by Keith Bassham
“If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, 2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10 That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11 And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Philippians 2:1-11
Writing in the Tribune a couple of months back, I called attention to the very rapid spread of Christianity in the decades immediately following the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I wrote:
Do you have any idea how many cultures are represented in these Gospel road stories? The diversity of moral issues, gender issues, political issues, religions, occupations, worldviews, nationalities, languages, cultures and subcultures this Gospel had to weave itself through in order to get a hearing? And yet it got through enough to turn worlds upside down … the Gospel is designed to be somewhat lean and portable, moving easily among cultures, languages, customs, and nationalities, without a lot of baggage to weigh it down.
This was accomplished, ironically, not by Christianity’s attempts to “fit in,” nor did the early believers see anything negative about their seeming “irrelevance.” In fact, they seemed to relish the role of being the “anti-Roman.”
All the major features of Roman society were directly challenged by the “Christians,” whose worldviews and behaviors had earned them that title in Antioch. Sociologist Rodney Stark has written extensively on this subject. He demonstrates that Christian behavior with regard to marital fidelity, the treatment of women, the care for infants (many of whom were often killed due to defects of one sort or another), dealing with epidemics and disease, and a host of other societal behaviors provided an extreme contrast with the social norms. This included the Christian treatment of rigid social barriers:
In my judgment, a major way in which Christianity served as a revitalization movement within the empire was in offering a coherent culture that was entirely stripped of ethnicity. All were welcome without need to dispense with ethnic ties. … In this way Christianity first evaded and then overwhelmed the ethnic barrier that had prevented Judaism from serving as the basis for revitalization. (Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries, p. 213)
That is the plain meaning of the text we read in Acts 17:6, when in Thessalonica, those who protested the Apostle’s presence and his Gospel preaching said, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also,” that is, the inhabitants considered the coming of the Good News nothing short of an enemy invasion. But it was not an invasion of legions armed with swords, arrows, and spears — for that they had made preparation. But they were ill-equipped to fight against love, and sympathy, and humility; the sorts of things described in the text at the beginning of Philippians 2.
We will get to more of that text and some implications for us, but for now, let us think about the city where the epistle would be read.
In the final verses of the 15th chapter of Acts, the archetypal missionary team of Paul and Barnabas was splitting up just as the pair had determined to make a trip to see how their newly planted churches were faring. When chapter 16 opens, we see the trip begin, Paul with a new companion named Silas, and soon Timothy joins the party. Churches are encouraged, people are saved, and Paul plans to head north and then east to open some new areas to the Gospel.
And then, God put a stop to it all. Yes, that’s right. They were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to move that direction. And so, instead of making a right turn into modern-day Turkey and perhaps even some ways along the Silk Road, they turn left toward Europe. And a vision came to Paul, a vision of a man of Macedonia in northern Greece, calling for Paul’s help. The missionaries immediately crossed over into Greece, “And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days” (Acts 16:12).
Philippi was at one time called “The Springs.” It was re-named Philippi by Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. It was an important city on and off, but it becomes a little more interesting to us because of something a Caesar named Octavian did.
Octavian was the nephew of Julius Caesar. If you don’t know much about Octavian, I should mention that he was the general who knocked off Marc Antony a few years before the birth of Jesus, and after that victory, he did two things that you will know about. First, he assumed the title Augustus, something akin to a god. That’s right. He’s the Caesar Augustus of Luke 2 who made a decree that sent Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. And the second thing to note is he rebuilt the city of Philippi in Macedonia and established it as a Roman colony. That meant several things.
After establishing the city of Philippi as a colonial military outpost, Augustus populated it with retired soldiers, thus helping to ensure loyalty. Residents, though they were actually in Greece, could become citizens of Rome, with the freedom to buy and own land and property. They could engage one another in civil lawsuits, and they were exempt from several types of taxation.
As far as religion goes, in a Roman colonial outpost like Philippi, Octavian either invented, or more probably stumbled upon, the value of integrating religion and politics, and that brings us to his new name. Augustus means, in Latin, to be venerated, consecrated, or even holy. In other words, Augustus became an object of worship. That meant to citizens in the Roman Empire, Caesar was not only king — he was also lord.
We now know that the worship of the emperor and its enforcement was a political tool, useful for keeping order, and that it was a more important factor than we used to think. There were of course other gods in the pantheon, and not a little good, old-fashioned superstition and occult practice going on, but the main event in religion was the worship of whoever occupied the imperial palace in Rome. Caesar was lord and god. A well-placed statue in the center of Philippi could effectively turn a colonial outpost into a “little Rome,” and as one writer asks, “Who needs armies when you have worship?”
Citizens of Philippi, especially those considered Roman citizens, could look to the statue and be reminded of who they were, and who was their king. They would know that should a foolish enemy attack the outpost, Rome and Caesar would come to the rescue. If disease or famine or other disaster struck, their lord and king would be there for them.
