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Fighting for Joy, Growing in Humility, Knowing Christ and the Peace that Passes Understanding: A Study of Philippians (26): The Obedience of the Death of Christ

The Lord’s Day
Morning

January 20, 2008

Philippians 2:8


Fighting for Joy, Growing in Humility,


Knowing Christ and the Peace that Passes
Understanding
: A Study of Philippians

“The Obedience of the Death of Christ”

Dr. J. Ligon
Duncan III

Amen. If you have your Bibles, I’d invite you to turn with
me to Philippians 2. We’re going to be looking at verses 5-8 today. We’ve been
studying this great letter for a number of weeks, and we have been in this
section of this great letter from Philippians 2:5-11, in this great hymn to
Christ, this song of Christ, which celebrates His humiliation and His
exaltation.

Paul, in Philippians 1:27, has opened the whole
middle section of this letter up with an exhortation that we would conduct
ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel; that is, that we would live a life
that fits the gospel. And he elaborates and deepens on that exhortation in
Philippians 2:5, when he calls on us to “have this mind among [ourselves], which
was also in Christ Jesus” (or, which is ours in Christ Jesus). In other words,
Paul is calling us, within the help of God’s Spirit and by God’s grace, to
emulate Jesus’ humility…the selfless love that we just heard about in song…to
emulate Jesus’ humility and selfless love manifest in His humanity and
servanthood.

Today we want to specially look at what He says
about how the humility of Christ was made manifest in His obedience to the point
of death, even the death of the cross.

Before we read God’s word, let’s look to Him in
prayer and ask for His help and blessing.

Our heavenly Father, this is Your word. You mean
it for Your glory and for our edification. We acknowledge, O God, that this word
is harder to obey than it is to understand, and yet we also acknowledge that
there are deep, deep truths in the passage which we are about to read which we
can only understand by the help of Your Spirit. And so we ask that the Holy
Spirit would enable us both to understand and to follow these exhortations and
examples of Your word. We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Hear the word of God:
“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.”

Amen. And thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired,
and inerrant word. May He write its eternal truth upon our hearts.

Let me ask you a question. What do you think that
the Apostle Paul means when he says that Jesus was obedient to the point of
death?
Do you think that he means that Jesus was obedient until the time
that He died? Or does he mean something else, something more?

Well, keep that question in the back of your mind and
listen closely, because we won’t be able to answer it until we’ve heard each of
the four points that Paul is pressing home on us in Philippians 2:8
today, because Paul is showing us here different ways in which Jesus humbled
himself for us, and there are four of them that I want to draw your attention
to.

Jesus humbled himself by obeying His whole life
long for us.
Paul emphasizes that in Philippians 2:8 and its surrounding
context.

Secondly, Jesus humbled himself by embracing the
humiliation of the cross.
That’s what Paul means especially by the last
words of verse 8.

But Jesus also humbled himself by obeying for our
sanctification.
It was for our maturity in Christ that the Apostle Paul
tells us that Jesus obeyed.

And finally, Jesus humbled himself by being
obedient to death in the sense of accepting death for us.
Those are the four
things I want to explore with you today.

I. Jesus humbled himself by
obeying His whole life long for us.

Let’s begin with the first one: Jesus humbled himself by
obeying His whole life long for us. What I mean by that is that Jesus, by
obeying His Father’s will, in embracing God’s saving but personally costly and
incalculably painful plan, by obeying His Father’s will and embracing God’s
saving plan for us His whole life long, from birth to death, from womb to tomb,
Jesus humbled himself for us.

Paul emphasizes that in the words of Philippians 2:8
— “He became obedient to the point of death.” Paul’s not just saying that He was
obedient in the death that He died for us, although that is true. Paul could
have said “He became obedient in the way that He died,” but that’s not what he
says. He says that He was obedient to the point of death, indicating that
Jesus was obedient over the whole course of His life. All of His life and
ministry, up to and including His death on the cross, culminating in His death
on the cross, Jesus was obedient. Paul is echoing a truth that we find in
Hebrews 5:8, where we’re told that our Savior learned obedience through that
which he suffered.

