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Philippians 2:5-11 - The Mind of Christ

16 min read

Philippians 2:5-11 is one of the New Testament’s clearest places where doctrine becomes medicine for the Church. Paul is not giving the Philippians a detached theological poem. He is answering rivalry, vainglory, fear, and status anxiety by placing the crucified and exalted Christ before them. The mind of Christ is not private positive thinking. It is the shared life of the Body learning humility from the eternal Son, who descends without ceasing to be God and is confessed by all creation as Lord.

Philippi was a Roman colony where status and public recognition had weight.1 That setting sharpens Paul’s appeal, but it does not reduce the passage to social commentary. The deepest claim is Christological and pastoral: the One who is in the form of God reveals divine glory through self-giving love, servant form, obedience, the Cross, exaltation, and worship.

The Mind Command (Philippians 2:5)

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,

Paul begins with the mind because the visible life of the Church starts in the hidden place where desires, fears, comparisons, and ambitions are formed. The command follows directly after Paul’s appeal to unity, mercy, and looking to the interests of others. The Church cannot be healed by etiquette alone. It needs the mind of Christ.

This keeps the whole passage from becoming abstract doctrine. Paul will speak of the form of God, the form of a bondservant, the Cross, and the universal confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. He gives all of this to a real community so that doctrine becomes humility, humility becomes service, and service becomes the Church’s public witness.

Language insight: the shared mind

The Greek phrase behind the command is τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν ὑμῖν (touto phroneite en hymin). The verb φρονεῖτε is a present active imperative in the second person plural. It calls the whole community to hold, practice, and keep returning to this mind. The phrase ἐν ὑμῖν can be heard with a communal force, among yourselves, without dismissing the NKJV’s wording, in you.2

That matters because the mind of Christ is not only an interior mood. The preceding verses name ἐριθεία (eritheia), selfish ambition or rivalry, and κενοδοξία (kenodoxia), conceit or empty glory. These words are not lexical equivalents of φρονεῖτε (phroneite), ἁρπαγμός (harpagmos), or ἐκένωσεν (ekenōsen). Paul joins them conceptually: rivalry and empty glory disorder the Church’s common life; the plural command φρονεῖτε summons a shared disposition; Christ’s refusal of self-advantage and His voluntary descent reveal what that disposition looks like.3

This movement also preserves the distinction between humility and self-erasure established in the preceding session. Christ does not act from worthlessness, and Paul does not ask believers to deny their gifts, legitimate needs, or boundaries. A parish receives the mind of Christ when servants choose cooperation over credit, families choose patient regard over winning, and believers can honor another person without treating themselves or anyone else as disposable. The Forerunner’s decrease has this same shape: he is not the incarnate Son, yet his joyful lessening participates in the mind of Christ rather than in self-contempt.

Gordon Fee cautions against detaching Philippians 2:5-11 from its present pastoral setting in the letter. Whether one calls the passage a hymn or exalted Pauline prose, Paul uses it here to form the Church’s actual life.4

The Descent of the Son (Philippians 2:6-8)

6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Paul begins the descent at the highest point: Christ is in the form of God and equal with God. His humility does not come from lack, inferiority, or created weakness. It is the free condescension of the eternal Son.

The repeated word form is crucial. Paul says Christ is in the form of God and takes the form of a bondservant. The Greek word is μορφή (morphē) in both places. The parallel does not describe a divine costume followed by a human costume. It shows the One who truly belongs to divine glory truly assuming the servant’s condition.5

This is also where the Roman setting matters. In a colony shaped by honor, rank, and public status, the movement from divine form to servant form and cross death cuts against the instinct to protect reputation at all costs. Joseph Hellerman’s status reading helps hear that social sharpness, though his stronger claim that μορφή has no inherent ontological component is disputed and should not govern the Church’s doctrinal reading.6

Language insight: form, grasping, and emptying

The line translated did not consider it robbery contains the difficult word ἁρπαγμός (harpagmos). The word is debated. LSJ gives the sense of seizing, booty, or a prize, and lists Philippians 2:6 under the idea of a prize to be grasped. Michael Wade Martin argues that the idiom can mean something seized upon for advantage, while also warning that the idiom alone does not settle every question about prior possession.7

For teaching, the safest path is to preserve the NKJV Scripture wording and explain the flow. Paul has already said Christ is in the form of God. The contrast is not that the Son lacked equality with God and refused to steal it. The contrast is that He does not use equality with God as self-advantage. Divine glory is revealed as self-giving love.

