The Unparalleled Humility of Jesus (Philippians 2:5–11) | John MacArthur

Today on grace to you. >> He didn't 
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 empty himself of his deity or he would have ceased to exist. And since he is the eternal God, he cannot cease to exist. The completeness of his self-reunciation and 
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 refusal to cling to the things that were rightly his. He didn't become less than God so that he became half God and half man or any other kind of concoction.

What in the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel? For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 
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 >> 
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 >> We're going to be looking at the incarnation of the son of God from Philippians chapter 2. Therefore, because there is encouragement in Christ, because there is consolation of love, because there is fellowship of the spirit, because there is affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bondervant, and being made in the likeness of men, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

This is the humiliation of Jesus Christ. It describes the condescension of the second person of the trinity into human incarnation. That is the very main point of the Christian religion that God became man. This is a a christoologgical diamond unparalleled. Obviously it is about the incarnation in that sense.

It is theological. It is so teological. It has to do with the incarnation which has to do with salvation. But Paul's motives in these words in stunning ways are not really theological. He's not writing this for its own sake. He's not writing the theology of the incarnation just so that we would know the doctrine.

His purpose is really ethical. His purpose is ethical. This is this is pastoral in its intent. These verses present the truth that the son of God came to earth as a man to save sinners through his death and resurrection. And then as we'll see in the next passage, he was exalted again back to heaven.

That in itself is the heart and soul of Christian theology. But the main point here is not to identify Jesus in his saving work but to identify Jesus as a model of humility, a model of selfdenying, selfgiving, humble love. And that becomes obvious as you look at verse five.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. What attitude is he talking about? The attitude that he began to speak of in verse three. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interest but also the interests of others.

Now the point here is unity. Having the same mind, verse two, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. In order for that to be a reality, nothing that we do can be selfish. Nothing that we do can be to fulfill our own egos. We are to be marked by humility regarding others is more important than ourselves and being concerned about the interests of others more than our own.

That is the point. Now the illustration of that is Jesus Christ starting in verse 5. So Paul is looking at the incarnation not for its theological import but for its ethical significance. Here is the perfect model of the kind of selfless condescension, the kind of humility that produces the unity that is desired.

Now, we can't copy Christ's condescension because we have never been that high. We didn't start where he started. So, the descent isn't nearly as far or dramatic. We can't copy his deity. We don't possess that. We can't emulate his perfection or his redemptive power or work, but we can copy his selfless humility.

Now verse 5 is the transition from the exhortations of verses 1 to 4 to the illustration of verses 6 to8. Verse five is the transition. have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. That is to say, we are to be marked by unselfishness, humility of mind that regards others more important than ourselves and the interests of others more significant than our own interests.

It is this kind of humbling that manifests itself in love and sacrifice and makes the church bring glory and honor to its head, the Lord Jesus. Anytime that the church fails to manifest humility, it does damage to its Lord. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and father over all.

Everything about us is one. We are one body. We are members of one body. We are to live out that unity by emptying ourselves of selfishness and empty conceit and replacing that with humility of mind. Now in order to make this powerful and profound truth unforgettable, Paul takes the descent of Christ step by step by step.

Let's follow what he says. Here is the humility of Christ. First verse six, this is where he starts. who although he existed in the form of God that is to say he is God deity divinity the eternal God. This emphasizes the point from which his humiliation begins. He is by nature in the form of God.

Fully God, truly God. He always has been. He always will be. So he starts much higher than we and goes much lower. As Christians, we have been exalted. We are a chosen people. First Peter, chosen by God, beloved by God, anointed by God, justified, being sanctified, glorified, promised eternal blessing.

We are kings and priests, sons and daughters. We share the exalted position. We are the temple of the living God, the spirit of God. We begin our humiliation from there. From there. But even with all of those privileges which are ours by mercy and grace, we certainly are still sinful.

So we don't start from where our Lord starts. He existed in the morphe of God. His unalterable being was in the form of God. What do we mean by form? Well, it's that word morphe and it always signifies a form which is truly and fully the being of the person.

So he is in the form of God. Morphe never changes. He has always been God by nature. He is the creator God. And he basically claimed always to be God. And that is why the Jews hated him. And that is why they desired to kill him because he claimed to be God.

