Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks on Philippians 1:27-2:18 from The Gospel Coalition Sermon Library
1. God’s perspective.
“I don’t really care what they do,” surely there would be something morally deficient about him. Should God be careless about Hitler? Should he be careless about you and me? If he acted this way, he would ultimately discount his own significance. He would say his own glory doesn’t matter.
He would sully his own glory. He would besmirch his own honor. This is his world. He would soil his own integrity. That is why, in Scripture, God is sometimes portrayed as blisteringly angry. Moreover, it is very important that we reject the common evangelical clichÈ, “God is angry with sin but not with sinners” or “God loves sinners, but he is angry with sin.”
This is a common clichÈ that simply won’t stand up to Scripture. Fourteen times in the first 50 psalms alone, for example, the Scriptures declare, “God abhors sinners” or “he detests those who tell lies” or “those who sin against me I loathe.” There is strong language like that 14 times in the first 50 psalms alone.
But the glorious truth about God is that, although he is angry with us, his very character of God, as God, marks him out as a God of love. Despite his anger as he perceives our anarchy (anger that is a necessary function of his holiness), God is still a loving God. That is his character. So he provides a means of forgiving sin that will still leave the integrity of his own honor unsullied.
He comes to us in the person of his Son. His Son dies as the propitiation for our sins. That is (and this is the whole point), the Son dies to ensure that God becomes favorable toward us in precisely those areas where God has been standing over against us in judgment and wrath. Because God himself is the one who provides the sacrifice, this propitiation is quite unlike pagan sacrifice.
In pagan propitiation, we offer the sacrifices, and the gods are made favorable. They are propitiated; they become propitious. By contrast, in the Bible, God is both the origin and the object of propitiation. He is both the subject and the object. He provides it, and it is his wrath that is turned aside. Much of this is summarized in just a few short verses in Romans 3. I haven’t made this up. Paul wrote it out with great clarity 2,000 years ago.
“God presented Jesus as a propitiation …” It’s the same word. The NIV has “sacrifice of atonement,” which doesn’t mean a thing to most of us. “God presented Jesus as a propitiation through faith in his blood.” That is, in his death. “He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies the ungodly.”
Do you hear that? It is not simply the basis by which he declares the ungodly forgiven, just, but he does it also to be just, to maintain his integrity, to preserve his honor, and to maintain his glory, unbesmirched. Sometimes poetry says this better than prose:
Love in the Deity stretches conceptions of men:
Love seems not love which permits our full measure of hate.
Promise of judgment in ages beyond seems too late.
Where is God’s love when the wretched are wretched again?
Holiness absolute stands far removed from our ken:
Either its brightness so alien it seems to frustrate,
Blindingly brilliant; or else its rich glories abate,
Fading in mist as the distance seems too much to mend.
One place remains where this love and this holiness meet,
Mingling in poetic measures with no verbal dross:
Symbol of holiness pure, justice without defeat,
Coupled with unbounded love stands the stark, ugly cross.
Lord God of hosts! In the worship surrounding your throne
Questions once clamoring give place to hushed homage alone.
This is one of the ways, at least, in which God looks at the cross.
2. Christ’s perspective.
Here, too, many things could be said, but one of the great and neglected themes about what the cross means to the Son is his obedience. This theme surfaces with special strength in the epistle to the Hebrews and in the fourth gospel, the gospel of John. There we repeatedly learn that the Father sends, and the Son goes. The Father commissions, and the Son obeys. There is a functional subordination.
In fact, the Son always does what pleases the Father (John 8:29). The most staggering commission that the Father ever gave the Son was to go to the cross. The Son knows that the commission was given to him. “Jesus came,” he insists, “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10; Matthew 20)
The knowledge of the commission he received did not make obedience easy. Gethsemane was still on the horizon. Thus, the cross, for Jesus, was not only the means by which he sacrificed himself, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. It was also the high point of his unqualified obedience to his Father. Isn’t that what this text says in front of us here in Philippians 2:8? “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death.”
3. The Devil’s perspective.
One of the most important chapters in the New Testament for understanding the Devil’s perspective on the cross is Revelation 12. There, Satan is portrayed as full of rage because he has been banished from heaven and knows that his time is short. He has not been able to crush Jesus, so he goes after the church, portrayed as a woman. He is the accuser of the brothers, who simultaneously wants to vex their consciences and accuse God of ungodliness because God accepts such miserable sinners as these.
But believers, we’re told in Revelation 12:11, overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. What does this mean? What is meant, of course, is that these believers escape the accusations of Satan himself, whether in their own minds (you know how Christians feel guilty, whip themselves, and wonder how they can possibly be accepted by God) or before the bar of God’s justice because they make their instant appeal to the cross.
