Lesson for February 9, 2020
The Book of Philippians
Chapter 2:5-6
The object of occupation with Christ is Jesus Christ and is the subject of verses 5-11.
Verse 5
“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” What verse 5 actually says is “Keep on thinking this doctrine within you, which also was in Christ Jesus.” You cannot use the information in the Bible until it has been transferred into your soul where it is useable.
All thought resident in your soul must have vocabulary storage. But vocabulary alone will not do it. With the vocabulary a believer must be organized categorically so he needs categorical storage. To fulfill the command to keep on thinking this doctrine, which was also resident in Christ Jesus, a believer must have “epignosis” (spiritual) doctrine in the soul. This doctrine must have a frame of reference in the memory center, but this is impossible unless you have developed a spiritual vocabulary and have stored categories of doctrine in your soul. Only then will a believer be able to apply doctrine, which is spiritual wisdom.
To reach our goal of spiritual maturity and beyond, we must have the same mental attitude and motivation that Christ had in order to reach our final objective. Advancing believers will experience greater testing as they continue their spiritual growth. Therefore, they must have a mental attitude like the mental attitude of our Lord Jesus Christ as he was advancing to His final objective, the Cross. While He was on earth, He faced greater pressure and testing than we will ever know and yet He reached His final objective of paying for the sins of the entire human race. This means that the mental attitude of Jesus Christ was one of total grace orientation — total dependence upon provisional grace provided by God the Father and the power of God the Holy Spirit. We have the exact same grace and power!!!!
The grace orientation of Jesus Christ was the application of grace, consciousness based on grace and dependence on the grace plan of God. He was aware of the plan of God, He knew it in His humanity through doctrine He had studied and learned, He knew it in His deity, He was there with the Father when the decrees were given. Jesus Christ utilized, to the maximum, all of the doctrinal principles of grace. Jesus Christ never stopped applying Bible doctrine. He even quoted Scripture while on the Cross.
Therefore, having the same attitude (thinking doctrine) that Christ had is a command for any believer who wants to advance to spiritual maturity, super-grace and ultra-super-grace. Doctrine must still be number one priority in the life of a believer if he expects to grow spiritually. Problem-Solving Devices must be known, understood and used on a consistent basis, especially the Rebound Technique and the filling of the Holy Spirit without which a believer cannot continue to advance spiritually.
Jesus Christ was our prototype, our example, our standard. He had the perfect way of thinking, the perfect attitude toward God, Himself, and others. Therefore, when the Bible says, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” it means to emulate Christ in thinking the same way He thought which was Divine Viewpoint Thinking based on Bible doctrine in His soul.
Verse 6
“Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.”
This verse gives us the attitude that Christ had that we are to emulate. answers the question: What was Christ like before He came to earth and became a human being. This question must be answered in order to understand verses 5-11. So, we begin with Jesus Christ as He existed in eternity past. He has been and always will be eternal God. The Greek word for form is “morphe,” which refers to His divine essence. (John 1:1) In John 1:1 we have the word beginning describing a time in eternity past when Christ preexisted everything. “Arche” is the Greek word for beginning, which was not actually a beginning because God has no beginning and no end. In eternity past Jesus Christ as God possessed all of the characteristics of divine essence and exercised all of the qualities of God. And since God cannot change this means that all of the time that Jesus Christ was a human being, He was also deity. As a member of the Trinity, He has always existed, there never was a time when He did not exist. He is coequal and co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. (Colossians 1:15)
In eternity past Jesus Christ is said to be the Creator of the universe in John 1:3, Colossians 1:16 and Hebrews 1:10. So, the fact that He existed before creatures and the fact that He is the Creator of creatures indicates that He is God. The work of Jesus Christ in eternity past confirms not only His preexistence, but the reality of His deity.
The Jewish tetragrammaton meaning four letters, YHWH, is the sacred name of God. The Jews did not put vowel points in the Hebrew and they never pronounced this. This was a name too holy for the Jews to pronounce, so they used “adonai,” meaning Lord, indicating His deity. What they finally did was to insert vowel points and later generations began to pronounce Jehovah. Since there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there had to be another word for when they were referring to the Trinity, so they used the Hebrew word “elohim,” which is a plural word. The Hebrew word “echad” was put in front of it to indicate that there is only one essence. When it says that God is one, it refers to the fact that God is one essence, but there are three Persons who have this essence. Jehovah is used for all three members of the Godhead, but most often for Jesus Christ. So, the tetragrammaton is the sacred name for God. The tetragrammaton is assigned to Jesus Christ in enough passages to establish the deity of Christ. For example, Isaiah 9:6,7; 40:3; Jeremiah 23:5,6; Zechariah 12:10. The tetragrammaton, then, becomes a basis for demonstrating the fact that Jesus Christ is God.
