Philippians 2
McGeeCHAPTER 2THEME: Pattern for Christian livingothers; mind of Christhumble; mind of Godexaltation of Christ; mind of Paulthings of Christ; mind of Timothylike-minded with Paul; mind of Epaphroditusthe work of ChristIn the first chapter we saw the philosophy of Christian living summed up in one verse: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Christ was the very center of Paul’s life. Now in this chapter we come to the pattern for Christian living, which is the mind of Christ, as we shall see. It cannot be by imitation. I hear people talking today about following Jesus. I sometimes would like to ask these folk what they mean by thatespecially when their lives do not conform to what they are saying. Are they trying to imitate Jesus? When Paul says here that Christ is the pattern for Christian living, he is not talking about imitation. He is talking about impartation. That is, the mind of Christ should be in us, and it can be there only by the power of the Spirit of God. I learned a long time ago that when Vernon McGee does things, they are not only not done well, they are done wrongalways. I am accused of being rather strong-willed, and I have a tendency to move ahead on my own volition. But when I do that, I stub my toe. Then I say, “Lord, I’m ready now for You to take over.” It has been wonderful to see how the Lord does take over. We need to learn to sit back and watch the Spirit of God move. That doesn’t mean that we simply sit and twiddle our thumbs. Of course we carry on the program that God has given us to carry on, but the power and the dynamic come from the Spirit of God. In this chapter is one of the greatest theological statements made in Scripture concerning the person of Christ. Down through the centuries one of the most controversial issues has come out of that theological statement. In fact, it is the thing that probably divided Europeit had more to do with it than anything else. The theory promoted was the kenosis theory, which is that at Christ’s incarnation He emptied Himself of His deity. This chapter will make it clear that He did not empty Himself of His deity.
Philippians 2:1
THE PATTERN FOR CHRISTIAN LIVINGOTHERSBefore we get into the controversial issue, let’s notice the practical sidethis is a practical epistle. The “if” which begins this verse is not the if of conditionthis is not a conditional clause. You will find that many times Paul uses if as an argument rather than a condition. Paul is a logical thinker. It has been said that if you do not find Paul logical, you are not reading him aright. It would be more accurate to translate it: “Since there is consolation in Christ, and since there is comfort of love, and since there is the fellowship of the Spirit, and since there are bowels [tenderness] and mercy.” Now in view of all this, Paul says:
Philippians 2:2
Even though he is in prison, he is rejoicing in the Lord, but he says that he would rejoice even more if he knew the gospel was working in the lives of the Philippian believers. “That ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” You see, there had been a little difficulty, as we noted before, in the Philippian churchnot much, but a little. Paul wants them to be of one mind. He is not asking them to be carbon copies of each other. In most churches there are two groups of people: one group for the pastor and one group against the pastor. The folk that comprise these groups are not thinking for themselves but are carbon copies of the group leaders. To be of one mind is to let the mind of Christ be in you. That permits differences of expressions, differences in gifts, differences in methods of service, even differences in minor doctrines. We won’t be beating each other on the head because we disagree on these things. If we have the mind of Christ, we will agree on the major tenets of the faith.
Philippians 2:3
You remember that Paul has mentioned this before. He said that there were some people who were preaching Christ out of envy and strife. Now he says, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.” I would say most of the difficulties in the church today are not due to doctrinal differences. They are due to strife and envy. Some people just naturally cause trouble. If we could follow this injunction, “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory,” I think it would solve 90 percent or maybe even 100 percent of the problems in churches today. If you are doing something through strife in the church, you had better not do it at all. The same is true if you do things because you expect to be recognized. One of the reasons I don’t like to go to organizational meetings is that I get tired of people having to thank Mrs. So-and-so because she brought a bouquet of petunias or Mr. So-and-so because he brought in an extra chairand you don’t dare leave out anyone because if you do, you will be in trouble. Do Christians need to be recognized and complimented and commended for things they do? “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory"trying to make a name for yourself. “But in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Perhaps this was the problem between Euodias and Syntyche. It may be that each felt she was being put down by the other. If this verse were obeyed, I believe it would solve the problems in most of the music departments in our churches. It would eliminate this attitude: “Why don’t they call on me to sing? I have a much better voice than So-and-so.” The same could be said for problems on boards and on committees. It would eliminate the “power struggle” that goes on in some churches among the church officers.