And finally, the precedent having been set, the veneration and worship of Caesar was transferred from emperor to emperor upon accession to the throne in Rome. This imperial cult was the dominant religion in nearly every place Paul worked during his ministry, and this was certainly true in Philippi, a “little Rome” and a city especially linked with Augustus.
Imagine then the impact these words would have upon a community accustomed to worshipping Caesar and the other gods of the day:
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him [Jesus], and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).
That is why in another Macedonian city, when Paul and Silas began preaching, they were accused of turning the world “upside down” and of behavior “contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus” (Acts 17:6,7), as we noted above. According to Paul, Caesar had a competitor, and the wording in the Philippian letter pulls no punches. Paul is not exaggerating, and in fact his language reads very much like the language of Isaiah 45:
… there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear (Isaiah 45:20-23).
Paul effectively took all the titles and postures of worship Caesar claimed for himself, and said to the Philippians, “Jesus is Lord,” and that certainly must mean Caesar is not.
So, to summarize and to introduce Paul’s unique response to the Philippians, we need to remember a few things about Philippi, how Paul got there, and what he did there. When Paul was kept from going into Asia Minor and called instead into Europe, the first major city he visited was Philippi, a colonial outpost and a dress rehearsal for his eventual journey to Rome itself, which is where we began the article — Paul in Rome.
And everything Paul will write to the Philippians will have these things in the background. For instance, just as Philippi is a colonial outpost for the Roman Empire, the church in Philippi is a colonial outpost for the empire or kingdom of Jesus. Furthermore, it is the primary task of that colonial outpost to take that message — Jesus is the resurrected Lord and King over all creation — to other places where the message is not yet known and believed — to send out pioneers who establish other outposts in other places, and then those outposts, churches really, do the same thing, until the earth is filled with the praise and glory of God.
So the story of Paul going into Philippi is a story about the conflict of the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God, and it’s a story about missions, and it’s a story about us, who we are and what we should be about even in troubled times.
Now, what are the implications of this narrative. First, we learn that making Jesus Lord of all was always in the mind of God. It was his idea, and not something dreamed up by a bunch of fundamentalists in the last 100 years. It is not an innovation introduced by early Christians to make a political point, although the political aspects are unavoidable.
Jesus was God, and this agrees with John 1, but the robbery language in verse six tells us Jesus used his authority with discretion, and gave up a great deal of privilege in the process. We may not understand all the mechanics of how Jesus can be both God and the Son of God and second person in the Trinity, but we do have these clear scriptures that say it is so. Here’s how another translation reads: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (ESV).
That makes it clearer. Jesus was equal with God, but he humbled himself, became a human, and turned his back on all his heavenly privileges. Now, as far as God the Father was concerned, Jesus was still who he had been throughout eternity, and in his mind Jesus is Lord. Nothing can change that. And so the passage ends with the phrase: “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.”
A second implication is that we learn how present circumstances are not always a reliable indicator of how things will end. If people didn’t believe Jesus was the Son of God when he came, we might understand how that would happen. Jesus didn’t look like the Lord when he came. In fact, instead of climbing the corporate ladder the way so many would have in his day, Jesus came down that ladder. Most people would have considered him a failure — humanly speaking, he had no home, no money, just a few friends at his death, and that death was the most humiliating and dreadful possible. Paul writes in another place that had they known Jesus was the lord of glory, they would not have crucified him.
But that descent, that emptying, that coming to earth in that form was necessary. Not only was it necessary for the purpose of salvation, but it provided an example.
Jesus gave us a pattern of behavior, and that is why Paul says to have the mind of Christ. When people are trying to serve one another instead of exercising power, you tend to have unity of spirit. When we all confess that we are nothing, that none of us deserves any of the good things we have, then we tend to be thankful instead of feeling entitled. Your feelings don’t get hurt so often when you have the mind of Christ. You’re not insulted easily when you give up status in your own eyes.
God lifts up Jesus, raises Him to His rightful place. And the Bible teaches that God will exalt the humble, and that He will reward faithful servants with glory. So be careful about dissing people and looking down on them. Try to see them as God will eventually make them.
The third implication is related. We don’t know everything about God, and He can often surprise us. Think about that Isaiah text I referenced, the one that begins, “ … there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.”
You see, if you had been brought up with this passage as any normal Jew would have been, and then had you heard Christians say, “Jesus is Lord, and every tongue will confess him as Lord and every knee will bow,” you would have thought it was blasphemy. Nevertheless, it is true. God himself had given Jesus a name above every name. God wanted them to add something to their understanding of Himself, and we have to be open to God changing our minds as well. Every time you go to church, every time you open your Bible, every time you pray, prepare for a lesson, have a conversation with another brother or sister — in each encounter with God, be prepared for him to change your mind.
It is a fascinating thing to begin a passage with a concept of humility and self-sacrifice, and to end with a proclamation of glory to God in the same person, but it is so. And such a narrative provided what was necessary for believers in the first century to set themselves apart from those around them, turning the world upside down, and the same narrative, if we embrace it in the 21st century, should have a similar effect today.