“Who, being in very nature God … made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

In Romans Chapter 1, the apostle Paul talks about the existence of God. God’s “invisible attributes” (power and divine nature) have been revealed through creation, “in things that have been made”. And so humans are “without excuse” if they deny that God is creator of all that exists.   It’s a pretty heady argument. Basically it gives rise to something called “natural law” – that God exists and allows humans (all of them) to know He exists by virtue of our reason. This is by our ability to inquire about our world, to observe it and to both see and discover that the world is not a disorderly chaos but an ordered, beautiful universe.  

But, nature is both beautiful and dangerous. It both provides for us and can harm us.  So, the question for us is “How do we know that God is good?”, specifically “How do we know God gives a care about us - or better still, loves us?”   The answer is not in what has come to be known as “natural law/theology” but in the theology of the cross.  And that is what Paul turns to in Chapter 2 of Philippians.  Paul has candidly admitted in Philippians 1 that the world can harm us. Paul has been in prison in Philippi and is very likely writing from prison to the Philippians.  But he is undeterred by the presence of suffering (his own primarily) but says we can be sure God loves us because of the cross of Jesus.

In the passage above (Philippians 2:6a-7), Paul uses some very sophisticated terms, but emphasizes that God, too, became “observable” by taking on human nature.  It’s how we can observe that God in Jesus became obedient to suffering and eventually death.  The Christian writer John Stott said that what we observe about God in Jesus is what makes it possible for us to believe in God, and in the goodness of God despite our suffering.  Stott wrote “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross … In the real world of suffering … how could one worship a God who is immune to it.”  

And so Philippians turns in Chapter 2 from a letter thanking the Philippians for their friendship, kindness and empathy – to a forceful statement about God’s nature, what God is like essentially, and which is now “evident” in the life of Jesus.   Paul does not confuse the issue. Jesus is NOT a fellow creature as we are. He is by very nature fully God – “as God as God can be”, if you will. But he also becomes visible, not hidden in and through the forces of nature, but visible in Christ.  

And because of this new kind of “natural law”, we know not only that God exists, but that God loves us.  What that makes possible, as Paul goes on the explain, is love for one another. We are not (by nature) beasts. Despite what modern science might intimate, we do not have to serve our own self-interests. We can look to the interests of others, and we can “empty ourselves’ as God our Creator in the person of Jesus our Savior did.  We can be fully human, what we were created to be - autonomous individuals in relationship with others. We look out for one another, which is to the glory of God.  That, Paul says, is what Jesus did. He was not looking to his own interests but to ours for God’s glorification.  

Philippians – an otherwise intimate “love letter” (and it will get back to being that) - pauses at the start of Chapter 2 to give us some of the most important and sophisticated teaching about God in all the Bible.   Many of you have committed to memory the Apostle’s Creed – to your credit.   It’s good to know the things we can be sure of, and the Creed provides us that.  Philippians 2:5-11 is an example of an early Christian creed, and I commend it to you for memorization.   It would be a wonderful personal reminder of who your God is, who you are created to be. It would, at the same time, help you give a witness of your faith to others.  It’s beautiful stuff … enjoy your meditation on it.

Because of a cross,

Pastor Ken Nelson

Each person is as entirely the whole Godhead (tota divinitas) as if there were no other. And yet it is true that no Person is the Godhead so exclusively that the others are not also the Godhead. This distinction of Persons is so great that only the Person of the Son assumed human nature. . . Therefore the entire science of metaphysics is in error and must be boldly crucified when we are in search of God.

-Martin Luther

A Disputation of 1544