Philippians 2:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

As high as He was, so greatly did He humble Himself. Since He is greater than all, and no one is equal to Him, He surpassed all in honoring the Father.

He did this not under compulsion or constraint. This is an act of His excellence, though I hardly know how to express it.

O, even to become a servant is great and most ineffable. To undergo death is much greater still.

But there is yet another thing greater and more wondrous. What is it? Not every death was like His death, for His death was considered the most reproachful of all, the most shameful, and accursed.

“For it is written, ‘Cursed before God is everyone who hangs on a tree’” (Deut 21:23). This is why the Jews tried to put Him to death by such a death.

They meant thereby to make Him despised, so that if mere death deterred no one from Him, the very kind of death would turn everyone away.

This is why two thieves were crucified with Him, so that He might share their dishonor, and so that what was spoken might be fulfilled: “He was numbered with the transgressors” (Is 53:12).

But the truth shines forth all the more and becomes more brilliant. When so many plots were made by His enemies against His glory, it nevertheless shines, and its radiance appears far more greatly.

They thought not by simple killing, but by killing of precisely this kind, to make Him loathsome and to show Him more loathsome than all. Yet they succeeded in nothing.

Even both thieves were so impious that one of them was converted only afterward, while they were on the cross they reviled Him.

Neither awareness of their own crimes, nor punishment, nor the fact that they themselves were suffering the same thing restrained their frenzy.

One of them even said this to the other, stopping his mouth with the words: “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same condemnation?” (Lk 23:40).

Such was their impiety. Yet this did not harm His glory in the least. Therefore the Apostle says: “Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name.”

When blessed Paul touched on the flesh, he then speaks fearlessly of everything lowly. But as long as he had not said that He took the form of a servant, and spoke only of the Godhead, see how loftily he spoke.

I say “loftily” according to his power. He does not express His dignity, because he cannot. “Who, being in the form of God,” he says, “did not consider equality with God a thing to be seized.”

But when he said that He became man, he then speaks fearlessly of abasement. He knew with certainty that lowly expressions do not lower the Godhead at all, since they refer to His flesh.

He who is free by nature becomes, for our sake, in our nature. He who is above every creature comes even to death, though He gives life to all.

He is the bread of life, who will give His life for the life of the world (Jn 6:51). He who is above the law, and as God is the Lawgiver, came under the law together with us.

He who is above birth, in His birth and in His beginning, accepts an allotted portion. He who is before all ages and time is, moreover, the maker and creator of the ages.

If the Son, “being in the form of God” and in equality, as Paul says (Phil 2:6), has God and the Father as His God by nature, then the divine nature may fall under such definitions.

The Father too will have a God, if this has not already happened. For what can happen, even if it has not yet been accomplished, exists potentially as that whose possibility is admitted.

But if this is blasphemous, then the Father is not called the God of the Son by nature, but because the Son became man according to the divine economy.

If the Son, “being in the form of God” and in equality, as it is written, “humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, and was found in appearance as a man” (Phil 2:7), then the humble words fitting a servant do not refer to His essence.

Rather, they clothe the person of His becoming man. As from the height of the Godhead we know His humility in the humanity He assumed, so also the reverse is true.

From His humility in humanity we shall know the majesty rooted in the Godhead and the height of the Son’s essence.

He is their head in the gaining of the Kingdom of Heaven. He gave life, saved, freed, redeemed, and enlightened those who had previously been in the death of sin.

They had been in inactivity, slavery, captivity, and darkness, under the power of the devil, the prince of sin.

According to the Apostle’s word, precisely He who was “being in the form of God” took upon Himself “the form of a servant.” That is, He assumed human nature into the unity of His person.

He Himself emptied Himself, “being made in the likeness of men,” and He Himself “was found in appearance as a man.”

In order truly to serve as a propitiatory sacrifice to God for the sins of humanity, and to deliver us from all the destructive consequences of sin, Christ the Savior deigned to fulfill two conditions for us and to bear a twofold cross.

Since men, in the persons of their forefathers, did not fulfill the will of God and did not obey the commandment of their Creator, they fell through self-will and pride.

