Call for Mutual Consideration
Paul’s concern for unity of mind and mutual consideration among the members of the Philippian church need not imply that there was an atmosphere of dissension there. The fact that two members are singled out by name and urged to agree in 4:2 could suggest (unless 4:2 belongs to an originally separate letter) that theirs was an exceptional case of conflict. We do not know what Epaphroditus had told Paul about the state of the church, but at this time Paul found sufficient evidence of quarrelsomeness and selfish ambition in some sectors of the Roman church to make him anxious that nothing of the sort should manifest itself at Philippi.
2:1 Unity of mind is not easily cultivated when human beings of disparate backgrounds and temperaments find themselves sharing one another’s company, but the resources that make such unity possible are available to the people of Christ in their fellowship with him. In his love there is comfort that more than compensates for the troubles inseparable from Christian existence in this world. From his risen life they draw encouragement and strength, for they participate in it. They have received the Spirit of Christ, binding them together in a fellowship of love; he dwells within them both as individuals and as a company of believers, and through him “God has poured out his love” into their hearts (Rom. 5:5). It is the Spirit who maintains their common life in the body of Christ. The effect of this common life should be tender and compassionate hearts, but this tenderness and compassion are first of all Christ’s own. They have experienced his tenderness and compassion and can therefore the more readily show the same qualities to one another.
All the conditions, in short, exist within the believing community to foster a sense of oneness and a common purpose, not only with one another, but between them and Paul. He and they are bound together in the loving fellowship of the Spirit.
2:2 There was already sufficient evidence of oneness of purpose and mutual affection in the Philippian church to give Paul cause for joy. He has already said that his prayers for the Philippian Christians are joyful prayers (1:4). Now, he says, fill my cup of joy to the brim; make my joy complete. Let me hear that you are like-minded, having the same love, that you are united in spirit and purpose. He is pleading, indeed, for unanimity of heart. This is not the formal unanimity that can be maintained only by the exercise of the veto; it is that sincere unanimity of purpose in which no one would wish to impose a veto on others.
This is not a matter of making everyone see eye-to-eye or have the same opinion on every subject. Life would be very flat and dull without the give-and-take practiced when variety of opinion and viewpoint provides scope for friendly discussion and debate.
2:3 But discussion and debate cease to be friendly when each one aims at scoring points off the others and getting his or her own way. There must be no encouragement of the spirit of “Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first” (3 John 9, RSV). Do nothing out of selfish ambition, says Paul; forget all thoughts of personal prestige. Concern for personal prestige and vain conceit spring from the root sin of pride. Pride should have no place in Christian life; what characterizes the Christian is the opposite quality of humility. Humility was not generally esteemed a virtue in pagan antiquity, in which the Greek word here translated humility bears the meaning “mean-spiritedness.” The OT attitude is different: God “mocks proud mockers but gives grace to the humble” (Prov. 3:34, quoted in James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5). Humility is specially appropriate to Christians, whose Master was, not self-consciously, but spontaneously, “gentle and humble in heart” (Matt. 11:29). His first disciples found the lesson of humility a hard one to learn: repeatedly, when they fell to discussing which of them would be the greatest in the kingdom of God, Jesus insisted that among his followers true greatness consisted in being least of all, servant of all—“for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
So, says Paul, in humility consider others better than yourselves. Rejoice in the honor paid to others rather than in that paid to yourself. The simplicity of Paul’s language should not blind us to its difficulty. Those who really try to consider others better than themselves soon discover that this does not come naturally. It is too easy to introduce permissible exceptions to Paul’s rule, if not as regards individuals, certainly as regards communities. There is a tendency, for example, to think one’s own denomination better than others, to the point of imagining that God himself is better pleased with it than he is with others (and therefore, surely, better pleased with me for belonging to mine than he is with others for belonging to theirs). No such exceptions are permissible where true humility reigns. And, as the prophet Micah saw centuries before Paul, humility flourishes best in fellowship with God (Mic. 6:8). Or, as James Montgomery put it:
The bird that soars on highest wing
Builds on the ground her lowly nest,
And she that doth most sweetly sing
Sings in the night, when all things rest.
In lark and nightingale we see
What honor hath humility.
The saint, that wears heaven’s brightest crown,
In lowliest adoration bends;
The weight of glory bends him down
Then most, when most his soul ascends;
Nearest the throne of God must be
The footstool of humility.
2:4 To look … to the interests of others belongs to the foundation of Christian ethics. “Carry each other’s burdens,” says Paul in another letter, “and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2)—the law not only laid down by Christ but exemplified by Christ. Especially, as he says at greater length in Romans 15:1–3, “we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself.” The example of Christ is regularly Paul’s supreme argument in ethical exhortation, not least in the matter of unselfish concern for the well-being of others. If Christ’s example is to be followed, then it is better to be concerned about other people’s rights and our own duties than about our own rights and other people’s duties. When some members of the Corinthian church were so intent on defending their own rights that they had recourse to pagan judges to secure redress from their fellow Christians, Paul told them that it would be more in keeping with the way of Christ to suffer wrong without redress than to bring his name into such public disrepute (1 Cor. 6:7).
