The Carmen Christi: Philippians 2:5-11

The Deity of Christ in Philippians 2

We continue our series on the Deity of Christ, particularly looking at the tremendous text in Philippians chapter 2.

Once again, before handling the Word of God, let us pray. Once again, our Father, we plead for the ministry of the Holy Spirit amongst us. We ask that as your Word is proclaimed this evening, we will have not only obedient hearts, but the view by your Spirit will cause us to see the glory of Jesus Christ.

And to once again warm our hearts in devotion and love for Him, we pray in Christ's name. Amen. I was looking at the hymnal just a moment ago to refresh myself as to the number of one particular hymn that we all know very well.

The hymn is hymn number 81, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And I recall that a number of years ago I wrote an article for the CRI Journal on this text in Philippians chapter 2. In fact, I'll be using it as my outline this evening.

And I included in it a little story. Since Philippians chapter 2, beginning around verse 6 or so, is considered by many scholars to be a fragment of an ancient hymn of the church, I told a little story in my article about how most of us who are Reformed hardly need to use the hymnal as soon as we begin to sing A Mighty Fortress.

Back then, I can tell, we still have the red hymnals, much to the rocks you should run, because it was hymn number 92 in the red hymnal, but now it's hymn number 81 in the Trinity Hymnal Reformed Baptist Edition.

And I told the story in my article about the fact that my daughter does not have to use the hymnal while singing A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Both of my children memorized that hymn early on, and once that number is called out, we just put it away.

Sadly, and I'm not sure I've ever told her this, the editors cut that part out. They didn't make it in the publication. I'm sorry. I tried, but they wouldn't let it in. There are certain hymns, there are certain things that we all share in common that we know very, very well.

I would imagine some of the younger children here know some of those old Trinity hymns, some of those songs that we begin, and the young people can sing right out because they've learned them in Sunday school class.

And they become things that the preacher can use very easily in a sermon. You do not have to quote all of A Mighty Fortress to make the point of what A Mighty Fortress is saying. All you have to do is quote maybe the first line, and everyone will understand what you're referring to.

Hymns can have a tremendous theological capacity amongst us. I mean, some of our hymns, I mean, some of the Christmas hymns, have you ever listened to some of those hymns, the in-depth Trinitarian theology?

It's no wonder stanzas two, three, and four disappear when most Christmas carols, which are actually hymns, end up out in the secular world because they wouldn't have a clue what world those hymns were talking about, about the incarnation, and the second person, the Trinity, and so on and so forth.

But hymns very often carry deep theological truths, and they make them easy for us to remember. Music's a very, very powerful thing. It can be used for good and evil. I note that in church history when Arius, the troubler of the church who denied the true deity of Christ, when he was active around the year 318 and following in church history, he used music to present his perspectives.

He even wrote a little book that was mainly poetry, limericks, and things that you could understand. One of his sayings was, there was a time when the sun was not. It was placed in such a way that you would be able to easily understand this.

And he infected a large portion of the world with his thinking, so much so that even after his death, 20 years after his death, the majority of bishops in the world were Arian and followed after his perspectives.

So the people of God have always used music. We study through the Psalter on Wednesday evenings. And they've used it to communicate God's truth. The early church was no different. And it seems that we have, in the second chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, an ancient stanza, a verse, a section of an early hymn of the church.

And it's interesting. Scholars refer to this section as the Parvon Christi, the hymn to Christ as to God. And at least one ancient historian, in writing about this pestilent sect, this cult called Christianity, one ancient writer referred to the odd things that these people would do.

They would meet at odd hours at night or early in the morning. Well, there was a reason for that. Most Christians were slaves.

It was the only time they could get together.

But they would meet at odd hours. And since they were made up primarily of slaves, the Romans looked down their nose at them as a meaningless group. But one of the things that the Roman historian records is that they would sing hymns to Christ as to a God.

And so was one of those that this Roman historian heard recorded for us in Philippians chapter 2? We won't know in this life. We might know in heaven.

Who knows?

But this particular section, this particular portion of Philippians 2 is used by the Apostle Paul as a sermon illustration. How many times has Pastor Fry stood here and used as a sermon illustration something from Pilgrim's Progress?

