Main Point
The Exaltation of Christ should generate lives of hope, courage, worship, and devotion
Passage
NIV
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
NASB
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
NTE/NKT (The Christ ‘Poem’)
This is how you should think among yourselves–with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah, Jesus:
Who, though in God’s form, did not
Regard his equality with God
As something he ought to exploit.
Instead, he emptied himself,
And received the form of a slave,
Being born in the likeness of humans
And then, having human appearance,
He humbled himself, and became
Obedient even to death,
Yes, even the death of the cross.
And so God has greatly exalted him,
And to him in his favour has given
The name which is over all names:
That now at the name of Jesus
Every knee within heaven shall bow–
On earth, too, and under the earth
And every tongue shall confess
That Jesus, Messiah, is Lord
To the glory of God, the father.
Overview
Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
This passage is of fundamental importance for Christology, then as now…Here are some of the questions that arise from each verse: Does the passage imply that Christ was ever less than God (2:6a)? What sort of robbery might he have attempted (2:6b)? What did it mean that he emptied himself (2:7a)? Did he take the appearance or the actuality of a slave (2:7b)? Was he human or merely in human likeness (2:7c-d)? What is involved in his humiliation (2:8)? Who is he that has been exalted (2:9a)? What is the name that is above every name (2:9b-c)? (225-226)
Jesus is worshiped as God in the unity of his divine-human being (Guadentius)...He who rightly worshipped the Father now receives our worship (Cyril of Alexandria). Every kind of creature now reveres him. Even the angelic spirits bow metaphorically (Origen). Christ now sits as ruler as firstborn of the dead (Gregory of Nyssa). This demonstrates that Christ is God (Theodoret). The Father is glorified through the salvation of humanity (Athanasius). (242)
The New Testament in its World
Paul’s previous request for unity among his readers is to be achieved by actively cultivating certain virtues, particularly those connected with learning to think (as we might say) messianically–in other words, thinking as Jesus thought. Their union with him is the ground for such character-development, however counter-intuitive this was in greco-roman culture. And, when he wants to persuade them to imitate the Messiah’s own virtues, he offers them a short poem, perhaps the earliest statement we possess of a Christian view of Jesus.
The poem provides the foundation for the challenge to self-sacrificing unity (2:1-18) and also, in chapter 3, for self-abnegating discipleship. The poem depicts Jesus’ life in three stages: pre-existence (v. 6), incarnation (vv. 7-8), and exaltation (vv. 9-11)...The weight of the poem rests on the decision (of the one who was all along equal with God) to become human, and to travel the road of obedience to the divine saving plan, yes, all the way to the cross. The point is that that decision was not a decision to stop (in some sense) being divine. It was a decision about what it really means to be divine. His subsequent exaltation demonstrates that on the cross Jesus had done what, in Israel’s Scriptures, only God can and will do. Paul has, in effect, rethought Israel’s monotheistic tradition and discovered Jesus at its heart, not as an abstract theory but as a human of recent historical memory as well as of present spiritual experience.
The poem then works out the new patterns of thinking and living (2.12-18). (443-444)
Third, Paul focuses on humility…Humility was regarded in the ancient world as weakness, the characteristic of inferiors and slaves who had been kicked down to the bottom rungs of society. Pagans usually prized (as most people still do) ‘honour’ and fame, usually built on the backs of others. But for the Messiah and his people it is different. Paul is more than capable of giving commands. But most of all he wants his readers to absorb the story of Jesus, specifically the story of his humility, death, and exaltation, and to ‘work out’ what their ‘salvation’ is therefore going to mean in practice (3.12). He wants them, in other words, to adopt a form of moral reasoning shaped by the story of Jesus as the bedrock of their single-minded unity. (448)
Fee
The ultimate paradigm of a genuinely Christian mindset is Christ himself, who is the premier manifestation of the character of God, which God is trying to reproduce in his people so that they might also thereby be truly human
Verses 9-11
Ancient Christian Commentary
Origen: It was not the Word of God who needed or received exaltation. For the Word was in the beginning exalted with the Father. It was the Son of Man who was exalted from lowliness. This exaltation occurred when he had glorified God in his death.
