Philippians 2:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Nothing so encourages a great and philosophic soul toward good deeds as the awareness that through them it becomes like God. What could equal this as an exhortation? Nothing.

Knowing this, Paul first entreated and implored the Philippians when persuading them to humble-mindedness. Then he spoke with force: “You stand in one spirit” (Phil 1:27).

He also said, “This is for them a sign of perdition, but for you of salvation” (Phil 1:28). Finally he added: “For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

What poverty is greater than for God to be in the form of a servant? What humility is greater than for the King of beings to enter into communion with our poor nature?

The King of kings and Lord of lords willingly clothes Himself in the form of a servant. The Judge of the universe becomes subject to tribute under those who rule. The Lord of creation dwells in a cave.

He who contains all things finds no place in the inn, but is laid in a manger of irrational beasts. The Pure and Whole One takes upon Himself the defilement of human nature.

Having borne all our poverty, He even comes to the trial of death. Do you see the measure of voluntary poverty?

Life tastes death. The Judge is led to the tribunal. The Lord of the life of all that exists is subjected to the judgment of a judge. The King of all the power above the world does not turn away the hands of the executioners.

In this example, says the Apostle, let the measure of humble-mindedness be seen by you.

“For,” he says, “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be seized, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:5-6).

What is more lowly for God than the form of a servant? What is more lowly for the King of the universe than willingly to descend to participation in our poor nature?

The King of kings and Lord of lords clothes Himself in the form of a servant. The Judge of all is subjected to authorities. The Lord of creation finds shelter in a cave.

He who holds all things in His hand finds no place in the inn, but is laid in the manger of irrational creatures. The Pure and Uncorrupted One does not reject the impurity of human nature.

Having passed through all our poverty, He comes to the tasting of death itself. Consider the measure of voluntary poverty.

Life tastes death. The Judge is led to the tribunal. The Lord of all the living is subjected to the sentence of a judge. The King of all power above the world does not withdraw from the hands of servants.

In this, he says, let the measure of your humility behold its example.

When we were in such bitter captivity and were held by invisible and bitter death, the Master of all visible and invisible creation was not ashamed. He humbled Himself.

He assumed man, condemned by the passions of dishonor, by the prohibition, and by the Master’s sentence upon him. He became like us in all things except sin, that is, except the passions of dishonor.

What came upon man as punishment for the sin of transgression by the Master’s sentence, namely death, labors, hunger, thirst, and all such things, He assumed.

He became what we are, that we might become what He is. “The Word became flesh, that flesh might become Word. Being rich, He became poor for our sake, that through His poverty we might become rich.”

Through His great love for mankind He became like us, so that through every virtue we might become like Him.

For since Christ came, the truly new man is renewed according to the image and likeness by the grace and power of the Spirit. He reaches the measure of perfect love, which casts out fear and is no longer subject to falling.

“For love never fails” (1 Cor 13:8), because “God,” says John, “is love, and he who abides in love abides in God” (1 Jn 4:16).

The Apostles were counted worthy of this measure. So were those trained in virtue like them, who presented themselves perfect to the Lord and followed Christ with perfect desire throughout their whole life.

Therefore, if you always contemplate without forgetting such humility, which the Lord assumed in His ineffable love for mankind and out of love for us, consider the indwelling of God the Word in the womb.

Consider His assumption of man, His birth from a Woman, the stages of bodily growth, dishonor, vexations, reproaches, mockeries, insults, beatings, spitting, derision, abuse, the scarlet cloak, and the crown of thorns.

Consider the sentence passed upon Him by the rulers, and the cries against Him by the lawless Jews, His own kinsmen: “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him” (Jn 19:15).

Consider the Cross, the nails, the spear, the drink of vinegar and gall, the triumphing of the Gentiles, and the mockery of those who passed by and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, come down from the Cross... and we will believe in You” (Mt 27:40).

Consider the other sufferings which He endured for our sake: crucifixion, death, the three-day burial in the tomb, and the descent into Hades.

Then consider the fruits of the sufferings, what they are and how great they are: the resurrection from the dead, the captivity of Hades and death, and the souls that came forth from there with the Lord.

Consider the ascension into heaven, the sitting at the right hand of the Father “above every Principality and Power... and every name that is named” (Eph 1:21).