You can imagine Satan saying, as it were, “How can you accept these people? They defy you. They besmirch your glory. They use your name in vain. They don’t care about you. They don’t love you with heart and soul and mind and strength, even though you’ve made them in your own image. You accept them, and you think you can retain your own integrity?” He’s the accuser of the brothers before the bar of God’s justice.
God’s answer is the cross. The Christians sing, with full attention and deep gratitude, “Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling.” Before that appeal, Satan is powerless. God has retained his honor while redeeming a rebel brood. We can be free from guilt, both the objective guilt before a holy God and subjective feelings of guilt. This is not because we are guiltless, but because Jesus himself bore our sin in his own body on the tree, and God himself accepts that.
Imagine the first Passover, just before the exodus. Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones (two Hebrews with interesting names) are discussing the remarkable events of the previous few weeks. Mr. Smith asks Mr. Jones, “Have you sprinkled the blood of a lamb on the two doorposts and on the lintel over the entrance to your dwelling?”
“Of course,” replies Mr. Jones. “I followed Moses’ instructions exactly.” “So have I,” affirms Mr. Smith, “but I have to admit that I’m very nervous. My boy Charlie, a son with a remarkable Jewish name, means the world to me. If the angel of death passes through the land, I just don’t know what I’ll do if my son Charlie dies.”
“But that’s the point,” says Mr. Jones. “He won’t die. That’s why you sprinkled the lamb’s blood on the doorposts and on the lintel. Moses said that when the angel of death sees the blood, he will pass over. That’s why we call it Passover. Why are you worried?” “I know, I know,” sputters Mr. Smith, somewhat irritably.
“But you have to admit, there have been some very strange goings-on these last few weeks. Frogs, lice, darkness, bloody rivers, and things like that. Some of the plagues have afflicted only the Egyptians, but some of them have hit us pretty hard too.” Rather unsympathetically, Mr. Jones replies, “I really can’t imagine why you’re fretting. I mean, I have a son, too, and I think I love him as much as you love your Charlie. But God has promised that the angel of death, when he sees the blood, will pass over. I take him at his word.”
So that night, the angel of death passes through the land. Who loses his son? Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones? The answer, of course, is neither, for God’s promise that the angel of death would simply pass over and not destroy was not made conditional on the intensity of the faith, but on the object of the faith. In both cases, the blood was put on the doorposts and on the lintel; the houses were marked. In both cases, the firstborn son survived.
So with us. We have come to trust Christ and his cross work on our behalf. The promise of his deliverance and the assurance that we are accepted by almighty God is not tied to the intensity of our faith, to the sincerity of our prayers, to the consistency of our emotions, or to the purity of every imagination, but to the object of our faith: to Christ.
When we approach God in prayer, our plea is not that we have been good that day and, therefore, would God please listen to us. Or that we have just come from a Christian meeting full of praise, with a preacher who has gone on a bit. No. Our plea is that Christ has died for sinners, and that is enough. For the truth of the matter is that the cross marks Satan’s defeat, and Satan knows it. That is what the cross means to him.
4. Sin’s perspective.
Sin is not a living thing, of course, so sin doesn’t really have a perspective. But one can usefully look at it from that point of view. What does the cross look like to sin? The answer to that question is highly diverse in the Bible because sin can be thought of in so many ways.
Sin can be thought of as a debt. I owe something that I cannot pay. In that case, the cross is seen as the means by which the debt is paid. We sometimes find on Christmas cards or Easter cards, “He came to pay a debt he did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay,” do we not? That’s exactly right.
Sin can also be thought of as a stain. In that case, the dirt is removed by the death of Christ. Or sin is an offense before God. In that case, we insist that the cross expiates our sin. It cancels it and, thus, removes it. Regardless of what foul imagery is used, the cross is the solution. It is the sole solution. That’s what the cross looks like to sin.
5. Our perspective.
Here, too, many complementary things could be underlined. The cross, for example, is the high water mark of the demonstration of God’s love for us. It marks God’s love for me. It is a symbol of our shame. It is a symbol of our freedom. It is the ultimate measure of how serious our guilt is. It is the comforting assurance that our guilt has been dealt with.
In the New Testament, the cross is tied to every important theological word, in one fashion or another: justification, sanctification, gift of the Spirit, the dawning of the kingdom. It’s tied to all of them. But in the New Testament, the cross also serves (now we’re coming to the point of this passage) as the standard of our behavior. That theme is perhaps most dramatically worked out by Peter in his first epistle, but it’s also the point here.