2:5 Paul, then, urges them to have the same attitude … as that of Christ Jesus. This rendering is probably right, but any rendering of these words involves a measure of interpretation. A rather literal translation of the sentence would be: “Think this among yourselves (Be thus minded among yourselves) which … also in Christ Jesus.” The clause “which … also in Christ Jesus” lacks a verb, which has to be supplied. Further, the phrase “in Christ Jesus” may have its special Pauline sense (“in union with Christ Jesus” or “as members of Christ Jesus”) or it may have its general sense, referring to something which was manifested in the person of Christ.
The NIV rendering takes “in Christ Jesus” in the latter way; so does KJV (“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”). The special Pauline sense of “in Christ Jesus” was preferred by the NEB translators: “Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus.”
The words that follow, celebrating the self-emptying and self-humbling of Christ in becoming man and consenting to endure death by crucifixion, suggest strongly that his example in this regard is being recommended to his followers. Their communal life—their life “in Christ Jesus”—should be marked by those qualities that were seen in him personally; but the phrase “in Christ Jesus” in this context refers to what was seen in him personally rather than to their communal life (which is here expressed by the phrase “in you” or “among yourselves”). The missing verb, then, in the rendering “which … also in Christ Jesus” is “was” (KJV) or “was seen.”
Additional Notes
2:1 The four clauses in this verse are conditional, each being introduced by the conjunction ei (“if”); the apodosis to all four is the imperative clause make my joy complete in v. 2.
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ: lit., “if then there is any strengthening (Gk. paraklēsis) in Christ.” NIV takes the phrase in Christ in its incorporative sense, of their common life as Christians. The phrase covers all four clauses in this verse. It is from being united with Christ that they have encouragement, comfort, the Spirit’s fellowship, and mutual tenderness and compassion. The conjunction ei (“if”) implies no doubt of the reality of these blessings, either in Paul’s mind or in the Philippians’ experience: it might be translated “As sure as …”
J. B. Lightfoot (ad loc.) thinks that paraklēsis here means “exhortation” and paramythion (NIV: comfort) “incentive.” This is too fine a distinction. The two words are near-synonyms; when Paul uses the second (or its related verb paramytheisthai) it is regularly associated with the former (or with its related verb parakalein), perhaps in order to emphasize the idea of encouragement. Cf. the association of the two in 1 Cor. 14:3; 1 Thess. 2:12.
As for fellowship with the Spirit, the marginal alternative in GNB is better: “The Spirit has brought you into fellowship with one another.” Their fellowship with one another, indeed, was the corollary of their fellowship with Christ. It is in one Spirit that all believers in Christ have been baptized into one body (1 Cor. 12:13); he who thus unites them to Christ unites them also one to another. It is for them henceforth, by the cultivation of peace within their fellowship, to “keep the unity of the Spirit” (Eph. 4:3). God has called his people “into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:9), to participate in his risen life. It is the Spirit who enables them to respond to this call and to enjoy this fellowship; it may therefore be called “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14) or their joint participation in the Spirit.
The tenderness and compassion that they have in Christ are felt for one another. J.-F. Collange (ad loc.) thinks the reference is to the bonds of affection and sympathy between Paul and the Philippians. Paul was very much aware of those bonds, but his present concern is more for the maintenance of loving fellowship within the Philippian church. Behind tenderness lies Gk. splanchna (“bowels”), translated “affection” in 1:8. Behind compassion lies oiktirmoi, plural of oiktirmos (“pity”). In Rom. 12:1 Paul appeals to his readers by the oiktirmoi of God (“in view of God’s mercy”); in 2 Cor. 1:3 he calls God the Father of oiktirmoi (“the Father of compassion”). The two nouns splanchna and oiktirmos come together again in Col. 3:12, “clothe yourselves with compassion” (lit., “put on bowels of compassion”).
2:2 Being like-minded, … being one in … purpose: Gk. hina to auto phronēte, … to hen phronountes, with repetition of the verb phronein, a verb specially common in this letter (which accounts for ten out of its twenty-three Pauline occurrences). It means “to think” in the sense of having a settled opinion or attitude, having one’s mind set in a particular way.
2:3 In humility: Gk. en tapeinophrosynē, or “in lowly-mindedness.” A good first-century example of this word’s currency to denote a vice, not a virtue, comes in Josephus, War 4.494, where mention is made of the Emperor Galba’s “meanness” (tapeinophrosynē) in withholding from the praetorian guards a gift that had been promised them in his name.
