My brother, good Thursday morning to you! May our Good God bless you and keep you and those you love today!
Read Philippians 2:5 – 11.
This brief but important passage serves to present and emphasize the glory and divinity of Our Lord Jesus. In this regard, the reader of these few verses cannot help but marvel at how amazing is God’s redemption as personified by His Son!
In vv 5, Paul opens with an exhortation to every Believer – we are to have the mind of Christ Jesus. And in the next few verses, Paul elaborates to tell us that this is how Jesus displayed some of the characteristics of the mind we are to have – He was willing to “make Himself of no reputation” (vv 7); He was willing to become a “bondservant” (in the Greek, ‘doulos’, literally a slave) (vv 7); He humbled Himself (vv 8); and He was willing to be obedient, even to the point of death (vv 8). My brother, let us reflect on these things – how great is Our Lord’s love for us that He stepped out of Heaven to serve us and save us!
In vv 6, Paul reminds us that Jesus was “in the form of God”. That is, His existence did not begin in a manger in Bethlehem. Indeed, He is “The One who is and who was and who is to come” (Revelation 11). And He existed before creation – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” (John 1).
In vv 9, Paul tells us that even God the Father has exalted the Son – and not just exalted, but “highly exalted” (the compound Greek word used here for highly exalted means ‘to elevate above others, i.e. raise to the highest position’). And further, God has “given Him the name which is above every name” – through this Spirit-breathed revelation, God Himself is clearly confirming the deity of Jesus!
In fact, Jesus’ Name has been so highly exalted that Paul closes our passage with this remarkable statement (vvs 10 and 11): “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.”. My brother, think about this – every person, each and every one, will appear before Jesus. And every person will recognize who He is; every person will kneel before Him; every person will confess that He is Lord. Some of those people will recognize and bow and confess with rejoicing and praise and jubilant anticipation – and truly, there will be others who will be filled with apprehension and despair when they see the Lord Jesus in all of His glory.
Finally, when I was a child growing up in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church, we often sang a hymn penned by Eliza Hewitt in 1898. Perhaps you will recognize the chorus of the hymn – it makes a fitting seal for today’s study:
When we all get to Heaven,
What a day of rejoicing that will be!
When we all see Jesus,
We’ll sing and shout the victory!!!
Amen!