Now, if you go back and look at Hebrews 5:7, you’ll
see that the context there is speaking to the whole life of suffering that Jesus
endured on our behalf. And so Paul’s point here is that Jesus obeyed His whole
life long for us, all the way up to the point of death. It’s not just His death
on the cross in which He obeyed for us, but it is in His whole life — actively
obeying God’s law, actively embracing God’s saving plan. Even though at great
personal cost and enduring incalculable pain, Jesus humbled himself for us by
obeying His whole life long.

In other words, Paul is stressing
that Jesus’ obedience involves the whole course of His life and ministry, all
the way up to, including, and culminating in the death of the cross.

Do we adequately appreciate that, that Jesus’
obedience for us was not just on the cross of Calvary, but includes the whole
course of His life? And it is not just that Jesus was obedient to the law of
God, though He was. He kept the law of God in a way that no human being before
Him had ever kept the law of God. He kept the law of God in a way that no human
being since Him has ever kept the law of God. And He kept the law of God in a
way that no human being will ever keep the law of God, until we are made perfect
in glory.

But not only did He do that, He did more. He did
something that none of us are able to do in our obedience:
that is, that
none of us are able to undertake a plan whereby we can save a multitude that no
man can number. He undertook, in willing, voluntary love, to embrace the
Father’s plan of our salvation, which involved Him living under the curse of the
law and enduring suffering the whole course of His life and ministry on our
behalf.
And the Apostle Paul is saying, ‘Christian, you need to celebrate
the humility of Christ in embracing this kind of lifelong obedience; obedience
to a course of suffering, obedience to a course of humiliation. And He did it
because of His love for you and His desire for your salvation.’ And so the first
thing that Paul is drawing our attention to in this verse is that Jesus humbled
himself by obeying His whole life long for us.

II. Jesus humbled himself by
embracing the humiliation of the cross.

The second thing we learn, though, is this: that
Jesus humbled himself by embracing the humiliation of the cross. Notice how Paul
puts it in Philippians 2:8 :

“He humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death,

even death on a cross.”

Paul’s emphasis is not simply that Jesus willingly
died for us, but that He embraced the painful, shameful, cursed, humiliating
death of the Roman crucifix — a death filled with pain, shame, curse, and
humiliation. And He embraced it for us. In other words, by emphasizing that He
died “even death on the cross,” Paul is saying that Jesus willingly embraced the
most shameful, humiliating death conceivable in both the Gentile and the Jewish
world.

You know that had a person been a citizen of
Philippi, and thus a Roman citizen, and if that person had been found guilty of
a capital crime, as a Roman citizen the means of execution would have been
beheading. That is, it would have been relatively quick and painless because of
your privilege as a Roman citizen. But crucifixion was reserved for those
criminals who were non-citizens and deemed the vilest of human beings. It was a
long, torturous, drawn out, painful, cursed, shameful, humiliating death in
which a person for days might linger in mortal agony while others watched his
travails. The very mention of crucifixion struck fear into the hearts of all
those who had ever seen one administered. And the Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle
Paul says, has willingly embraced that shameful death — a death feared by Roman
citizens.

But not only that. You remember Moses tells us in
the Book of the Law that “cursed is he who hangs on a tree.”
And so Jesus
not only embraced a death that was shameful in the eyes of the Gentile Romans,
but He embraced the death that was shameful in the eyes of Jewish people. Well,
the Jewish people knew that one who was hung upon a tree was being given a
sentence and a punishment that indicated that that person was outside of the
believing community, cut off from the promises of God, unloved by any in the
family of God’s people, cut off from the inheritance promised to God’s people.
It was a shameful, painful, humiliating death. And Jesus embraced this death on
the cross. Jesus humbled himself, in His humanity and servanthood, all the whole
long course of His life and ministry, embracing obedience to His heavenly Father
for us and for our salvation, but He also embraced the humiliation of the cross
that involved pain and shame and curse.

Peter thinks about that, doesn’t he, in I Peter 3:18,
where he says that

“Christ suffered for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”

Peter is drawing our attention to the pain and
suffering which Christ once for all endured on His cross. But that pain was not
merely physical pain. It was the moral and spiritual and relational pain of
being isolated and abandoned by His Father, of bearing the awful weight of sin,
of being considered guilty, though there was no guilt in Him; of being treated
as a sinner, though there was no sin in Him; of having the curse of God poured
out on Him, though He deserved God’s blessing. Did you hear Kristen just sing:

“Oh, to see the pain written on
Your face,

Bearing the awesome weight of
sin;

Every bitter thought, every evil
deed,

Crowning Your bloodstained brow.”