Consider the honor and glory, and the worship of all the Angels before the Firstborn from the dead, because of His sufferings, according to the apostolic word.

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a Cross. Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth,” and so forth (Phil 2:5-10).

Do you see the consequences of the sufferings spoken of above, according to the righteousness of God? Do you see to what glory and height they raised the Lord’s humanity?

Therefore, if He was not equal to the Father, and if He did what He did only because He was obedient to the command of One greater, then the example is superfluous.

But if He is equal, as indeed He is, then what is said is perfectly fitting and refers directly to humble-mindedness.

If He had considered equality an unexpected acquisition for Himself, He would not have humbled Himself. Otherwise abasement would have become blameworthy and would have touched His dignity.

But since He was equal by nature, and noble birth belonged to Him by essence, and was not granted by favor, He did not refuse to humble Himself.

For a servant, even one who has received freedom and been deemed worthy of adoption, regards this dignity as something seized or unexpectedly found. He will not agree to perform the work of a servant.

But a true son, whose nobility and dignity are innate, will not refuse to do anything of this kind, since there can be no room for suspicion at all.

In the first case, his former slavery produces suspicion of lowliness. In the other, innate nobility does not even permit suspicion to arise.

The first can lose his adoption. The other will never lose his innate nobility and dignity.

For since the days of His Resurrection and Ascension, thousands of witnesses have seen how the heavenly powers obediently fulfilled His commands.

They have also seen how the powers of Hades, by His name, were cast down into the abyss. Millions born on earth find their blessedness in worshiping His name.

After this, and before men gathered precisely to bow before the name of Jesus, we may spare ourselves the labor of defending and justifying His abasement.

Nothing prevents us from beholding His abasement with the same reverence as His majesty.

Oh, how the Son of God humbled Himself in His Incarnation! This abasement should strike us all the more because it stands in a kind of opposite correspondence to man's original exaltation.

For the word of God does not use the same expression without purpose when depicting these opposites: image and likeness.

"Let Us make man," said God the Creator, "according to Our image and according to Our likeness" (Gen 1:26).

And the Apostle says of the Incarnation of the Son of God: "Taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man" (Phil 2:7).

Some earthly lord does not need to humble himself much in order to appear in the form of a servant.

But when the great and most high Lord, who grants even to His servants a lordly image, Himself appears in the form and likeness of a servant, the matter is different.

He appears in a state of complete servitude and in the deep humiliation proper to servitude. Such an extraordinary abasement of the Great One cannot be viewed without a special feeling of wonder.

That wonder extends either to compunction or to awe. In this very way the Son of God humbled Himself in His Incarnation.

But how much more did He abase Himself in the circumstances of His earthly birth! A people had to be chosen among whom He would be born.

He chose for this the least of all the nations of the earth. It had no government of its own, had been enslaved many times, and was near to a new enslavement.

Once blessed, it was already almost rejected. A city had to be chosen, and He chose Bethlehem.

It was so small that even the prophet favorable to it cannot conceal this reproach against it. He finds no other means to magnify it except by the name of the abased Jesus born there.

"And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are you too little to be among the thousands of Judah? From you shall come forth for Me the ruler who is to be Prince in Israel, whose goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity" (Mic 5:2).

A mother had to be chosen. To conceal the mystery of the Incarnation from unbelievers for a time, a supposed father had to be joined to her by the bonds of law, though not of flesh.

And behold, those chosen are royal descendants, so that promises and prophecies might be fulfilled. Yet one is a carpenter, and the other a poor orphaned virgin.

And what more? If the Lord had been born in Joseph's small dwelling, whether his own or rented, and Mary had laid Him in a poor cradle, the form of a servant assumed by Him might not have had every possible feature.

For there could have been a servant's dwelling smaller than Joseph's, and a cradle poorer than Mary's.

What, then, does the infinitely Great One devise, seeking infinite abasement? By the hidden springs of Providence, the spirit of Augustus is moved.

By the spirit of Augustus the whole world is moved, that is, the whole Roman Empire, or at least all Judea.

Through the general movement of the people occasioned by the census, Joseph could neither remain in his own dwelling in Nazareth nor find a rented one in Bethlehem.