Athanasius: It was the human race that needed this, because of the humiliation of its flesh and because of its consequent death. Thus the Word who is immortal and the image of the Father “has taken the form of a slave” and suffered death on the cross as a man for our sake. He did this in order that he might thus present himself as an offering to the Father. It is thus as a man that he is said to have been exalted for our sake. Hence all of us die in Christ and through his death may again be exalted in Christ himself.
Gregory of Nyssa: Being united to the Lord, human nature is lifted up to share in his divinity. What is exalted is that which has been lifted up from lowliness.
Athanasius: The glory of the Father is that the human race not only was created but was re-created when lost. It was given life once again when dead, so as to become a renewed temple of God. For the powers in heaven also, the angels and archangels, worship him and now worship the Lord “in the name of Jesus”. This joy and exaltation belongs to human beings, because the son of God, having himself become a human being, is now worshipped. The heavenly powers are not offended when they behold all of us being led into our heavenly abode as we share in his body. This could not have happened in any other way. It happened only because, “being in the form of God and taking the form of a slave, he humbled himself,” agreeing to assume our bodily condition “even to death”
Cohick
If the hymn ended here (“death on a cross”), we would still be in our sins. But in fact, God raised Christ from the dead, and with that extended forgiveness to all who call on the name of Jesus Christ (Rom 10:9-13).
The resurrection proclaims He lives and that forever, the exaltation proclaims he reigns and that forever.
In Greek, 2:9-11 is one sentence, with God as the subject, two finite verbs (exalted, gave) and a purpose clause that includes two subjunctive verbs (bow, acknowledge). No difficult syntax, grammar, or vocabulary here—a welcome change from 2:6-8.
The first finite verb, “[highly] exalted” is a compound verb found only here in the NT. Paul often uses the prefix hyper in the superlative sense; that is Paul is not saying Christ is more of something now than he was before his death on a cross. This verb is used in Psalm 97:9.
Paul begins 2:9 with the conjunction “therefore”, which has led to two basic interpretations: one argument contends that God rewarded Christ for his obedience; a second theory suggests that God vindicated Christ’s actions.
Bockmuehl suggests that while Christ did not gain a new identity or change in his essence as God, the incarnation and exaltation are a recognition of Jesus Christ’s new name (Lord) and function. Romans 1:3-4 speaks to a similar point, as Christ was declared the Son of God with power at his resurrection…He became the firstborn from among the dead and is the firstfruits of those who have died, and he has with his resurrection become coheirs with those who through him are now God’s children. Christ’s exaltation highlights the nature of the triune God’s character as self-giving, as well as Christ’s particular function as the Incarnate and Exalted One. To use a limited analogy, in God’s new math, Incarnation + Humiliation = Exaltation.
Paul could be thinking here of Psalm 8, which begins and ends with the glorious chorus, “Lord our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”.
Two points are worth noticing. First, James explains that demons believe God is one, and they shudder (Jas 2:19). The supremacy of God does not soften them; it only brings fear and obstinacy. Second, some humans will confuse their use of the name and the miracles they do in its power with their own obedience. In this case, Jesus will say to them, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers” (Matt 7:23). In both cases, the underlying issue is lack of obedience—the same focus on obedience is made in our hymn. Every knee bowing is another ramification of God’s plan for the end of time. The picture is not focused on the attitude of those bowing and acknowledging, but on the inevitability of the verdict—Jesus Christ is Lord.
The Christ Hymn smashes human arrogance even as it affirms the worth of the human body and creation. Christ’s incarnation is not a mere vehicle used by the Godhead to rescue human souls; it serves to pull back the curtain that had separated a human vision of God.