Well, everyone who's read Pilgrim's Progress remembers the illustration. He can, by using that kind of illustration, communicate an entire idea very briefly, very quickly. Doesn't have to repeat the whole thing.

Of course, if you've not read it, then you have an idea of what he's talking about. But as long as you've read it, there's a shared commonality there. Well, that's what the Apostle Paul is doing here in Philippians chapter 2.

The Context of Humility and Unity in the Church

Now, we don't have time this evening to go through as much of the context as I would normally like to go through in a text like this. This is one of the key Christological texts in all of the New Testament.

Once again, it's one of those few places whereby the grace of God, the very veil of eternity is pulled aside, and we can look into the relationship of the Father and the Son in eternity past. If you're marking down those places, remember we looked at John 1 .1.

We saw that the last time we were in this series, in Colossians chapter 1. And we'll see some of that a little bit in Hebrews chapter 1. But here in Philippians chapter 2, one of the key texts about who Jesus Christ is, but interestingly enough, it's a sermon illustration.

It's an illustration. If you look at the first four verses of chapter 2, and again, don't have time to develop this this evening, but it's a sermon illustration where the Apostle is saying to the Philippians, here's how you have unity amongst the believers.

How do you have unity amongst the believers? You all find the same thing. You all have the same goals. You're unified in your perspectives and your desires. And the worst thing that can happen in any church is when you get a bunch of people who start engaging in vain glory.

They start putting themselves first. They want everybody else to see them. And they want everybody to serve them and look to their needs. That's when you start having real problems within the fellowship of the church.

And it's in that context of saying you need to exercise humility toward one another. Yes, the ground is leveled before the cross, but you need to lay aside your rights and serve others. Service of Christ and service of one another becomes the very means by which unity amongst the people of God is maintained.

And you want the best example of this? You want to see true humility? Well, that's where you pick up Philippians chapter two, verse five. And a number of years ago, I spent a fair amount of time on this text and I translated it.

And I'll read for you the translation that I produced at that time. Beginning of verse five, you must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who, although he eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality he had with God the Father, something to be held on to at all costs.

But instead, he made himself nothing. By taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness, and having entered into human existence, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death one dies on a cross.

Because of this, God the Father exalted him to the highest place, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, bows the knee, and every tongue confesses, Jesus Christ is Lord, all to the glory of God the Father.

Now, if indeed, as many feel, this is an ancient fragment of a hymn, all I can say is, the original Trinity hymnal had a lot of good hymns in it. And they weren't nice little praise choruses, and all about me, and so on and so forth.

That's heavy duty theology. And that is what the apostle is deriving his illustration from. Now, think about it for just a moment. If this is a sermon illustration, and we're assuming the apostle Paul knows what he's doing, then our understanding of what is said here, must be taken in light of what it is the apostle is trying to exhort the Philippians to do.

What's he doing?

Walk in humility of mind. Let each person look after the things of others, not only himself. Put others first. Yes, you're equal in the kingdom of God. You don't have super-Christians who are above other Christians, who have more rights or privileges and things like that.

But don't hold on to those privileges that are yours. Be willing to lay them aside in the service of others. This is the key to how you have peace in the body of Christ. And so, sadly, most of the time, when Philippians 2 .5 -11 is examined, that context, the exact purpose that the apostle is using this for, is missed.

It's separated out and considered as a separate text. We cannot allow that to happen. As we work through the text, we will have to keep coming back to, why is it that Paul is delivering this to us? Why is he using this as an illustration?

And his purpose will determine many of the key issues that have arisen in the many, many books that have been published on this particular subject. The first phrase to look at, right at the beginning of verse 6, the form of God.

The form of God. The NIV renders the phrase, being in very nature God, for example. What does this mean? What does it mean to be in the form of God? Well, notice he does not say that Paul came to exist in the form of God.

It does not say that the Lord Jesus entered into existence as the form of God. Instead, he uses a present tense, ongoing existence. It says the time frame of the passage is clearly eternity past. The beginning assertion is that the one we know as Jesus Christ eternally existed in the very form of God.

That which communicates the inner reality to the outer senses. One of the great Princeton scholars of the past, B .B. Warfield, said it very well when he said the following words. Paul does not say simply he was God.