Philippians 2:4
Others! That is an important word. I was absolutely overwhelmed to get a letter from another broadcaster with a gift for our broadcast enclosed. It came from a man whose broadcast is carried on one of the same stations as our broadcast in the state of Florida. He wrote, “What a blessing your broadcast is.” I don’t know anything about this man’s broadcast, but I can tell you something about his person. He was exhibiting the mind of Christ. He was carrying out the admonition of this verse: “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” His letter was a very humbling experience for me. “Others” is the key to this passage. It is the Christian faith which first made that word others important. Why did Christ come from heaven’s glory to this earth? It was for others. Why should we carry the gospel? For others. To think of others rather than ourselves is having the mind of Christ.
Philippians 2:5
MIND OF CHRISTHUMBLENow Paul is going to tell us about the mind of Christ. The mind of Christwhat is the one thing that characterized it? Humility. You may recall that in Ephesians 4 we are told, “…walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” Then it goes on to describe this: “With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love” (Eph_4:1-2). That is the mind of Christ. You and I can’t be humble. We can’t be meek. We are not made that way. We want to stand on our own two feet and have our little say. All of us are like that. Don’t say you are not, because you really are. None of us wants to be offended. None of us wants to be ignored. We develop hang-ups if we are brought up in such a way that we have been trampled on. I heard about the son of a very fine minister who had become a vagrant. Why? It was because he had an older brother who was a brilliant fellow. This boy was always hearing about the brilliant things his older brother was doing. So he just went in the opposite direction, rebelling against it. That is the natural reaction of the natural man. It wouldn’t even help matters to go to the boy and say, “Now listen, son, you just ignore all that.” He is not going to ignore it. A man who is not born again is not even in the territory of being willing to take a humble place. We come now to one of the great theological statements in the Scripture. Some consider it the greatest doctrinal statement in the New Testament relative to the person of Christ, and it is know as the kenosis, the “emptying.” This passage will make it clear that He did not empty Himself of His deity. It will give us the seven steps of humiliation which Christ took. I wish I were capable of sketching for you the magnitude of what is being said in these next few verses. I wish we could grasp how high He was and how low He came. The billions of light years across known space are nothing compared to the distance He came. We find here seven steps downward. Then we have listed for us seven steps upward, the exaltation of Christ. First, then, in humiliation, we see the mind of Christ. Then we will see the mind of God. It is in the mind of God the Father to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to know what you can do that will put you in the will of GodI don’t know where you are to go or what you dobut I can tell you this: Since it is the purpose of God the Father to exalt Jesus Christ, I believe that is the will of God for every one of us. We are to exalt Jesus Christ, wherever we are and in whatever we do. We are to be one with the Father in this ultimate purpose of the exalation of Jesus Christ. The first step downward was when He left heaven’s glory. He came down and down and down to this earth, all the way to where we are. You and I cannot even conceive of what a big step it was from heaven’s glory all the way down to this earth. Absolutely, it is beyond human comprehension to understand what our Lord really did for us.
Philippians 2:6
This is, I confess, a rather stilted translation. When Christ was at the right hand of God the Father, He wasn’t hanging on to His position. There was no danger of His losing His place in the Godhead because of any lack on His part or because of the ability and ambition of a contender. He hadn’t gone to school to learn to become God; He had not advanced from another position. He was God. It wasn’t as if the Lord Jesus had to say to God the Father, “Now You be sure to keep My position for Me while I’m gone for thirty-three years. Keep a sharp eye out for GabrielI think he would like to have My place.” I am not being irreverent; I am trying to show you that this was not something that He had to hold on to. The position belonged to Him. He was God. Nor did He leave heaven reluctantly. At no time did He say, “Oh, I just hate to leave heaven. I don’t want to go down on that trip.” He came joyfully. “…for the joy that was set before him …” (Heb_12:2, italics mine) He endured the cross. He said, “…Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God” (Heb_10:7). He came to this earth with joy. He was not releasing something that He wanted to hold on to when He came to this earth. Now we see the second step down.
Philippians 2:7
“Made himself of no reputation” means to emptythe Greek word is kenoo. The kenosis theory derives its name from the word kenoo. Christ emptied Himself. The question is: Of what did He empty Himself? There are those who say He emptied Himself of His deity. All of the Gnostics in the early church propounded the first heresy that He emptied Himself of His deity, that the deity entered into Him at the time of His baptism and left Him at the cross.
