For this series in Philippians, I am going to limit each post to one verse, and hopefully produce a short, succinct read for my friends who follow.

2:8   And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

In our last post, we struggled with the term “emptied Himself”, and found some resolve in Paul’s description of Jesus taking the form of a servant in order to appear to His creation in the manner He sought, that is, in the “shape” or form of a servant. Yet He did not simply stop with this level of self humiliation, but continued in His self humbling and was found in the form of a human.

The form of a servant, and then the form of a man, a human. Though we often think of ourselves as those who have no limits, (we can be whatever our little hearts desire), this is simply untrue. Our “form” is quite limited!

Even as compared with other created beings, our limitations are quite startling. No ability to fly, or swim underwater like the fish. We can’t change how time effects us or that we age and die. We can’t change our history, our past mistakes or victories. We can’t naturally change other people, except in a bad way by harming them. We can’t go without sleep, food, water… We can’t “do as we please” for we set restrictions on ourselves for the sake of living in a civilized manner. We can’t change our gender, height or nose size without some violence to our body. We can’t grow another limb, increase our IQ, or change the length of our lower intestine. So many limitations!

And we have become accustomed to these limitations, since we exist in them and have learned to be content in them. At least if we are to have peace in our life, we are to be content with the limitations our created form lives under. Some, sadly to report, have not accepted these limitations and are in constant warfare within themselves, tearing away at thier own bodies!

Limitations gladly taken on by the eternal creator God. He was found in human form, accepted the limitations though He was without limitations previously. How to comprehend this? Another limitation!

But though He took on the limitations of a human, this step down in His humiliation was not His last. He did not stop “stooping down” to reach us. Paul reminds us that He humbled Himself to death! He decided to accept death, to humble Himself to experience death. Remember, though it is my logical extension of the fact of a sinless life, death was not a required destination for the Son of God, for He had no “wages” to recieve. (See Romans 6:23)

His choice of death was an act of humiliation, and Paul continues that the choice of going through the gates of death was not the only choice He made, but that the type of death He chose was specific. I want to die in my sleep. He wanted to die on a cross! No – that phrase expresses a desire only, whereas Paul tells me that He decided on His final act of humiliation through the type of death He experienced. (For an expansion on this thought, see Let Me Tell You a Story – Stoned?)

Could there be any other act that brought Him lower, that would better express His desire to “connect” with us, to provide for us, to guide us, to teach us of what true life consists of? Not of the boasting and self aggrandizement of the world, constantly telling us to look down on others, that we are the great ones, that we are in control. We are not, and to be honest, it is a fools errand to chase after a life of pride.

This passage in consistently painting a picture of the Lord as the One who stepped down, stooping down to His creation, going beyond the “normal” human existance of accepting our state and pushing the envelope to a life of sacrifice and self humiliation that we have never witnessed in any other.

He is the One we are to follow, and He is certainly worthy of all praise and honor, for He is the Lord.

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Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.