And for them that was blasphemy. They said to him basically, you blaspheme because you say you are equal to God. It just happened to be the truth. He was God. He always will be God. So that's where he starts in the form of God. The second step then he did not regard that is he did not consider that equality with God a thing to be grasped.

The first move toward the incarnation was in his mind in his divine consciousness. He was equal with God but he did not hold tightly to that equality. This is where his incarnation starts in his own divine mind. He will not cling to all that is his as the second person of the trinity, the eternal son of God.

He will not cling to all of that. The incarnation then began with unselfishness. It began with the willingness to be humbled. Then the third step comes in verse seven. But emptied himself. This is profound. He emptied himself of those things which were his by virtue of being God.

This is the self-mping of the son of God. It's a very magnificent expression, a very graphic expression of the completeness of his self-renunciation and refusal to cling to the things that were rightly his. Now listen, he didn't empty himself of his deity or he would have ceased to exist.

And since he is the eternal God, he cannot cease to exist. And since he is the same yesterday, today, and forever, nothing in his nature was altered. He didn't become less than God so that he became half God and half man or any other kind of concoction. When it says he emptied himself, it did not remove one single iota of his divinity or his deity.

He did not exchange, mark this, he did not exchange deity for humanity. It is not subtraction. What did he empty himself of? Well, scripture is clear on that. These are the things that the scripture says. First, his heavenly glory. his heavenly glory. Can you imagine the eternal son of God, the creator of the entire universe with full omniscience, omniresence, omnipotence, and immutability, setting aside those attributes that belong to his heavenly glory to be confined to a body.

That in itself is a staggering reality that the omniresent God became confined to one body. That's where his glory was veiled. Secondly, he yielded authority to the father. He yielded authority to the father all through the gospel of John. I only do what the father tells me. I do the Father's will, not my will, but yours be done.

And it says in Hebrews 5'8, he learned obedience. Wow. Never in all eternity had he the need to be obedient. He learned obedience by submitting to the authority of the father. So here he gives up the full expression and manifestation of his omniresent omnipotent immutable glory and he yields in submission and obedience to the authority of the father.

Our lord yielded up the manifestation of his heavenly glory and was confined to a body. Our Lord yielded up his authority and learned obedience. He also gave up prerogatives as God. He could have, he says, if he wanted to called a legion of angels to deliver him. Matthew 24.

He didn't do that. He gave up then the right to use his omnipotence, his powers. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, "He who was rich became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich." 2 Corinthians 8:9, he gave up heavenly riches and became poor. It doesn't mean poor in the economic sense, earthly monetary sense.

It means he was impoverished of all of the wealth of heaven and is reduced to a man with very little who has nowhere to lay his head. But I think the thing he gave up most that was so amazing was he gave up his relationship to his father because on the cross he said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

John 1:29, he was identified as the lamb of God, God's chosen sacrifice. 2 Corinthians 5:21, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. He did not give up his deity, but he confined his heavenly glory to a human body. And thus, he gave up the glory that was his.

He gave up the authority that was his as the creator of the universe and the sovereign over all. He gave up choices and prerogatives to use his power. He gave up heavenly riches, vast incomprehensible possessions and privileges. And he gave up a favorable relationship to God to suffer under God's wrath.

That's what it means that he emptied himself. This is really staggering reality. No one can go that far because none of us possess heavenly glory. None of us possess divine authority. None of us possess divine prerogatives. None of us possess heavenly riches. None of us even possess a right relationship to God on our own.

He had all that and yet he emptied himself of those things while remaining fully God. Paul says there's a fourth step. Taking the form of a slave. Taking the form of a slave. He became a slave. Slave to God. Slave to God. John 17 says that he was prostontheon face to face with God in equality in the incarnation.

He became a slave to God. He took on the form of a slave. Notice that that's the word morphe again and it means the essential nature. It doesn't mean he wore a slave's robe or he wore slavery like a costume. He actually became a slave. He became a slave.

I was one, he says in Luke 22:27, among you as one who serves like a slave. Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45, son of man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. Again, he showed that slavery, that condescension when he in John 13 rose from the table and washed the feet of the disciples vast rights of heavenly glory.

He emptied himself of those. The next step number five and being made in the likeness of men, he went right by the angels and became one of us. Again, the Greek term here means that he was given the essential attributes of humanity. He had the essential attributes of a slave and the essential attributes of humanity.