The phrase made Himself of no reputation translates ἐκένωσεν (ekenōsen), from κενόω, to empty, make void, or abase. Paul immediately explains this emptying by what Christ takes and becomes: taking servant form, coming in human likeness, and becoming obedient to death. The grammar points toward assumption and condescension, not subtraction from divinity.8

This guards Orthodox Christology. Kenosis does not mean the Son stopped being God, set aside His divine nature, or became a merely human person. It means the unchanged Word truly entered our condition, took servant form, and went down to the Cross for our salvation.

The final phrase, even the death of the cross, keeps the descent from becoming sentimental. Paul names the lowest place because Christian humility must not be confused with good manners or soft temperament. The Cross is the Lord’s voluntary saving obedience. It is not a command for wounded people to remain in harm, obey sinful human authority, or disappear before abuse. Christ’s humility comes from divine fullness and free love, not self-hatred.

Gems from the Fathers 💎

Saint John Chrysostom sees Paul’s pastoral strategy clearly. Paul teaches humility by showing the Philippians Christ Himself: This too the blessed Paul did; in exhorting them to humility, he brought forward Christ.9

Chrysostom then protects the doctrine of the Incarnation. Christ’s emptying is not loss or change in the Godhead: while He remained what He was, He took that which He was not, and being made flesh He remained God, in that He was the Word.10

Saint Athanasius gives the same boundary with direct reference to the language of Philippians: Nor, because the Son that was in the form of God took upon Him the form of a servant was He deprived of His Godhead.11

The Fathers therefore do not let the Church choose between Christ’s divinity and His humility. He remains what He is and takes what He was not. The Son truly becomes man, truly takes servant form, truly obeys unto death, and truly remains Lord.

The Church’s Voice in Worship ⛪

The Coptic Good Friday Ninth Hour Pauline includes Philippians 2:5-11, with some service witnesses printing the wider range Philippians 2:4-11. This placement is spiritually exact. At the hour when the Church stands before the Crucifixion, she hears that the Lord was obedient to death, even the death of the cross, and that His humiliation is inseparable from His exaltation.12

The passage also appears within the Pauline reading for Monday of the fifth week of Great Lent, where the broader reading is Philippians 2:1-16. Lent presents kenosis not as speculation but as the form of repentance, unity, obedience, and common life in Christ.13

The Exaltation and Confession (Philippians 2:9-11)

9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore does not mean Christ becomes divine as a reward for obedience. Paul has already confessed Him in the form of God. The exaltation is the glorification and universal proclamation of the incarnate and crucified Christ. The One who descended in humility is revealed before all creation as Lord.

The phrase the name which is above every name should be handled with care. Interpreters debate whether the focus falls on the name Jesus, the title Lord, the divine name evoked by Isaiah, or the whole confession Jesus Christ is Lord. The guide does not need to force an exclusive option. The movement of the passage is clear: the crucified Jesus is confessed with universal honor, and this confession glorifies the Father.

Language insight: Lord, Isaiah, and the name

The confession Jesus Christ is Lord uses Κύριος (Kyrios), Lord. In the Greek Old Testament, κύριος is the common rendering used for the Lord in Israel’s Scriptures. Philippians 2:10-11 echoes Isaiah 45:23, where every knee bows and every tongue swears allegiance in the context of the Lord’s unique divine sovereignty. Larry Hurtado identifies Isaiah 45:22-25 as the readily identifiable allusion behind Paul’s language and notes the profound early Christological force of applying this pattern to Jesus.14

This is high Christology without Father-Son competition. Paul does not place Jesus against the Father. The universal confession that Jesus Christ is Lord is to the glory of God the Father. The Son’s lordship reveals the Father’s glory; it does not compete with it.

