Form

“but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant”  Philippians 2:7

Form – Perhaps one of the most important passages in all of the New Testament, Philippians 2:5-9 reveals the true sense of the incarnation of Jesus.  Without this critical belief, Jesus’ life and death mean nothing.  And in the middle of it all is this very important word – morphe.

Paul is explaining the eternal impact of Jesus becoming a man.  He says that Jesus was entirely God in every respect.  Jesus was not one god among many.  He was not like God.  He is God.  Jesus did not grasp on to that essence as though he stole it.  It was His always.  Yet He voluntarily relinquished His divinity in order to accomplish the will of the Father.  He gave up being God in order to become a man, and not just a man, but also a slave.  Yes, that’s the real word here.  Slave.  Jesus went from the highest of heights to the lowest of lows for you and me.

The word morphe tells us that this was no magic trick.  If we are subject to any error in thinking today, it is not that we believe Jesus was not God.  It is much more likely that we do not fully accept that he was entirely human.  We want a Jesus who is really God wrapped in human skin, a superhero in disguise.  Then we can explain away all of his unusual abilities; the miracles, the intuitive understanding, the visions of the future.  Because we do not think these things belong in God’s human order, we don’t see how Jesus could really be human and still do these things.  We completely ignore Jesus’ comment, “And greater than these shall you do”, because the implications about who we are right now are just too devastating.

But morphe will not allow such deliberate disregard.  In combination with the words for “likeness” and “appearance” (verses 7 and 8), morphe must mean that Jesus was totally and completely human.  He was Man as God intended Man to be:  fully dependent, fully alive, fully available to the Father.  Jesus is not Superman or Batman or Spiderman.  He is the human you and me the way God wanted us to be. 

Now you know why Jesus can say, “Follow me.”  He is one of us, completely emptied of himself, completely open to God.