Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation pt 2

All right, let's turn to chapter two of Philippians and begin in verse five, and we'll read down through 11. The title today is Christ's Humiliation and Exaltation, number two. Okay, so this is the second of a two-part series that began last week. All right, somebody read, please. David, would you read for us, please?

Philippians 2.5 through 11, please. 2.5 through 11.

I just mind being you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no revocation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance of a man. He humbled himself and became Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is in heaven and every land. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

More houses, meat, for us to be chewing on. Incredible scripture. And, you know, as Jay Berman said, every book of the Bible is the most important one. But in terms of the church, this is really incredibly important for us, isn't it? So, per usual, let's go ahead and review last week. I'm going to review it basically in two points. And the first is very simplistically reviewed as indicating that although outwardly He appeared as a man inwardly, he was fully deity. Boy, how's that a tough one to understand. From a human perspective, particularly the unsaved, they have a lot of trouble with this one. Even though who admitted Jesus was born as a man, remember Jesus is his earthly name. Ultimately, they think he was a great teacher or a prophet, not the son of God.

This is crucial to our faith. in who the Lord was and the incarnation that took place 2,000 years ago. And secondly, Christ's exaltation, we I think discussed and could be a little bit of discussion here that furthers this conclusion, but his exaltation was a consequence of his given task fully accomplished. I mean, so God became a man, went to the cross, died for the sins of the entire world for all time, and was resurrected alive from the dead. And that was a test that exalted him beyond anything that was there before him. Everybody okay with that for the explanation of his exaltation? I mean, he was already the one who created the heavens and the earth, right? He was the second part of the deity that ultimately was involved in the entire creation, overseeing all principalities and powers forevermore. But yet, his coming to earth as a human and going to the cross, fulfilling the eternal covenant, was really related to his ultimate exaltation.

I'm okay with that. Everybody okay with that? All right, let's go ahead. I'm combining now Philippians 2, 10 and 11, because this is really a continuum, and I think what we have to say about this section really relates to bringing both verses together.

Okay, a statement is read that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven, and of those on earth and of those under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. All right, first question to the class today.

How literally should we interpret that at the name of every knee should bow and that every tongue confess? How literally should we interpret that? As literal as you can. That's where, obviously, the Lord would like to go with this. I mean, I think that's the opportunity for everyone to do that.

I don't think this is a salvation verse, because I think that everyone, saved and unsaved, will ultimately do this. For the Christians, it will be at the judgment seat of Christ. For the unsaved, it will be at the great white throne judgment. It also has reference to what's going to happen when Christ rules in the millennium. It has nothing to do with salvation. Does that seem correct to you? That those dead in sin in Sheol or Hades and ultimately would be subject to the Great White Throne judgment, does that seem correct that even they would bow their knee and confess their tongue?

They may not like him, but they will admit that he is Lord. So where does the power for a Beyoncé come from? So he's just gonna effectively make them as robots to respond in that manner? No, I think they're at their knees and they realize that they are. Okay, so God rules. And every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. That's kind of profound, isn't it? If you think about that. So next question, what should we make of the fact that should bow and should confess, are heiress active and subjunctive in mood? What's the Aorist tense mean to us? Jim, Aorist tense. I'm not really up on Greek tenses. For us that are stupid, why don't you tell us? Are you taking cheat sheets for this Greek? What's that, Jimmy? I need a cheat sheet for my Greek. It's not a final exam, this is a discussion. Error's tense. Temperature.

It means it's a fact. Ongoing. Yeah, it's a fact. Once upon a time, could be yesterday, could be way back, but has ongoing effects. It's not quite the perfect tense, which has an ongoing application. But in a sense, it is kind of like the perfect tense. And it's a one time only. It's never going to be repeated.

It has a fact that's continuing in nature. Okay, the subjunctive active is now, it's being done. So, should bow and should confess is now. Whenever that is, it's active. The person themselves is involved in the activity. And finally, subjunctive mood. Isn't that maybe you will, maybe they won't? Well, first or third conditional. First conditional means since it's expected to be this, or if, if it occurs, it will occur. Subjunctive here must be first class conditional, right? To interpret since every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. I think you have to interpret that way if we believe that every knee would bow and every tongue should confess. Everybody okay with that?

Subjunctive, though, remember, is sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. That's typically the third class conditional. It means it could happen. It may not happen. Should perhaps means that it may be more likely first class conditional, meaning since it will happen.