2:4 Look … to the interests of others. Paul may be making a more specific point, “advocating that his readers fix their gaze on the good points and qualities in other Christians; and, when recognized, these good points should be an incentive to our way of life” (R. P. Martin, ad loc.). Self-centered preoccupation with “one’s own things” (ta heautōn) might be a mark of a “perfectionist” tendency. If indeed Paul is encouraging his friends to pay attention to the good qualities of others, this would be an appropriate preparation for his setting before them the supreme example of Christ. But equally Christ might be set before them as an example of one who placed the interests of others before his own. In the original text there is no noun to complete the sense of “one’s own” (ta heautōn) and “those of others” (ta heterōn); hence KJV’s “his own things” and “the things of others.” What “things” Paul has in mind is a matter of interpretation. It is relevant to the interpretation that there is some (Western) evidence for the omission of “also” (kai) from the second part of the verse (rendered literally in KJV: “but every man also on the things of others”). If it be retained, the meaning is “look out for the interests (good points) of others as well as for your own”; if it be omitted, the meaning is “look out for the interests (good points) of others and not for your own.”
2:5 Your attitude should be: Gk. touto phroneite en hymin, “be thus minded in (among) yourselves.” The interpretative problem in this verse lies partly in the supplying of a verb for the adjective clause ho kai en Christō Iēsou and partly in the understanding of the phrase en Christō Iēsou. These two issues are interrelated, for if, with J. B. Lightfoot (ad loc.), we supply the verb ephroneito (“was minded”), then en Christō lēsou will most naturally mean “in the person of Christ Jesus”; if, on the other hand, with J. Gnilka (ad loc.), we supply prepei (“is fitting”), then en Christō lēsou will mean “in your common life in Christ Jesus.” The latter alternative does not depend on supplying prepei in the adjective clause (for which cf. also F. W. Beare, ad loc.); it is defended also by R. P. Martin (Carmen Christi, p. 71), who takes the missing verb to be phroneite (“you think,” “you are minded”) and approves of K, Grayston’s rendering (EPC, ad loc.): “Think this way among yourselves which you think in Christ Jesus, i.e., as members of His Church.”
E. Käsemann ( accepts this interpretation and goes farther: understanding vv. 6–11 as setting forth a drama of salvation, he takes “in Christ Jesus” in v. 5 to denote the readers’ new status under the dominion of him who has been exalted as Lord over all—to denote, in other words, the realm of salvation established by Christ’s victory on the cross, into which they were brought at their conversion and baptism. To think humbly is the way one ought to think (dei phronein) in this realm.
A persuasive defense of the view that Paul is urging his readers to manifest the same self-denying mind as Christ manifested is made by C. F. D. Moule “Further Reflexions on Philippians 2:5–11,” in W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin, eds., Apostolic History and the Gospel, pp. 264–76. He suggests the amplification touto to phronēma phroneite en hymin ho kai en Christō Iēsou, which he translates “Adopt towards one another, in your mutual relations, the same attitude which was found in Christ Jesus” (p. 265). This, together with his exegesis of the following verses, commends itself as an acceptable interpretation (it agrees, incidentally, with the NIV rendering). See to much the same effect E. Larsson, Christus als Vorbild, p. 233.
The Christ Hymn
By printing these verses in poetical form NIV reflects the widespread recognition that here we have an early Christian hymn in honor of Christ. Like many other early Christian hymns it is cast in rhythmical prose, not in poetical meter (whether Greek or Semitic). It consists of a recital of the saving work of God in Christ, in self-humiliation followed by exaltation. He humbled himself; he was exalted by God. According to 1 Peter 1:11 the Spirit of prophecy in OT times was chiefly concerned with predicting “the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow”; this is the twofold theme of the hymn now before us. Whether it was Paul’s own composition or someone else’s, Paul incorporates it into his present argument in order to reinforce his plea for the cultivation of a humble spirit.
2:6 If the Philippians are urged to have the same “attitude … as that of Christ Jesus,” how was his attitude shown? It was shown in his humbling himself to become man, in his humbling himself to take the very nature of a servant, in his humbling himself to submit obediently to death—and death by crucifixion at that.
Who, being in very nature God: literally, “being already in the form of God.” Possession of the form implies participation in the essence. It seems fruitless to argue that these words do not assume the pre-existence of Christ. In another passage where Paul points to Christ’s self-denial as an example for his people—“though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9)—his pre-existence is similarly assumed (although there Paul makes his own choice of language, whereas here he uses a form of words that lay ready to hand). Elsewhere in the Pauline writings Christ is presented as the agent in creation: he is the one “through whom all things came” (1 Cor. 8:6; cf. Col. 1:16, 17). Other NT writers agree with Paul in this presentation (cf. John 1:1–3; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 3:14); it is evidently bound up with a primitive Christian identification of Christ with the divine Wisdom of the OT (cf. Prov. 3:19; 8:22–31; also, with “word” instead of “wisdom,” Ps. 33:6). First-century Christians did not share the intellectual problem involved for many today in “combining heavenly pre-existence with a human genetical inheritance” (Montefiore, Paul the Apostle, p. 106).
Various renderings are offered of the next statement: in addition to the NIV text, he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, we have the marginal rendering in GNB, “he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God.” But these two renderings do not exhaust the possibilities. “Existing as he already did in the form of God, Christ did not regard equality with God as a harpagmos”—such is the literal force of the words. The interpreters’ crux lies in the Greek noun harpagmos. This noun is derived from a verb that means “snatch” or “seize.” There is no question of Christ’s trying to snatch or seize equality with God: that was already his because he was in very nature God. Neither is there any question of his trying to retain it by force. The point is rather that he did not treat his equality with God as an excuse for self-assertion or self-aggrandizement; on the contrary, he treated it as an occasion for renouncing every advantage or privilege that might have accrued to him thereby, as an opportunity for self-impoverishment and unreserved self-sacrifice.
