Philippians 2: Points to Ponder

6-8

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant

… in the likeness of men … he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,

even the death of the cross.”

Jesus, in the eternal plan, (known since Genesis 3:15), came to us as a servant, becoming flesh, but not in our most sinful flesh, rather in the likeness of it.

(Romans 8:3 “... God sending his own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh...”)

Angels are servants also, but not in the likeness of man. He chose this form.

As such, he humbled Himself as an example to us of full obedience. How did He do so?

HE HUMBLED HIMSELF:

• Taking the form of man and not an angel.

• Born in an obscure place among common but disparaged people.

• Born as a child, helpless, not as a full grown man.

• Submitting Himself to obedience in a human household.

• Learning and practicing a manual trade, a carpenter.

• Waiting to serve until age 30 (obedient in full to Numbers 4:3).

• Being submitted unto temptation, as are men, but never yielding.

• Enduring hunger, thirst, and at times weariness.

• Submitting Himself in full obedience to His Father (“... not my will but thine...”)

• Being willing, in that obedience, to suffer the humiliation of the cross.

• Accepting shame, mocking, and physical torture to receive the cross.

• Taking on Himself spiritual agony, feeling forsaken, as he shouldered sin.

• (Psalm 22:1  “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me...”)

Jesus could have appeared to all mankind in the form of a 33 year old being, in glorified form, transfigured for every eye to see, and taught men what they needed to hear. Yet, He did not. He humbled Himself to show us the honor that humility in obedience to God can bring. 

We at times focus on the glory of the rising of the Lord without full attention on the path that Jesus took to reach that moment. Suffering in humility came before glory.

This picture Paul paints for us commands us to follow Jesus' pattern of patient and humble obedience in order to be more fully conformed to His image as God intends.

“O man, … what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly before thy God?” Micah 6:8