In verse 5 of chapter 2, Paul writes, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” Then he presses on to the cross. Although the passage before us runs all the way from 1:27 to 2:18, I’m going to focus for a while on chapter 2, verses 6 to 11, because that is the heart of it. Then, at the end, we’ll spread out more briefly to the surrounding verses. We shall see that it is not only important for what it says about Jesus as his cross, but it controls the thought of the surrounding paragraphs as to how we should live.
Perhaps I should say in passing that it’s quite possible that this bit, verses 5 to 11, was an early Christian hymn that has been preserved. It’s quite possible. It’s in poetic form and so on. Some criticize it because the lines don’t scan like Greek poetry very well, but then one remembers this limerick:
There once was a poet from Japan,
Whose poems could not possibly scan.
When told this was so,
He replied, “Yes, I know;
That is because I try to squeeze as many words into the last line as I possibly can.”
In other words, there may be a reason, on occasion, for breaking the meter, for adding a word here or something. The words that we sang tonight on some of the pieces didn’t scan simply as regular poetry; nevertheless, they were good Christian hymns. The truth of the matter is we can’t be sure. In any case, it’s not the poetry that’s critical here, as poetry, as form, but the content. It can be divided into two parts: Christ’s humiliation and Christ’s vindication.
1. Christ’s humiliation.
Verses 6 to 8. Verse 5 tells us that our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, whose attitude in his own indescribably remarkable self-denial is the theme of these first verses. “Being in very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped …” There are some important elements to our understanding of these opening words.
“Being in very nature God …” What does that mean? Some versions have, “Being in the very form of God.” What does that mean? In the Western world, we are constantly talking about essence versus function: essence (the very ontological being) or function (performance regardless of what the actual essence is). The word that is used here is not quite one or the other. It takes in both. One might almost say mode of existence because the same word is used just a couple of verses on in verse 7.
There he takes the form of a servant, the very nature of a servant. It’s the same word. The idea is that in both cases, he’s bound up in a mode of existence: one with God, and now one with a servant. The idea, then, is that Christ Jesus began, shall we say, in the mode of existence of God himself, but he took on the mode of existence of a servant. It embraces both essence and function. He enjoyed real equality with God, and now he becomes a real servant.
That’s why the second line of verse 6 insists that Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, or perhaps better rendered something to be exploited or something to be deployed for his own advantage. He already has equality with God. It’s not as if he’s sort of sitting around and saying, “Now how can I profit from this? Hey, I’m one with God here. I’m in the mode of existence with God. How can I exploit this?” The eternal Son is not thinking in those terms. Rather, “He made himself nothing and took the mode of existence of a servant.”
That brings us to the second expression that’s slightly ambiguous. Notice how verse 6 begins, “Being in very nature God …” It could be understood one of two ways. It could be understood concessively, “Although he was in the very nature of God, yet he became in the very nature of a servant.” Or it could be understood causally (and I think this is correct), “Because he was in the very nature of God, he took the very form of a servant.”
That is, the eternal Son did not think of his status of God as something that gave him the opportunity to get and get and get. Instead, his very status as God meant he had nothing to prove and nothing to go after in terms of what was higher. He had the mode of existence of God and, precisely because he is one with God … this God, this loving God, this self-giving God … because of this, he made himself nothing and gave and gave and gave.
“He made himself nothing.” What does that mean? It literally reads, “He emptied himself.” That doesn’t mean he emptied himself of something, as if he emptied himself of the attributes of deity. If he emptied himself of the attributes of deity he would no longer be God. If you have a porcupine and it empties itself of the attributes of porcupines, then it’s no longer a porcupine. It might be a fish or a cucumber or a pineapple, but it’s not a porcupine! If God empties himself of his attributes, then he’s no longer God.
But the text doesn’t say he emptied himself of something; it says he emptied himself. We would say, in modern idiom, “He made himself a nobody,” which doesn’t mean, of course, literally a nobody or a nothing, as if he loses ontological existence. It means he’s a nobody, a nothing. In fact, that’s made clear even from the fact that he becomes a slave, a servant.
It almost defines a servant. Servants might represent certain wealth of their owners and might have certain cherished skills, but they have no rights. They’re nobodies. The eternal Son has always had the rights of deity. He’s one with God, but precisely because of this, he didn’t perceive his equality with God as something to be exploited, but he became a nobody. “He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave.”
It’s important to recognize that Paul does not tell us that Christ exchanged one form for another. It’s not as if he was one with God, and he stopped being that and become one with a servant. The text doesn’t say that. Rather, without ever abandoning who he is, he adopts the mode of existence of a slave.
