Philippians 2:1-11 has been a very important passage throughout the history of the church. Some New Testament scholars suggest that verses 5-11 were originally an early Christian hymn Paul quoted while other maintain that Paul was the author of these words. The exact origin of this familiar passage is one of the many mysteries in the Bible which will probably never be solved.
Theologians see in these verses references to the Cosmic Christ, the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and the ultimate victory of God which will occur at the consummation of the ages. This is the passage which also provides the basis for the concept kenosis. Kenosis is a Greek word translated “emptying oneself” and describes what God did in Christ as She came to reveal the Divine Self and to save us from ourselves. God puts aside all human understandings of power, pomp, and pretense to reveal the essence of the Divine and to show us the way to our own salvation. Lately some theologians prefer the term “self-giving” to “emptying” as a more authentic interpretation of the verb behind the concept of kenosis, a preference I suggest is suggested by the wider context of the passage.
Throughout my early years I heard sermons interpreting the closing words of this passage in the following manner: God came in Christ in humility and love. The Creator of the universe appeared in disguise as a humble carpenter and offered salvation to the world. But much of the world rejected the love of this gracious God. So, at the end of time when God’s victory over the world is complete, all those who rejected Christ will be forced to confess that they were wrong and that Jesus was, in fact, the Son and Glory of God the Father. They will be compelled to “eat humble pie.”
The image behind this interpretation was that of the Roman triumph. Whenever emperors or generals were victorious in battle, Rome offered them a Triumph—a military parade through the streets of Rome which included the spoils of war. Among those spoils were the people of those conquered lands who are paraded in chains, forced to bow to the conqueror in recognition of his victory and their defeat, and later sold as slaves. At the end of the Triumph, the leader of these conquered people was often executed as the final demonstration of his and his people’s defeat. Caesar had won and demanded that everyone confess his status as conqueror and lord of the world.
However, there are two problems with this interpretation of Philippians 2. First, how does one reconcile this interpretation with the Jesus of the Gospels who said things like “Love your enemies because God loves Her enemies”—“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”—“Do good to those who persecute and mistreat you”—“Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.” What many Christians maintain is that when Jesus first came to earth, he was meek and mild. He came to give us the opportunity to repent and be saved. But at his next coming, he will come as a mighty conqueror who will slaughter his enemies and force them to admit that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
If the eternal nature of God is love and if Jesus came to reveal that self-giving love to the world, God can never be the author of vengeance, violence, or the arrogant use of brutal power.
I call this the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde Jesus. It’s a heretical parody of God and a complete misunderstanding of the New Testament. If the eternal nature of God is love and if Jesus came to reveal that self-giving love to the world, God can never be the author of vengeance, violence, or the arrogant use of brutal power. The schizoid Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde Jesus is not found in the New Testament and certainly not in the example and words of Jesus. The perpetuation of this distorted vision of Jesus is one reason so many people in our post-modern world have rejected the church. They know better than to embrace such a contradictory image of God.
The second problem with the above interpretation of this passage is that Paul did not write “every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” What he wrote was “every tongue shall gladly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” There is no suggestion here of prisoners in chains cringing in fear or beaten down in spirit. These are not beings who have been so utterly defeated that they are being forced to admit that Jesus is Lord and are being paraded through heavenly streets as “spoils of war” to glorify some victorious emperor. And neither is there a suggestion that the supporters of this Lord are allowed to gloat over the humiliation of their vanquished enemies.
What Paul envisions is a universal homecoming filled with joy and transformation.
What Paul envisions is a universal homecoming filled with joy and transformation. God through Christ has “conquered” through self-giving love, deep compassion, infinite patience, restorative forgiveness, and amazing grace. All through Paul’s letters he insists that God’s ultimate goal is cosmic reconciliation. “God was in Christ reconciling the cosmos to Herself” (II Corinthians 5:19). Such ultimate reconciliation and homecoming can only come through self-giving love. The entire New Testament understands that the ultimate and necessary “weapon of the Spirit” to accomplish God’s goals for Her creation is this kind of love. Nothing else will work if there is to be true and lasting transformation, conversion, and reconciliation. God “conquers” through sacrificial love. And if God’s eternal essence is love, there is no other path God can take to accomplish this cosmic homecoming. IF GOD IS LOVE, GOD CANNOT NOT LOVE. Why we continue to overlook that fundamental truth of the gospel is beyond my comprehension.
The early church fathers understood this dynamic in the healing of the cosmos. The church, however, since the days of Constantine, has consistently and perhaps stubbornly rejected the “mind that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5) reflected in this and many other passages in the New Testament. We are all for the victory but have trouble accepting God’s path to that victory—a victory which allows for no gloating, humiliation, violence, or brutality. As a result of this intentional blindness, we continue to believe in and promote a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde Jesus in spite of the fact that our Lord came to bring to an end all such misunderstandings of God.
[If you wonder how what I have written in this article relates to passages in the book of Revelation which seem to present a violent Jesus at the end of history, I would recommend two articles in this blog. “An Introduction to Christian Eschatology” deals specifically with Revelation 19:11-16, the passage often interpreted as a defense of a violently conquering Jesus in the eschaton. The second article is entitled “Revelation 5:1-14 Worthy is the Lamb.”]
Philippians 2:1-11
If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should gladly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