He says he was in the form of God, employing a term of speech which throws emphasis upon our Lord's possession of the specific quality of God. Form is a term which expresses the sum of those characterizing qualities which make a thing the precise thing that it is.

When our Lord is said to be in the form of God, therefore, he is declared in the most express manner possible to be all that God is to possess the whole fullness of attributes which make God, God. Obviously, then, this is a strong assertion that before the incarnation itself, in eternity past, the Son existed in the very form of God.

He wasn't merely a spirit creature. He wasn't merely an angel, but he eternally existed in the very form of God. Then we have the next phrase, equality with God. Equality with God. What does this mean?

Is this just another way of saying the form of God? Some might think so, but I would suggest to you that this equality with God is the result of being in the form of God. Remember that Paul is here speaking to Christians who are equal with one another before God, all stand upon the same grounds of redemption, none superior to another.

Even though the pre-incarnate Son had equality with the Father on the basis of being and hence had equal rights with the Father for the worship of the entire universe, he voluntarily lays aside those rights that naturally come from eternally existing in that state.

That, then, shows us the consistency between what Paul is exhorting the Philippians to. You have these rights, lay them aside in service to others. Look at Jesus, who although he eternally exists in the form of God, he has equality with the Father, yet for our sakes and for our redemption and for the glory of the triune God, he lays aside those rights that are naturally his and he enters into human existence.

The Form of God, Equality with God, and the Meaning of Emptying

Now, one of the great controversies in this text has been over the single word, to grasp, to grasp. The term that is found in the Greek text, some would say, Jesus did not try to grasp at equality with the Father.

Now, some would take that to mean he didn't possess it and he didn't try to grab at it. Others would say, no, since he eternally exists in the form of God, that means he possesses it, but he does not try to hold onto it as a thing to be grasped, but voluntarily lays that aside and takes on human nature.

Now, once again, if we just, if all we had found, and this happens a lot, is some guy, and I can understand why people enjoy doing this,.

If I didn't do other things this would probably be something I would do,.

Is rummaging around through teeny tiny papyri fragments in the basement of a library in London someplace. And somebody came across just verses 5 through 11, without any context, without any connection to the rest of the epistle, not even recognizing how it was being used.

Then 2 ,000 years removed, it might be difficult solely on the basis of just these words to determine which of these two understandings should be adopted. It would be a little bit difficult, but that's not where this is coming from.

It's not just an isolated text. And so once again, the context helps us here. Would it be humility for a mere creature who does not possess equality with the Father, would it be humility for a mere creature to not grasp at equality with his Creator?

Is that humility? No, that's just not committing blasphemy. Nothing that is created could ever grasp at equality with its Creator in the first place. And so if the idea is, well, Jesus is an inferior creature, he may be a greatly exalted creature, but he's a creature.

And he showed great humility by not trying to become equal with his Creator. Not exactly a good sermon illustration. That would destroy the application the Apostle is trying to make. But, if we take it as Christians have taken it, that he eternally exists in the form of God, he possesses equality with the Father, and yet he does not consider that equality, which is he possesses something to be held onto at all costs, but, and then the rest of the text tells us what he does, he voluntarily enters into human flesh.

Now we have the greatest example of the very humility that Paul is trying to say to the Philippians, and this is what you need to cultivate amongst yourselves. You may have certain rights, but be willing to lay them aside in the service of others.

This is what Jesus himself did. And so, we have before eternity, we have, well, let's put it this way, we have before the incarnation, and I think we can extend this back into eternity, but before the incarnation, Jesus existing in the form of God, with equality, he does not consider this something to be grasped or held onto.

Now what does it mean if you consider something? Could a rock give consideration to where the rock wants to live? Can a rock give consideration as to whether it wants to be picked up and thrown through a window?

No. Why?

Because a rock's impersonal. Rocks do not give consideration to things. Sometimes we go reading through these things, and we don't see certain things. Here is an assertion that the Son, as a divine person, was active personally prior to the incarnation.

You say, well, of course he was. There's a lot of people who question that. There's entire religious groups, I didn't say Christian religious groups, but there are entire religious groups that say that the Son has not eternally been a divine person.

Now I'm not talking about Jehovah's Witnesses here. The Oneness Pentecostals, representing an ancient heresy of the Church, denying the eternal existence of the Son and Spirit as eternal persons, this is one of the key texts that refutes their beliefs.