To do this, he becomes “in human likeness,” the text says in verse 7. The idea is not that he merely becomes like a human being, a reasonable facsimile but not truly human. Rather, it means that he becomes a being fashioned in this way: that is, a human being. He was always God. He now becomes something he was not: a human being.
“Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” It’s very hard for us today to feel shock value at that the way the first-century writers would have and the way the first-century readers would have. The cross to us today is such a domesticated symbol.
Today, many women, and some men, dangle crosses from their ears. They wear them on their lapels. Our bishops hang them around their necks. Our buildings have crosses on spires or on walls. Some other church buildings are actually built cruciform; you have naves and transepts. Nobody is shocked.
Suppose you were to place, in a prominent position in your church building, a fresco of the mass graves of Auschwitz. It would be thought pretty poor taste. Have you ever seen any woman wearing dangling ear chain with a mushroom cloud from Hiroshima? In the first century, the word cross had something like that shock value.
Scholars have worked through all the references in the ancient world, from 200 BC to AD 200 that mention cross or crucifixion. Without exception, it’s shock value. It’s disgusting. The Romans had many different ways of executing criminals, but crucifixion was the disgusting one. That’s where the shame was.
You couldn’t do it to a Roman citizen without the express sanction of the emperor himself. It was for slaves, anarchists, and disgusting foreigners. Here you have a Messiah who, Paul says, enjoys the very mode of existence of God himself, who takes on the mode of existence of a servant, becomes a human being, and dies the most odious death imaginable.
Paul is bold as brass. He insists that Christ, precisely because he is that kind of God, humbles himself to die the odious, revolting death reserved for public enemies and the dregs of the criminal justice system. The language is meant to shock. Jesus died on a cross. I think it was W.H. Auden who penned the lines: “Only the unscarred overfed enjoy Calvary as a verbal event.”
2. Christ’s vindication.
Verses 9 to 11. “Therefore …” Paul writes. Because of all of his self-emptying, because of his obedience, because of his death on the cross. “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
In other words, in this magnificent summary, we find the Father’s approval and vindication of the Son. When Paul says that God gave Jesus the name that is above every name, he is saying much more than that the Father simply renames him or the like. In the ancient world, names were more than convenient labels. What is meant is that God assigns Jesus a name that reflects what he has achieved, what he has done, and who he is.
Almost certainly, the name that he has in mind is Lord. Lord. For inevitably, this title brings with it echoes of many Old Testament passages. In Isaiah, God declares, “I am the Lord; that is my name.” The Hebrew is, “I am Yahweh, the Eternal One.” The way that was rendered again and again and again in the Greek Bible that the Christians of the first century, including Paul, read was Lord.
Jesus has achieved the same lordship, the status with the Father, over the whole broken universe, not because there was no sense in which Jesus was one with the Father before. We’ve just been told that he enjoyed equality with God before he came. No, no, no. That’s not the point. The point is, rather, that there is a sense in which he now achieves it for the first time as the God-man, as the crucified and risen Redeemer.
That the New Testament should quote Isaiah 42 on this matter is particularly significant, for the context shows that this honor belongs to God alone. Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” To give such a title to Jesus, therefore, is tantamount to insisting that he is, himself, God. This once-crucified and now-reigning, resurrected God-man is identified with God himself. “That is my name; I will not give my glory to another.”
Isaiah 45: “ ‘Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear. They will say of me, “In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength.” ’ All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame. But in the Lord all the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult.”
The implications for who Jesus is are staggering. To confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, using the language of Isaiah, “Before me every knee shall bow,” is a transparent description of deity to Jesus. Yet even so, Jesus is, nevertheless, distinguished from the Father, is he not? He is exalted to the highest place so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess who he is so that God will receive glory.
Here you have the elements that go into what later came to be called the doctrine of the Trinity. There are many people who say that the doctrine of the Trinity was a fourth-century invention. Not a bit of it! All of the elements are there in the first century, in a hymn being sung in the church, not more than 20 years after Jesus had risen from the dead.
Nor is this a question of universalism, in that “Every knee shall bow” means everybody shall become a Christian. It doesn’t say that. In the context of Isaiah, as we have seen, not only will every knee bow but, as it says in Isaiah 45:24, “All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.”
So here in Philippians 2, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, but it does not follow that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord out of happy submission. Everyone will one day acknowledge that he is right, but not everyone will trust him or love him for it. There will not be universal salvation. There will be universal confession as to who he is.