Several commentators have seen a contrast here with the story of Adam: Christ enjoyed true equality with God but refused to derive any advantage from it in becoming man, whereas Adam, made man in the image of God, snatched at a false and illusory equality; Christ achieved universal lordship through his renunciation, whereas Adam forfeited his lordship through his “snatching.” But it is not at all certain that this contrast was in the author’s mind.
2:7 But made himself nothing—instead of exploiting his equality with God for his own advantage. The literal translation of this clause is “but he emptied himself.” J. B. Lightfoot renders, “ ‘… he divested himself,’ not of His divine nature, for this was impossible, but ‘of the glories, the prerogatives of Deity.’ ” The lesson for the Philippian Christians is plain: as Christ set aside his own interests for the sake of others, so should they.
He “emptied himself” or “divested himself” specifically in that he took the very nature of a servant (lit., “the form of a slave”). This does not mean that he exchanged the nature (or form) of God for the nature (or form) of a servant: it means that he displayed the nature (or form) of God in the nature (or form) of a servant. An excellent illustration of this is provided by the account in John 13:3–5 of what took place at the Last Supper: it was in full awareness of his divine origin and destiny, in full awareness of the authority conferred on him by the Father, that Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and dried them with the towel he had tied round his waist. The divine nature was displayed, and most worthily displayed, in the act of humble service.
Being made in human likeness: these words are misunderstood if they are taken to mean that Christ’s humanity was only a semblance of humanity and not real humanity. Before the end of the first century A.D. there arose within the church a school of thought that held this very doctrine—the doctrine that came to be called Docetism (Gk. dokēsis, “semblance”). This doctrine was in keeping with certain current trends of thought but was rightly rejected as subversive of the foundations of the gospel. A later NT writer warns his readers against one form of this false teaching which denies that “Jesus Christ came in the flesh” and stigmatizes it as the teaching of Antichrist (1 John 4:2, 3; 2 John 7). Paul had no doubt that Jesus was truly man, “born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4), and that he died a terribly real death by crucifixion.
Being made probably means “he was born” like other men (“born of a woman,” to quote Gal. 4:4 again). As for his appearing in human likeness, one possibility is that we have here an allusion to the one who “looked like a human being” in Daniel’s vision of the judgment day, the one who received from God such power and honor that “his authority would last forever, and his kingdom would never end” (Dan. 7:13, 14). These words in Daniel may have been regarded as an anticipation of Jesus’ exaltation, which is here presented as an accomplished fact (vv. 9–11).
2:8 Being found in appearance as a man: This repeats in different words the sense of the immediately preceding clause.
He humbled himself: A deliberate act of self-humiliation is indicated; there is little difference between he humbled himself here and “he made himself nothing” in verse 7, unless it be that “he made himself nothing” in becoming man and then, having become man, he humbled himself further. His whole life from the manger to the tomb was marked by genuine humility.
He became obedient to death: the NIV unfortunately fails to exclude the impression that several of the older versions might give, that it was death that commanded and received his obedience. It was to the will of God that his obedience was given, and even when that will pointed to suffering and death, he accepted it: “not my will,” he said to his heavenly Father, “but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
But it was in the manner of his death, even death on a cross, that the rock bottom of humiliation was reached. The words death on a cross have not been added to a composition already existing in order to adapt it more precisely to the historical facts. They are essential to the sense, and probably to the rhythm also. The whole composition celebrates Jesus’ humiliation, and his humiliation was crowned by his undergoing death on a cross. By the standards of the first century, no experience could be more loathsomely degrading than that.
It is difficult for us, after so many Christian centuries during which the cross has been venerated as a sacred symbol, to realize the unspeakable horror and disgust that the mention or indeed the very thought of the cross provoked. By the Jewish law anyone who was crucified died under the curse of God (Gal. 3:13, quoting Deut. 21:23). In polite Roman society the word “cross” was an obscenity, not to be uttered in conversation. Even when a man was being sentenced to death by crucifixion, an archaic formula was used that avoided the pronouncing of this four-letter word—as it was in Latin (crux). This utterly vile form of punishment was that which Jesus endured, and by enduring it he turned that shameful instrument of torture into the object of his followers’ proudest boast. “May I never boast,” said Paul (by contrast with other people’s grounds of boasting), “except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14)—an incomprehensible turning upside down of all the accepted values of his day, by one who inherited both the Jewish and the Roman attitudes to crucifixion.
2:9 The hymn goes on to celebrate the reversal of Christ’s humiliation, the supreme illustration of his own words: “whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:11, etc.). Because he descended to the lowest depth, God exalted him to the highest place.