So. All right. Yes. Go ahead. Yes. I told you we're having fun today. Both the NASB and HCSB say every need will bow. Rather than should bow. I like that better. It's a foregone fact. It will happen. But David read from the correct version. Oh, he did? Okay. It's King James. It's the new King James. Be careful there. It wasn't liveth that lives anyway. All right. And that is a quote from Isaiah. We're going to go there, okay? Okay, Isaiah 45, 23, we're going to look at that in a second.

All right, so the next point is, without referencing Old Testament scripture, which he does in Romans, with Romans 11 and Romans 14, Paul only uses the term thou once, and where is that? Well, And that relates to confessing that his role in the ministry was ultimately one that made him bow. In Ephesians 4, where he's going back and looking at this, let's go back to the first slide, oh my bad, without referencing Old Testament scripture, which he does in Romans, which directly quotes bowing and confessing from Isaiah.

Paul only uses bow once, and again, that's when he confesses or bows by knee because of his role in expressing the doctrine of the church. Kind of humbling, isn't it? It's the only time he's said to bow his knee before the Lord. you know, just taking it to the Lord, thanking him for his role that it's been playing in the establishment of the church and all the doctrinal rights of the church. I find that just kind of, not only is it humbling in terms of Paul's relationship to God, but the role that he played in the church is kind of what we're dealing with Wednesday night, this sensational truth. And I think this is really an incredibly important witness to this aspect of him bowing his knee before the Lord.

So that's not kind of a New Testament thing, is it? Do we have to bow our knees to pray to the Lord? Not according to Paul's church doctrine. We take things to the Lord as we continue to be Spirit-led in that capacity. All right. But we do bow in humility, don't we? We do bow in humility to the Lord. But we don't have to be on our knees to do that. No. There's no doctrine or demand for us to be on our knees. It doesn't mean it's wrong to be on your knees. I think it does show an expression of humility. All right.

How should we define confess here? That every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. How should we interpret confess? Acknowledge? Very good. Acknowledge or agree. Confess is not to say that we realize we've done wrong. The unsaved will maybe do that. I don't know. But I thought we used to really hit this nail on the head.

The word means to confess in the sense of to agree with someone. Someday the entire universe will agree with God the Father on the testimony which he's given of his son. The word also means to publicly declare, and interestingly in the Septuagint, according to Lise, it's used frequently there and has the ideas of praise or thanksgiving associated with it. Can you picture the unsaved as coming forth with a prayer that relates or a confession that relates to praise and thanksgiving?

I'm having a little problem with that, but I don't think we have to think too far forward into those who are not of our nature. Bob, go ahead. There was an unsaved man in the New Testament that ended up in Hades, or on the bad side, and he said to Abraham, he didn't say, get me out of here. He said, go and tell my family the truth. He didn't really want out. He wanted a drop of water to relieve himself, but all he wanted was for his family to know. So in a sense, is that his confession, that he agreed with the truth, which he ignored when he was alive then?

Yeah. Okay, that's a good metaphor for this, I think. That's good. All right, of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the earth, okay? Notice here that all are included. There's nobody that's, you know, exceptionally left out of this list of people who are in fact going to bow their knee and confess with their tongue about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now here's an interesting non-fact, if you will.

So if you're a six-day creationist, which I am, Then your estimate, if you calculate all the generations from Adam and Eve forward, you come out and you look at the exponential growth that's occurred since antibiotics and since lifespan has been so much more prolonged today, unlike the 700, 900 years of the present, the early Old Testament, you count those years to this, you come up with a number of around 8 billion people have existed on this planet.

The problem with that is the world's attendance right now is around 8 billion. So if you use those calculations, you're going to be somewhat flawed if we have 8 billion people living now, but those calculations show that 8 billion people live. Now, the 199 billion comes from the idea that we can date back nearly 200 million years to calculate 199 billion. Now, I'm not putting this up to answer the question because nobody knows for sure how many people have existed except God. But if you're a six day creationist, I would suggest that eight billion is probably a bit of an underestimate based on the current world population. But nevertheless, that's a lot of people. No matter how you cut it, how many people have lived.

And ultimately, all of them will bow their knee and confess with their tongue about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, so I think we've kind of addressed this already. Because the verse states that every knee will bow, and will bow by the way, Jen, and confess to the glory of God the Father, will those dead in sin and separated from God have such an option? They will not have an option according to this.

So the question is, how is this accomplished? Only God knows. But I think the metaphor that Bob gave us with the person who, in fact, in the book of Matthew, I think is where that's described, would want his family to know about ultimately his outcome versus what theirs could be by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what Bob referred to in Isaiah 45, 23.