On the last day, there will not be any Muslims left or any Hindus or any skeptics. There will be no unbelievers left at all. Not in that sense. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that yes, he is Lord. When we stand before him in the blaze of his unshielded glory, who then is going to say, “Oh, I was wrong. But I prefer my own way.” That means that either we repent and confess him by faith as Lord now, or we will confess him in shame and terror on the last day, but we will confess him.
Perhaps you’ve talked to someone about the Lord Jesus and your own faith, and you’ve been rebutted in these wonderful postmodernist terms: “Oh look, I’m pleased if you find your faith helpful. We all have to have a faith, don’t we? If you feel better because of this faith and it helps you, then I’m glad for you. But, quite frankly, I don’t need it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don’t like you shoving it down my throat. You’re all right. I’m happy to have your friendship, but not if you’re going to cram your religion down my throat. Just back off a little, okay?”
Has anyone every spoken to you like that? Then what will you say? Well, there are many things you can say. You can question the principles of postmodernism. You can talk further about the faith and invite them to church. You can do all kinds of things, but in the kindest possible way, you must, sooner or later, say this:
“Backing off is the one thing I can’t do because, you see, the reason you think the way you do is because you’re so horribly lost. The very fact that you can think that you are independent of the God who made you is the very pitch of anarchy. You owe him. He made you for himself. To say that religion is merely a privatized matter for people to pick and choose as they like is to deny the existence and lordship of the God who created you. That’s why I can’t back off. The fact that you can think this way is a mark of how lost you are and how much you need him.”
In other words, the claim that is being made in this passage is not of a Jesus who is domesticated, easily marginalized, psychologically privatized, remarkably sanitized, merely person, or somebody’s preference. He is one with God, yet he died on the cross to redeem us to himself. He is in the public arena.
Elsewhere, Paul insists, “All things were made by him and for him.” Now he insists that the Father has vindicated him in his humiliation and sacrifice, and every knee will bow before him. This is a wonderful passage: unqualified, divine majesty unites with the immeasurable, divine sacrifice. Now Paul says, in verse 5, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ.” Now that is the scorcher!
That brings us to the last section in the notes. It’s hard to believe, but there are some people who think that doctrine is boring at best and irrelevant at worst. Very often, the reason for this misperception is that doctrine has been presented to them in boring and irrelevant ways. In other words, it’s the preacher’s fault.
Conversely, there are intellectuals who are terribly interested in doctrine in exactly the same way that other intellectuals are interested in eighteenth-century European history or the life cycle of the Pacific coho salmon. For them, doctrine is not at all practical but, then again, it’s not supposed to be. It’s merely interesting.
Paul fits comfortably into neither model. He is capable of very difficult theoretical thought, but he’s not interested in theory for its own sake. He is interested in all of life lived out to the glory of God. That involves knowledge of what God has said and done, but such knowledge cannot be reduced to a set of propositions to be learned like times tables to be pulled out in an emergency. That is why in his epistles, Paul can move so swiftly back and forth from truth to life: this is true; therefore, this is how you live.
There are few passages in Paul’s letters more telling in this regard than this one. The central chorus here is a praise to Christ (2:6–11): unqualified, divine majesty unites with the immeasurable, divine self-sacrifice. Yet now, “Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.” That is unpacked in the surrounding three paragraphs in these ways. We may summarize them quickly.
1. We are called not only to believe on Christ but also to suffer for him.
Chapter 1, verses 27–30. Paul writes in verse 27, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in [such and such a way].” The words whatever happens are an attempt to render an expression that literally means only this or this one thing. The idea is that whatever else may be mandated, whatever pressures may be brought to bear, whatever happens, this is critical. Act this way.
Then the conduct that is demanded is staggering. “… conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” What does that mean? Certainly these words are not suggesting that we ourselves become worthy of the gospel, as if Christ sets up a standard and then, somehow, by dint of effort, we become worthy of that standard.
The gospel is the good news that Christ died and rose again for sinners. By the death and resurrection of the Son, we are reconciled to God. God has transferred us out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son he loves. Already we have received the Spirit. Already, according to Paul.
So to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, therefore, does not suggest that we should try harder in order to secure something. Rather, it argues that because something has already been secured for us, we should try harder out of gratitude and frank recognition that this is what the gospel has saved us for. The gospel has saved us. Therefore, let us live a life worthy of that gospel that has saved us. That’s the idea.
In other words, a great deal of Christian ethics is based on gratitude to God. But now we must ask … What conduct, specifically, does Paul have in mind? The kind of conduct that is consistent, for a start. “Whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence …” Paul writes in 1:27. “This is how I want you to act.” You have to be consistent in it.