The divine attributes of deity are all ascribed to Jesus Christ. The sovereignty of Jesus Christ as God is mentioned in Psalm 2:6; Matthew 28:18; Acts 2:36; II Peter 1:11; Revelation 29:16. This is proof of deity in itself without any of the others being added. He is sovereign God. He has just as much sovereignty as the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ also has the same holiness (righteousness and justice). (Luke 1:35; John 6:69; Hebrews 7:26) He is also said to possess the same love that the Father and the Spirit possess in John 13:1,34; I John 3:16. Jesus Christ as God is eternal life according to Isaiah 9:6; Micah 5:2; John 1:1; 8:58; Colossians 1:16,17; Ephesians 1:4; Revelation 1:11. Jesus Christ is omniscient; He has always existed and He knows all the knowable. (Matthew 9:4; John 2:25; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Colossians 2:3; Revelation 2:23) Jesus Christ is omnipresent according to Matthew 28:20; Ephesians 1:23; Colossians 1:27. Jesus Christ is truth. (John 14:6; Revelation 3:7) All of these Scriptures point out the fact that Jesus Christ has each one of these characteristics, any one of which demonstrates the fact that He is eternal God. (Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8-10; I John 5:20)
John 8:58, “Jesus answered them [the Pharisees], ‘A fact I communicate to you, before Abraham came into being, I had always existed.’” Jesus Christ while in the flesh was totally aware of His deity, He could not be anything else but. Nothing of His essence could be changed.
Theophanies are appearance of Jesus Christ before the Incarnation and confirm the deity of Christ. By contrast, a Christophany is a post-resurrection appearance of Jesus Christ. Christ appeared as a man in Genesis 18 and 32:24-32. Christ has also appeared as a phenomenon of nature: the cloud of the Lord in Exodus 40:38; the pillar of the cloud in Exodus 33:9-23; the burning bush of Exodus 3:2ff; the Shekinah glory in Acts 7:30. The word “shekinah” is not found in the Bible. It merely means “residence;” the glory that resided between the Mercy Seat and the cherubs in the Holy of Holies in Exodus 25:22. Christ also appeared as the Angel of Jehovah, identified as God in many passages: Genesis 16:7-18; 22:11-18; 31:11ff; 24:7; 24:40; Exodus 23:20; 32:34; I Chronicles 21:15-19; Isaiah 63:9; Zechariah 1:12.13. Christ is always the visible member of the Godhead. (John 1:18) After the Incarnation He no longer appears as the Angel of Jehovah.
Did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. The Greek word of for grasped is “harpagmos”meaning to seize forcibly, to take by force or taking an attitude toward something which can be grasped. Christ was deity and did not see equality with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit as seizing and appropriating by violence something he didn’t have, since He always had it. Jesus Christ did not regard equality with God, deity as something to be asserted or utilized as humanity. He did not become as less deity by becoming a human being.
Jesus Christ is eternal God, He is just as much deity as the first Person and the third Person of the Trinity, and therefore to become a member of the human race He didn’t think He couldn’t leave Heaven because he might lose something, that if He became true humanity He would somehow be inferior, that somehow something would be stolen from Him. He did not think equality with God a gain to be seized. In other words, in the divine decrees of eternity past God the Father said, “The plan calls for You to become a member of the human race, go to the Cross, and to provide eternal salvation for the human race, and at the same time to resolve the Angelic Conflict. Will you do it?” Answer: “I will.” The indicative mood of this sentence indicates a factual statement regarding the thinking of Jesus Christ prior to the Incarnation.
Being God and living in Heaven, Christ did not have the arrogant attitude of Satan. His deity was not a gain to be seized and held in such a way as to hinder the plan of God the Father. There is no plan of grace without the Incarnation. There is no salvation without the Incarnation. Jesus Christ did not grab His deity and cling to it saying, no, no, no, I won’t do it. The omniscience and mental attitude of Christ was positive toward the plan of God the Father even though it involved the humiliation of being made lower than angels. The mental attitude of Christ submitting to the Father’s plan should be the mental attitude of believers and will be if a believer wants to grow spiritually.
Micah 5:2 explains that Jesus Who was born in Bethlehem is eternal God, “However as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, from you One shall go forth from me to be ruler of Israel; his appearance is from long ago, from the days of eternity.” That last phrase is Hebrew idiom saying that He is eternal God.
John 1:1-3, “In a beginning which was not a beginning there always existed the Word (a phrase used to describe the deity of Christ), and the Word was face to face with God, and the Word was God (the Word is a title for Jesus Christ). This same One was in the beginning with God (there never was a time when Jesus Christ did not preexist and coexist with God the Father). All things came into existence through him [Christ] and apart from him nothing came into existence that has come into existence.”