thorns, 2-3 inches long cut deeply into His scalp. The crown was not like a sweat brow that somebody might wear playing sports. The Crown was an oval shaped head gear that was comprised of 8 inch thorns that were literally sharp as nails. This crown was doubtless then pulled securely over our Master’s brow.
If there is any doubt that this was all intended as humiliation we are reminded that they mocked him now at this point saying, “Hail King of the Jews.”
What is happening here is the kind of thing that happens when a point is being made to all who gaze upon this. It is a strong and convincing point. Avoid this at all cost.
The leather whip used to flog Him had tiny iron balls & sharp bones. The balls caused internal injuries while the sharp bones ripped open His flesh. His skeletal muscles, veins, & bowels we’re exposed, causing major blood loss. Most men do not survive this kind of torture. After Jesus was severely flogged, He was forced to carry His own cross while people mocked & spat on Him.
The cross beam he carried appx. 650 yards weighed somewhere in the vicinity of 80 pounds. You can imagine how torturous that would be for someone is Christ’s condition.
All this explains why Paul can write… “He became obedient to death … even the death on the cross.” This was not just any death.
Now, keep in mind that all of this inhuman torture is the physical incarnation of what sin deserves. In other words … in all this humiliation we are being taught what God’s just penalty against sin begins to look like.
Well, crucifixion was a process meant to instill excruciating pain, creating a slow & agonizing death. Nails as long as 8 inches were driven into Jesus’ wrists & feet. The Roman soldiers knew the tendon in the wrists would tear & break, forcing Jesus to use His back muscles to support Himself to breathe. Imagine the struggle, the pain, the courage. Jesus endured this reality for 3 hours!
The Gospel of John writes that after Jesus’ death, a Roman soldier pierced His side with a spear & blood & water came out. Scientists explain that from hypovolemic shock, the rapid heartrate causes fluid to gather in the sack around the lungs & heart. The gathering of fluid in the membrane around the heart is called Pericardial effusion & the lungs, Pleural effusion.
To the world, Christianity is as foolish as it can get. They believe it’s for the weak. But when you are confronted by the reality of the cross, it’s clearly not a pretty sight. It is brutal & horrific. This is the weight Jesus carried. The weight of the sins of the world, all so that we can live. God’s wrath is fully satisfied in Jesus. This is what it took. Repent & believe! Jesus is “God among us” in the flesh. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus loves you so much, He went through this spiritual and physical punishment for your sins and mine. Jesus is Lord, Almighty God, Everlasting Father.”
THE DEPTH OF CHRIST’S DESCENT into humiliation. This was Humiliation With Purpose Jesus didn’t come to impress. He came to empty Himself. Philippians 2 says it plainly: “Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped… He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross.”
So, we have considered the humiliation of Christ and I would have you remember that when we speak of Christ’s humiliation we generally speak of it in three movements…. Incarnation to Cross to grave. Next week we will speak of Christ’s exaltation which also has three movements. From Resurrection to Ascension to Session. This is how Theologians often think of Christ’s humiliation and exaltation.
We should end by noting that this was all purposeful. This humiliation first was for the Father that the Father could not be charged with injustice and untruthfulness. The Father had promised throughout the Scripture that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. From the beasts slain to cover Adam and Eve, to Passover Lamb wherein the blood is sprinkled on the Mantle of the doorway, to the OT sacrificial system with its oceans of blood and its rivers of sprinkling, everywhere Scripture declared in archetype form that there must come one who should do what the blood of bulls and beasts could never do but could only point to … and that is the taking away of sin.
And then after the Cross is about honoring and vouchsafing the name of the Father, the Cross is about the Triune God’s love for His people. Because Christ paid this price of humiliation we ourselves will never experience this kind of eternal humiliation. Because of Christ’s humiliation we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of Christ’s humiliation we can know that we know that we have eternal life because all that come to the Father by Christ, the Father will in no wise cast out.
So, as hard as this humiliation is to consider, we Christians understand that without it we would be just as miserable as those who currently seek to live their lives bearing their own sins.
Praise God for Lent and the reminder it is of Christ in our place.