Well, this theory is not substantiated anywhere in the Word of God. He emptied Himself of something, but it was not of His deity. He was 100 percent God when He was a baby reclining helplessly on the bosom of Mary. Even at that time He could have spoken this universe out of existence because He was God. There was never a moment when He was not God. The apostle John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All things ere made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us …” (Joh_1:1-3, Joh_1:14). Well, then, of what did the Lord Jesus empty Himself when He came to this earth? I believe that He emptied Himself of the prerogatives of deity. He lived on this earth with certain limitations, but they were self-limitations. There was never a moment when He wasn’t God. And He was not less God because He was man, yet He emptied Himself of His prerogatives of deity. The few shepherds and wise men, and even the multitude of angels, were a sorry turnout for the Son of God when He came to this earth. Not only should that crowd have been there, but the whole universe should have been there. All of God’s created intelligences should have been there. The hierarchy of Rome should have been there. There should not have been just a few wise men from the East. They should have come from the West, and the North, and the South. And the temple in Jerusalem should have been empty that daythey should all have gone down to Bethelhem. But they didn’t. Why didn’t He force them to come? Because He had laid aside His prerogatives of deity. He was willing to be born in a dirty, filthy placenot the pretty, clean stable of Christmas pageants and Christmas cards. He was willing to grow to manhood in a miserable town named Nazareth. He was willing to be an unknown carpenter. He could have had the shekinah glory with Him all the time, but He didn’t. He didn’t have a halo around His head as we see in so many paintings of Him. Judas had to kiss Him the night He was betrayed so that the crowd would know which was the man they were to capture. He didn’t stand out from other men by some kind of inner light or glory around Him. He was a human being, but He was God manifest in the flesh. He laid aside the prerogatives of His deity. Can we be sure of that? I think we can. After He had finished His ministry, He gathered His own about Him on His last night on earth, and He prayed a very wonderful prayer to His heavenly Father. One thing He said in that prayer was this: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (Joh_17:5). Notice this carefully: He prayed to have His glory restored. He did not pray to have His deity restored, because He had never given up His deity. But now that He is returning to heaven, He is asking that His glory, the glory light, a prerogative of deity, be restored. Obviously He had laid that aside. “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation.” The third step downward in the humiliation of Christ is this: “And took upon him the form of a servant.” Jesus came to this earth as a servant. He worked as a carpenter. I suppose if you had lived in Nazareth in that day, you could have gone by the shop where Jesus worked and told Him you needed some repair work done at your house"I have a door that is coming off the hinges; I wonder if You would come and fix it?” I think He would have said, “I’ll be right over.” You see, He took upon Himself the form of a servant. He could have been born in Caesar’s palace. He was a king, but He never made that claim during those early yearsin fact, He didn’t make it until He rode into Jerusalem in the so-called Triumphal Entry. He came into this world as a working man, a humble man, a little man. Not only did He humiliate Himself to become a human being, but He came among the majority where most of us are today. He was one of the little people. The prophet Isaiah wrote that Christ would come as a “root of Jesse” (see Isa_11:10). As a young preacher I often wondered why Isaiah didn’t call Him a root out of David. Well, I have discovered the reason. When Jesus was born, Mary, who was in the line of David (and Joseph, who was also in the Davidic line by another route), was a peasant. They were working folk living in that little, miserable, gentile town called Nazareth. Then wasn’t Jesus in the line of David? Oh, yes. David was anointed king, but his father Jesse was a farmer in Bethlehem, and his line had dropped back to the place of a peasant. Our Lord was born into a peasant family. “He took upon him the form of a servant.” The fourth step in His humiliation is this: “And was made in the likeness of men.” For years this did not impress me at all, because I am a man and I like being a man. I couldn’t see that being a man was a humiliation. I think there is a dignity about being a human being that is quite wonderful. How can it be humbling? Let me give you a very homely illustration that I trust might be as helpful to you as it is to me. I confess it is rather ridiculous, but it will illustrate the humiliation of Christ in His incarnation. When we first came to California in 1940, we had the experience of living in a place where the bugs and the ants are not killed off in the wintertime. We got here the first of November and had not been here long until I found in the kitchen one morning a freeway of ants coming into the sink. They were coming down one side and going back on the other side. Also I found they had discovered the sugar bowl, and they had a freeway in and out of it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want ants in the sink and I don’t want ants in the sugar bowl. So I began to investigate and learned that the thing we had to do was to kill them.
Now I’m just not sadistic; I’m not brutal; I don’t like to kill things. But I began to kill ants. I got ant poison, and we got rid of the ants. Then when we moved over to our own home, here were ants. They had found out where we’d moved. I have a wonderful Christian friend who is in the bug-killing business.
