Philippians 2: Paul’s Advent Hymn

Every year during advent, we try and find something to write about related to some of the bigger things either that we have been pondering or that we repeatedly encountered over the past year. This year, we want to take a moment to look at one passage in particular that is quite likely the most quoted passage in Scripture since we started the Misfits in 4 years ago, Philippians 2:3-4.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

This passage carries a lot of weight as we work within both a national and church culture that is consistently focused on hierarchies, wealth, and violence. We have found that this call from Paul to be defined by humility, submission, and empathy may be one of the most counter cultural passages in Scripture for the modern western world. But the follow-up to these verses are possibly even more important, especially in this season of Christocentric reflection, because verses 5-11 show us that this is not just something Paul thinks is a good idea, but something modeled for us by Jesus Himself. And so Paul gives us a hymn, an advent hymn. 

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death- even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow- in heaven and on earth and under the earth- and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Incarnation

This is where the inevitable annual question arises. How exactly is this advent related? Much like what we see with John 1, it’s more obvious than we realize, because this is another telling of the incarnation. Just like in all the other incarnation stories, we again are seeing another example of Jesus becoming flesh, voluntarily and purposefully. The focus for Paul though here, is specifically the attitude that Jesus takes, because it is ultimately the attitude that we are called to take as well. 

The word we see Paul use here for Attitude is φρονέω (phroneó). Unlike the typical way we think of attitudes in our modern context, this word is about a mindset & lifestyle, in the same manner that Paul talks about in Romans 12 to describe the renewing of our minds towards the will of Christ. And so Paul is asking us to live our lives modeling the incarnate lifestyle.

Emptiness v Exploitation

So how do we do that? Paul chose 2 specific actions to use here, Emptying and Exploiting. These words are very clear antonyms in this context. The act of emptying Himself is an act of submission, an image of draining out His power and glory, in order to take in submission & humiliation. This is what we are called to as well. This is not an easy task by any means, but it’s definitely one that is easy to understand in terms of the incarnation. This other word though is the one that is a little bit tougher. 

One of the reason this second word needs a bit of explanation is that it’s one that has multiple different translations. ἁρπαγμός (harpagmos) is translated a few different ways depending on the translation, like Robbery, grasping, seizing, exploiting, and spoiling. These are all similar but carry different weights. The word I prefer here is the word exploit, because I think it helps us understand the significance of this hymn more clearly. 

It’s important to recognize exactly what it is that Jesus is both emptying of and not wanting to exploit. Being the most powerful being in all of existence. Think about this for a second. We understand the significance of Jesus emptying himself to an extent. But as we talked about last year, we don’t fully understand. We make Jesus either a demigod like Heracles or Maui. One that is either just a lesser version of God or a better evolution of man. But Paul sees this differently. Paul sees this as God Himself being willing to drain His glory and power out, in order that He might not exploit the fact that He is God. He went out of His way to rid Himself of the temptation to take the easy way out. To gain the Kingdoms of man through force and seizure of thrones, to bring about worship through force and self-prospering, to declare Himself King rather than be elevated by the Father. 

In the midst of a culture that is constantly doing battle with Culture Wars & Political ideologies, this advent we should take a moment to look at this advent Hymn from Paul and allow the Spirit to renew our minds to not only want to have humility become a regular part of your life, but to be willing to empty ourselves from the desires of this world to exploit the Gospel and the Culture to ease our own lives, at the expense of others. Instead, let us take on the attitude of Christ Jesus and “do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.”