Carmen Christi

An exposition of Philippians 2:5-11

What Did Jesus Do and What Was Done to Him?

If He was just a martyr, all He did was tell the truth and suffer for it. He was a victim. If He was just a teacher, like Buddha, whether He does anything for us depends on whether we follow Him.

What Jesus did depends on who He was. You can’t understand what He did without first understanding who He was.

Philippians 2:6-11 has a poetic, parallel structure, with a meter, and so was probably originally a song, in Latin the “Carmen Christi,” the hymn of Christ. Paul is challenging the Christians to think like Jesus thought, and then he begins to quote a song.

To hear what the song means, listen:

Who He Was (2:6)

He was “in the form of God.” “Form” is morphe. Something “morphs” when it retains the same essence but changes appearance, like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly but still the same species.

Jesus is the active One. He’s not just passive, a victim, a piece on a chess board. He counted. He did not count it “robbery”; that is, He didn’t consider it illegitimate to take equality with God. It wasn’t robbery because He was God. It wasn’t wrong for Him to be equal with God because He was God.

It’s wrong for us to think of ourselves as God. But there is One Being for whom it is not wrong to think of Himself as equal with God: God! There is another Person who is also God and yet there is only one God. One God, three Persons is the Trinity.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses say Jesus was “a god,” but not equal with the one God. The Mormons believe that “as man now is, God once was” and that there are many gods. But the Carmen Christi says Jesus had the “form” of God and that He did not consider it wrong to claim to be equal with God. The only way it is possible for it to not be wrong for Jesus to consider Himself equal with God is if He is God. The only Being who can rightfully consider Himself equal with God is God.

To hear about how Jesus is God, click on the YouTube link above.

Descent (2:7-8)

Despite being God, Jesus did something that is not what we expect God to do. He “emptied” Himself. It was an idiom, a figure of speech, for to make low, to bring down. He didn’t become an ex-god, but by “taking the form of a servant.” He morphed into a servant. He still had the form and nature of God but now, in the incarnation, He also had the form of being a human being.

But He didn’t stop there. His descent doesn’t stop with just becoming human; it goes so far as to include dying. He became obedient until death.

His descent still doesn’t stop. He’s going even lower. His death was the most horrendous death. Cicero, the Roman poet, said crucifixion was the “most cruel and disgusting penalty.”

To hear about how the cross was the most horrendous death, click on the YouTube link above.

Ascent (2:9-11)

Because He descended to take on the form of a servant, God exalted Jesus. God didn’t just exalt Jesus. He “super-exalted” Him. He did this in the resurrection.

So Jesus rose and declared, “all authority in heaven and earth has been given — by God — to Me” (Matthew 2817). “He must reign until — He will continue the reign begun at His resurrection until — He has put all His enemies under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25.)

God gave to Jesus “the name above every name.” The third commandment prohibits taking the name of the Lord — the name Yahweh — in vain. God has now graciously given to Jesus the “name that is above every name,” even above Yahweh.

To hear about the how Jesus’ name is above every name, click on the YouTube link above.

At the Name of Jesus every knee will bow, including the communists who insist that they’ll never bow to anyone, and those who prostrate to Buddha or those who come with their joss sticks and kneel before their ancestors. Every tongue will confess” (or agree), even those who now say being Jesus raised is a “myth”; or those who say Christianity is “the opiate of the masses.” There will be no denying that Jesus Christ is Lord; that He has all authority, is super-exalted, has the highest name.

The Church

The church is the gathering of those who bow to Jesus now; who confess, now, that Jesus is Lord. We gather to bow and to agree that Jesus is Lord. The Father gave Jesus the only name by which we can be saved, if we’ll confess it. Have you bowed and agreed that Jesus is Lord? If so, join us.

To hear about the Carmen Christi, click on the YouTube link above.

Covenant Reformed Baptist Church is Caswell County’s/Danville’s Reformed church.