And it's interesting,.

While Orthodox Christianity has stood very firmly against Jehovah's Witnesses, don't even look for fellowship with them, then again, the Jehovah's Witnesses aren't exactly looking for fellowship with us either.

But this area, where people start saying, well, God's just sort of like, you know, an actor who, remember we talked about this a couple of months ago,.

Who wears different masks,.

Sometimes it's the Father, sometimes it's the Son, sometimes it's the Spirit, that kind of perspective, a lot of people go, eh, it's about right. Eh, it's close enough, no problem. And so in the Christian entertainment industry, music especially, people with a completely unorthodox and anti-biblical view are given free reign to minister and preach in churches.

And here is a text that demonstrates their wrong. The Son, as the Son, did not give consideration. Here is a divine person who is thinking and giving consideration,.

This is before the Incarnation.

Some of you might have relatives, for example, co-workers, who are involved in these particular groups. Listen carefully and be aware of how you might use this text and present it to someone to help them to understand the truth.

Then notice the next thing. The next phrase is, but rather than this, he made himself nothing. Did you see the pronoun? I don't know how many years it was before I saw this. Did you see the pronoun? He made himself.

It's a reflexive pronoun. Who does this? The Son does this. This is not done to the Son. That's not to say the Father and the Spirit are involved, they certainly are. But the Son made himself of no reputation.

Literally means he emptied himself. But Paul never uses this term, or kenosis, in a literal sense. Check it out for yourself sometime. Romans 4 .14, 1 Corinthians 1 .17, 1 Corinthians 9 .17, 2 Corinthians 9 .3.

The other places where he uses this term is always metaphorically. I hope that my labor did not become in vain amongst you. Have no results amongst you are common ways that Paul uses this. This is something that the Son does.

He makes himself of no reputation. He lays aside that glory which was his, which only for a brief moment is seen on the Mount of Transfiguration. But other than that, if you were walking down the city street in Jerusalem, if you were walking along the seashore in Galilee, if you had walked into the carpenter's shop in Nazareth, you didn't have to put your sunglasses on because of the globe.

People paint Jesus in all these weird ways where, you know, that's not what it was.

The Scriptures are very clear.

He took on human flesh. There was nothing about him that made us go, oh. And so he enters into human flesh. He makes himself nothing. But how does he do this? And this is where people really do tend to struggle.

How does he do this? Well, look at what the text says. He does it by doing something positively. See, normally, if we were to say something like he made himself nothing, then it would mean he got rid of something,.

He got rid of things.

But Jesus does this, the Son does this, by taking on human nature. By taking on human nature. Remember how I rendered it when I was first reading it for you here.

Notice how I put it.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

I'm sorry.

Instead, he made himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness. So what causes some people some trouble is that he empties himself by taking something on. One person has expressed it this way.

The biggest difficulty with seeing taking as means, which is what I'm suggesting to you, is that emptying is normally an act of subtraction, not addition. But the imagery should not be made to walk on all fours.

As an early hymn would be expected to have a certain poetic license. The Philippians were told not to puff themselves up with empty glory, because Christ was an example of one who emptied his glory. If this connection is intentional, then the Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ as to God, has the following force.

Do not elevate yourselves on empty glory, but follow the example of Christ, who, though already elevated on God's level, emptied his glory by veiling it in humanity.

End quote.

And so the means of the emptying is the addition of a human nature, the veiling of the divine in the creaturely. This is important to understand for many in turn to call to mean that Christ abandons the form of God rather than seeing this as an addition of the human nature to the eternal divine nature that was Christ.

It is this addition that veils the form of God. That's very important to understand because that's exactly what John is talking about in the prologue, remember, just a few months ago. John 1 .14, the Word became flesh.

It does not mean the Word ceased being the Word. There are many people. I had a man once come to a class. I was teaching seminary in San Francisco, Mill Valley specifically, and he specifically came to the class just to assert to me that the entire Christian doctrine of the Incarnation could not possibly be right because Jesus emptied himself.

He could not truly have been deity.

When he was incarnate,.

And most of the time we spent sitting, specifically addressing this particular issue from the text. And so what have we seen here in this text so far? We've seen the assertion that Jesus Christ, before the Incarnation, exists as a divine person.

