Archived Daily Manna | Rejoice Fellowship | A mission to release people to rejoice in the world.

Message: I don’t often use The Message for Bible study (although I like to read it), but the meaning of Philippians 2 evades millions of devout Christians when read in more traditional translation, and we can see the difficulty of the NASB translation, above. Jesus of Nazareth was God, before, during, and after His life on earth. But when He was human, He surrendered attributes of His deity. He became human. Hebrews 2 explains it a bit: “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone (Heb. 2:8).” Jesus washing feet Jesus, while human, was subordinate to the Father. The relationship of Father to Son permeates all four Gospels. He prayed to the Father, constantly. He “grew in wisdom” as He aged (Luke 2:52). These are not things God normally does! Jesus got hungry, He slept, He was tempted to sin, and He wept real tears when Lazarus died. I have repeatedly heard “Jesus knew everything; He was God.” I bite my tongue when I hear it, but this can come only from a “teacher” whose personal preconceptions outweigh the plain meaning of the Bible. The man Jesus, unlike the Father (and the pre-incarnate Christ), was not omniscient, something He stated outright (e.g. Mark 13:32; John 8:28-29).Jesus did display Godly knowledge and power over death and the world while He was human; but these were specific gifts to Him from the Father, not characteristics He retained while human. The power of the cross can be fully grasped only when one understands that Christ died, not in perfect knowledge of His resurrection, but in perfect faith of His resurrection. Jesus was afraid to die. He sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane and even asked the Father to “lift this cup from Him” — that is, that God not require the horrible torture and death awaiting Him over the next day. But the Father told Him, in prayer, that it was necessary, and the Son obeyed. (More on this in the next verse.) Jesus rides a donkey The verse from Hebrews 11 gives us another view. God cannot die; He is eternal. Jesus, then, made Himself lower than the angels — he “emptied” Himself of invulnerability — so that He might die. God wanted us to know that He had suffered just as we suffer. He does not simply know our suffering; He has participated in it. Jesus felt the full measure of fear and pain. He divested Himself of aspects of His divinity and became human for that reason: That He might show how much He loves us, by suffering just as we do, even though His Son was without sin. Imagine, if you will, a perfect tightrope walker. One day, he blindfolds himself to walk a tightrope across Niagara falls. He voluntarily gives up his vision to demonstrate his perfect balance. The analogy is not perfect, but in somewhat the same way, God voluntarily gave up His perfect knowledge in the person of Jesus, in order to demonstrate perfect faith. When we see a human Jesus, “emptied” of certain divine aspects, we see a man with perfect faith. Hebrews 12 calls Him the “author and perfecter of faith.” God does not need faith. Faith is the assurance of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). God sees everything; His perfect knowledge precludes the need for it. It is human beings who need faith. So we see in Jesus a man without sin coupled with perfect faith. And we see our own sin coupled with the weakness of our faith, by comparison — but know that we can rely upon His perfect faith and sacrifice for redemption. Imagine our tightrope walker carrying us across Niagara Falls on his shoulders. By the power of His victory over death, we are sure he can do it, just as we are sure that we cannot. endless knot