The Philippian Christians confessed Jesus as the exalted Lord. But how did he attain his present exaltation? By emptying himself, by giving up all that he had. It is not implied that eventual exaltation was the incentive for his humbling himself, or that it should be the incentive for them in following his example of humility. But, since he was the one whom they now confessed as Lord over all, his example should be decisive for them.
The wording here is not primarily intended to provide an interpretation of any particular OT passage, but it echoes some OT precedents. There is the disfigured and maltreated servant of the LORD who was nevertheless to “act wisely” and be “highly exalted” (Isa. 52:13). There is the one “like a son of man” seen in Daniel’s vision, who “was given authority, glory and sovereign power” (Dan. 7:13, 14). So Jesus, disgraced and discredited as man, was divinely vindicated as man.
Several NT writers express the fact of Jesus’ vindication and exaltation by saying that he sat down at the right hand of God (Acts 2:33; Heb. 1:3, etc.). Paul knows this expression, but seems to use it only when he is quoting a credal formula, as in Romans 8:34 and Colossians 3:1. The expression is drawn from Psalm 110:1, where the Davidic king is invited in an oracle to share the throne of Yahweh, sitting to the right side of him. According to Mark 14:62 and parallel texts, Jesus at his trial before the Jewish high priest and his colleagues told them that they would yet “see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One,” occupying, that is to say, the position of highest honor in and over the universe.
In thus raising Jesus, God gave him the name that is above every name. This is most probably the designation, “Lord,” in its most sublime sense. In the Greek OT this word (kyrios) is used, over and above its regular meanings, to represent the personal name of the God of Israel. This personal name, usually spelled Yahweh, had come to be regarded as too sacred to be normally pronounced aloud, and so, when the Scriptures were read in public, it was replaced by another word, most often by the word meaning “Lord.” (In NIV and most other English versions, “LORD” is spelled with four capital letters when it stands for the ineffable name Yahweh.) This, then, is the name that God has bestowed on Jesus—the rarest of all honors, in view of his affirmation in Isaiah 42:8, “I am the LORD, that is my name!” (meaning, mine and no one else’s).
Another view is that “Jesus” has become the name that is above every name, as though the name once placarded on the cross were now the name highly exalted in heaven. But the name in view here is one that he has received in consequence of his humiliation and death; the name “Jesus” was his from his birth. Even so, the name of Jesus now has the value of “Lord”; by God’s decree it has become “the name high over all / In hell, and earth, and sky”—in these words Charles Wesley reproduces in reverse the threefold division of the universe in verse 10: in heaven and on earth and under the earth.
2:10 In Isaiah 45:23 the God of Israel, who has already declared that he will not share his name or his glory with another, swears solemnly by his own life, “before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.” Here this language is repeated, but now it is at the name of Jesus that everyone kneels. There are parallels to this in other places in the NT: in John 5:22, 23 the Father makes the Son universal judge “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father,” and in the vision of heaven in Revelation 5:6–14 the celestial beings around the throne of God fall down before the victorious Lamb at his appearance, and their song in celebration of his worthiness is taken up and echoed by all creation. It may well be that, in a meeting of the church, the first mention of the name of Jesus was greeted by marks of homage—the bending of knees in his honor and the confession of his lordship. The congregation thus reflected on earth the continual worship presented in heaven. But the confidence is expressed that this worship is destined to be yet more widespread—that even those who at present refuse to acknowledge, by action or word, that Jesus is Lord, will one day render that acknowledgment. There is no tension in the NT between the lordship of Christ in the church and his lordship over the cosmos.
In the phrase “in the name of Jesus” (as it is literally rendered in ASV and some other translations) the exact force of the preposition (Gk. en) has been debated. Worship and prayer are presented to God the Father in the name of Jesus (or through Jesus) because he is the way to the Father, the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5). But that is not what is meant here. The sense is conveyed better in the rendering “at the name of Jesus” (so NIV, KJV, RSV, JB, NEB, NASB) or “in honor of the name of Jesus” (GNB). The power of Jesus’ name, before which disease and demons fled during his earthly ministry, has been enhanced with his exaltation by God: “Angels and men before it fall, / And devils fear and fly.” So Charles Wesley names (in reverse order) the inhabitants of “hell, and earth, and sky.” Not only human beings, that is to say, but angels and demons, in joyful spontaneity or in reluctant fear, acknowledge the sovereignty of the crucified one—in heaven and on earth and under the earth. But what precisely is to be understood by under the earth? The phrase may denote the realm where “it was thought that the dead continued to exist” (GNB margin); it may also denote the abode of evil spirits or disobedient angels: “the angels who did not keep their positions of authority” are “bound with everlasting chains for judgment” (Jude 6). It may be relevant to recall how the legion expelled from the Gadarene demoniac “begged him [Jesus] repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss” (Luke 8:31).
Perhaps we should not inquire too closely whether the reference is to dead human beings, or to demons, or to both groups. The language may simply be intended to convey the universality of the homage paid to Jesus. Paul elsewhere expresses the idea of universality in terms of heaven and earth (without mention of under the earth) when he says (Col. 1:16–20) that through Christ “all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible” (with the express inclusion of spiritual “powers”) and also that through Christ God has reconciled “to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (perhaps with the implicit inclusion of spiritual powers). We may compare the way in which the universality of praise to God is expressed in detail in Psalm 148.