What is it? “… that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you.” (Verses 27 and 28) This unity, this standing firm in one’s spirit, this contending as one man for the faith of the gospel, then serves, we’re told, as a double sign. “It’s a sign to those who are opposing you that they will be destroyed, and it’s a sign to you that you will be saved.”
In other words, Paul says your change in character, your united stand in defense of the gospel, your ability to withstand with meekness and without fear the opposition that you must endure constitutes a double sign. It is a sign that speaks volumes, both to people who don’t like what you’re doing and to you people within the church. That’s what he says.
In other words, to put it bluntly, conduct worthy of the gospel is above all conduct that promotes the gospel. What could be more appropriate? The most appropriate way to live in response to the glorious good news that has saved and transformed us is to behave in such a way with other believers that we actively contend for the faith before outsiders.
Paul, then, adds a few lines that identify an intrinsic connection between this conduct and the gospel. He says, “For it has been granted to you, a gracious gift from God, that not only have you enjoyed the privilege of coming to faith, but you’ve enjoyed the privilege of being called to suffering.” That’s what the text says.
The same Christ on the cross who died for you, by his own example now calls you to the privilege of suffering for him. You’ve been called to faith. You’ve been called to suffering. If their salvation has been secured by the suffering of another on their behalf, their discipleship is to be demonstrated in their suffering on his behalf. That’s what the text says.
Of course, our suffering for Christ is not exactly like his for us. His is a suffering of the God-man. His suffering atones for sin. Our suffering can’t be like that, but we are called to suffer for him in some sense. Doesn’t Jesus say to would-be disciples in Mark 8, “Take up your cross and follow me?” What does that mean?
To us, today, to take up your cross is to put up with your particular wart. “We all have our crosses to bear.” Some of us have mathematics exams. Some of us have wrinkles on our faces rather prematurely. For some of us it’s an ungrateful mother-in-law. Maybe, in fact, it’s a disappointment in love. We all have our crosses to bear.
But that is not the overtone in the first century. In the first century, when you pick up that crossbeam on your way to be crucified, you’re dead. There’s no going back. There are no prospects of independence left, just pain and odium. Jesus dares say, “Pick up your cross daily and follow me.” That language, too, is meant to be shocking.
Some years ago, I was asked to interview for a videotaping of two Americans by the name of Carl F.H. Henry and Kenneth Kantzer. The names may not mean much to you here, but there is very little in North American evangelicalism that they didn’t touch or influence during the last 50 years. Carl wrote more than 40 books and edited many more. Kenneth Kantzer was responsible for starting the premier seminary in North America. They were both involved in the Lausanne Conferences on World Evangelism. They were strategic, godly men.
They both gave lectures to the students at Trinity on their perspective on the last 50 years of evangelicalism. We had this videotaped professionally so that we could circulate it. On the last day, I interviewed them for an hour on these professionally taped sessions with questions they were not given in advance. Then we edited all this down into a total two-hour package.
Along the line, toward the end, I asked them both this question: “Many Christian leaders, with time, become egocentric or become eccentric. Their ministry gets bound up with their self-identity. They become irascible and bad-tempered with people who disagree with them. But you two, somehow, have been very much at the heart of things, yet you’ve been gospel people. You know who you are, but you’re not threatened. You serve, and you still think strategically. If you’re put on the shelf, you don’t seem to mind. How, in God’s grace, have you managed that?”
Well, they were both embarrassed and didn’t quite know what to say. It’s all there on the tape. They looked around, and then one of them sputters, “How can anybody be arrogant when he stands beside the cross?” These men had retained their integrity precisely because they knew that their attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ.
A few years ago, the church that we attend when we’re in England, one year in three, had a terrible situation. An elder that they had appointed, whom we’ll call John, was caught out in adultery. He was a medical doctor, actually, and he had been brought up in a wonderful Christian home with three older sisters who thought he was wonderful.
He went off to university, became president of the local CU, married the “right” girl, eventually became a doctor, and went off to North Africa as a missionary where he worked in a leprosarium. He came back, was pursuing a career as a consultant in public health. He seemed to be a very wise man, was invited on the board of elders, did a lot of good in counseling, and so forth.
Suddenly, he was shacked up with his nurse. The church was a bit struck by all of this. Most of the leaders acted pretty wisely. They tried to counsel him, tried to help him see what he was doing to his wife and children. It’s not as if she was some sort of witch. It seemed to be a stable home. Everybody was taken by surprise. He divorced his wife, married the nurse, and moved to another city.
After the whole thing was over, I asked the pastor, as we were driving off somewhere to speak at a conference together what, in his opinion, had gone wrong? (The pastor was almost destroyed by this, just feeling himself to be such a failure and a leader who hadn’t discerned problems in advance.)
