by Richard
Allan
As many theologians will
attest to, Philippians 2:6-8 is one of the most causal, and therefore,
important passages in all the Bible.
So
it follows that it is also one of the most contested portions of
Scripture. A misunderstanding of these
verses will inevitably lead
to a host of other errors in one’s Christological
comprehension.
Anyone with their spiritual
head screwed on straight will agree that this text supports the fact
that the
man Jesus existed prior to His
birth in
which, as it goes on to say, “became flesh and
dwelt among us”. However, this reality
is not the primary reason the Holy Spirit inspired
Paul to pen these verses in
Philippians. It is only when we consider
verse 5 that we begin to understand what Paul was getting at in
verse 6 and
7. “Let this mind be in you that was in
Christ Jesus” must be considered as the preface to these two verses.
In the beautiful exhortation
of verse 5 we have the essence of what God, through Paul, is saying to
all of
us who have been born from above
and are, therefore, in their sanctification
process of becoming who God reckons them to be - the Holiness of God. (“Be ye holy, even as I
am holy”, Jesus
said). In Proverbs 23:7 we have a good
companion verse to this portion of Philippians 2 for as Proverbs says,
“As a
man
thinks, so is he”. And as we know,
it is in our mind that we think and attitudes are formed.
“Let this mind be in you…”. How do
we take on
the mind of Jesus, or let
His Mind be in us? Isn’t it by reading,
and studying and listening to His Words, listening over and over again
to the
truth of Scripture? His Word says, “My
Word is truth”. The opposite corollary
would be to take on the mind of the world, Satan, and fallen man
(see “The Mind
of Satan” at the end of this paper).
This is easily done by allowing our minds to be saturated with
the words
of the world via T.V.,
radio, magazines, movies, people’s opinions, vain
conversation, and gossip – all these are impregnated with words that
are not of
God (Scripture), and, therefore, from the mind (where words originate)
of the
enemy of God, Satan.
What God is saying to His
people is that the whole purpose of our having been saved is to lead us
on into
sanctification holiness, ie., “to work out
our salvation”. To do this we must begin
to change our
thinking and attitudes about all that we say and do.
Scripture calls this repentance, which,
therefore, should be on-going, rather than just a one time shift in our
thinking at the time of our conversion.
And this God-inspired process of sanc-
tification begins and continues in
the mind. And as the mind goes, there go
our actions. We must reprogram our
fallen minds with the thoughts and attitudes of Jesus, Who, having been
in the
same form as God (Spirit form), didn’t cling to this exalted status and
position he enjoyed, but instead divested Himself of all He was (for
the sake
of God’s Plan) and took on a lower form, that of a servant, and came in
the
“likeness(form) of flesh”. “Form” means
the mode and structure and contour in which something exists. In His pre-human mode, or form, He was, like
God, a spirit Being. And now, at Mary’s
conception, by the Holy Spirit, He was fashioned into the structure and
contour
of human flesh. This was a monumental
“step down” for the Old Testament Word of God (God’s Logos) to take,
but
completely necessary if fallen man was to be redeemed out of the prison
house
of death. And it is precisely on this
theological point that Philippians 2:5 and following is speaking to. The life of Jesus, both in His pre-incarnate
form and His incarnate form was a life of deferring to others, a life
of
humility and sacrifice, a life of servitude, a life of “stepping down”,
if you
will. There’s an old Christian
paradoxical adage that says, “If you want to go up, you must go down”,
“If you
want to be exalted, you must be debased”.
This is why Jesus set the example that we are to follow (not
necessarily
literally), by washing His disciples feet and why he told the story
about not
seeking to be seated at the head of the table.
These, and many others, were graphic illustrations on what our
attitude
should be as those who are working out in our walk that which God has
worked
into us by His Spirit. The Spirit Word
stepped down into flesh and blood existence and in doing so put Himself
in the
unique position to further humble Himself at the Cross.
And for this, God has exalted Him to the
highest position possible, seated at His right hand.