This at any rate is affirmed: there is nothing in the whole created order that is not now “subject to the power and empire of Christ our Redeemer” (to quote the words in which the symbolism of the orb surmounted by the cross is explained in the British coronation service). As for the dead, King Hezekiah might consider that they were excluded from the privilege of praising God (Isa. 38:18); but the work of Christ has changed all this: in Paul’s own words, “Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living” (Rom. 14:9).
2:11 Those who kneel in honor of Jesus’ name confess at the same time that Jesus Christ is Lord. He who took “the very nature of a servant” has been elevated by God to be Lord of all, and every tongue will confess him as such. Salvation, says Paul, is assured to those who “confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead” (Rom. 10:9); “no one,” he says again, “can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).
“Jesus (Christ) is Lord” is the quintessential Christian creed, and in that creed “Lord” is given the most august sense that it can bear. When Christians in later generations refused to say “Caesar is Lord,” they refused because they knew that this was no mere courtesy title that Caesar claimed: it was a title that implied his right to receive divine honors, and in this sense they could give it to none but Jesus. To them there was “but one God, the Father, … and … but one Lord, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 8:6). In the Greek OT that Gentile Christians read, Yahweh was denoted either by theos (“God”) or (most often) by kyrios (“Lord”); they reserved theos regularly for God the Father and kyrios regularly for Jesus.
When divine honors are thus paid to the humiliated and exalted Jesus, the glory of God the Father is not diminished but enhanced. When the Son is honored, the Father is glorified; for none can bestow on the Son higher honors than the Father himself has bestowed.
Addtional Notes
The pioneer in presenting the thesis that vv. 6–11 form an independent composition that Paul has incorporated into his argument was E. Lohmeyer in the first edition of his commentary on Philippians (KEK, 1928) and in his monograph Kyrios Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil 2, 5–11. The predominant judgment on its authorship is that it was composed by someone other than Paul (see R. P. Martin, Carmen Christi, pp. 42–62). Pauline authorship, however, has been defended by M. Dibelius (ad loc.), W. Michaelis (ad loc.), E. F. Scott (ad loc.), L. Cerfaux, “L’hymne au Christ—Serviteur de Dieu (Phil. 2, 6–11=Isa. 52, 13–53, 12),” pp. 425–37; J. M. Furness, “The Authorship of Philippians ii. 6–11,” ExpT 70 (1958–59), pp. 240–43. F. W. Beare (ad loc.) sees here “not a ‘pre-Pauline’ hymn, but a hymn composed in Pauline circles, under Pauline influence, but introducing certain themes into the proclamation of Christ’s victory which are elaborated independently of Paul.”
Lohmeyer (Kyrios Jesus, p. 9) argued for an Aramaic original for the hymn; for attempted Aramaic retroversions see P. P. Levertoff (reproduced in W. K. L. Clarke, New Testament Problems, p. 148); R. P. Martin, Carmen Christi, pp. 40, 41; P. Grelot, “Deux notes critiques sur Philippiens 2, 6–11,” pp. 185, 186. There is no need to postulate an Aramaic original; the Greek is not translation Greek. On the other hand, the Aramaic retroversions exhibit, without any forcing, appropriate structure and rhythm.
O. Hofius (Der Christushymnus Philipper 2, 6–11, p. 8) argues persuasively that the composition follows the pattern of those OT psalms that rehearse the saving acts of Yahweh by way of confession and thanksgiving.
2:6 Who, being in very nature God: Gk. hos en morphē theou hyparchōn (“who being already in the form of God”). For the relative pronoun hos used thus to introduce a christological hymn or confession cf. Col. 1:15, hos estin eikōn tou theou tou aoratou (“he is the image of the invisible God”); 1 Tim. 3:16, hos ephanerōthē en sarki (“he appeared in a body”). The noun morphē “implies not the external accidents but the essential attributes” (J. B. Lightfoot, ad loc.); it has a more substantial content than homoiōma in the last phrase of v. 7 or schēma in the first phrase of v. 8. The verb hyparchein “denotes ‘prior existence’ ” (Lightfoot, ad loc.).
The meaning of harpagmos is disputed. According to the analogy of such formations in -mos, it should mean the act of snatching or seizing (harpazein). This is the interpretation implied in KJV “thought it not robbery to be equal with God”—a rendering that goes back to Tyndale’s version of 1526 and beyond that to the Vulgate non rapinam arbitratus est. But there is an impressive tradition in favor of treating harpagmos as though it were synonymous with harpagma—that is (according to the analogy of such formations in -ma), something seized or something to be seized. So J. B. Lightfoot offers the paraphrase: “He, though existing before the worlds in the form of God, did not treat His equality with God as a prize, a treasure to be greedily clutched and ostentatiously displayed; on the contrary He resigned the glories of heaven”—adding that “this is the common and indeed almost universal interpretation of the Greek fathers, who would have the most lively sense of the requirements of the language” (Philippians, pp. 134, 135).