I have sworn by myself that the word has gone out of my mouth of righteousness and shall not return, that to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall take an oath. So that's the reference to Isaiah that really relates to this as an eternal disposition of all of mankind.

So Wiest goes on to say, all creation will render such homage, whether animate or inanimate, and whether in heaven or on earth or under the earth, basically a parallel of what scripture itself says. What do you think of inanimate compared to animate, from Wiest's terminology there? What's something that's animate? Well, animate is living people. Yeah, living. And inanimate? You know, I don't know about that. Don't know about what? About inanimate objects. Well, inanimate, I think, was a rock ever living? Yeah. I mean... But it didn't create it at all. But he did create the rock. True.

Well, what about plants? I mean, plants move. Plants are living, right? But you wouldn't consider a plant dead, right? Well, plants are living. They have life, right? They are, but... They grow around stuff. And the weeds come back. I think we're down a rabbit trail here.

Before Adam fell, the earth was perfect. But when Adam fell and sin came in, not only did mankind became corrupted. So in that sense, you know, weed started growing. In that sense, inanimate things were condemned along with Adam. And in the future, I think in the millennium, it's going to be a somewhat mirror of before Adam, not perfect, but a lot of those things will come back again. Am I making any sense? Well, it makes sense to the extent that God was very happy with what He created, right? Everything looked great.

I mean, and now everything's been spoiled by Adam's sin, but I can't envision plants bowing their knees and confessing with their tongues. I mean, even though they are dead and inanimate, I mean, it seems to me that we're talking about the human race. Yeah, it kind of reminds me, and I think it's just, pictures, but talks about the trees in the field clapping their hands and then the rocks. I mean, there's different pictures in scripture, but maybe those are just illustrations, or those are not literal, maybe, but... A groaning is the perfect environment. Scripture does say that all creation groans. And I think there's a scripture that says the rocks cry out. Really? Find that word for me.

That'd be good. Well, Jesus said that when the Pharisees told him to silence your disciples, he says, if these guys don't cry out, then the rocks will cry out and praise me. So I don't know if they will or not. But we still go on to describe animates versus inanimate, so I'm not sure to what he was referring, but I have trouble with that, but it's again, this is one of those questions we can answer when we're with him, right? Maybe the... Yeah, Bob, when we get to heaven, I'll say I told you so. I don't have no merit there. All right, so we can ponder whether the rocks also bow their knees. I have trouble thinking of a rock bowing their knees. Anyway, we'll leave it at that.

My colleague goes ahead and says, the words every knee are all inclusive. Madeline O'Hare. By the way, how many people here have heard of Madeline O'Hare? we got here too young, and will know, will bother me alongside with Bertrand Russell, a very strong atheist and antagonist about the Christian faith. There will be universal agreement for all will say Jesus Christ is Lord, and finally there will be a universal accomplishment in that all will be to the glory of God the Father.

We can't doubt that. That's what scripture says. We can believe that. Now, whether the rocks are part of that, I think we can leave that one at least on the shelf. That's my opinion right now, but maybe we're right there. Okay, so who are they that are in heaven? All right, that's good. That's one.

The angels are there, are they not? So they will be confessing, bowing their knees, and confessing with their tongues. And those that are in Christ whose spirits have gone to be with the Lord, okay? That's the church that's not the church entirely, but the members of the church that have gone and are with the Lord today. So they're already there. And my question to us is, have these saints not already recognized that Jesus Christ is Lord?

Sure, yes. No, I think so. I mean, that's not something that's going to occur in the future. But I think it's ongoing. Yeah, absolutely. It includes Old Testament saints too. Just a second on that. Who are they that are on the earth? All the saved and the unsaved. All right. Those who are alive are presumably saved or unsaved people. Good. Now, what about Old Testament saints? I believe they are in heaven with the New Testament saints.

Well, their resurrection has not occurred yet. Not until after the tribulation, before the millennium, won't they? resurrected before the millennium? Yeah, so they're not on the earth currently, but in a sense, they're on the earth to the extent that they have been buried on the earth. So I don't know. I mean, my thought would be that they're like people on the earth. They're not currently, the Lord knows them and they're in their graves, but ultimately they're recognizing him as bringing glory to God the Father. I'm not sure they're there.