Whatever His position
was, relative to God,
before He emptied Himself according to Philippians 2, His position now
is, as
they say, “as good as it gets”. Today,
as always, the battle rages on (in theological circles) as to the
pre-human,
human and post human nature of Christ as it relates to God. But in all this study and
argumentation of
the nature of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, man’s opinions are
still like
belly buttons, everybody has one (with the exception of Adam and Eve,
of
course).
At some point soon, we will
all know for sure what we now know in part, but isn’t it time we stop
using
Philippians 2 as a battle ground for our Christalogical debates and
instead
allow its lesson in humility and Christ-like attitudes speak loud and
clear to
our spirits? We, who have been
impregnated by the Spirit of Holiness, can draw from this portion of
Scripture
the message it was intended to impart, ie., that we are to actively
allow the
Mind and attitude of Christ Jesus to take over and possess our thought
life,
which automatically, then, will have us leading a life of self
sacrifice.
It has often been asked what
we should do with our reckoned “new creation” life, and the astounding
answer
is, offer it up to God as a “living sacrifice”.
The whole purpose of God giving us a
reckoned perfect new creation life is for us to give it back to Him in
the only
form He can accept, a perfect sacrifice.
First He reckons (or considers) us perfect, then with our free
will we
offer ourselves up to Him, at which time He accepts this sacrifice in,
once
again, the only form (reckoned perfection) that squares with His
Holiness. This is why all the Old
Testament sacrificed
animals had to be perfect (relatively) and without blemish, why Christ
had to
be perfect without the blemish of sin, and why our sacrifice has to be
perfect. Yes, our perfection is in Jesus
and it is His Perfection imputed to us, or a reckoned perfection, but
the point
in all this part of God’s Plan is for us to have something perfect to
be
offered up to God, for He can only accept perfection.
And
again, we do this by cutting off the
words of Satan and backfilling with the Words of God.
It is my modest opinion that
the Apostle Paul would be astonished at how various
The only way we, as flesh
and blood people, can relate to Christ’s Philippians 2:6 emptying
sacrifice is
to imagine being asked by God to give up our humanity and become, say a
carrot. The change from being human to
becoming a vegetable would be quite an act of faith and love, even if
we
believed it was necessary in order to elevate some of the plant kingdom
up onto
the level and status of humanity. Unlike
the Word/Logos of God, I suspect we would all tend to recoil from this
idea and
desperately try to cling to our humanness.
However, if we by faith really want to be fully consecrated to
God’s
Plan, we need to be willing to “loose our life in order to gain it”. Like Christ and the Apostle Paul, we have to
realize, and putinto practice, self-crucifixion, for it is only through
self sacrifice
that the resurrection power of God (His Holy Spirit) can pour through
and out
of us for the sake of others.
Again, there are many
differing opinions as to the status of the Logos/Word, relative to God. Was the Logos the uncreated God Himself, part
of an uncreated Godhead consisting of 2 or 3 persons, or was the
Logos/Word a
special Being that God created with the express purpose of being the
channel
through which He would create the entire universe and all that is in it? Tackling this question head on is vital to a
correct thought life about the Plan of God, once a person becomes an
ambassador
for this plan. This age old question
about trinity or no trinity will be covered in another paper, for to
discuss it
here would distract from my main point.
Unfortunately and in my opinion, no matter how much Philippians
2:6-8 is
critically analyzed to try and prove whether or not the Word was or was
not
created by God, these important verses in Philippians, by themselves,
cannot be
used to prove either side of the argument. In
conjunction with other texts, I do feel these Philippians verses can
be supportive, but not definitive, in and of themselves.
So what do these verses in
Philippians tell us about God and His Plan?
Simply this.