The dogma established in the early church creeds concerning the Trinity and the full deity/humanity of Christ help us today to understand the full narrative of the gospel. Augustine explains further that the rule of faith cannot be boiled down to simple truisms (we might say today bumper stickers). Instead, the rule of faith is a habit of mind, a posture of humility and desire for understanding that every Bible reader should take as he or she reads as a member of the community of faith. Drawing from Jeremiah 31:33, Augustine writes to those preparing to join the church that “the creed is learned by listening; it is written, not on stone tablelets nor on any material, but on the heart.”
THe importance of knowing who Christ is cannot be underestimated, but it can be underutilized. The grand words of mystery and praise can become the stuff of idle theory rather than deep reflection. We must ask not only what these words meant, but also what such words would have done in the first-century Roman empire. From there, we can suggest how such words might ring out in our own context.
Paul’s hymn challenges to the core a common mind-set today, the resistance to obedience. Americans pride themselves in not taking directions, not following tradition, making their own way, and dancing to the beat of their own drum. Even our description of salvation falls into the trap of independence. We say we have asked Jesus into our lives, but in the Christ hymn Christ did not invite God into his life to bless it and help it along. Rather, the hymn shows the human Christ’s obedience to God the Father. The self is kicked off the throne of the heart, and God is placed rightfully in his place.
What might these acts [genuine acts of humility] look like? In broad strokes, it challenges the volunteerism mentality. Let me explain. We can construct a model of volunteering whereby we “give of our time” as though it is ours to give, to those to whom we give are somehow in our debt. We go to the soup kitchen to help, but we know we are only there for a time, and then we return to our “regular” life. The volunteer label is just that, a sticky nametag that we wear when we are at an event, only to peel off when we get home…We do this in our homes as well. We establish roels for wives and husbands and when a wife or husband does “the job” of the other they get bonus points for humility…Christ’s lesson to us, demonstrated in the hymn, is that no job is below our pay grade, no task is “beneath us”, and no service is so outstanding that is is worthy of God’s special praise. We must work to avoid the separation of our life and the volunteer (grunt work) activities that we do to feel better about ourselves. The point is that cleaning up after a baby or an elderly parent is exactly who we are in Christ, even if we also run a company or are senior pastor of a church.
Fee
For a suffering community that has been repeatedly reminded of Christ’s preeminent role in everything—both present and future—here is the necessary concluding word. Believers in Christ are both “already” and “not yet.” Already they know and own him as Lord of all; not yet have they seen all things made subject to him. Here, then, they are reminded of who, and whose, they are: glad followers of him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, before whom at God’s final wrap-up every knee shall bow to pay him the homage due his name.
But what does Paul intend by the name that is above every name? There is something to be said for the name as referring to Christ’s earthly name, Jesus. That, after all, is what is picked up in the next phrase, at the name of Jesus. If so, then Paul does not mean that he has now been given that name but that in highly exalting him, God has bestowed on the name of Jesus a significance excelling that of all other names.
More likely, however, especially in light of how the rest of the sentence unfolds, Paul is making a kind of twofold wordplay. First, the name as “that which is above every name” unmistakably echoes the Old Testament use of “the Name” to refer to God and his character. To honor God is to honor his name above all. At his exaltation the name above … every name has been bestowed on Jesus. But not in its Hebrew form YHWH does Jesus receive the name, but by way of the Septuagint (LXX), in its Greek form kyrios (“Lord”).
One can scarcely miss the christological implications. In the Jewish synagogue the appellation Lord had long before been substituted for God’s “name” (YHWH). The early believers had now transferred that “name” (Lord) to the risen Jesus. Thus, Paul says, in raising Jesus from the dead, God has exalted him to the highest place and bestowed on him God’s own name—in the Hebrew sense of “the Name,” referring to his investiture with God’s power and authority. At the same time, Paul’s monotheism is kept intact by the final phrase, to the glory of God the Father. Thus this final sentence begins with God’s exalting Christ by bestowing on him the name and concludes on the same theological note, that all of this is to God the Father’s own glory.
