Philippians 2:7 - Free to be slaves...

"...but rather He emptied Himself, a form of a bond-servant having received, in likeness of men having come to be..."

-here we have one of the most amazing statements in all of Scripture, and yet this is exactly what Jesus did.  we read that Jesus emptied Himself, and one might ask, as many others have also asked, of what did He actually empty Himself?  did He empty Himself of deity?  to which we answer simply, no, He did not.  He was still God.  simply put, He emptied Himself of ‘self’.  He didn’t empty Himself of His nature, His divinity - rather, He emptied Himself of me-first.  we’re talking about an attitude, a way of understanding, one which is entirely possible for us to embrace as well.  obviously none of us are able to empty ourselves of our nature, our humanity, but we can get rid of our me-first way of living and thinking.  actually this is quite impossible humanly-speaking, but with God at work in our lives this becomes totally possible (as we will see in verses 12-13).  

-what Jesus did was let go of His status and His rights and privileges and all the things He could have thought He deserved due to the fact that He was God, and took on the form of a bond-servant.  instead of holding onto the form of almighty God, He freely chose to take the form of a slave, living into a supreme expression of others-first.  a slave has no rights, no privileges, no time or possessions or place of their own.  a slave deserves nothing - he exists solely for the sake of someone else, for the sake of the master.  they are owned by the master.  all their stuff and their time - everything belongs to the master.  it is not about them first or even at all - it is about someone else.  others-first.

-Christ’s example, His attitude which we are to also embrace - the same mindset which a slave would have - was one of service (luke 22.27, john 13.12-15, matthew 20.28).  the more common verb for ‘to serve’ in the NT is diakoneo, which means just that, ‘to serve’.  Christ here takes the form of a doulos, and a doulos would normally engage in douloo, but that verb for slave-service is not used much in the NT.  however, diakoneo is certainly what a doulos does - it is more a question of identity.  anyone can engage in service, but an actual doulos is also owned by the one whom they have freely committed to serve - in this case we are talking more about an attitude and an action, a lifestyle and a calling of serving others.  Christ came to serve not Himself but others first, and paul is calling those of us who follow Christ to serve our fellow Christ-followers and to do so with the mindset of a slave.  and this service is not just what i do but it is also who i am.  it is my identity.  i am a slave, and i have no rights, and i deserve nothing, and i embrace this for the sake of my brothers and sisters in Christ and for the sake of the forward progress of the Gospel.  this theme is woven throughout the NT (matthew 23.11, luke 22.25-26, galatians 5.13, ephesians 4.12, 1peter 4.10-11).  it is quite simple.  we are called to serve one another.  others first.  one who serves is called a servant.  someone who is forced to do this against their will is typically referred to as a slave, but the one who freely enters slavery and surrenders their freedom and embraces a life-calling of serving another is a bond-servant.  this is the form and the mindset that Jesus took on, and this is the example we are to follow.

-paul also points out that Jesus came to be 'in the likeness of men'.  it is the wonderful impossible miracle of the Incarnation - the eternal, infinite living Word of God, through Whom all things came to be, came to be real finite flesh and blood within the womb of a teenage girl from galilee and though veiled in glory gave us a glorious glimpse of the divine (john 1.14).  God Almighty walked among us, and lived and died as one of us, an amazing antinomy of two things which cannot both be true simultaneously and yet must both be true (being one of at least three great antinomies to be found in the Christian faith; other antinomies of note are the Trinity - where God is both three and one - and then there is the truth of predestination/free will, where the choices of a Sovereign Eternal All-knowing God and those of free human agents coexist - these truths will be addressed elsewhere, but suffice it to say that the necessary existence of these multiple antinomies at the core of the Christian faith points to divine origin of the Truth that is found therein.  a fabricated man-made religion would no doubt ignore or attempt to eliminate such apparent contradictions...).  but this Incarnation was not only necessary, as sin needed to be punished in human flesh (romans 8.3), it was also entirely advantageous, because we now have a Savior Who walked the same path that we walk, subject to our same limitations and challenges and temptations and weaknesses and yet to these He never succumbed (hebrews 2.17).  in fact, He rose above the limitations to live perfectly into others-first.  among a host of other things, He truly became our Perfect Example.  i have a long, long way to go...