The Christ Hymn - pt. 1

Who in His identity, being God as He really is, decided not to make use of His divine prerogative for His own personal advantage  (Philippians 2.6)

There’s something totally ‘counter-intuitive’ about the Philippian Hymn (Philippians 2.6-11). Especially the first part, in v’s 6-8. It turns upside down the way people think about God. Even Christians!

Whether we realise it or not, we all tend to start with a crazy picture of God. Because we’re up to our necks in sin, in a sinful world. So our pictures of God are really off balance. Take for instance, the ‘omni’s’: omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent – all ideas with pagan, not Biblical roots. Gosh, so where do we get a valid idea of God from?!! In this Christ Hymn, a celebration of Jesus Christ.

The first thing the Hymn tells us is that the only picture of God that is real is the one we are faced with in and through Jesus Christ. He’s the bearer of the divine identity. Noone else. So it says, ‘he, appearing as (being in the form of) God’. In other words, He comes to us as God - God as He really is.

And then it tells us something very real about God. ‘He didn’t try to use his divine identity to His own advantage’. Wow. We use power to get the results that fit with us. God uses His power in a quite different way. To save. To heal. To bring His creatures into real life.

God isn’t just the ‘big man' up there. We only really meet with God when we see Him as He has chosen to appear to us, down here. In Jesus. Don't look up. Look around.

To be continued …….