"Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. 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. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 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, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
As many of my close friends know, I am attending a church in Guildford, UK called Chertsey Street Baptist. Chertsey Street is very much involved with students from the University of Surrey, and last semester I took part in a Bible study there for the students every Wednesday night. We were taking an in-depth look at the book of Philippians, and one week I was very much struck at the significance of this passage. I don't know how anyone with a half understanding of the depravity of man and the glory of God can look at the plain reading of this passage without being completely blown away. It is a peak into the heart of God and His attitude towards His people.
Paul's primary motivation for writing this is to give us an example of true humility. Lewis' idea of humility in The Screwtape letters is very helpful: "The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools." (Spoken from the Devil's perspective.) Humility is not lying to yourself. Christ knew He was the holy and only Son of God, and thus "did not consider it robbery to be equal with God." Humility is sacrificing all your own glory at the altar of love.
The funny thing about all of that is that this analogy doesn't even really apply to us at all. For He really was the Son of God. We are greedy, lusting, self-absorbed, glutinous animals and baby-killers who like to act as if we were God. The truth is that we have no glory in the first place. How much more atrocious it is that we should ever be arrogant! To think that the Holy God became human flesh, and that we love few things more than flattery and praise from other men. If, by some miracle of God, we ever actually do anything good and as a result receive some misplaced praise from man, then we need to apply this passage and put on the mindset of Christ. But most of the time, we should simply be on our knees.
That speaks to our sin. But this passage isn't just bad news for us, for it speaks to our only hope of redemption as well. Christ is humbling Himself and putting on the likeness of sinful human flesh in order to be our substitute. This speaks volumes about what exactly happened on the cross. There is a reason why Christ had to become human before suffering for our atonement. He couldn't have just suffered some cosmic-scale punishment afar off without becoming human first, for one simple reason. As much as when God looks at us He sees the Son of Man on the cross paying the price for our sins, when He looked at the Son of Man on the cross, He saw us. That is a terrible thought if we are honest about what we really are like. He saw you, your sin, all of your darkest moments and motives. He saw Cain, He saw Hitler, He saw Sodom and Gamorrah. And thus, the Son of Man came into the likeness of human flesh in order to represent mankind and all of our fallenness on the cross.
This appears to me to be one reason why our catechism teaches us that Jesus must have been both fully man and fully God. He must be fully man in order to take on our sin and judgement, and fully God in order to be completely blameless and defeat death. Of course, when we say "fully man," we clearly cannot mean that He was Himself sinful. This would clearly contradict the notion that He was blameless and thus able to atone for our sins. Instead, He "made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men." He came in the likeness of human flesh, and yet lived a perfect life. He came in the likeness of fallen (not pre-fall) man.* Thus, humility is not clever men actually becoming fools, or pretty women actually trying to become ugly. How would that ever bring glory to God? Instead, it is clever men abandoning every attempt to be viewed by others as clever and simply using their intelligence to love God and their fellow man.
The love of Christ demonstrated in the incarnation doesn't even begin to stop there. The story continues on to the resurrection of Christ. Christ rose bodily from the grave, and He ascended bodily. The angels then tell the disciples that just as Christ departed, so will He return. All of this means that Christ has forever physically committed Himself to humanity because of His resurrection. It is not as though we may be one of many species of creatures that God has created and we are all equal in His sight. No, the Bible never speaks of atonement for angels and demons, only of God's just judgement. Even more than that, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us! And since the church is to be the Bride of Christ, isn't it fair to say that He will always dwell among us? How blessed are we that the very Son of God has become ours forever, just as we are forever His?
Sometimes, strangely, it is the small actions that can speak just as loudly to our hearts as the epic. It is the gift of flowers, the note slipped under the door, the word fitly spoken. One of these small actions that is too rarely remembered is to be found in Matthew 26:27. "Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom." When I first read this, I could hardly believe it, and thought for sure that I must have misunderstood. But Christ is really saying that He will not drink of wine until He can drink it with us at the wedding feast of the Lamb. He cannot mean that He is waiting for some kind of religious communion ceremony, first because He says He will not taste the "fruit of the vine" at all, and second because Christ taking communion doesn't really make sense at all. (It would kind of be like… self-cannibalism) He really means that He has promised to fast from the pleasure of wine until that great feast, when He will drink in joy over His redeemed people.** Are there any words that can be said in response at all?
*Skeptic side note: Fully God and fully man does sound like a contradiction at a first glance. But then again, so does wave-particle duality to the physicist, so does a derivative to the mathematician (division by zero), and so does the sovereignty of God and human responsibility to the theologian. Sometimes, reality holds things that are too far separated from our human experience for us to imagine. As long as there is still good reason to believe it, then we should be okay with believing things that we cannot always wrap our minds around. For this one, some of the reasons for believing it are found in John 1 (granted, if you believe the Bible is true), and perhaps the discussion above.
**This is one more reason to believe that Christ will remain forever in His physical body, committed to us. Wine, food, and pleasure are all physical things. One of the most comic scenes in the Bible is when Christ is proving to His disciples that He is not a ghost but has physically risen from the dead. He says, "Have you any food here?" And then the disciples give him a piece of broiled fish and honeycomb, and I can just imagine that He says, "Now…. watch." The food was to prove that He really was risen "in the flesh." Since Christ will drink of the fruit of the vine at the wedding feast, we can be sure that He will be "in the flesh" with us then.