This happened when the time came for the true Lord of the universe to be born. Thus He who humbled Himself even to infancy abased Himself even to a manger instead of a cradle.

"She laid Him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn" (Lk 2:7).

If from the God who humbles Himself we extend our gaze further through the world in which, and for which, He humbles Himself, the wonder of abasement will show us new and striking forms.

Here there comes to my mind the image of the descent of the Word of God from heaven to the land of Egypt, drawn by the writer of the book of Wisdom.

"When quiet silence held all things, and night was in the midst of her course, Thy all-powerful Word, O Lord, leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, a stern warrior into the midst of the doomed land" (Wis 18:14-15).

And in the descent of the incarnate Word of God into the land of Israel, was not night likewise in the midst of its course?

For at the very moments of His birth, "there were shepherds in the same country, keeping watch and guarding their flock by night" (Lk 2:8).

Did not quiet silence hold all things on earth, when only one angelic voice was heard, and heard by only a few shepherds in the wilderness?

Terrible was the obscurity in which the punishing Word of God descended upon the doomed land of Egypt, to "fill all things with death" (Wis 18:16) through the striking of Egypt's firstborn.

Yet that obscurity did not diminish the glory of God the Avenger. Rather, it magnified it.

Without visible means or tangible actions, by one unheard command, or, one may say, by a single silence of the Word who speaks life to all, He accomplished the punishment of the impious.

Different, yet no less terrible, is the obscurity in which the saving Word of God comes, being born in the flesh, to visit the whole earth.

The earth is doomed because all born on earth have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

He comes not as a stern warrior threatening every living thing with death, but as a newborn Infant bringing hope of regeneration and life into the whole realm of death.

He comes, yet the doomed earth does not meet Him, embrace Him, or glorify Him. It does not even see its Savior or hear the Word of God, silent in the manger.

Almost in vain does the glory that Jesus Christ had with God the Father before the world was (Jn 17:5) pursue Him, as He descends into the world, in the mouths of angels.

It reaches after Him even to the earth. Yet on the doomed earth there are almost no ears, not deafened by vanity, capable of hearing it.

Almost in vain does the wisest and most renowned of the stars complete its extraordinary journey, to point out the Sun of righteousness shining through deep night.

Scarcely two or three men are found capable of understanding this sign and ready to follow it. Even these are among those sitting in the darkness and shadow of death of paganism and star-worship.

And Judea, where God is known (Ps 75:2)? She does not know that God was manifested in the flesh (1 Tim 3:16).

And Jerusalem, the city of God (Ps 86:3)? She is not in joy with Christ, who came to save, but in turmoil with Herod, who seeks to destroy.

And the chief priests and scribes, who should have been especially near to God and His mysteries through prayer and understanding of the law?

They answer the learned question beautifully: "Where is the Christ to be born?" (Mt 2:4). They are so satisfied that they find no need to take further care and learn whether He is actually being born.

Thus not only at midnight of natural time, but in an equally deep night of men's ignorance and forgetfulness of Thee and Thy judgments, Thy all-powerful Word, O Lord, descended from heaven.

From the royal thrones He descended into the midst of the doomed earth. And although almost no one glorifies Him, no one knows Him, and no one seeks to know Him, He does not utter a punishing command.

Rather, He keeps silence in saving long-suffering for those who are perishing.

Thus He not only humbled Himself, being in the form of God, equal to God, and being God. He also received a new form of abasement from the ignorance and negligence of those for whose love He humbled Himself.

Let us marvel, Christians, at the voluntary abasement for us of our great God and Savior. Yet this is still little. Let us reverence His abasement, yet even this is not enough.

"Let this mind be in you," the Apostle teaches us, "which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil 2:5).

Have the same dispositions that Jesus Christ had. Order yourselves as He was ordered. What does this mean?

The Apostle himself explains it by what he joined before the saying cited: "Do nothing through rivalry or vainglory, but in humility of mind let each esteem the other better than himself" (Phil 2:3).

From this it is clear that, according to the example of Jesus Christ, he teaches us not to think highly of ourselves or be exalted by any advantages.

Rather, we must humble ourselves both within ourselves and before others.

Let the man who has servants remember Him who took the form of a servant. Let him not diminish by contempt those whose lot is low.