He comes to my place twice a year, sprays everythingunder the house, under the eaves, the treeseverything, and you can’t find an ant on my place. Now I do not know this to be a fact, but I have a notion that the ants had a protest meeting around my lot. Maybe they carried banners that read, “Down with McGee. He hates ants!” But, frankly, I don’t hate ants. That’s not my hang-up at all. If I had some way of communicating with those ants and getting a message to them, I’d say, “Look here. I don’t hate you.
Just stay out of the sugar bowl, and stay out of the sink. I’ll put sugar and water outside for youI’d be glad to do that if you’d just stay outside.” But I do not know how to get that message over to the antsexcept by becoming an ant. Now suppose that I had the power to become an ant. (If I could do it, I would not do it because I know some folk who would step on me if I were an ant!) But listen, if I could become an antfrom where I am now down to the position of an antthat would be humiliation, wouldn’t it? I’d hate to become an ant. But, my friend, that is nothing compared to what my Lord did when He left heaven’s glory and became a man, when He took upon Himself our humanity, when He was made in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:8
The fifth step in our Lord’s humiliation is that He humbled Himself. “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.” You and I have been humbled by someone doing or saying something which has been humiliating to us. But notice that Christ “humbled himself.” This is a most difficult thing to do. One of the finest things I ever heard about John Wesley was concerning an incident when he was about to cross a brook over which was a very narrow bridge, just wide enough for one person. As he was starting over, he met a liberal preacher of that day. This preacher swelled up and said, “I never give way to a fool.” John Wesley looked at him for a moment, smiled, and began to back off, saying, “I always do.” My friend, it is difficult to take that humble place, but it has made me think a great deal more of John Wesley. We find it difficult to humble ourselves, but our Lord humbled Himself. Many of us have had humbling experiences. I am reminded of a summer conference at which I was speaking years ago. One of the speakers at this conference was a most dignified Englishman. He was a gifted speaker and very dignified. He was shocked when I wore a sport shirt even on the platform. To him that was the unpardonable sin.
He wore a white shirt, collar, and tie; in fact, he wore a frock coat for the evening services! Well, one afternoon it rained, and in the auditorium a window glass had been broken out so that it had rained in on the platform. In those early days all the speakers in any week would march onto the platform every night, regardless of who was bringing the message. On that particular night I walked behind this dignified, formally dressed Englishman, and when he hit that wet spot on the platform, his feet went out from under him. Oh, how he sprawled! And, you know, everybody laughed.
I laughed so hard I had to leave the platform. After I went back and sat down on the platform, I thought I never could quit laughing. The next night we started in as usual, and he was right ahead of me again. I reached over and said, “Say, it’d be nice to have a repeat performance tonight.” “Oh,” he said, “wasn’t that humbling!” Yes, he was humbled, but he did not humble himself. Many times we are humbled, are we not? But we do not humble ourselves. The Lord Jesus humbled Himself, and that is altogether different. We come now to the sixth step in His humiliation: “and [He] became obedient unto death.” Death is a very humiliating sort of thing. It is not natural. Sometimes at funerals I hear people say, “Doesn’t he look natural?” It is generally said by some well-meaning friend who wants to comfort the loved ones. I don’t know why it would be a source of comfort to think that Grandpa looks natural in death. I bite my lip to keep from saying, “No, he doesn’t look natural.” Death is not natural. God didn’t create man to die. Man dies because of sin, because of his transgression. Death came by the transgression of one man, and that man was Adam, and death has passed down to all men. Death is not natural. God did not create man to die. Now when the Lord Jesus came to this earth, He was a little different from the rest of us. You and I came to live. I honestly don’t want to die; I want to live. I have come to the most fruitful part of my ministry, and I want to live as long as the Lord will let me. But the Lord Jesus was born to die. He came to this earth to die.
He didn’t have to die, but He “became obedient unto death” and gave Himself up willingly. I have to die, but I don’t want to. He didn’t have to die, but He wanted to. Why? In order that He might save you and me if we will put our trust in Him. This is what He said: “As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep….
Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again …” (Joh_10:15, Joh_10:17-18). The seventh and last step in the humiliation of Christ is “even the death of the cross.” Not only did He become obedient unto death, but to the death of the cross. This would make a greater impact on our consciousness if we said that Christ died in the electric chair or the gas chamber or by the hangman’s noose. It was that kind of disgraceful death. He came from the highest glory to the lowest place of humiliation. Why did He do it? Let’s go back to the word others. “Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.” He left all the glory of heaven and came down to this earth, became a man, and suffered the death of a criminal for othersfor you and me. Thank God for that! This is the mind of Christ.
