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A TOTAL DOWNER

Sometimes there's a Bible passage that is so grand, so incredibly holy . . . that it seems almost wrong to lead in with an illustration or a recent headline from CNN. And right here in Philippians chapter two, as we begin our second day of study, we come to just such a moment. Philippians 2:5-11 is one of the most precious, powerful pieces of sacred literature you'll ever find on this planet. Seven verses that take us from the heights of heaven, down to the very lowest place in the universe, and then soaring back up to the highest mountaintop, the most lofty pinnacle, the holiest throne any of us shall ever see.
And it starts off with a challenge that seems impossible before we even read the good part . . . and then goes forward from there. Because verse five says this:

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ."

And right there is such an overwhelming commission. You and I, as followers of Christ, should have the same attitude that He had. What does this mean? Well, so many things - all of them both holy and humanly impossible. But we are to love as He loved; live as He lived; work as He worked; sacrifice as He sacrificed. Our attitude is to be the same as Jesus's. Elsewhere Paul puts it this way: "But you have the mind of Christ."
I guess right away these 11 words hit us with the overpowering realization that the Christian experience, while it is a free gift, is not then a free ride as well. There is more to being saved than simply saying, "Amen, I believe." No, we then begin a lifelong journey, sometimes joyous, sometimes tortuous, of having our minds and hearts changed as mandated here in verse five. To be a Christian is to accept the possibility and the necessity of having the same attitudes that Jesus had.
And now we very solemnly continue into this absolutely inspired discovery of what that attitude was and is. What was it like for Jesus? Paul tells us.

"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."

Now right here comes some of the most important theology of the Christian Church. I have to speak humbly here because we are talking about things that are mysteries to foolish humans. But verse six tells us something vital, and that's this: Friend, Jesus Christ was God.

In the King James, where it says that Jesus was "in the form of God," we find the Greek word morph_, which means to have all of the essential characteristics and attributes. In every way you can think of, we're told, Jesus was God. Fully God. Completely equal with God the Father.
Just around the holidays, some of us had a visit to our homes from some very gracious people sharing literature. And the booklet had to do with "What is the Jesus of Christmas really like?" And the theology of our friends, the Jehovah's Witnesses, is that Jesus Christ is not fully God. Their own literature states this:
"The true Scriptures," they say, "speak of God's Son, the Word, as 'A god.' He is a 'mighty god,' (small "g"), but not the Almighty God, who is Jehovah. . . . In other words, he was the first and direct CREATION of Jehovah God." Elsewhere they write: "The Bible shows that there is only one God. . . . 'greater than His Son.' . . . And that the Son, as the First-born, Only-begotten and 'the creation by God,' had a beginning." And finally: "Jesus was 'the Son of God.' Not God himself!"
Well, friend, we want to be kind, especially when grappling with great mysteries. But it is a foundation truth, a necessary truth, to believe that Jesus Christ is fully and completely God, that He has the form, the morph_, every essential characteristic of God. Otherwise Philippians chapter two is robbed of its great power and grandeur in describing the sacrifice and the obedience of Jesus.
Sometimes even we who are Christians struggle with the plain fact that Jesus IS described as the Son of God. And that Jesus is also named as the "ONLY-BEGOTTEN Son of God." Did God make Jesus or HAVE Jesus, as a male parent on earth fathers a child? Was there a honeymoon time when God the Father existed but not Jesus Christ? No. These things are mysteries to us, but we're clearly told in the Bible that God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have always existed from eternity. They said together in the very beginning of our Bibles: "Let US make man in OUR image."
In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis very carefully wrestles with the difference between "creating" something and "begetting" something. To beget is to be the father of, to beget something like yourself, like a father and a son. On the other hand, when you create, you MAKE something different from yourself, as when a composer creates a song.
Now, God the Father never MADE Jesus. And no, He did not go through some parenting process of producing a Son through any experience like what we know. There was never a time when Jesus didn't exist with the Father.
Lewis then uses an illustration of two books lying on a table. One book is on the table, the next book on top of it. And the first book is what gives the second book its position. The second book is where it is because the first book is where it is. There is no need for the first book to BE THERE first; both books could have just always been there. But the second book derives its position, its place, from where the first book is.
And then he closes by saying:

"The Son exists because the Father exists: but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son."

I don't want to get sidetracked here, especially in this most beautiful of Bible passages. But friend, it is so huge, so vital, for you and me to daily accept the truth that Jesus has always been God, and is God right now, and will always be God. Nothing less . . . ever. In my own Seventh-day Adventist Church, the doctrinal statement about this is something I take very much to my own heart. Here it is:

"Christ is the pre-existent, self-existent Son of God. . . . There never was a time when He was not in close fellowship with the eternal God. . . . He was equal with God, infinite and omnipotent."

And here in verse six this truth is reemphasized. Jesus had equality with God, but didn't hang onto it. He didn't "grasp" at it, clutch selfishly to it. But it was clearly there as His possession, His divine right. He had it.
The Message paraphrase puts it this way:

"[Jesus] had equal status with God but didn't think so much of Himself that He had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what."

And now we see why this doctrine is so absolutely paramount. Because Jesus lays it all aside. Voluntarily, He takes all these attributes of God-ness, this morph_ - every single aspect of His divinity - and He puts them away. The Bible tells us: "He made Himself nothing."
Now's where we just have to fall on our knees. Because Jesus, right here, makes the most incredible trip DOWN. There's no other way to describe it. He came DOWN. Way down. More DOWN than we can comprehend. True, we always think and say that He came DOWN from heaven to earth, and we're thinking geographically, where earth is down here and heaven is up in the sky somewhere. Listen, that's the least of the ways He came down!
We just sang last Christmas about how His coming DOWN included things like barns and mangers and cows and shepherds and lowly flocks by night. And you know, that's the least of it too. The fact that He was poor is not it. The fact that He was born under questionable circumstances, virgin-wise, is not it. The fact that they put Him in a feeding trough instead of a $200 bassinet is not it. What is IT is that He came down here from being God. He was God up there! And He laid all of that aside to become a crying human Baby in a manger.

But it's even more than that. Because Paul goes on to tell us that Jesus, in coming down, in setting aside His divinity, took the very nature or form of a servant. And incredibly, here's that same word, morph_, AGAIN! He took on the essential attributes, the characteristics of a servant. Check that: a slave. He morphed Himself, if you'll pardon the adaptation of that word, into a slave. He went that low. He descended that far. As I read through this miracle passage of the Bible, and think about the DOWN of this story, I'm struck again by the holy truth expressed in a recent book title by Pastor Bill Hybels and Rob Wilkins: DESCENDING Into Greatness.
And these men write in amazement:

"Once His life on earth began, Jesus never stopped descending. Omnipotent, He cried; the owner of all things, He had no home. The King of kings, He became a bondservant; the source of truth, He was found guilty of blasphemy; The Creator, He was spit on by the creatures; the giver of life, He was crucified naked on a cross - bleeding, gasping for air. With His death, the descent was complete - from the pinnacle of praise in the universe to the ultimate debasement and torture of death on a cross, the innocent victim of human wickedness."

Well, friend, despite verse five, I don't know how well you and I can copy that. But we certainly can fall on our knees . . . and be thankful for it.