The Greatest Example - Philippians 2:5-11

2:5-6 - The way that we are supposed to treat each other doesn’t come naturally to most people, it isn’t part of our human nature. That’s why it’s good to have examples to follow, and Paul notes that we have the ultimate example in “Christ Jesus.” He then makes a really interesting statement, saying, “Who, being in the form of God, though it not robbery to be equal with God.” The article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com says, “Paul uses curious language to describe the divinity of Jesus Christ… Why would Paul use such language? Is he afraid to say that Jesus of Nazareth and Jehovah, the God of Abraham, are indeed the same individual? From our perspective, equating Jesus with God is not difficult. However, in Paul’s day, such a belief was blasphemy. Indeed, the ancient Jews did think it was robbery, even highway robbery, for Jesus to make himself equal with God. The orthodoxy of the day made no room for God taking upon himself the form of a man.” The article also points out that the writing of Zenoch, Neum, and Zenos contained this doctrine, but they only survived with Lehi’s family and that Satan had people destroy those writings in the ancient world, “and so the divinity of Jesus was a great stumbling block.” Jesus understood the plan of salvation on a level that completely escaped the religious scholars of the day. And what’s interesting is that he wasn’t born with that knowledge, he acquired it gradually. Think about it, he gained and understood knowledge that was completely antithetical to the mainstream beliefs of the day. He gained that knowledge through the Holy Ghost teaching him when he became ready, which was facilitated by His righteousness. This begs the question, what can we learn? What can come to us? Interestingly, I was listening to the most recent general conference on my way to work this morning and in the talk “Eyes to See” Michelle D. Craig said, “you too can pray for the lord to open your eyes to see things you would not normally seen.” She goes on to say that some of the most important knowledge that we can gain is to know who God truly is and who we are to Him. I had this insight come to me suddenly several years ago and it changed my life. It’s when we have this knowledge that our lives can take on new meaning. Another aspect of this knowledge is once we know how God truly feels about us, we know that this is how he truly feels about everyone else. 2:7-11 - If we consider Jesus as the God of the Old Testament, we can understand how he might have been inauspicious as a child, but as an adult surely, he would have claimed his rightful place as king of the universe. But that’s not what he did. Paul says that he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.” Jesus had all the right and ability to command all men to fall down and worship him, he could have done that and not bee wrong about it, but that wasn’t the Father’s plan for him and so “he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” He didn’t have to die, he didn’t deserve it, the only person to ever be on the planet that didn’t. I mean if we think about it, he could have commanded every nation on earth and demanded that they be obedient to him, he could have brought peace to the whole world, and I could even understand him asking Heavenly Father to be able to do that because the immense suffering that he saw everywhere would have probably been overwhelming for him. But when the answer was no, he accepted that and moved on to be obedient. It was this obedience that set him apart from the rest of us, and not just mortal obedience, but eternal obedience. Because of this obedience, “God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name.” This is back when the belief was that a name had so much power that if it was spoken God would be angered. This points out that the power that came with the name of Jesus didn’t come from the people of Jesus himself, but from God. The article points out that God gave Jesus his power by reminding us of the council in heaven, contrasting Satan’s desire for all the power and glory and Jesus desire for it to be all God’s. It says, “we often teach that Lucifer wanted the power and glory, while Jehovah gave the glory to the Father. What we sometimes fail to realize is that the Father had no intention of gobbling up all the glory. He never intended to be the only focus of worship. He had no agenda to take all the credit. Rather, He would exalt the Son for his humility and obedience.” This was always an interesting point to me because as much as we talk about God and Heavenly Father, Jesus is almost always the main focus. It’s the power God gives the name of Jesus that will one day have “every knee should bow… and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” It will kind of be a full circle moment at that time, because while Jesus could have come down here and made all of us be nice to each other and demanded peace and righteousness, that wasn’t the plan. So he just became a good, hardworking man, and because he was obedient in performing the atonement, when it is time, all people will be forced to recognize that Jesus Christ is the Savior, Messiah, and the king of the world. And not be forced to by Jesus himself, but be forced to by the overwhelming spiritual knowledge of what is and what isn’t true. The article quotes Robert D. Hales as teaching, “Every person in the world at some point in his eternal progression is one day going to have to come to the moment of truth when he must answer the question, ‘what think ye of Christ?’ Think of that. At one point in our eternal progression, each of us is going to have to answer the question, Who is Jesus Christ?... “When all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God.’”