He exists in the form of God. He has equality with God, but it is not considered that equality in station, position, something that has to be held on to at all costs, but he empties himself by doing what?

Taking on the form of a servant. The same word form is used to form of God. If he was truly a servant, then he was truly God. The form of a servant. Being made in the likeness of men. Then notice what is said.

And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. Same term that Paul has already said to the Philippians. You've got to walk in this humility of mind. You've got to have this humility toward one another that sees others as more important than yourself.

Here's where Jesus then, humbles himself by becoming obedient unto death, literally, even the cross death. Even the cross death. The reason for that, again, shouldn't be difficult for us to understand if we recognize how grisly, how reprehensible, how repulsive, how hard was death by crucifixion.

To even mention crucifixion in blight company would have been considered an inappropriate thing to do. And so when he uses this terminology and he says even the death of the cross, everyone understands exactly what he's saying.

He humbled himself. He became obedient to the point of death. This was God's will. This was not some mistake. Oh, how often do I see in theological writings today the idea that the death of Christ was but a tragic mistake.

One must completely abandon anything called the New Testament to come up with such an idea. And because of this, God has highly exalted him.

And given to him a name.

Which is above every name, that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Not Caesar. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Here is the incarnation. It is all an act of humility. Every aspect of it. And the son is himself directly involved in making that consideration in emptying himself, in humbling himself. And does this not all go back to demonstrate how fitting is the illustration, the sermon illustration that Paul is using here.

At every point, it fits the exhortation he's making.

With the Philippians.

Now, school classes have started again. And especially young people are, especially if they're for the first time entering into the secular arena, are encountering all those wonderful professors.

Who wish to overthrow.

Their Christian faith. We have a young lady who is a freshman in college now. Her father's a regular in my chat channel. She came into a channel from her classroom.

They have Internet.

And so she came to jail in her classroom going, you would not believe what this guy is saying. And we're all like, oh yeah, we would believe what that guy is saying. And many of those very wise PhDs are standing before their classrooms last week and this week.

And they are very solemnly proclaiming that all the ideas of Christianity were either stolen from somebody else or they came along much later that Jesus never had these ideas. This was a development way down the road.

And that's why the Gospels, you have to push them way down the road as to when they were written.

And so on and so forth.

But we are reading an epistle that is written to a church in the middle of the 50s. We read an epistle that there's really no reason to question.

And of course,.

Anything will be questioned in modern scholarship. But there's really no reason to question that we are reading an epistle that reflects to us the Christian understanding of who Jesus Christ is within 20 to 30 years of the crucifixion itself.

Very rarely in ancient history do you get that kind of a quality of information that close to the original times. And you don't have this kind of evolution of a belief like this in that short period of time.

This is the primitive confession of the faith. And isn't it wonderful that 2 ,000 years later you and I believe.

The very same thing.

You and I believe.

The very same thing.

On the other side of the planet in a different language, we can hear that hymn and we can sing the amen to it.

What does that tell me?

I don't know about you, but that illustrates to me the very divine nature of our faith. The divine nature of our faith. All those generations, all those miles, all that language and culture, and yet we can look back into the most primitive documents that demonstrate the early beliefs of the Christian people.

And we believe the same thing. Jesus said,.

I'll build my church.

He's been doing it ever since. If he wasn't who the Bible said he was,.

We wouldn't have much reason.

For having confidence in his word. But the one that we worship, the one that we serve, before the incarnation itself was the object of the worship of angels in heaven above. And yet he took on human nature, humbled himself to the point.

Of death on the cross,.

And now has been highly exalted. He is the one we worship.

And we praise.

Let's pray.

Indeed, our Heavenly Father, we once again thank you for preserving your word for us,.

And we thank you.

That as we go forth this week in service to Jesus Christ, we have been reminded by your word once again of the glory and the majesty of the one that we serve.

O Father,.

Thank you for building your church. Thank you for sending that gospel far and wide so that we who live so far away and so many generations later have been the recipients.

Of your mercy and your grace.

We truly thank you for your truth. We praise our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are honored to be called in service. May we serve him indeed.

In this coming week.

To your honor and glory,.

We pray in Christ's name.