I think, either way, together these two groups will recognize Jesus Christ as Lord, as stated in Revelation 19, 11 through 21. We'll not read that here, but that gives an idea of the Old Testament saints being lifted up. and praising him after they'd been raised. Well, I don't know if it's called heaven, but Lazarus, as an Old Testament saint, was in Hades, where that great gulf was fixed, Abraham on one side and Lazarus on the other. So there was a place I don't think it was heaven, but there was a place for the Old Testament saints.

It was called paradise. Paradise. And it wasn't suffering. Paradise. It was called paradise. Yeah, and that's what Christ said on the cross, you know, the lifetime sinner was brought by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ and saved at the time of his birth. Yes, you will be within the paradise. I thought Jesus, when he rose again, when he was resurrected, I thought he emptied out the paradise side of Hades and took all the Old Testament saints with him to heaven.

Wow, is that true? Ephesians 4... What is it? Oh, 4, 8 through 10. You mean captivity, captive? Yeah, captivity, captive. They were captive in paradise. When he took Cathodic... Oh, yeah, that's Ephesians 4. Is that what that relates to? I believe it is. What do you think the Old Testament saints are currently placed in Catholic places?

I always sort of thought about it not as like an essence of time, as our heathen time. I just thought of it as like, when you pass, the next thing you'll know is what's provided to us. Well, that's for us to guard, for sure. Actually, it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. That, to me, tells me that when Jesus rose, he took those captives and took them into heaven with him.

I've been wrestling with this a little bit lately as well, just this topic of where are these Old Testament believers and so forth. One thought that occurred to me is that their inheritance is always earthly, whereas the church is heavenly. And so, yeah, I totally agree with the location, paradise, Abraham's bosom. But whereas, have they been taken to heaven from there now or not? I don't know, but they will be resurrected on the earth in the beginning of the millennium, certainly. Because we are resurrected on our way to heaven to be with Christ at their rapture.

Well, Miles, I think you brought up importantly that Israel, by history and by future, are earthly preachers, right? And if you look at the Revelation passage, which again is probably a little too long to read right here, I would encourage everyone to take a look at that maybe between Sunday School and church. when they get home later today, but that seemed to assure me that the Old Testament saints, the paradise so-called, I don't know what bringing captivity, making captivity non-captive at that point really means, whether or not that means their eternal destiny is still earthly. or whether they're in heavenly places, I don't know. So anyway, let's go ahead, but I'm not sure that I, notice I put a question mark. What about Old Testament saints?

I'm just not quite sure how they fit into whether they're in the earth or on the earth, or ultimately they're in heavenly places. But those that are under the earth, I think, implies unbelievers awaiting resurrection and eternal judgment. I don't think we can question that in terms of interpretation. Any thoughts about that?

In Revelation, and I am going to use a verse here, 2013, the sea gave up the dead and who were in it, that presumably belonged to the earth too, and death, and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them, and they were judged each one according to his works. I mean, so that's the unsaved, those that are under the earth, or if you will, even under the sea, as implied by the Revelation passage.

Of interest, Jesus Christ as Lord was the first acclamation of the church, and I thought this was kind of an interesting discovery. And the verse there is in Acts, we studied this on the gatherings at our home, therefore let all of the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." So that message was to the Jewish community. Remember, the early church were Jews. And so that was a declaration at that time that him being recognized as Lord was part of church, early church doctrine.

Say, Bob? Yes. I don't know if this is the right time to say this, but when I was reading this over, verse 9, it says, God exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name. And I got to thinking, well, what is that name? But if you go down to the end, In verse 11, it's Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. That's the name that was bestowed on Christ. Right. I alluded to that last week, but I'm glad you brought that up again. Jesus was his earthly name, but Lord was his exalted name. Right. Good point. Monoghanese, I think, was the word that they used, which meant one of a kind, only begotten. I mean, it was monogamous. That was the word I saw. All right, good. Some good, good points there.

The purpose for the Lord Jesus Christ has always been to glorify his father, hasn't it? And, you know, just a couple of verses, John 1, 17, 1, Jesus spoke these words, lifting up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son. that your son also may glorify you. I mean, this says a lot, doesn't it? That's in preparation of the cross.

In 1 Corinthians 15, 27, 28, for he has put all things under his feet. But when he says all things are under him, it is evident that he who put all things under him is accepted. Forgive my face, it's a little bit proud of that. Now, when all things are made subject to him, then the son himself will also be subject to him who put all things under him, and God may be well in all. It comes with a little wordy example of the fact that ultimately he, in fact, was declared to bring glory to his father.

And Christ will ultimately reconcile all things to himself. So Colossians 1, 19 and 20, for it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell and by him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having been made peace through the blood of his cross.

