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PHILIPPIANS Chapter 2
Christ Our Exemplar and the Church Our Practicality
(Overcomer Wu)
The plea for the living of the Church life (2:1)
It is very wonderful that in the simplicity of these spirit-inspired writings of the apostle Paul, we see the very essential ingredients for the living of the Church life. Notice the first 3 elements mentioned in this verse: we have “Christ... Love... (and the) Spirit.” Of course, Christ points to God the Son, and “love” is God the father for God is love (1 Jn 4:8), and the “Spirit” plainly refers to God the Spirit. So, the essential ingredients for the living of the church life is the experience of the Triune God! If we are truly living out the church life, we will constantly be living in Christ as our life; we will demonstrate the reality of God's love in all that we do and say; and we will be in constant fellowship with the Holy Spirit. In other words, the church life is inseparable and is fully interwoven with the reality of the Triune God in our daily life. If indeed the saints in Philippi are experiencing the truine God in their daily living, then naturally there will be much encouragement in Christ, an abundant consolation of love, and an outflowing fellowship of the spirit along with “tenderheartedness and compassions”to share not only with the apostle, but with all the saints.
Guidelines for the practice of the Church life (2:2-4)
In verses 2-4, Paul mentioned a few practical guidelines on living the church life. In verse 1, we saw the reality and the essential ingredients of living the churhc life, but here we see some of the outward manifestations of the reality of our experience of the Truine God at work. In verse 2 alone, Paul enumerated 4 basic manifestations or signs of the reality of our experiencing the Triune God:
1. “Being of the same mind” -- literally means to “think the same thing.” Paul is not here talking about doctrinal or moral agreement, nor is he talking about striving for pragmatic agreement of mind, such as the sisters have to agree on shopping at the same store or the husband and wife needing to have the same mind on what kind of car to get, etc.. Rather Paul is talking about striving to achieve the same goal that God has set before us, which is to gain Christ and to press on towards the goal for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus – we shall see this more in greater detail in chapter 3. Also, Paul's exhortation that the believers need to have the same mind is to have the mind of Christ (2:5). We will elaborate more on what that means when we get to verse 5.
2. The 2nd sign of our experiencing the Triune God is that we will “have the same love.” this means to have the same love for every saint regardless of their status, their position, their nationality, the closeness of their friendship with you, or their personality, etc., etc.. By nature – that is our human nature, we tend to gravitate towards those with the same personality as we do, and those who have the same social status and educational background, and other human commonalities, right? However, if we are truly experiencing the agape love of the Triune God, we will not love based on our own preference or natural affinity; rather, we will have the same love for all the saints. And this divine agape love is not just a sentimental affection, but a self-denying sacrificial love. It is a love described in great detail in 1Corinthians 13.
3. The 3rd sign of our experiencing the Triune God is that we are being “joined in soul.”The Gk word used here appears only once and it's here in this verse. It is very significant because it literally means “one-souled.” This is partly a product of the above 2 signs we just mentioned because we know that our soul is comprised of our mind, emotion, and will right? And the 1st sign exhorts us to have “the same mind” and the 2nd is “having the same love,” which we can say refers to our emotion. But to be “joined in soul” then means that we also need to have the same will, because our soul involves not only our mind and our emotion, but also our will. Do you know what to be joined in soul or one-souled implies? It excludes the possibility of self-interest, self-ambition, self-exaltation, or any form of selfishness right? Because we have the same mind, the same love, and the same will, which means that we are essentially living, moving, and acting as one person! This is the perfect Church life in its manifestation! Every saint is living, moving, and have our being in Christ. This will eliminate all problems in the church and the Lord can do much for the furtherance of the gospel and for the building up of His kingdom with such a group of believers.
We are told that even in the O.T. whenever the children of Israel collectively acted as “one army,” the Lord was able to prevail over His enemies right? Likewise, when we have the same mind, the same love, joined in soul, and “thinking the one thing”-- which is the 4th sign of experiencing the Triune God mentioned in this verse, we are also living in the reality of the Church life. “thinking the one thing”means intent on one purpose, which is shown in chap. 3 that is to gain Christ, be found in Him, and press towards the goal of God's high calling, which is to be fully conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29) and for the Body of Christ, the Church, to be fully built up in order that His fulness may be expressed on this earth and in the universe. You know what? If we are truly one in mind-- that is having the mind of Christ, experiencing the agape love of God, joined in soul, and one in purpose, then it is inevitable that God's eternal purpose will be fulfilled in and through us.
And of course all the negative things mentioned in verses 3 will not be a problem in the church, because what is the cause of rivalry and seeking of vainglory? It is self-seeking for self-glory and self-exaltation, but as I mentioned already, if we truly have the same mind, the same love, joined in soul, and one in purpose, it eliminates the possibility of any self-seeking or selfishness, right? Rather we will regard others more excellent than ourselves.
