AND BEING
FOUND IN APPEARANCE AS A MAN: kai schemati heuretheis (AAPMSN) os
anthropos: (Mt 17:2;
Mk 9:2,3;
Lu 9:29)
Being found
(2147)
(heurisko, gives us English word eureka which is from
the exclamation attributed to Archimedes on discovering a method for
determining the purity of gold) means learn location of something,
either by intentional searching or by unexpected discovery.
Appearance
(4976)
(schema) refers purely
outward and appeals to the senses. The contrast here is between what
He was in Himself, God, and what He appeared in the eyes of man.
"Likeness" states the fact of His real resemblance to men in mode of
existence.
"Appearance" defines the outward mode and expression. While on
earth, He did not give expression to the glory of His deity except on
the Mount of Transfiguration. He appeared as the Man Christ Jesus to
the world around Him. He was in His humiliation.
HE HUMBLED
HIMSELF: etapeinosen (3SAAI) heauton: (;
Acts 8:33;
Heb 5:5-7;
12:2)
(Spurgeon's
Devotional)
In Proverbs
we read that...
The fear of the LORD is the
instruction for wisdom, And before honor comes humility. (Pr 15:33)
Jesus put aside all personal rights
and interests in order to insure the welfare of others.
Humbled
(5013)
(tapeinoo) (see discussion of related word
tapeinos) means to be brought low not high,
particularly of attitude & social positions. Humble in English is
derived from Latin "humilis" meaning low and this word
is in turn from "humus" meaning earth! Greeks saw
humility as shameful but the NT sees humility as condition bringing
man to right relation to God! The fundamental difference between the
Greek & the biblical use of these words is that in the Greek world,
with its anthropocentric view of man, lowliness is looked on as
shameful, to be avoided and overcome by act and thought. In the NT,
with its theocentric view of man, the words are used to describe those
events that bring a man into a right relationship with God and his
fellow-man.
This was a voluntary humiliation on
the part of Christ and for this reason Paul is pressing the example of
Christ upon the Philippians, this supreme example of renunciation.
In this lowly estate He humbled Himself. The Greek word translated
"humbled" is used in an early document, of the Nile River at its low
stage, in the sentence, "It runs low," a good description of the
humility of our Lord, who said of Himself, "I am meek and lowly of
heart." He became obedient, not to death, but obedient to the Father
up to the point of death, even the death of a cross.
This is the self-emptied life, ever an example and a challenge to us
as servants of the One who came not to be ministered unto but to
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mk 10:45)
BY BECOMING
OBEDIENT: genomenos (AMPMSN) hupekoos: (Jn 4:34;
15:10;
Heb10:7-9)
Remember that
Paul is telling the Philippians that if they think they cannot humble
themselves to the will of one another, they need to ponder the
obedience of the Lord of glory who was willing to give up His rights
as their example of perfect selflessness. This is the attitude the
saints at Philippi were to manifest. It is the attitude every believer
is to manifest to assure unity in the body of Christ.
Becoming
(1096)
(ginomai) means to cause to be ("gen"-erate) and in this
context means that it came to be that Jesus experienced obedience to
the will of His Father.
"Obedient"
(5255)
(hupekoos is from hupo = under + akouo = hear and apprehend with the mind,
gives us our English word "acoustic") (See
hupakouo
in
Phil 2:12) giving ear to,
attentively listening.
Obedient
indicates a condition
of being submissive to the will of another and implies compliance with
the demands or requests of one in authority, eg obedient, as to
the will of God (Acts
7:39). As Jesus said in John 8...
I always do the things that are
pleasing to Him (God the Father) (John 8:29)
David
foretold of Jesus' obedience to His Father when he wrote...
Sacrifice and meal offering Thou
hast not desired. My ears Thou hast opened. Burnt offering and sin
offering Thou hast not required.
7 Then I said, "Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is
written of me;
8 I delight to do Thy will, O my God; Thy Law is within my heart." (Psalm 40:6-8)
Isaiah
records the prophetic words of Jesus...
The Lord GOD has opened My ear; and
I was not disobedient, Nor did I turn back. I gave My back to those
who strike Me, and My cheeks to those who pluck out the beard; I did
not cover My face from humiliation and spitting. (Isa 50:5,6)
We see His
obedience in the Garden of Gethsemane as he anticipated the sinless
Son anticipated the cup of suffering in which He took upon Himself all
the sins of mankind including the necessary, though temporary,
separation from God. He naturally shrank from this, but was obedient
and willingly submitted, Matthew recording...
And He went a little beyond them,
and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is
possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou
wilt."... He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My
Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done."
(Mt 26:39,42)
In fact Jesus
entire life purpose was to life in humble submission to the Father's
will, John recording Jesus' words to His disciples that...
"My food is to do the will of Him
who sent Me, and to accomplish His work." (John 4:34)
The writer of
Hebrews explains that...
Although He was a Son, He learned
obedience from the things which He suffered (What Jesus knew by
omniscience, He "learned" by experience - true obedience can only be
tested if it involved suffering). And having been made perfect (not as
God (for as God He was eternally perfect, by definition), but as man),
He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation (Hebrews 5:8,9)
TO THE POINT
OF DEATH EVEN DEATH ON A CROSS: mechri thanatou thanatou de staurou: (Dt 21:23;
Ps 22:16;
Jn
10:18;
12:28-32;
14:31;
Gal 3:13;
Titus 2:14;
Heb 12:2;
1Pet 2:24;
3:18)
Death (2288)
(thanatos from thnesko = to die) refers
physically to the separation of soul from the body (physical) death
and was a legal technical term for capital punishment. In the NT
thanatos is treated as a destroying power related to
sin and its consequences.