First Peter 3.32, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to him, and another verse from Revelation, and every creature which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and as such are in the sea and all that are in him, I heard saying, blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the land forever and ever. Now, Constable says in verse 11, which is one that concludes the section we're looking at today, it means then that the hope of God is that every intelligent being in his universe might proclaim openly and gladly, according to life, that Jesus Christ alone has the right to reign.

And I think that the question that follows that is how does or should his exaltation affect us today? It should be humbling. All right, that's a good place to start, I think. What do you make of this? How do we, in our Christian lives, exalt God? Recognize all that He's done for us. Okay, that's humbling, isn't it? In light of humbling, this goes back to the whole context of chapter 2, where you go clear back to verse 3, with humility of mind. Yes, and they use Christ as an example. And when we humble ourselves to someone, we put ourselves under their leadership. What's that called? What's the... Servanthood. Servanthood. Submission. Submission? We're identified with Christ in His exaltation. I like what Kim is saying. It produces peace and joy and hope.

How about not I, but Christ liveth in me, right? So, I think we're talking about the Christian life, which is, of course, one lived by faith, right? So God's always called mankind to acting or receiving his presence by faith. To Adam, that was a whole different message than it is today, but still God had revealed what he needed to Adam and Eve to respond by faith. And since then, we tend not to. So I think the exaltation is not our responsibility other than to know the Lord Jesus Christ and live by faith. That that life of the Lord Jesus Christ may be, in fact, bring glory to God. So if in fact we're...

By the way, did anybody read Nothing but the Hungry Heart this morning about prayer? If you haven't, read it. The other thing it said to me, it reminds me back when Miles was still here, after I first got saved and started to grow a little bit in the group, Grace, I said, Miles, tell me how to pray. And you know what his answer was? That's a very good question, Bob. That was his answer. And those of you who knew Wayne, knew Miles, that would be a typical answer from him. But today's event at the Harvard Arts said two things. One is that prayer is based on how well we know the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay?

And the second thing, which is something that I need to be reminded, I think we all do constantly, is prayer is from above down. It's not from up, going up. Remember, we're positioned in the right hand, but the Lord sees us as righteous in Him, so that prayer needs to exist at the level where He has us positioned. And that's an interesting thought. How many times when we pray are we praying from our it's from the right hand of God communicating with him up above about how we make maybe you're doing that i often don't i'm praying up but i think the idea of prayer is knowing the lord jesus christ increasingly to make our prayer effective and secondly praying down from our position that our conviction may be impacted by who we are in Christ.

Remember, He made Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us, and we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We are righteous, like it or not. And sometimes I think I fall so far short of my position. But interestingly enough, I think how we exalt Him is that by faith we live the Christian life in this new creation we are in Christ Jesus. That brings glory to God. and we fall short all the time. But nevertheless, that's an interesting thing. Macaulay has summarized it as this, we do battle under the banner of ultimate victory. That's kind of interesting, isn't it?

We do battle. What's the battle? It's Ephesians 6, isn't it? The armor of God we put on against all the impact of our flesh, our sin nature, of the world system, and of Satan on our lives. That's the battle. But victory's already been won. I think it's something to think about, isn't it? So let's close and have people maybe respond to that. Is that something that... Macaulay has said that makes a lot of sense. I see some nodding, and from the audience in the field, I don't see it. Bowser's smiling. Want to make a comment?

Yeah, no, that's just so rich. I mean, we are, not only is he exalted to the right hand of God, but we are glorified with him. We're sitting there in that position of victory, and we rarely really realize that in our day-to-day. There are two pieces of homework today.

Number one is look at Revelation. I think it's, what, chapter 19, or is it 13 through 21? Anyway, the reference is given there. Anyway, I think it's 19, 11 through 21. And the second is, if you have none but the hungry heart, take a look at that today. I think it's really encouraging. So Miles, I have you online. So could you close this in prayer this morning, please? Sure thing.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for all that you have done and the fact that you have sent your son to be Jesus, the Savior. And after he accomplished that work, you glorified him to your right hand above every name that is named, above every power and everything in all creation. And Lord, we We pray that our recognition and appreciation for that would be expanded today and going forward, and that we would live in the greater recognition and realization of what that means and how that ought to affect our day-to-day thinking and everything that we do and face, Lord, that we would recognize Jesus as Lord and the wonderful privilege of being joined to him both now and throughout eternity. And we just pray these things in his name. Amen.