Christ as our Exemplar (2:5-11)
2:7 The Indispensability of Humility. Humility is a jewel sought for by God, because the antithesis of humility is pride. And pride is the original sin that led to the fall of Satan (Isa 14:13-14) “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” and it is also the original sin of man. Remember when man was tempted by the serpent in the garden of Eden to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he was told that “...in the day that you shall eat of it, you shall be as gods”(Gen 3:5). From the fall of Satan and the fall of man, we can see that pride is the most heinous of all sins in the eys of God, because in essence, pride seeks to compete with God for supremacy -- “you shall be as gods.” Due to the fact that Pride is original sin, it is also THE root of all sins. For example, why you get angry at people? Perhaps it is because they ignore or brush aside your opinion which hurts your pride, right? Or maybe you're angry because they said or did something to despise your self-respect, which is essencially your pride, right? Why are people jealous? It is because their pride has been injured by perhaps due to a person doing better than ourself in a certain matter(let's say he/she is smarter than you are), so it robs you of your pride to be #1 in your class. I will not go through each and every sin, but you get the idea.
Pride promotes the following 4 main abominable principles:
Self-Exaltation. We have seen this from the above-mentioned verses quite well; so there is no need to further elaborate.
Self-Sufficiency/Reliance. We know that one of the main underlying principles of sin is independence from God. Part of the reason why Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was because he failed to first consult with God; rather, he acted independently. A person who is full of pride is usually someone who has great attainment perhaps to some high position, great fame, great riches, and great natural capabilities. Unfortunately, such a person will be constantly tempted to be self-confident and self-reliant rather than rely on God, because he/she may think that he/she can do a lot without God's help. When a person starts thinking like that, obviously he is full of pride in himself.Phi 3:3b Paul says, “We are the circumcision... who... have no confidence in our flesh.” The more mature we are in the life of Christ, you will find that the more we need Him and the more we rely on Him for everything. Oftentimes, when I wake up in the morning, I just tell the Lord, “Lord, I need You. I can't go through this day without You.”
Self-Seeking/Self-Centered. Self-seeking is in apposition to seeking God's will and God's purpose. God said of David that he was “a man after my own heart” why? Because he will “do all my will.” In our daily lives, we need to ask ourselves: Are we seeking and occupied with how to further our own career? Or how to expand our business? Or how to make more money? Or how to make our life more comfortable and more enjoyable? Or are we constantly seeking to do the Lord's will and to carry out His purpose on this earth? The apostle Paul's aspiration was to magnify Christ in all things (Phi 1:19). May this also be our aspiration.
Self-Glory. One who is self-centered, self-reliant, and seeking for self-exaltation is obviously more interested in self-glory rather than seeking the glory of God. Instead, we need to seek to do all things to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31).
Some Exemplars of Great Humility:
Great Humility was exemplified by the Lord Jesus as seen in this chapter, Hebrews 2:16 and John 13.
God was also well-pleased with Moses and had a particularly close and intimate relationship with Moses – he was the only one that God said with whom He spoke mouth to mouth right? Do you know why? Well Numbers 12:3 tells us clearly the reason was that Moses was the most humble of all other men on the earth at that time.
The apostle Paul also exemplified great humility as seen in Ephesians 3:8 and Acts 20:19. I believe we can say with great confidence that every man of God is characterized by great humility, because it is the very character of Christ! And when we are constituted with the life and nature of Christ, we will also exhibit His characters, one of which is humility.
In short, “God resist the proud and gives grace to the humble” (Jam 4:6).
Isa 66:1-2 give us an amazing insight into how great an importance God placed on this matter of a humblespirit: “Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of my rest? For all those things My hand has made... 'but on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit....” One who has a poor and contrite spirit is one who has a spirit of humility, because contrite means one who is grieving and repentant for his sin and unworthiness, which is humility plus repentance. Based on the context, it is to such ones that the Lord can rely on to build His house, the Church.
How then do we attain to this spiritual humility?
Certainly it is not by our own self-effort. Even if we can reach a certain level of humility by our self-effort, we will eventually be proud that we are one of the most humble people on this earth. And that immediately brings in pride. So, humility by self-effort is self contradictory!