So if the above be true, it
is fruitless argumentation to put Philippians 2:6-8 under anyone’s
theological
microscope in order to prove a particular mindset as to whether or not
the
Word/Logos was or was not a created spirit being. All
we can glean at this time from this text,
with certainty, is that the Word was in the form of God before He took
on the
form of man, from a spirit being to a flesh being, a wonderful truth in
itself,
without which we would have no atonement, and therefore no salvation. As believers we can thank God and His Logos
Word for the fact that this Word spirit person did not consider His
position as some thing to be grasped or clung to, but that He emptied
or voided Himself (and
that position) in order to be formed as a perfect fleshy man inside the
womb of
the Virgin Mary. And, of course, as we
know from Scripture, the man Jesus perfectly fulfilled His mission of
mercy,
redeeming His creatures by His further sacri- fice, “even the Cross”. And for this He was rewarded with
resurrection exalted Life, and is now seated at the Right Hand of The
Almighty
and is declared the New Federal Head of all mankind.
So, may each of us take on
this same attitude and mindset and consecrate ourselves to deferring
our will
to the Will of God. And what is God’s
Will? Jesus Christ! He
is the Will of God, the Holiness of God,
the Pleasure of God, the Joy of God and therefore the embodiment of God. Let us, therefore, look to Jesus, “the author
and finisher of our faith”. We’re to
compare ourselves with Jesus, not anyone else.
If we use man as an indicator of how we’re doing in our
sanctification
walk, we will always seem to be doing pretty good or pretty bad,
relative to
brother or sister “so and so”.
Therefore, we are to overlay our walk with Jesus’ walk, and not
anyone
else’s. When Paul said, “imitate me as I
imitate Christ”, it is implied that he was saying, “only as I imitate
Christ”.
Let us now, briefly, turn
our attention to the mindset that is contrary to all that is righteous,
just
and holy...
The Mind of Satan
In these last days Satan’s
mind has differentiated into anything and everything that is profane
and
unholy. Employing all forms of
multi-media,
he uses every ploy possible to entertain, deceive, disgust, pervert,
malign,
entice, offend, captivate and coerce man into identifying with his “old
man”
fallen, base nature. He marries humor
with all these ploys so as to encourage people to laugh and take
lightly the
filthy fallen condition of mankind that he masterfully presents on a
somewhat
tarnished silver platter of staged, sensational light and sound shows. He has entered and occupied some of the most
creative (yet fallen) minds ever known to man and like a monstrous
puppeteer,
he manipulates the thoughts and move-ments of his unwise, unreasoning,
unsuspecting subjects. He has made a
virtual art form of polluting the minds of those who have not yet been
regenerated and therefore have not taken on the Mind of Christ. The mental cesspool of fallen man is about
full to overflowing, a condition that earmarks the soon return of
Christ for
His Church.
Once Christ comes for His
true Bride-to-be, and returns to His Father’s house for the marriage
ceremony
and “The Feast of The Lamb”, Satan will be permanently cast down to
earth, and the
full power and might of his thoughts and deeds will descend on a world
gone mad
with lust, just ripe for Satan’s final act of worldwide deception.
Unfortunately, a lot of
folks who claim to be the espoused Bride of Christ have allowed
themselves to
be drawn into Satan’s septic tank, only coming up for air about an hour
or so a
week, when they frequent their favorite spiritual side show, and are
fed not
only diluted truth, but out and out erroneous doctrines.
As we’re told in Revelations 3, Christ stands
at the doors of these “churches” and knocks, but is seldom heard and
invited
in.
After all is said and done, things are fine on planet earth. And I don’t mean that facetiously, but factually. For the word “fine” means prime and sovereign, and I use it to denote that God is in complete control with His all Wise Plan that’s unfolding precisely as He determined before He even set one atom in time and space. Satan’s mind and designs are mighty, but fortunately not Almighty. And as we see all through the Bible, God over and over again uses evil to serve good. Satan, his mind and ways, are on a leash and therefore are subject to the Will and Mind of God, and His Christ. This therefore makes Philippians 2:5 one of the most important verses in Scripture, but only for those who are called according to God’s Purposes.