That the neuter harpagma could bear this sense is certain: Plutarch (On Alexander’s Fortune or Virtue 1.8.330d) says that Alexander the Great did not treat his conquest of Asia hōsper harpagma, “as a prize” to be exploited for his personal enjoyment or advantage, but as a means of establishing universal civilization under one law (cf. A. A. T. Ehrhardt, “Jesus Christ and Alexander the Great,” in The Framework of the New Testament Stories, pp. 37–43). But if this had been the sense intended here, it could easily have been expressed by harpagma, which was a perfectly familiar word—it occurs seventeen times in LXX, whereas harpagmos occurs only here in the Greek Bible, and very rarely elsewhere in Greek literature.
A powerful argument for maintaining the active force proper to harpagmos is presented by C. F. D. Moule (in W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin, eds., Apostolic History and the Gospel, p. 272): “The point of the passage is that, instead of imagining that equality with God meant getting, Jesus, on the contrary, gave—gave until he was ‘empty’ … he thought of equality with God not as plērōsis but as kenōsis, not as harpagmos but as open-handed spending—even to death.”
For the view that a contrast is intended here between Christ and Adam see O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, pp. 174–81; R. P. Martin, Carmen Christi, pp. 161–64 (Martin traces this view back to G. Estius in 1631). D. H. Wallace (“A note on morphē”) argues against it that the morphē theou of v. 6 (as is evident from the morphē doulou of v. 7) is different from the equality with God held out to Adam and Eve in Gen. 3:5. (The Greek OT does not use morphē but eikōn for the “image” of God in which Adam was created.) Another view supposes that the contrast intended is between Christ and Lucifer, who aimed to “be like the Almighty” (Isa. 14:14); to the bibliography for this view given in R. P. Martin, Carmen Christi, pp. 157–61, add E. K. Simpson, Words Worth Weighing in the Greek New Testament (London: Tyndale Press, 1946), pp. 20–23.
2:7 He made himself nothing: Gk. heauton ekenōsen (“he emptied himself”). The use of the Greek verb here has given the name kenosis to a once popular christological theory (the “kenotic” theory), which in fact has nothing to do with the meaning of the present passage. See E. R. Fairweather, “The ‘Kenotic’ Christology,” appended note to F. W. Beare, Philippians, pp. 159–74.
W. Warren (“On heauton ekenōsen,”) suggested that these two Greek words might be equivalent to Heb. he’ e rāh … nafshô (Isa. 53:12), “he exposed his life” (KJV: “he hath poured out his soul”). This suggestion has been taken up and elaborated with the supposition that the intervening phrase lammāweth (“to death”) of the Hebrew text is echoed in Gk. mechri thanatou (“as far as death”) in v. 8 below, so that made himself nothing … to the point of death could be regarded practically as a variant translation for “poured out his life unto death” (Isa. 53:12). See H. W. Robinson, “The Cross of the Servant” (1926), in The Cross in the Old Testament (London: SCM Press, 1955), pp. 104, 105; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures, p. 93; J. Jeremias, “Zur Gedankenführung in den paulinischen Briefen,” in Studia Paulina in honorem J. de Zwaan, ed. J. N. Sevenster and W. C. van Unnik, p. 154 with n. 3; A. M. Hunter, Paul and his Predecessors, pp. 43, 44. This supposition contributes to the more general argument that the Christ hymn is an interpretation of the fourth Servant song (Isa. 52:13–53:12); it remains a supposition, attractive perhaps, but incapable of proof.
Taking the very nature of a servant: Gk. morphēn doulou labōn, where labōn is the simultaneous aorist participle (“he emptied himself by taking … “). As in v. 6, morphē means “not the external semblance only …, but the characteristic attributes” (J. B. Lightfoot, ad loc.). C. F. D. Moule points out the relevance of the word doulos (“slave”) in this context: “slavery meant, in contemporary society, the extreme in respect of deprivation of rights.… Pushed to its logical conclusion, slavery would deny a person the right to anything—even to his own life and person” (“Further Reflexions,” p. 268).
Being made in human likeness: Gk. en homoiōmati anthrōpōn genomenos, where genomenos probably means “born” as in Gal. 4:4 genomenon ek gynaikos, “born of woman”); cf. Rom. 1:3, “he was born (genomenon) a descendant of David”; John 8:58, “Before Abraham was born (genesthai), ‘I Am’ ”; and for the general sense Wisdom 7:1–6, where Solomon insists that he came into the world like any other man: “when I was born [genomenos], I began to breathe the common air.”
Being made in human likeness: Gk. schēmati heuretheis hōs anthrōpos, where schēma, without suggesting that his humanity was a mere appearance, may indicate that there was more than humanity there (he continued to have “the nature of God”). There is no emphasis on the idea of finding in heuretheis (aorist participle passive of heuriskein); the passive of heuriskein is here used rather like se trouver in French (cf. 3:9; Heb. 11:5). With hōs anthrōpos compare Dan. 7:13 (Theodotion), hōs hyios anthrōpou (“what looked like a human being”). Lightfoot (ad loc.) compares Testament of Zebulun 9:8, “you will see God in (the) fashion of man” (en schēmati anthrōpou)—but this comes in a Christian recension of the work and might even be dependent on the wording of this Christ hymn.