Philippians 2:9
MIND OF GODEXALTATION OF CHRISTNow the mind of God the Father is to glorify Christ. We have seen the seven steps downward; now we will see the seven steps upward. The mind of God is the exaltation of Christ. Here is the first step up: “God also hath highly exalted him.” The supreme purpose of God the Father in this universe today is that Jesus Christ be glorified in the universe which He created and that He be glorified on the earth where man dwells, where man rebelled against God. The thing that makes this little earth significant and important is the death of Christ down herenothing else. Astronomers tell us that we are a little speck in space, and if our little world were to be blotted out, it wouldn’t make any difference to the universe. And that is absolutely true. Someone else has said that man is a “disease on the epidermis of a minor planet.” That is what we are! The thing that has lent dignity to man and has caused him to look up into the heavens and sing the doxology is the fact that Jesus Christ came to this earth and died on the cross for him. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him.” Now the second step: “and given him a name which is above every name.” The next time you take His name in vain, think of this. God intends to exalt that name that you use as a curse word and drag in the mud. The other day a pilot who stepped off a plane on which a bomb had explodedand it was almost a miracle that he was able to land the planejust stood over at the side of the crowd and said, “Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ!” I don’t know if he was saying it as profanityGod have mercy on him if he did it that way. I hope that it was a prayer. The name of Jesus Christ will be exalted above the names of all the great men of this world and above the names of all the angels in glory.
Philippians 2:10
In this verse we find the next three steps of Christ’s exaltation. The third step: “That at the name of Jesus"Jesus means “Savior.” Before His birth in Bethlehem, the angel said, “…thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Mat_1:21). Now notice the reference to prophecy: “Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us” (Mat_1:22-23). Can you show me any place in the Bible where He was called Emmanuel? When I entered the ministry, I had no problem with “Behold a virgin shall conceive.” Since He is God, how else could He get into the human family except by a miraculous birth? But the thing that did cause a problem in this verse was, “He shall be called Emmanuel” because I couldn’t find any place where they called Him Emmanuel. “Well, then,” you may say, “that prophecy was not fulfilled.” Oh, my friend, this is one of the most wonderful fulfillments of prophecy you can imagine. The angel said, “Call Him Jesus because He’ll save His people from their sins.” Now think through this. You couldn’t call me JesusI can’t even save myself. Neither would it be accurate to call you Jesus because you can’t save yourself. You see, all of us are in the same ship today. The human family is on a sinking ship, and it’s going down.
If there is to be a Savior, He’s got to come from the outside. There are those who want to throw out a lifeline. But to do that is like being on a ship that is sinking, and somebody on the top deck says to those down in the steerage, “Let me throw you a lifeline.” But the top deck is going down too! You see, the rope has to come from some place other than the human ship. No human being can be a Savior. “You shall call His name Jesus because He is going to save His people from their sins.” How can He save His people from their sins? Because He will be Emmanuel, God with us.
That little Baby who came yonder to Bethlehem is God with us. He took upon Himself, not the likeness of angels, but our humanity. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And because He is that, He can be called Jesus. And friend, nobody else can properly be called Jesus. Now God says, “I’m going to exalt the name which was given to Him when He came to earth above every other name.” Now notice the fourth step of His exaltation: “Of things in heaven.” And the fifth step: “And things in earth.” And the sixth step: “And things under the earth.” This verse is used by the Restitutionalists to support their theory that ultimately everybody will be saved. We had a spokesman for this cult in Los Angeles for many years. He made the statement that Judas Isacriot and the Devil would be walking down the streets of heaven together because ultimately all would be saved. Of course it was unfortunate that he used this verse because when you compare it with Col_1:20, you see its true meaning. The subject in the Philippians passage is the lordship of Jesus. God has highly exalted Him, that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow, in heaven, in earth, and under the earth.
That is, even hell will have to bow to Him because He is the Lord. He is God. But merely bowing does not imply salvation. Col_1:20 is not talking about lordship, but about Christ’s reconciling work, His redemptive work. And what was reconciled? What was redeemed?
Was hell included? No. The things under the earth are not mentioned here. Why? Because this verse is talking about redemption, and there is no redemption in hell. By putting these two verses together it is clear that those in hell who bow to Jesus are merely acknowledging His lordship. “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth.” Here now is the seventh and final step of Christ’s exaltation:
Philippians 2:11
Every tongue shall “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” That doesn’t mean that every tongue will confess Him as Savior. It is interesting that even in hell they must recognize the lordship of Jesus, which will, I think, increase their anguish. I want to give a word of caution here. Be very careful about calling Jesus your Lord if He is not your Lord. He made the statement that many would call Him Lord, Lord, and even perform miracles in His name, yet He will say, “I never knew you” (see Mat_7:21-23). My friend, you had better know Him as your Savior before you say He is your Lord. If He is your Savior, then you can become obedient to Him as your Lord. I don’t even like to hear people sing, “What a Friend we have in Jesus.” We have a friend in Him all right, but listen to the words of Jesus: “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you” (Joh_15:14, italics mine). We can call Him our friend if we do what He commands us to do. He is not our Lord unless we obey Him.