The grandeur of this passage can easily cause one to forget why it is here. Paul’s reason is singular: to focus on Christ himself, and thus to point to him as the ultimate model of the self-sacrificing love to which he is calling the Philippians—and us. Here we have spelled out before us in living color both the “what” and the “why” of Paul’s affirmation “For to me, to live is Christ.” In Jesus Christ the true nature of the living God has been revealed ultimately and finally. God is not a grasping, self-centered being. He is most truly known through the One whose equality with God found expression in his pouring himself out in sacrificial love by taking the lowest place, the role of a slave, and whose love for his human creatures found consummate expression in his death on the cross. That this is God’s own nature and doing has been attested for all time by Christ Jesus’s divine vindication; he has been exalted by God to the highest place by having been given the Name: the Lord is none other than Jesus Christ. This is why for Paul “to live is Christ.” Any faith that falls short of this is simply not the Christian faith.
Guthrie
Paul now celebrates the exaltation of Christ. Cosmically speaking, there is a great distance between the beginning of Philippians 2:6 and the end of 2:8, in which Christ Jesus took a path from “being robed in divine glory” and “equal to God” to the most ignoble, despicable death imaginable in the ancient world. The passage takes us from the highest of highs to the lowest place of human experience.
Yet, now comes the “great turning”, which the text presents as a consequent focal event, introduced with “for this reason” (dio kai). God did two things in response to Christ’s obedient suffering:
Highly Exalted Him, Gave to Him the Name above every name.
Although occurring in the LXX, the word translated here as “exalted” (huperupsosen) only appears here in the New Testament. Yet a related verb “I exalt” (hupsoo) is used of the exaltation of Christ several times, including Acts 2:33 and 5:31 where the apostles proclaim the exaltation of Jesus as a result of his suffering of death.
John’s Gospel, which also draws its inspiration from Isaiah, uses the image with the double sense of “lifted up” on a cross and “exalted”, thus combining “suffering” and “exaltation”.
First, as Larry Hurtado has pointed out, by the time that Philippians was written, the confession “Jesus Christ is Lord” was established as the earliest confessional formula of the early church (Acts 2:36; Rom 10:9; 1 Cor 11:23; 12:3; 16:22), and this is against the backdrop in broader Judaism of the title “Lord” having become a common way of referring to Yahweh.
In the Septuagint particularly, kurios renders the divine name (YHWH) in its various forms and combination with various terms over six thousand times.
Second, as Hurtado also notes, Paul uses “Lord” as a name for God. For example, at times when he comments on an Old Testament passage, the apostle refers to God as “Lord”—even when the Old Testament text does not use the title with reference to God (e.g., 1 Kgs 19:10 at Rom 11:3; Isa 28:11 at 1 Cor 14:21).
It is the LORD who says, “Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear” (Is 45:23, NIV) and in Philippians 2:9-11 these words are applied to Jesus.
In the exaltation, God cast the covering of Christ’s lordship over everything that is, and all knees bowing and all tongues confessing will be the ultimate result of his cosmic enthronement.
Of course, bowing to a lord and confessing a sovereign’s lordship were acts of submission in the ancient world, and the point here is that every being in all of creation—including the enemies of God who have “raged against him” (Isa 45:24)—ultimately will acknowledge the lordship of Christ. For the Philippians, this must have put their conflict with opponents in perspective.
A wonderfully complex and multifaceted concept in the Old Testament, “glory” is a common rendering of the Hebrew term kavod that connotes “heaviness” or “weightiness” and can refer variously to respect, reputation, riches, glory, honor, splendor, majesty, or dignity.