The proper way to attain to this holy and spiritual humility is by the following:
By Beholding Christ. In Rev 1:17, when John beheld the Lord of glory, he fell at His feet as dead – not just because of the brightness of His presence and the fear of His awe-inspiring presence, but I believe it was also because of the realization of his own abject sinfulness and poverty before the glorious, infinite, omnicient, and onmipotent God. I believe we can all testify that sometimes when we come before the Lord in our private time with Him... having a close and intimate fellowship with Him, we just have the deep realization that inspite of all our attainments and obtainments, we are nothing, we have nothing, and we can do nothing of spiritual value apart from Him. This was the reason why the apostle Paul said in Phi 3:8 that he counted all things loss (referring to all the positive things that he had obtained and attained, which were quite impressive from the human standpoint, but he even considered them as “dung” or “trash”) -- all “on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” Whatever things or position we have, or whoever we think or others think we are is absolutely nothing – it is like dust or even dung when compare to Christ! There is no comparison! How we need to daily have this experience of beholding the excellency of Christ, and the natural by-product of our beholding Him will be humility.
By Beholding the Cross of Christ. On the cross, the Lord Jesus bore all our sins and shame, which was the ultimate humility that He suffered on our behalf. How then can we be proud of any self-righteouness that we may have obtained? Before the cross of Christ, our righteouness is as filty rags! The popular well-sung hymn captures this sentiment very well:
“When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died;
My riches gain we count but loss, and pour comtempt on all my pride.”
By Bearing Our Cross and Follow Him. The root from which our pride springs out of is our self, or flesh and our soul-life. Thus, by bearing our cross to die to our self, our flesh, and our soul-life, we will effectively negate any possibility of pride. Again, referring to Phillipians 3:3 Paul said, “We are the circumcision...” -- this of course refers to the cutting off of the flesh which can only be done through the cross of Christ. And what is the natural consequence of such dealing with the flesh? We will then only “boast in Christ Jesus (rather than in our self), and have no confidence in the flesh.”
The plea for maturity in Christ (Phi 2:12-16)
2:12-13
The initial salvation that we received from God is one that requires no work on our part; we need only to believe in the finished work of Christ on the cross and in resurrection. Having become the children of God by receiving the life of Christ through faith, we have only begun the journey of our life in Christ. We were given His life with the intention, as with all life, of growing unto full maturity. We received our initial salvation purely by faith and not by works (Eph 3:8), but for our growth in life, otherwise known as the salvation of our soul, we need to carry it out by work in the form of absolute obedience to the inner operations of His life -- according to Phi 2:12-13. As this epistle of the apostle Paul was written "to all the saints in Christ Jesus... with the overseers and deacons" (Phi 1:1); this clearly implies that the "salvation" spoken of here is not referring to the initial salvation, for the recipients of this letter are already saved, thus Paul addressed them as "saints" in Phi 1:1.
Phillipians 2:12 says, we are to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." I believe there are two aspects to this fear and trembling:
It is the fear and trembling of not attaining to the full salvation of our soul – our growth unto full maturity in this age; and consequently being left in the outer darkness as mentioned in Matt 25 when the Lord comes to reward each one according to our deeds. It is the fear and trembling of falling short of becoming the “blameless and guileless, children of God without blemish...” (2:15). Or as Ephesians 5 puts it: that we might be the glorious Bride of Christ “not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” (Eph 5:27). And if we are not yet perfected as a part of the Bride of Christ, we shall be left out of the marriage feast of the Lamb, right?
It is the fear and trembling of injuring the heart of God, Whom we love. When we truly love a person, we are more afraid of hurting the that person than what harm we might suffer, right? In other words, one of the characteristics of a true love is a self-less love. We would be more interested in the well-being of the other person than our own. This is why Paul exhorted the Philippian saints in 2:4 to “not regard each his own things, but each the things of others also.” And in v.3 “in lowliness of mind counting one another more excellent than yourselves.” This is a proof that we are truly following the pattern of Christ not only in His humility of mind, but also in His selfless and self-denying love towards us.
It is the fear of our own inadequacy – the fear of of not pleasing the Lord by not measuring up to His standard and meeting His heart's desire.