Philippians 2:12
MIND OF PAULTHINGS OF CHRISTWe have been learning about the mind of Christ. We have seen it is not something which can be imitated. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” can only happen by impartation. It is the work of the Spirit of God within us which will produce the fruit of meekness or humility in our lives. Now we are going to see the mind of Christ as it walked down the Roman roads. We will see it lived in Roman homes and in a Roman jail. We will see three examples given to us: the mind of Paul, the mind of Timothy, and the mind of Epaphroditus (pastor of the church at Philippi). In this heathen empire there were these three men who exhibited the mind of Christ and there may have been three million more, but these are the ones who are presented to us in this epistle. “Salvation” in this verse is used, I believe, in a general sense. Paul is talking about working out their problems which they had in the church and working out the problems in their own Christian lives. He is not there to help them and is not sure that he ever will be there again because he is in a Roman prison. So he tells them to work out their “own salvation with fear and trembling.” A preacher was reading this verse of Scripture in the morning service. A little girl whispered to her mother, “Mother, you can’t work out salvation unless it has first been worked in, can you?” Now that is a very good question. The next verse answers it.
Philippians 2:13
So God works out that which He had worked in. If God has saved you, He has saved you by faithplus nothing. God is not accepting any kind of good works for salvation. But after you are saved, God talks to you about your works. The salvation that He worked in by faith is a salvation He will work out also. Calvin expressed it this way: “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.” James states it like this: “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (Jas_2:17-18). Only God can see the heart; He knows our true condition. He knows if I have saving faith; He knows if you have saving faith. But your neighbor can’t see your faith. The only thing he can see is the works of faith. True faith will work itself out so that the people around us will be able to tell that we are different, that we are Christians. We don’t need to wear a placard or some sort of symbol to identify ourselves as Christians. Paul will talk about that faith which will work itself out in the lives of the Philippian believers.
Philippians 2:14
Don’t accept an office in the church or in the Sunday school if you have to grumble about doing it. That absolutely wrecks more Christian work than anything else. Do all things without grumbling or disputing.
Philippians 2:15
Be like a light. When we go out at night we see the stars up there. When God looks down on this dark world, He sees those who are His own as little lights down here. The children sing “This Little Light of Mine.” Well, my friend, that’s exactly what it is. Paul says, “Among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” As the stars are up there, we are down here.
Philippians 2:16
Life and light are related. When we hold forth the Word of Life, we are lights in the world. Paul rejoices when he hears that the Philippian believers are manifesting their faith in good works. These believers were very close to the heart of Paul because they were his converts.
Philippians 2:17
Here is one of the most wonderful verses in the entire Word of God. It pictures what the Christian life really should be. He is referring to one of the earliest offerings in the Old Testament. When we go back to Gen_35:14, we find that Jacob set up a pillar at Beth-el, “and he poured a drink offering thereon, and he poured oil thereon.” Then in the books of Leviticus and Numbers the sacrifices are described. We learned that there was a drink offering which was to be added to the burnt offering and the meal offering. It was never added to the sin offering or the trespass offering.
It was a most unusual offering in that it had nothing to do with redemption; it had nothing to do with the person of Christ. They would bring in a skin of wine and just pour it on the sacrifice which was being consumed by fire. What happened to it? It would go up in steam and disappear. Paul is saying, “I want my life to be poured out like a drink offering on the offering of Christ.” Paul knows that the Lord Jesus Christ made the supreme sacrifice. He wanted his life to be a drink offeringjust poured out to go up in steam. He wanted to be so consumed and obscured that all that is seen is just Jesus Christ. He wanted Christ to receive all the honor and the glory. This was the mind of Paul. I can think of no higher wish for the Christian life.
Philippians 2:18
In other words, “If your life commends the gospel, my life is just poured out as a drink offering. Together we’ll rejoice over this.” It is a walk in humility. Only a person with the mind of Christ could be so poured out as a drink offering. How gloriously wonderful that is. Paul ends on a note of joy and rejoicing. Today we often rejoice over the wrong things. We need to rejoice over the fact that Jesus died for us and that we can serve Him. When we hear of someone whom God is using or hear of a wonderful church where people are being saved and built up in the faith, we ought to rejoice. If we are walking in humility, we will rejoice at the success of others. We have too much strife and vainglory. That was hurting the cause of Christ in Paul’s day, and it still hurts the cause of Christ. The mind of Christ in the believer will bring joy and will bring glory to God.
