Resurrection Honor
Part 3
Today’s post will be the third and final one in this series about how the Bible relates resurrection to honor and shame. In a way, I’ve been working backwards because the passages we’ll be covering today are actually what got me started down this road.
Because I’ve been teaching a Sunday School class on Philippians, I’ve been spending a lot of time on that letter. Paul’s comments about Jesus in chapter 2 and about himself and believers in chapter 3 helped me to interpret resurrection in terms of honor. And when I dug into possible background passages that may have influenced Paul, I found similar ideas expressed in Daniel 12:1-3 (which we used for the first post) and in John 5:21-31 (which we looked at last week).
So let’s get started. Here’s the text about Jesus Christ:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; 7rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death--even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:5-11
Bible scholars regard this passage as a hymn which Paul inserted here. Why did he quote it?
Doing so might be Paul’s way of telling us that it’s better to sing about the Incarnation of the Son of God than it is to talk about it!
Whatever Paul’s motivation was, we’re blessed to have such a beautiful summation of the key elements of the gospel: Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection.
Except Paul doesn’t mention the resurrection! He contrasts the cross with the Lord’s exaltation by the Father. Why leave out Christ’s resurrection from the grave? By focusing on the virtue of humility, perhaps the apostle was trying to emphasize a spiritual matter, not a physical phenomenon, like the body of Jesus being raised from the dead.
But Paul stresses the death of Christ on the cross. The Lord’s willingness to suffer crucifixion for us demonstrates unmatched humility, but this was undoubtedly a historical and physical event.
The next passage will help us clarify Paul’s intention.
Paul dedicates chapter 3 to safeguarding the Philippians from a religious undermining of their faith. Jewish Christians were promoting obedience to the Mosaic law as crucial to one’s status with God. In the opinion of these Judaizers, Christians who disregarded the law of Moses were of lesser status within God’s kingdom.
The apostle disagreed.
If anyone had a right to brag about his Jewish credentials, it was Paul. Listing all the ways he was loyal to the Torah (Philippians 3:4-6), he made quite a case for his religious qualifications. But compared to knowing Christ, all he had highly regarded he now deemed worthless (Philippians 3:7-9). Nothing was more important to him than knowing Jesus.
“I want to know Christ--yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, 11and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” - Philippians 3:10-11
Paul isn’t describing abstract knowledge. He encounters and grows in Christ by identifying himself with the death and resurrection of Jesus. What he was singing about in chapter 2, he applies to his personal and vocational experiences in chapter 3. But he does so in a manner we might miss.
Christ’s death on the cross was the ultimate form of social rejection in the Roman Empire. The government reserved crucifixion for the worst offenders and the biggest threats to the stability of its rule. As painful as dying on a cross was, it was primarily seen as a form of humiliation.
The Bible reflects this outlook.
“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” - 1 Corinthians 1:18
“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” - Hebrews 12:2
Foolishness and shame–these are how non-Christians view Christ crucified. And in a sense, they’re right. As Paul says in Philippians 2:8, Jesus “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death--even death on a cross!”
But that’s not the full picture of the gospel. The shame of the cross is real, but so is the glory of the resurrection! In chapter 2 of Philippians, Paul is so captured with Christ’s glory that he summarizes the good news as consisting of the cross of Jesus and His exaltation. In chapter 3, he applies this message to his own life and implies that it ought to characterize the lives of all believers (see Philippians 3:15-21).
Jesus was humbled by the cross, but God exalted Him through the resurrection.
Paul was humbled by abandoning his Jewish bragging rights and by suffering to spread the gospel, but he trusted that God would exalt him by resurrection.
What about us? Do we identify ourselves with the death and resurrection of Jesus? If we know His humility, we have the Father’s promise that we will participate in the honor of His resurrection.
“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” - Romans 6:8
“Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him” - 2 Timothy 2:11
We’re one with our Savior.
Praise the name of Jesus!
(Bible verses are from the NIV.)
(Image is from https://netage.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Apostle-Paul.jpg.)