This is the pain which He willingly chose for us on the
cross.

But there’s not only pain, there was shame.
You remember the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12:2 that Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith …

“Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross…”

[Doing what?]

“…despising
the shame.”

In other words, He knew that by bearing
the cross He was inviting shame. And He did it anyway. And He despised the
shame that He knew that He would bear for us, for the joy set before Him.

And the Apostle Paul quotes that passage from Moses
in the Book of the Law in Galatians 3:13, and reminds us that Christ embraced
the curse on the cross when he says:

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. As it
is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’”

And Christ embraced humiliation. Do you
remember that Ethiopian court official who was in his chariot reading Isaiah 53
one day? And he had just come across the phrase “in His humiliation, justice was
denied Him.” And suddenly there was Philip the evangelist. And he says to
Philip, ‘Sir, could I ask you a question? Who in the world is Isaiah talking
about when he says ‘in his humiliation justice was denied him?’’ And Philip
says, ‘I am so glad that you asked me this question, because I want to tell you
about the Lord Jesus the Messiah, who, in His humiliation, had justice denied
Him so that mercy would be shown to you, if you will receive and trust in Him
alone for salvation.’

And Jesus in His obedience embraces all of these
things on the cross. He embraces the pain and the shame and the curse and the
humiliation of the cross for our sake, and for our salvation. And in this He
humbled himself, and Paul is pointing to the Jesus who served us in humility, in
His obedience all His life long, and in the Jesus who humbled himself by
embracing even the pain, shame, curse, and humiliation of the cross.

But there’s something else that we see here. In
Philippians 2:5 and in Philippians 2:12, it’s very clear that Paul is sharing
with us about what Jesus does in Philippians 2:6-11 in order to encourage us in
— what? In order to encourage us in maturing as Christians; in order to
encourage us in growing in grace, in order to encourage us in becoming more like
Christ–what theologians call sanctification. In other words, Paul is
telling us the truth of [Philippians] 2:6-11 in order that we might grow in
grace, that we might become more like Christ, that we might be sanctified (to
use a theologian’s word for it).

III. He obeyed for our
sanctification so that we could be made holy

Well, in telling us that Jesus became obedient
to the point of death, Paul is telling us that He obeyed for our sanctification
so that we could be made holy. It’s so important for you to understand that it
is not only your justification that is by grace, but your sanctification is by
grace.

God is at work, Paul will say in verse 13, both to
will and to do his work in you. And so, by obeying for our sanctification Jesus
has not simply given us an example, but He has established the basis of our
sanctification. This is a mind-blowing truth, so let me say it to you again in
another way: Jesus humbled himself in His humanity and in His servanthood all
along the whole course of His life and ministry by embracing obedience —
obedience to the will of His heavenly Father…an obedience that entailed personal
pain and incalculable suffering, shame, curse, and humiliation; and He did this
for your sanctification. Not only did He do this so that you would be justified;
not only did He do this so that you would be accepted; not only did He do this
so that you would be forgiven; not only did He do this so that you would be
counted “not guilty” on the last day; but He did this so that you would be made
like Him…so that on the last day He would stand in the assembly of His brethren
and He would say, ‘These are my brethren, and they are without spot or blemish
or wrinkle. They are perfect.’ So that on the last day when the accuser points
his finger and says, ‘But that man, that woman, is a sinner!’ Jesus will say,
‘Not any more. There is not any sin in him. There is no sin in her.’ His work
not only forgives us, but it sanctifies us. The Apostle Paul in Romans 5:19
says,

“For as by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one
man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”

And so in His obedience Jesus is providing not simply
an example for our growth in grace, not simply an example for our
sanctification, He is providing the very basis for our sanctification. And the
Apostle Paul is saying to us, ‘Look at the humility of the Savior, in His
willingly obeying for your sanctification. How costly is the growth in grace
that God has purchased for you at the price of the blood of His own Son, and of
lifelong suffering.’ Do you think God is serious about believers being like
Jesus? He is willing for His Son to suffer His whole life long, if you will just
be more like His son.