Also, there are 2 basic types of fear based on the consequences that they produce: one type of fear drives you away, while the other type of fear actually has the opposite effect of drawing you close. An example of the 1st type of fear is like... let's say you're fearful of mean Dobberman pincher; the effect of this kind of fear is that we will stay away from the Dobberman pincher dogs right? On the other hand, the kind of fear spoken of here in v.12 is not the fear that drives us away from the Lord, but a healthy fear that drives us to draw nigh unto the Lord more in order to please Him and to draw nigh unto Him, right? Because if we are fearful that we might be inadequate and fall short of the Lord's holy demands on us, we will be driven to depend on Him moment by moment. And if we are fearful of grieving His heart and not walk according to His will, we will want to spend more intimate time with the Lord to know His heart's desire and purpose so that we can walk accordingly by His empowering grace. So, this is actually a good and heathy fear. Psalm 25:14 tells us that “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” How is it that the Lord reveals His secrets to those who fear Him? It is because this kind of healthy fear impels us to have a more intimate walk and fellowship with Him! Also, another relevant verse is Psalm 85:9 which says, “Surely His salvation is nigh unto them that fear Him,” because we are here talking about working out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
Phi 2:13 continues with, "For it is God.... " The "for" here explains the reason why we should work out our salvation: "For it is God Who operates in you both the willing and the working..." And what is the compelling reason for God to operate in us to work out our full salvation? It is for "...His good pleasure" (2:13b). Ephesians 1:5 also tells us more explicitly that God's "good pleasure" is having predestinated us unto sonship -- not just adopted as sons without His life, but as His very own sons, possessing His life and nature (1 Jn 5:12, 2 Pet 1:4) and will be fully conformed to the full image of His Firstborn Son (Rom 8:29), Christ Jesus. The word "predestination" means to determine a destination beforehand or ahead of time. In fact, before times eternal, God has predestinated us by marking us out ahead of time to partake of His full sonship. Therefore the "salvation" in Phi 2:12 which we need to work out and for which God is operating within us is nothing less than the realization of the full and complete sonship.
As a further confirmation of this sonship as the goal of our salvation, Paul in just 2 verses later gives us further elucidations of this "salvation" in v.12. Paul said in v.15, "That you may become blameless and guileless, CHILDREN OF GOD without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverted generations..." Praise the Lord that God is operating in us with a view of our reaching the perfection of our sonship -- "blameless and guileless... without blemish." We should be encouraged, because we see the on the one hand our human responsibility in v.12 that we need to work out our own salvation, but in v.13 we see the divine enablement. Now, eventhough the Lord is willing, able and ready to operate in us His good pleasure, we need to cooperate with His inner operation that we may reach the climax of God's supreme salvation, that is, the attainment to the full conformity of Christ, and consummating in the full redemption of our body in His glory.
“Work Out” What God “Works in” You
" work out your own salvation for it is God who works in you" (Phi 2:12-13).
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a nature that renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord initially comes in contact with our conscience, the first thing our conscience does is awaken our will, and our will always agrees with God.
The will is the essential element in God’s creation of human beings—sin is a perverse nature which entered into man and causes us to want to act independently upon our own will. Yet in someone who has been born again, we can even experience Christ as the source of our will! Isn't this wonderful? I have read this verse many times before, but when the Lord opened my eyes to see what it is really saying, I just have to praise the Lord! We need to all praise the Lord for this truth that we can all experience as our own! “ for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” With focused attention and great care, you have to “work out” what God “works in” you—not work to accomplish or earn “your own salvation,” but work it out so you will exhibit the evidence of a life based with determined, unshakable faith on the complete and perfect redemption of the Lord. As you do this, you do not bring an opposing will up against God’s will—God’s will is your will. Your natural choices will be in accordance with God’s will, and living this life will be as natural as breathing.
Do I believe that Almighty God is the Source of my will? God not only expects me to do His will, but He is the very Source of our strength to carry out His will if we are only willing to draw from Him our resources. God empowers us through His Spirit Who indwells us. If we are willing to be humble to admit our weakness and our inability to do God's will, or to use the term in Matt 5 “poor in spirit,” which literally means to admit that we are short of the Spirit that we are willing to be paupers/beggars after the Spirit, then the Lord will work in us both the willing and the working of His good pleasures. Luke 11:13 says, “if you then, being evil, knows how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Praise the Lord that the Lord as the Spirit is willing and able to wrought in us the very nature of Christ and thus bringing about the salvation of our soul. The way we work out this “salvation” of our soul with fear and trembling is by being humble to receive of the Spirit as our constant supply to empower us and to obey Him! Our practical obedience of the Spirit's guidance and prompting is how we cooperate with the Lord in His operation within us to bring about the full salvation of our soul, which is the “salvation” refered to in verse 12.
The apostle Paul exemplifying the practice of the Church life (2:17-30)
Just very briefly... it is very touching for me to see that the apostle Paul himself being in prison awaiting judgment with the prospect of being sentenced to death and with the trouble of the brothers who were preaching Christ out of rivalry in order to add afflictions to Paul's ordeal, and many other problems and physical ailments that the apostle Paul was suffering; inspite of all that... he still demonstrated that his deepest concern is for the believers as shown in verses 2:19-30. In fact as we read this entire epistle of Philippians as well as his other epistles, Paul was more consumed with the needs and the problems of others than his own. Therefore, Paul exemplified his own exhortation that he gave to the Philippian saints in vv. 3-4, “... in lowliness of mind counting one another more excellent than yourselves, not regarding each his own things but the things of others also.”