Thus, as with the great work of the suffering servant, Christ Jesus, God’s glory can be directly related to his saving acts on behalf of his people (e.g., Exod 14:18; 16:7; Isa 12:2; 35:1-4; Ezek 39:21-29). This constitutes a primary way that God reveals his presence in the world and his lordship over the world. Consequently, God’s decisive actions in salvation and his presence have come to a climatic revelation in the incarnation, ministry, passion, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ, and all to God’s supreme glory. In other words, God glorifies himself, brings deserved worship and focus to himself, and draws the nations to himself through the sacrifice and exaltation of Jesus Christ as Lord of the universe!
Christ is risen! High and exalted is the Messiah! Fallen are the kingdoms of this world, whether they know it yet or not. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Christ is risen indeed!
Motyer
But the present passage says that the ascension was the act of God, and, as we learn elsewhere, not an act performed in haste or as a ‘snap decision’, but at the end of forty days:6 a very deliberate, divine action.
But now, why? Why did God so lift Jesus up? According to our passage it was a response, something linked to what went before it by a therefore (verse 9). To what was God responding? A specific answer, calling attention to the death on a cross (verse 8) would be biblical,7 but not sufficiently accurate for this passage. For here death on a cross is but the last event in a continuous sentence which began in verse 5 with ‘the mind of Christ’. The ascension is the divine response not to this or that aspect of the career of Jesus, but to the sort of person Jesus is, the way he looks at things, the values he cherishes, the principles he observes—his ‘mind’.
The crowning day has happened, it happened long ago! Yet so pitifully few know about it. The lovers of Jesus know it and rejoice, but the world’s millions do not know that Jesus is King. But they will, on the day when the King comes.
On that day, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. How do we keep the succinctness of this poem in touch with the rest of Scripture at this point? By sadly recording that a confession made for the first time in response to the visible manifestation of his glory will not be a saving confession, but a grudging acknowledgment wrested by overmastering divine power from lips still as unbelieving as they were through their whole earthly experience. All will submit, all will confess, but not all will be saved.
First, and most clearly of all, the ascension proclaims the present reality of a reigning Lord. His exaltation has been long since achieved and remains true today. Among the millions who do not know this, we do know it. Jesus is Lord and King. According to the passage before us, there is a proper response to such a reigning Lord, for on the day when he is manifested in all his glory there will be something about that glory which will provoke, unbidden by anything save the glory itself, the bending of the knee in submission and the loosing of the tongue in confession (verses 10–11). It is by our homage gladly rendered and our spoken declaration of his name and nature that we, in our present situation, give evidence to all that he reigns and that we are his people.
Secondly, the ascension, as Paul has presented it here, speaks to us of the limits set to evangelistic opportunity. When the Master returns it is the day of accounting, not of continuing opportunity; it is the day when the door is shut; the day when eternal destinies are apportioned.10 In the most telling of all phrases it is the day when books are opened11 and when those whose names are not found in the Lamb’s book of life stand before the throne, with nothing else to shield or cover them but the robe of the character fashioned by their deeds on earth, as those deeds have been recorded in heaven. Then, too late, they will find that death has wrought no marvel of transformation, but that, on the contrary, those who here held the Lord Jesus at arm’s length will there do nothing else and will want nothing else; the filthy will be filthy still and the God-rejecting will reject for the last time. Not then but now is the appointed time, now is the day of salvation—nearer than when we first believed both in the bliss it brings to believers and the disaster it carries for the unbeliever. All that stands between our present unsaved friends and that dread day are our tongues telling about Jesus.
Resources Used
Cohick, Lynn H. The Story of God Bible Commentary: Philippians. Edited by McKnight. Scot, Zondervan, 2013.
Edwards, Mark J., and Thomas C. Oden, editors. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians. InterVarsity Press, 2005.
Fee, Gordon D. Philippians. IVP Academic, 1999.
Freedman, David Noel, et al., editors. The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, 1992.
Guthrie, George H. Philippians. Zondervan Academic, 2023.
Motyer, J. A. The Message of Philippians. InterVarsity Press, 1984.
Wright, N.T, and Mike Bird. The New Testament in its World. SPCK, 2019.
Wright, Nicholas Thomas. Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters : Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. SPCK, 2004.