IV. Jesus’ humility is
manifested by obediently dying…by agreeing to die…by consenting to death.

Fourth and finally (and this is perhaps the
most mind-blowing truth of the whole passage), Jesus’ humility is manifested by
obediently dying…by agreeing to die…by consenting to death. What does
Paul say in Philippians 2:8? “…Obedient to the point of death.” In other words,
Paul is saying that Jesus’ obedience involved His voluntarily giving up His own
life.

Now you’re going to have to think hard about this,
because it’s like nothing that you’ve ever seen in this world. You and I have
seen brave people who were willing to say I will do something in order to rescue
others, that may cost me my life. This is what Jesus is saying, for instance,
when He says, “Greater love has no man, than that he lay down his life for his
friends.” It might be a man in the military who sees a hand grenade in the midst
of his platoon and he throws himself and his helmet on top of that hand grenade,
sacrificing his own life so that others will be saved. That is a great and a
noble thing. But I want you to understand Paul is saying more than that here
about Jesus. Paul is not just saying that Jesus voluntarily gave up His life
in order that you and I might live; he is saying that Jesus voluntarily chose
to give something that nobody could have taken away from Him.
Do you
understand that not all the armies in this world of all the greatest world
powers in the history of this world could have taken the life of Jesus? He was
life incarnate. No one could have taken His life from Him; only could He set it
down himself.

Now you’re saying, ‘Ligon, you’re crazy!’ No, I’m
not! Jesus himself said this in John 10:17-18. What did He say?

“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life, that I may
take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I
have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This
charge I have received from My Father.”

Do you see what the Apostle Paul is doing? He is
elaborating on that very point in John 10:17-18, that Jesus, in dying for us,
chose to give up something that no one could have taken from Him. He is the only
man in the history of the world for which the phrase “chose to die” makes sense.
All of us in this fallen world will die one day, unless the Lord Jesus comes
back before.

Death and obedience is never found in
the same sentence for us
. Death isn’t an act of obedience, it’s an act of
necessity. It’s going to happen! It’s just a matter of when, if the Lord
tarries.

But for Jesus to die, He had to
choose to die.
He had to willingly give up something that nobody could have
taken from Him. And He tells us in John 10:17-18 that He willingly lays down His
life, and no one can take it from Him. That’s why, on the cross, when Jesus
says, “Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit,” He is doing something that
no other human being has ever been able to do: He is choosing to give His life
to God; He is choosing to die. For the rest of us, death is a necessity. For
Jesus, it was a choice. And the Apostle Paul is saying you see the matchless
humility and selfless love of Jesus Christ in that on the cross He chose to give
what no one could take from Him: His life, for you.

And in all these ways we see the humility of Jesus.
This is why John Calvin, having meditated upon this passage, comes to the end of
verse 8 and says,

“This is assuredly such an example of humility as ought to absorb the attention
of all men, because it is impossible to explain it in words suitable to its
greatness.”

That’s so true. It is impossible to describe in words
(this humility) in a way that is appropriate for the greatness of what Jesus has
done. He has obeyed for you all His life. He has embraced the humiliation of the
cross for you. He has obeyed so that you would grow in grace and become more
like Him. And, He has laid down a life that no one could have taken from Him for
you and for your salvation, and for your growth in grace.

And Paul puts these things before us, why? In order to move
us, in order to motivate us to what? Verse 5: To have this same attitude of
selfless love and serving humility which was in our matchless Savior, and which
is ours by grace.

May God bless His word. Let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, we literally cannot adequately
describe the glory of the humility of Jesus. It is more than simply that He
obeyed all the way until the day that He died. It is that His humility is
manifested in marvelous ways that boggle our minds. Lord, so move us and change
us by this truth and reality that we become more humble, more self-displaced,
self-giving, other-serving, joyful disciples of Jesus Christ, in whose name we
pray. Amen.

Now let’s sing about this great gift of
Christ’s love, taking our hymnals and turning to

No. 261, What Wondrous Love Is This?

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