Philippians 2:19
MIND OF TIMOTHYLIKE-MINDED WITH PAULTimothy was Paul’s spiritual son. Paul had great confidence in him. He could trust Timothy to care for the state of the Philippian believers.
Philippians 2:20
Here we have described the mind of Timothy, and we find that he is like-minded with Paul. Since he was like-minded with Paul, it means that he had the mind of Christ, and he was characterized by humility. We don’t need a National Council or World Council of Churches to bring men together. In fact, we don’t need any organization to bring them together. If they both have the mind of Christ, they are together. Timothy had been faithful to Paul. Sometimes a convert later turns against the person who led him to the Lord. This is like a child turning against a parent. Paul had had that happen to him, but Timothy was faithful to him. Paul was sending him to the Philippian believers because he could trust him. It is wonderful to have men like-minded with Christ so they can work together.
Philippians 2:21
There were many others who were seeking their own glory. They wanted to make a name for themselves. Because they were seeking their own glory, they were willing to belittle Paul. How do you respect others who are standing for the Word of God today? When I hear a man of God being criticized, I recognize that somewhere there is strife and vainglory. The mind of Christ will not allow you to criticize another man who stands for Christ. Paul says, “I can’t trust these other men.”
Philippians 2:22
People speak a lot about togetherness in our day. There can be no more togetherness than for two people to have the mind of Christ. They are together even though they may be miles apart. That is why there is such a bond between fellow Christians who have the mind of Christ. When a Christian young man and a Christian young lady fall in love, there is a togetherness that you cannot have in just a sexual marriage. A relationship that is simply physical can be bought on any street corner. But when a husband and wife have the mind of Christ, they are really together. There is no human ceremony that can bring two people together in that way. It is a glorious, wonderful relationship.
Philippians 2:23
Paul wanted Timothy to be the one who would bring them the message about what was going to happen to him there in the prison. Paul had hopes that he would be released from prison. Tradition says that he was released from prison and had quite an itinerant ministry after this, although this is not recorded in Scripture. When the Christians were persecuted under Nero, naturally Paul, the leader, was brought back and executed.
Philippians 2:25
MIND OF EPHAPHRODITUSTHE WORK OF CHRISTEpaphroditus was another who had the mind of Christ. He and Paul and Timothy were together, brethren in the Lord, serving the Lord. Remember that he is the pastor of the church in Philippi. Paul had founded the church at Philippi, but Epaphroditus was not jealous of Paul. Paul loved Epaphroditus because he had the mind of Christ and Paul could trust him. He calls him “my brother, and my companion in labour, and my fellowsoldier.” Paul says, “He is my fellowsoldierhe fights with me. He doesn’t stick a knife in my back when I’m away. He doesn’t side with my enemies. He stands shoulder to shoulder with me for the faith.” “But your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.” He was of practical help to Paul who is confined there in chains.
Philippians 2:26
This is almost humorous here. Epaphroditus got sick, and word was sent back to the church at Philippi that their own pastor was sick. He longed for themhe probably was a little homesick also. Then when he heard that the church back there was mourning for him because he was sick, he had a relapse because it hurt him that they were hurt because he was sick! There was sort of a vicious circle set in motion here. But it was good because it revealed the marvelous relationship between the church at Philippi and their pastor. In my conference ministry I speak in many churches, and I have learned that I can judge a church by its attitude toward a pastor who preaches and teaches the Word of God. When a deacon takes me aside and says, “Dr. McGee, we have a fine young pastor, and he is preaching the Word of God,” this rejoices my heart. But sometimes a deacon takes me aside and says, “Say, how do we get rid of a pastor like we have? He is too opinionated, too dogmatic, and he wants to run things.” I ask him, “Is he teaching and preaching the Word?” When the deacon’s answer is, “Oh, yes, but we have had that all along,” I can see that the Word has had no effect upon that man. If his feeling is shared by the church in general, that church is doomed.
The rejection of a Bible-teaching preacher is the death knell of many churches across this land of ours. You see, the Devil has been very clever. He has shifted his attack from the Word of God itself to the man who teaches the Word of God. I find this is true across the length and breadth of our nation. The real test of a church is its attitude toward its pastor. Epaphroditus was greatly loved by his church, and that speaks well for the church in Philippi.