Since each of their later sins was a new transgression of God’s will, a new disobedience, and a new expression of self-will, Christ the God-man deigned to make satisfaction for all these human sins before eternal Righteousness.

In their place, He Himself fulfilled for men the will of God in all its wholeness and breadth. He revealed in Himself the most perfect example of obedience to it.

For our sake He humbled and abased Himself to the last degree. “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire,” He said to His Father when entering the world, “but a body hast Thou prepared for Me.

In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hadst no pleasure. Then I said: Behold, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of Me, to do Thy will, O God” (Heb 10:5-7).

And immediately after this, He, “being in the form of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be seized, 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” (Phil 2:6-8). This is the first cross borne for us by our Savior.

It is the cross of His voluntary self-denial for our sake, of His deepest humility, and of His unconditional obedience and submission to the will of God.

He did not oppose anything that came upon Him, but submitted to everything as it came. As God He ruled all things, and He could have directed the course of His life Himself.

But He renounced His own authority, humbly accepted all that happened, and submitted to it.

Only once, by the word “I am,” and twice again by becoming invisible when they wanted to stone Him, did He seem to stand across the path of approaching malice.

But this was only for a moment, and even then to show that He delivered Himself into its hands voluntarily.

So it was ordained in the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. The Lord Himself called this submission to the will of His heavenly Father.

“He became obedient unto death, even death on a Cross.” He did not resist even when death approached, and such an abased death at that.

To be subject even to an ordinary death would have been humiliation. But to submit to such a death was the final limit of humiliation.

Death approached by the ordinary interweaving of human designs and human wills. He saw it from afar and in every detail, yet He resisted nothing.

He voluntarily accepted the death devised by envy and unrighteousness.

In all this He was obedient not to human malice, but to the decrees of God worshiped in Trinity, expressed by the will of the heavenly Father.

There, in the mystery of the Godhead, it was ordained that the Lord should submit to such a course of life and to such an end of it.

The course itself proceeded according to the general laws of divine providence, which at times determines, at times consents, and at times permits.

Chrysostom says on this passage: “Behold, they say, He was obedient. Therefore He is not equal to Him whom He obeys. O senseless and irrational men! This does not make Him lesser in the least. We often obey our friends, yet this does not make us lesser. He, as Son, voluntarily submitting to the Father, did not fall into the condition of a servant. By this very great honor toward the Father, He especially preserved the honor of kinship with Him. The Son honored the Father not so that you might dishonor Him, but so that you might honor Him still more. From this learn that He is the true Son, since He honored the Father more than all. No one has honored God in this way. As high as He was, so deeply did He humble Himself. Since He is greater than all, and no one is equal to Him, He surpassed all also in honor toward the Father, not by compulsion or necessity. This is the work of His virtue, or I do not know how to express it. Ah, even to become a servant is a great and most ineffable thing. To undergo death is much greater. But there is something else still greater and more marvelous than this. What is it? Not every death was like His death. Such a death was considered the most shameful of all and accursed. For it is said, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ (cf. Deut 21:23). For this reason the Jews strove to kill Him by such a death, and thereby make Him contemptible. If death alone did not turn anyone away from Him, this kind of death was meant to turn everyone away. For this reason two thieves were crucified with Him, so that He might share their dishonor, and so that what was said might be fulfilled: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors’ (Is 53:12). But truth becomes all the more brilliant by the very things through which it shines more brightly. When so many plots were made against His glory, and yet it shines, His honor appears much greater. Not by mere killing, but by killing of precisely this sort, they thought to make Him repulsive and present Him as more repulsive than all. But they succeeded in nothing. This did not harm His glory in the least.”

For whenever there is true humility, all the virtues are also present. Humility appears in perfection when the other virtues have already blossomed in the heart and come to maturity. It is their crown and covering.

This is the mystery of spiritual life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The higher a man is, the humbler he becomes. He sees more clearly and tangibly that it is not he who labors in progress, but “the grace that is in him.”

This is “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” For the chief thing in Christ Jesus is that “He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death.”