2:8 He humbled himself and became obedient: Gk. etapeinōsen heauton genomenos hypēkoos, “he humbled himself (by) becoming obedient” (like labōn in v. 7, genomenos is simultaneous aorist participle). While F. W. Beare (ad loc.) sees a probable reference here to “submission to the power of the Elemental Spirits” (the stoicheia), there is no parallel to such a thought in the NT writings. Christ entered into the realm of human life that was dominated by those forces, but instead of his submitting to them, they were forced to submit to him (Col. 2:15). If A. J. Bandstra were right in taking law to be one of those forces (The Law and the Elements of the World, pp. 60ff.), then it might be concluded that Christ, by being born under law (Gal. 4:4), did in some sense submit to them; but in Gal. 4:3, 9, it is legalism, not law as the revelation of God’s will (to which Christ rendered glad and free obedience), that is reckoned among the stoicheia. Nor was it to death that Christ rendered obedience (as might be inferred from KJV); it was to the Father’s will that he rendered obedience as far as death.
The phrase even death on a cross forms the climax of the first part of the hymn. It is not a later addition calculated to christianize the composition; it is integral to the sense, and rhythmically it forms a coda to the first part as the phrase to the glory of God the Father does to the second part (cf. O. Hofius, Der Christushymnus, pp. 3–17).
Death on a cross was, in Cicero’s words, “the most cruel and abominable form of punishment” (Verrine Orations 5.64); “the very word ‘cross,’ ” he said, “should be foreign not only to the body of a Roman citizen, but to his thoughts, his eyes, his ears” (Oration in Defense of C. Rabirius, 16). See M. Hengel, Crucifixion.
2:9 God exalted him to the highest place: Gk. ho theos auton hyperypsōsen, “God highly exalted him.” The simple verb is used at the beginning of the fourth Isaianic Servant song (Isa. 52:13): “he will be exalted” (hypsōthēsetai). All strands of NT witness concur in celebrating Jesus’ exaltation: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” he says in resurrection (Matt. 28:18); “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power” (John 13:3); he is depicted as “exalted above the heavens” (Heb. 7:26) and as having “angels, authorities and powers in submission to him” (1 Pet. 3:22); “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” (Rev. 5:12).
C. F. D. Moule (“Further Reflexions,” p. 270) proposes, “despite all the weight of opinion to the contrary,” to understand the name that is above every name as “the name ‘Jesus,’ not the title ‘Lord.’ … God, in the incarnation, bestowed upon the one who is on an equality with him an earthly name which, because it accompanied that most Godlike self-emptying, has come to be, in fact, the highest of names, because service and self-giving are themselves the highest of divine attributes.” See also J. Barr, “The Word Became Flesh: The Incarnation in the New Testament,” Interp 10 (1956), pp. 16–23, especially p. 22.
2:10 At the name of Jesus: “when the name of Jesus is spoken” (C. F. D. Moule, IBNTG, p. 78; cf. “Further Reflexions,” p. 270, where he links this rendering with the identification of “Jesus” as the name that is above every name).
In heaven and on earth and under the earth: Gk. epouraniōn kai epigeiōn kai katachthoniōn, three adjectives in the genitive plural, probably to be construed as of masculine (or common) gender, since it is intelligent beings who pay homage and make confession. But W. Carr (Angels and Principalities, pp. 86–89) regards it as “reasonably certain that the three adjectives are neuter rather than masculine,” the reference being “not so much to beings that inhabit the three regions as to the overall notion of universality of homage to God.”
There is a notable parallel (which may indeed be dependent on the present passage) in Ignatius, To the Trallians 9:1, where it is affirmed in a credal sequence that Jesus Christ “was truly crucified and died, in the sight of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (blepontōn tōn epouraniōn kai epigeiōn kai hypochthoniōn). Here too the adjectives appear to be masculine, since those referred to saw the passion of Christ. Carr may be right in thinking that by the three adjectives Ignatius denotes comprehensively “the whole inhabited universe”; but that universe is one of intelligent beings.
F. W. Beare (ad loc.) holds that the reference of all three adjectives “is certainly to spirits—astral, terrestrial, and chthonic.” There is no good reason to limit their reference in this way, and even more emphatically none for his further statement that the proclamation of v. 11 is not “a confession of faith in Jesus on the part of the church” but “the acclamation of the spirits who surround his throne.” It is both.
2:11 Jesus Christ is Lord: Gk. kyrios Iēsous Christos. Cf. Acts 10:36, “Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.”
To the glory of God the Father: the coda both to the second part of the hymn (as “even death on a cross” is to the first part) and to the whole hymn. God was glorified in the humiliation of Christ as much as he is in his exaltation.
See section of “For Further Reading” on the Christ hymn.