The act of voluntary humiliation did not stop with the Incarnation but
continued to the ignominious depths of death by crucifixion.
Cross (4716)
(stauros) is used 27 times in the NT in the NASB (Mt
5x;
Mk
4x;
Lu
3x;
Jn
4x;
1Co
2x;
Gal
3x;
Ep;
Philippians
2x;
Col
2x;
Heb)
Crucifixion on a Cross was the
most despised death of all and was reserved for condemned criminals.
The cross was an instrument of most dreadful and agonizing torture.
This mode of punishment was known to the Persians (Ezra 6:11; Esther 7:10);
and the Carthaginians. However, it was most common among the Romans
for slaves and criminals, and was introduced among the Jews by the
Romans. It was not abolished until the time of Constantine who did so
out of regard for Christianity. Persons sentenced to be crucified were
first scourged and then made to bear their own cross to the place of
execution. A label or title was usually placed on the chest of or over
the criminal. Crucifixion was at once an execution, a pillory, and an
instrument of torture. When we read of the antagonism to the cross of
Christ, we must understand it as antagonism to a redemption which was
accomplished by the deepest humiliation, not by the display of power
and glory
Dwight
Pentecost explains that the Cross was not a natural death but in
fact...
It was so unnatural a form of
death that the Old Testament law forbade it and placed a curse on
anyone who should die by this means. It was such an unnatural and
abhorrent death that the Romans outlawed it for all but the grossest
of criminals. This means of execution was forbidden any Roman citizen;
it was reserved for those the Romans called “barbarians,” that is,
non-Romans. The singular thing is that because Paul was a Roman
citizen, he was protected from the kind of death that the Lord Jesus
endured for sinners. But what Roman law protected Paul from, the Lord
Jesus Christ could not and did not escape. For He came as a creature
subject to the Creator. He came as a servant subject to a Master. He
submitted Himself in obedience to the will of His Master in death, a
death by crucifixion, in order to provide salvation for sinful men.
(Pentecost,
J. D. The Joy of Living: A study of Philippians. Kregel Publications)
Application Dr.
J. H. Jowett has said,
“Ministry that costs nothing accomplishes
nothing.”
If there is to be any blessing, there must
be some “bleeding.”
At a religious festival in Brazil, a
missionary was going from booth to booth, examining the wares. He saw
a sign above one booth:
“Cheap Crosses.”
He thought to himself,
“That’s what many Christians are looking for these days—cheap
crosses. My Lord’s cross was not cheap. Why should mine be?”
Beloved, is it costing you anything to be a Christian?
If we are to have this attitude (Phil 2:5) what does it mean to us today?
We too must be willing (humility) to die to our old man's selfish
interests. Positionally this has occurred on the Cross, so that when
He died, we died (see note
Romans 6:3,
Romans 6:4), but if we are truly His disciples
(Mk 8:34), He calls us to experience death to self daily as a "normal" part of our life.
How is this even possible? In Philippians 2:13 (see
note) Paul explains
that...
"for it is God
who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Believers have a new
source of inner motivation to give us the "want to" that would even be
willing to consider daily death to self.
Death to self is
emphasized by the Lord Jesus often - Mt 16:25; Mk 8:35; Lu
9:24;17:33; Jn 12:24,25). The same truth is also stressed by Paul (see
note
Romans 12:1,
12:2; 2Co 5:14,15; 6:9,10; Gal 2:20; Phil 2:5-11;
note on
2 Timothy 2:11-12).
Dying to self and living unto God is the very essence of a truly happy
and fulfilling life in this world and that to come.
In his book "The
Epistle to the Philippians" F B Meyer summarizes Philippians 2:5-8
as...
Majesty and Humility Combined.
In the whole range of Scripture this paragraph stands in almost
unapproachable and unexampled majesty. There is no passage where the
extremes of our Saviour's majesty and humility are brought into such
abrupt connection. Guided by the Spirit of God, the Apostle opens the
golden compasses of his imagination and faith, and places the one
point upon the supernal Throne of the eternal God, and the other upon
the Cross of shame where Jesus died, and he shows us the great steps
by which Jesus approached always nearer and nearer to human sin and
need; that, having embraced us in our low estate, He might carry us
back with Himself to the very bosom of God, and that by identifying
Himself with our sin and sorrow He might ultimately identify us with
the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. And this
wonderful description of His descent to our shame and sorrow is here
cited by the Apostle, that it might be a living impulse and
inspiration to ourselves, not to look upon our own things, not to hold
them with a tight grasp, but to be willing to stoop for others to
shame, sorrow, and spitting; fulfilling God's purpose of mercy to the
world, even as Jesus Christ, who became the instrument and organ
through which God's redemptive purpose wrought. "Let this mind be in
you." Think these thoughts. Never look exclusively upon your own
interests, never count anything of your own worthy to stand in the
way, but always be prepared to the last point to deny yourself, that
the redemptive purpose of God may flow through the channel of your
life to those that sorely need His blessed help. It is a wonderful
thing that, day by day, in our poor measure, we may repeat the purpose
and the work of Jesus Christ our Emmanuel. No rhetoric or metaphor of
ours can add to the splendour of these words, but in the simplest
possible way we will stand on these seven successive slabs of
chrysolite.