We know that from Luke 2:52. He grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man when he was 12 12 years old. In the fullness of time, God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law. Galatians 4:4 Romans 8:3 says, God sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh and yet without sin.

He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Now this is impossible to believe. The incarnation, listen, is not an exchange of deity for humanity. It's not a subtraction in which he somehow is diminished as God to fill in humanity. He is fully God, truly God, fully man, truly man.

God in nature and essence, man in nature and essence, being found in appearance as a man. That's the next step. He took the likeness of men and appeared as a man. This advances the previous point. Having become man, he was recognized as a man. Hebrews 5:7 calls it the days of his flesh.

The appearance is schemati schema. Again, the outward manifestation was as a man. He was not merely a man. He was the god man. The morphe was the morphe of God and the morphe of man. That was his essential being. But on the outside, he appeared as a man.

In fact, that's what people thought of him. He was nothing but a man. He looked like a man. He talked like a man. He walked like a man. He acted like a man. He was a man. He was in the appearance of a man. Now, however, he is in the appearance of God who is also man in glory.

This is humiliation. Not just because he took on the appearance of a man, but look at the next statement. The next statement says again, he humbled himself. We're going down another step. He had become a man and as a man he had identified as a slave to his father and beyond that he humbled himself again.

He was not yet at the lowest level. And the next one says, "How low?" By becoming obedient to the point of death. His submission to the father took him all the way to death. Because he was after all the lamb that God had chosen to be the sacrifice for sin.

This is the depth of his condescension. It was not a natural death. The last step Paul says it was death on a cross. Even death on a cross. Why is that noted? Because that was the most ignaminious, ugly, embarrassing kind of death. The most painful torture that had been invented in human history at that point.

Hanging naked in front of everyone. It was reserved for slaves. It was hated by Jews. Deuteronomy 21 said, "Whoever dies on a tree is cursed by God." And he was, this is the ultimate in human degradation. This is where he bears our curse on the tree. Galatians 3.

That the humility is is actually overwhelmingly transcendent. We can't grasp it. What an amazing amazing humiliation. Why? To die for us. This is the profound truth of the incarnation. And it in itself is marvelous because we understand that in doing this, he bought our salvation by his death and resurrection.

But that's not Paul's point. Paul's point is, do you think you have more rights to what you think is yours than he had to what was his? So you can't humble yourself. Every marvelous blessing, every privilege that we have is a merciful gift of divine grace. How tragic is it that selfc centered believers place themselves at a level that is even higher than the Lord himself as if you deserved what you think you want.

So Paul says, "Unity is the product of love which is the product of selfless, self-giving humility. 
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 Let this attitude be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." 
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 Let's pray. I think you know that Christianity is Christ. In fact, uh the apostle Paul writes that as we gaze at his glory, we are changed into his image by the Holy Spirit.

The work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification is to transform believers into Christ likeness. And uh that verse also says from one level of glory to the next to the next to the next. That means that the focus of the believer's life has to be on the person of Jesus Christ.

I look back over the years of my ministry and I think what an incredible privilege it was that 25 years of my preaching was in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And then another 10 years of my writing was writing the commentaries for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. A total of 12 volumes.

The benefit of that is that I was studying Christ for 25 years of preaching and for another dozen years of writing. The greatest gift that God ever gave to me was an understanding of the person of Jesus Christ because the more I know him, the more I love him.

We want to help you with that. Some years ago, I felt that there needed to be a a tool, a resource that would take people into the life of Christ in a fresh way. So, I took the four gospels and blended them together into one narrative story. That's right.

You can read the story as one story, blending Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John together. It is an incredible experience. You know, the critics said, "Well, the gospel writers disagree on things." No, they don't. They're in perfect harmony. The title of that harmony is called One Perfect Life. I couldn't give you a more significant gift than a copy of One Perfect Life.

We have it available at Grace to You. We'd love for you to order one and maybe more than one for the folks that you care about and that you love so that you can be Christ focused and by that the spirit of God can change you into his image.

Pastor John's book, One Perfect Life, blends the gospel accounts of Christ's life into a single narrative and is great for personal study or given as a gift. Order a copy today by calling 888-57 grace. That's 888-57grace or visiting our website gty.org. And as always, shipping is free of charge.

Thank you for joining us today on Grace to You.