Humility of Christ

(Philippians 2:5-8)

In the last post, I looked at the fact that we need to be humble if we are to follow Christ. It is by humility that we come into the presence of God. The arrogant, proud and conceited will be excluded for those were the attitudes of Satan before he was kicked out of heaven.

In these verses today we see just how humble Jesus was when He first came to the earth. It was in His humility that we received the opportunity to be reconciled to God and to be able to stand in His presence.

There is also an interesting insight into the concept of the trinity found in these scriptures that we will examine today too.

Equality with God

Jesus is the Word who is the Son of God and is God who came to earth as the Christ to save mankind from sin and death. We see the power that Jesus had and still has in the first words of the gospel of John.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. (John 1:1-3)

To put this into perspective, God the Father was the architect of the Creation, and the Word, who is Jesus, was the builder. As these words show, everything that happened in the Creation was done through Christ Jesus. I am pretty sure that in Genesis when the words were uttered to bring the Creation into existence, (e.g. “Let there be light” and so on), it was Jesus Christ as the Word who uttered the words.

This is the power that resided in Jesus Christ before He came to the earth.

But even with all of this power and glory, Jesus did NOT consider Himself the equal of His Father God. The scripture today makes this abundantly clear.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was 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 born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Jesus did not even consider equality with His Father to be within His grasp, despite the power and glory He had.

Unlike the devil he thought that he was the equal of the Father and because he was proud and arrogant, he was removed from heaven. He stood against the Father trying to usurp His power and take over but was fought and defeated and removed from his place in heaven.

It was because Jesus was humble and obedient to the will of His Father that He received even greater power, glory, and authority. Note these words:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. (Matthew 28:18)

It was after Jesus had died and been resurrected that He uttered these words. It was because He was humble and obedient to the Father that the Father honoured Jesus by giving all power and authority to Him, restoring His former glory and adding to it when He took His seat at the right hand of the Father.

We need to understand that as Jesus was accepted and received all the Father had for Him because He was humble and obedient to the word of God, so too we must be humble and obey the words of Jesus Christ to come into the kingdom of God.

This is the lesson we can and must take from the example Jesus gave us in these words of Paul to the Philippians.

Trinity troubles

So now let us look at these words in the light of the doctrine of the trinity.

We see that Jesus in His humility did not consider equality with God the Father a thing to be grasped. He humbled Himself under the mighty hand of the Father, even submitting to death in His obedience so that we could have a chance at life.

However, the doctrine of trinity says that both Christ as the Son of God, and the Father are two faces of the one God. Trinity doctrine says that God is “One God in three persons,” or that there are “three faces of the one God.” Those three being the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So if they are all the same, how can Jesus consider that equality with the Father was not a thing that He felt He could even hope to grasp? Surely if they are the same God with three faces, they are all equal. In fact this is a commonly held belief about the trinity.

The traditional statement of the doctrine of the Trinity is this: There are three persons within the Godhead; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three persons have equal status and are equally divine. (Religions – Christianity: The Trinity – BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk › religion › religions › christianity › beliefs › trinity_1)

Clearly the tradition view of the equality of all three persons in the trinity does not stand up to the scrutiny of the scriptures. This scripture today clearly shows that Jesus as the Son of God did not consider Himself even remotely equal to the Father.

And this is not the only place where we see this inequality between the Father and the Son. Consider these words.

“For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection under him,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one. (1 Corinthians 15:27-28)

Again we see that God the Father is the greater and much greater than the Son who will be and is subject to Him. Again, the doctrine of equality in the trinity teachings fails.

Another point worth noting is that nowhere in the New Testament, or the Old Testament for that matter, is the Holy Spirit ever called “God.” In fact, reading the first chapter of Hebrews in conjunction with Acts chapter 2 would indicate that the Holy Spirit is an angel.

There are many other scriptures that show the failure of the trinity doctrine, but my aim here is not to go into those as it is too big a topic.

The key takeaways from these scriptures are the need for humility, following the example of Jesus and that we need to seriously question the doctrine of the trinity. Trinity doctrine fails in so many points in scripture that it has to be a false doctrine, and when we realise it did not exist in the church prior to about 300 AD but was an introduced doctrine, it must be viewed with suspicion.

You might also like:

Who Is The Greatest In The Kingdom Of Heaven
Things That Make For Peace
Show Yourself To The World
Trinity Troubles
Jesus Washing The Disciples Feet
The Humble Leader
Humility
Problems With Trinity
My God Reigns
Proclaim Christ First
One God