Having been raised above them by God, let him not exalt himself by pride.

Let the man who lives in a splendid house, rests on down, and dresses in silk remember the cave and the manger, and the rough swaddling bands corresponding to them.

Let him not despise those who live in huts, sleep on straw, and dress in rags. Perhaps they are more like Christ than he is, not only outwardly, but also inwardly.

"Let the rich man boast," the Apostle James teaches, "in his humiliation" (Jas 1:10).

And the man who, in the Apostle's expression, rests on the law, boasts in God, knows His will, and approves what is excellent, being instructed from the law (Rom 2:17-18), must also take heed.

Ah, even he who boasts, let him boast in the Lord (1 Cor 1:31). Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12).

Above all, let him not condemn the ignorant or mock those who fall. Christ is "the light that enlightens every man coming into the world" (Jn 1:9).

Perhaps the one whom you see sitting in darkness and the shadow of death will soon be illumined by this light more brightly than you are.

Perhaps he is already being illumined inwardly, in the realm of the spirit. Perhaps the Magi of the pagan East seek Christ more zealously than you, and will precede you in finding Him.

Perhaps tax collectors and harlots go before you into the Kingdom of God (Mt 21:31).

Meekness, simplicity, humility, condescension toward those below us, which makes itself equal to the least of them, tranquility in humiliation, and patience unconquered by any insults: let this mind be in you, as it was also in Christ Jesus. Amen.

For nothing so encourages a great and philosophic soul to good works as the knowledge that through this it becomes like God. What can equal this as a motive? Nothing. Knowing this, Paul, when persuading the Philippians to humility of mind, first asked and entreated them, then persuaded them, and finally added: ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus’” (Chrysostom).

This example, through the word “for,” is joined directly to what immediately precedes: that one must look not only to one’s own things, but also to the things of one’s friends.

From it one sees that whenever the good of one’s neighbor requires active help, one must not withdraw from it, however humiliating it may seem.

The Apostle speaks as if to say: you must, and it is your unavoidable duty, to imitate our Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord, being God by nature, was pleased to humble Himself to the acceptance of the form of a servant, when this was necessary for man’s salvation.

And not only this. He humbled Himself even to the death of the Cross, to the final limit of self-abasement, below which it is no longer possible to descend.

Enter into the motivating power of this example, and you will never look only to your own things, and not also to the things of your friends.

You will never exalt yourselves over others. On the contrary, in humility of mind you will count one another better than yourselves.

You will especially be filled with self-denying love for one another, separating yourselves from the brethren in nothing, but living with all in one soul and one mind.

Thus all the virtues indicated before shine in this example, and all the vices mentioned are condemned. Yet beneficent humility of mind shines especially.

It would have been enough to point to this example with the brief word: “Let this mind be in you.”

But Saint Paul’s mind was always immersed in contemplation of the great and unsearchable divine economy of our salvation. He could not touch this mystery without his speech flowing in an irresistible stream.

Therefore he did not miss the opportunity here to outline, briefly yet comprehensively and from every side, the whole work of the Lord for our salvation.

He brings the Son of God down from above the heavens, clothes Him in the man Jesus, lowers Him to death on the Cross, and again raises Him above all things, so that every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

The dogma of the Incarnation and redemption, and of the person of Jesus Christ as the God-man, is depicted here with such precision that this passage alone strikes down all heretics who erred in this matter.

Chrysostom, beginning his homily on this passage, is moved and says to his hearers: “Attend, I ask you, and rise up. As a sharp two-edged sword, wherever it is directed, even against countless troops, easily cuts them down and destroys them, because it is sharp on every side and nothing can withstand its edge, so too are these sayings of the Holy Spirit. By these sayings He overthrew the followers of Arius of Alexandria, Paul of Samosata, Marcellus of Galatia, Sabellius of Libya, Marcion of Pontus, Valentinus, Mani, Apollinaris of Laodicea, Photinus, Sophronius, and in general all heresies. Therefore, if you wish to see such a spectacle, and so many armies falling by one blow, rise up. Then you will not be deprived of the pleasure of this spectacle, the pleasure we have when, by the grace of God, we refute at once and in one stroke all heretical opinions and diabolical structures with their rulers.”