Now neither he nor I would say that what I’m about to tell you is true in every case, but it’s true in more cases than one. It is almost certainly true in this case. He said, “John never, ever made a major decision that cost him anything.” I said, “Come on, give me a break! The guy has been a missionary in North Africa. It must have cost him something.”
“No, no,” he said, “you don’t understand. He was brought up in a Christian home where he was stroked for doing and saying the right thing. He had three older sisters who all thought he was wonderful and doted on him. He was the only brother, the kid brother 15 years younger. He went off to university and, of course, he got in the right crowd there, the CU crowd. He had some natural gifts of leadership, so he became a natural leader there and, eventually, the president of the local CU.
He did the right things, married the right girl from the right family, and had the right number of kids (2.4, or whatever it was). Then he went off and became a missionary, and everybody thought he was wonderful for that too. Of course, he was pursuing his own medical career and enjoyed every moment of it out there.
In point of fact, he was doing what he wanted to do. Then he came home, and everybody thought he was wonderful there too. Then he was asked to join something in the church; he did that, and everybody thought he was wonderful there too. He did what he wanted to do at every point in his life. He did what he wanted to do.
Where is there any evidence that he ever did what he didn’t want to do simply because it was right? So when along came a pretty skirt that was available, he did what he wanted to do. It’s what he had always done. He did what he wanted to do.” Don’t we know that when we rear our children? We’re rarely quite sure whether they really are Christians until they leave home when they’re free to do what they want to do, and we discover where their hearts are.
We are called not only to believe on Christ but also to suffer for him. That means that at the principial level, we will take up our cross and deny ourselves, because it is the right thing to do. There will be crises that come into our lives and, sometimes, we will be asked to do things we don’t want to do, but we will do them because they’re right. We will die to self-interest, daily if need be, because we are Christ’s and our Master went that way.
It may be, if Western culture continues to slide as it has, that we will be called upon to suffer in more ways than one. The fact of the matter is that the last two centuries have been the greatest centuries of missionary expansion in the entire history of the church and they’ve been the greatest age of martyrdom and suffering in the entire history of the church.
Missiologists who track this thing point out that there has not only been the greatest expansion in the last 150 years, there have been more Christian martyrs in the last 150 years than in the previous 1,800. Unless current trends in Western culture change, we could move in that direction too. We’re not exempt. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been called not only to believe in Christ, but to us has been granted the privilege, also, of suffering for him.
2. We are called not only to enjoy the comforts of the gospel but also to pass them on.
Chapter 2, verses 1–4. That’s the burden of the opening lines here in this chapter. The argument, in brief, is, “If you have experienced a number of important and delightful things as Christians, then there is an entailment: You must act in such and such a manner.” That’s the argument. More specifically, the appeal to experience is bound up with a serious of if clauses. “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if you have any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion …”
In other words, if being a Christian has brought you any encouragement or comfort in times of pain or loneliness, if you have basked in the assurance that you are loved by God himself or loved by other believers, if you’ve enjoyed any fellowship or partnership arising from the Spirit’s work in your lives, if any fresh experience of tenderness and compassion then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.”
Do you see what Paul is asking for in verse 2? Paul asks us if there have been times in our lives when, as believers, we’ve sensed God close to us, when we’ve been aware of his love in tremendous and scarcely describable ways, when we have reveled in a sense of belonging to the fellowship of God’s people. Haven’t you enjoyed times like that?
You’ve gone through really deep waters, and the church has rallied around you and really supported you. You’ve been on your knees before the Lord in devotions, and you’ve just sensed his presence powerfully sweeping over you as you’ve contemplated the cross. You’ve been in a worship service, heard the Word of God, and have known God was speaking to you. You’ve been involved in Christian ministry and service and have known the partnership of the gospel.
A lot of this has been mediated to you by other Christians. They’ve loved you, they’ve cherished you, they’ve encouraged you, and they’ve made you feel part of the partnership of the redeemed. What this means for you, then, Paul says, is that if you recognize this point, you will excite the apostle’s joy. “… make my joy complete by being like-minded.”
“… by being like-minded …” That is, by adopting the same stance as those who have ministered to you. “… by having the same love …” he says in verse 2. That is, the same love as that which has been shown you. “… by being one in spirit and purpose,” he says. That is, the entire church is to reflect the same precious, Christ-honoring, God-fearing, self-denying, other-edifying stance.
In case this still isn’t sufficiently practical, Paul spells it out further. “Do not do anything out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” What is this, except taking up our cross? “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Verse 5) It’s a question of attitude.