Philippians 2:27
Let me point out something here that you may not notice. Many sincere believers today hold the theory that Christians should not be sick, that they should trust God to heal them. Let me ask a question: Why didn’t Paul heal Epaphroditus? He was so sick he almost died! You see, Paul and the other apostles had “sign gifts” because they did not have what we have today, a New Testament. When Paul started out with the gospel message, nothing of the New Testament had been written.
Paul himself wrote 1 Thessalonians, the second book of the New Testament to be penned. When he went into a new territory with his message, what was his authority? He had no authority, except sign gifts, which included the gift of healing. But now Paul is nearing the conclusion of his ministry. You will remember that Paul had a thorn in the flesh which the Lord Jesus would not remove. Instead, He gave Paul the grace to bear it.
Then you remember that Timothy had stomach trouble. If Paul had been a faith healer, why hadn’t he healed Timothy? Actually, he told him to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake. And in 2Ti_4:20 he said that he had left Trophimus in Miletum sick. Why hadn’t he healed him? And now Paul says he has this young preacher, Epaphroditus, with him, and he was so sick he almost died.
Paul didn’t heal him. Rather, he gives all the credit to God; he says that God had mercy on him. His healing came about in a natural sort of way. Paul made it a matter of prayer, and God heard and answered prayer. Why hadn’t Paul used his gift of healing? Because at this late stage, even before the apostles disappeared from the scene, the emphasis was moving back to the Great Physician. You see, this epistle is emphasizing the mind of Christ, a humble mind. If I were a faith healer, I would be in the limelight; I would be somebody very great and very famous. But I’m not. The Lord Jesus is the Great Physician. When it was first discovered that I had cancer, I received a great number of letters advising me to go to this healer and that healer. No, I didn’t go to anyone, my friend, except a very fine cancer specialist and the Great Physician. I had an appointment with Him and I told Him I wanted to live. I turned over my case to Him. And He gets the credit for what happened to me. So here is Paul the apostle toward the end of his ministry putting no emphasis on healing whatsoever. He has a sick preacher with him, but he does not exercise the gift of healing that he had. Why? Because Paul is shifting the emphasis where it should be, upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now Paul is sending Epaphroditus back to them.
Philippians 2:28
Paul wants them to rejoice, not sorrow. “And that I may be the less sorrowful"he was disturbed about the church in Philippi because it had been morning instead of rejoicing.
Philippians 2:29
How gracious Paul was with this preacher from Philippi! A man like Epaphroditus should be respected and loved. And, my friend, we should respect the one who is teaching the Word of God. If he has a gift of teaching which God is using, both the gift and the individual should be respected. Our attention should be focused upon the Word of God. I just don’t participate anymore in conventions and seminars that focus attention on problemsthe drug problem, the alcohol problem, the sex problem, the youth problems, and the senior citizen problemsand offer psychological solutions for them. My friend, the problem is that we don’t get back to the Word of God. It is the Word of God that reveals Christ and the mind of Christ.
Philippians 2:30
Epaphroditus was doing the work of Christ. He had to have the mind of Christ to do that. It sends chills up and down my spine to read about these men. This is in the first century, at the time of the Roman Empire. The empire of Caesar Augustus moved out and took over the world. The law of Rome became supreme everywhere. There was no mercy shown to anyone, but there was law and order everywhere. There was not a power in that day that could protest against Rome. Then there went out this little man, Paul the apostle, and those who were like-minded with him, and they preached a gospel that there is a God of the universe who, through a redemption that He had wrought on a Roman cross, had provided mercy for mankind. Multitudes turned to the Lord Jesus in that day. Now I see this little man, Paul the apostle, chained to a Roman soldier. What is he doing? Well, he is witnessing for Christ, and he is rejoicing in the Lord. He has the mind of Christ. Also I see a fine young man, Timothy, walking in that pagan city. You say you cannot live for Christ in a godless society? Look at Timothy. He did pretty well. He had the mind of Christ. And then I take a look at Epaphroditus, a faithful pastor way up yonder in the city of Philippiit was a Roman colony, but it was a pagan, heathen city. Epaphroditus had the mind of Christ. Then I look at Vernon McGee, and I say to him, Stop offering excuses in this day in which you are living! If these men could have the mind of Christ in the first century, today in the twentieth century right where we are now, you and I can have the mind of Christ. Not by imitation, but by yielding to Him, the Spirit of God can produce in our own lives the mind of Christ. Oh, how desperately this is needed in our day!