3. We are called not only to early steps of faith and obedience but to an entire life of working out our salvation.
Chapter 2, verses 12–18. Note how these verses begin. “Therefore, my brothers …” In other words, Paul is now drawing logical connections from the hymn he has just offered up to Christ.
There are two points in this logic. First, he says in verse 10, “Every knee shall bow.” Therefore, since every knee shall bow, we do well to live in the light of this ultimate judgment. Every knee shall bow and give an account. But also, Christ Jesus, after terrible suffering, was finally vindicated, and we’ll be vindicated too. He was vindicated. “Therefore … continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” and you too will be vindicated on the last day.
Verses 12 and 13 are extraordinarily important. The text does not say, “Work to acquire your salvation, for God has done his bit and now it all depends on you.” It doesn’t say that. Nor does it say, “Let go and let God. God does it all, just sit back and relax and he’ll sort of carry you.” What it does say is, “Work out your salvation precisely because it is God working in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
God is at work in you, even at the level of your will; God is at work in you, even at the level of your actions. This becomes not disincentive but incentive. Line up with it. Work at it. Work, work, work. Your very working demonstrates that it is God working in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Now what does this mean in practical points? Well, he tells us very clearly.
A. “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.”
(Verses 14–16) This is a whining, whinging, self-pitying world.
For Christians to go through life, even through hard times, without complaining or arguing, so that we may become blameless and pure in a crooked and depraved generation is part of what Paul means by working out our salvation: being grateful, trusting the God of redemption and of providence.
B. This kind of perseverance is undertaken, at least in part, so as to delight Christian leaders.
(Verse 16b) Do you see what he says? Paul says that the way the Philippian leaders live, with cheerful godliness as they hold out the word of life, is a commitment undertaken, he says, “… in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.”
You see, Christian leaders owe you some things, but you owe Christian leaders some things. Do you really think Peter Adam really wants to stand before God on the last day and say, yes, he preached for 40 years and, yes, he ministered to people and, yes, he chased them up in evangelism but, unfortunately, when he died, they all fell away. They couldn’t really give a rip.
Just as he owes you integrity in ministry, the fear of God in his prayer life, the right handling of the Word, and centeredness in the gospel … he owes you that if he has been called to this job … so you owe him conformity to the gospel that his work may be offered up in joy. That’s what Paul says, as bluntly as that. “That is the way you work out your salvation, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing.”
C. Such Christian perseverance is a form of Christian sacrifice that makes the leader’s sacrifice a complimentary capstone.
That’s a bit awkward, but let me explain. The argument is a bit subtle. In verse 17, he says, “But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.”
Now unpack that verse. In this metaphor, the actions of the Philippians constitute the primary sacrifice: the sacrifice and service coming from your faith. They give themselves to Christ. They commit themselves to pleasing him whatever the cost. Then if Paul has to give up his life as a martyr (he’s in prison awaiting trial), it’s like an additional drink offering, a libation sacrifice poured on the top.
There is their great sacrifice, and if he has to die a martyr’s death, then he’s sort of poured on top as an extra thing. He doesn’t mind being a martyr and going to the cross, provided it is being poured on top of their principle sacrifice. Christian perseverance is a form of Christian sacrifice that makes the leader’s sacrifice a kind of complimentary capstone. That’s what he says. “If I am being poured out like a drink offering on top of the service and sacrifice of your faith, I am glad.”
In other words, “I don’t mind going to the lions. I can live with that.” Such a libation would be meaningless unless it is poured out on a more substantial sacrifice. If he goes to the lions and there’s nothing there … there’s nothing that comes of it, no fruit, no change in their lives … his martyrdom is meaningless. Paul’s martyrdom, should it occur, or the pains and sufferings and persecutions he faces as an apostle, should be a kind of complimentary drink offering poured over their sacrifice.
“So if I suffer,” Paul says, “or even lose my life in a sacrifice poured out on top of your life, quite frankly, I’m delighted. What I do not want is to die a martyr’s death without corresponding fruit in your life.” So we are called not only to early steps of faith and obedience but to an entire life of working out our salvation.
This will be characterized by self-denying contentment, by a conscious effort to please mature Christian leaders, by a cheerful sacrifice that ratifies and endorses the work that more mature Christian leaders have poured into our lives. All of this is nothing more than learning the entailments of following a crucified Messiah.
In short, we must adopt Jesus’ death as the test of our outlook. One of the great Christian poets of this century was Amy Carmichael, one of whose compositions captures many themes in this chapter:
From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified)
From all that dims Thy Calvary
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God
Adopt Jesus’ death as the test of your outlook. Amen.