Saint Athanasius helps guard this point. Against readings that imagine Christ receiving deity as a promotion, he writes: He did not receive in reward the name of the Son and God, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and deified men by becoming Himself man.15

This does not make salvation automatic apart from repentance, judgment, faith, and communion with Christ. Philippians 2 teaches universal lordship and final acknowledgment. For the faithful, that confession begins now as worship, repentance, and obedience. The tongue says Jesus Christ is Lord; the heart must learn to bow before Him.

This Isaiah echo should also be taught without anti-Jewish misuse. Paul is reading Israel’s Scripture as a Christian apostle confessing Jesus within the divine honor of the one Lord. That is not permission to caricature Judaism or speak with contempt toward Jews. The Church receives the Scriptures with reverence and confesses Christ without contempt.

For our life

The shape of the passage is descent before exaltation, humility before vindication, Cross before universal confession. That pattern does not turn suffering into an idol. It teaches the Church to stop worshiping status, control, and self-protection. Christ does not grasp. Christ gives Himself.

A Christian can take the lower place without self-hatred because worth is received from God, not negotiated through applause. A servant can give credit away without disappearing. A parent can serve without resentment. A parish can honor hidden labor instead of rewarding rivalry. The mind of Christ is practical because it touches exactly the places where pride hides.

Iconography and Visual Teaching 🖼️

For a parish setting, two visuals serve the passage without replacing the text. A plan or photograph of the archaeological site of Philippi can help readers feel the Roman colonial setting and the pressure of public honor in which Paul’s words would have landed. A sixth-century Christ Pantocrator icon from Sinai can help the class hold together what the passage confesses: the one Christ who truly became man and is truly Lord.16

The icon should not be treated as a direct illustration of Philippians 2 or as proof of later iconographic theories. Use it as a visual witness to the Church’s confession of the incarnate Lord: humility and glory are not two Christs, but the one Christ.

Spiritual Fruit 🍇

The first fruit is receiving humility from Christ before trying to perform it. Self-made humility often becomes another form of pride. The Church begins by looking at the Lord who humbles Himself for us.

The second fruit is freedom from grasping. The mind of Christ does not clutch reputation, control, credit, comfort, or the need to be seen. Much anxiety comes from defending things Christ teaches us to release.

The third fruit is service from fullness, not self-erasure. Christ’s humility does not erase dignity. It reveals love. A Christian can take the lower place without despising himself, because his worth comes from God rather than status.

The fourth fruit is bringing rivalry to the Cross. In a family, ministry, parish council, choir, or service team, comparison quietly destroys love. Philippians 2 asks whether the mind of Christ is stronger in us than the need to win.

The fifth fruit is confessing Christ with the whole life. Every knee will bow, but the disciple begins now. We bow in prayer, repentance, mercy, obedience, reconciled relationships, and the refusal to use power for self-display.

Footnotes

  1. UNESCO nomination dossier for the Archaeological Site of Philippi, https://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/1517.pdf; Joseph H. Hellerman, ΜΟΡΦΗ ΘΕΟΥ as a Signifier of Social Status in Philippians 2:6, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52.4 (2009): 779-797, https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/files_JETS-PDFs_52_52-4_JETS-52-4-779-797-Hellerman.pdf. ↩

  2. SBL Greek New Testament, Philippians 2:5, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Phil.txt; MorphGNT Philippians morphology, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morphgnt/sblgnt/master/71-Php-morphgnt.txt. ↩

  3. Philippians 2:3-7; Bible Hub, Philippians 2:3 interlinear, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/philippians/2-3.htm; SBL Greek New Testament, Philippians 2:5-7, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Phil.txt; MorphGNT Philippians morphology, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morphgnt/sblgnt/master/71-Php-morphgnt.txt. ↩

  4. Gordon D. Fee, Philippians 2:5-11: Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?, https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/bbr/philippians_fee.pdf. ↩

  5. SBL Greek New Testament, Philippians 2:6-7, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Phil.txt; MorphGNT Philippians morphology, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morphgnt/sblgnt/master/71-Php-morphgnt.txt. ↩

  6. Joseph H. Hellerman, ΜΟΡΦΗ ΘΕΟΥ as a Signifier of Social Status in Philippians 2:6, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 52.4 (2009): 779-797, https://etsjets.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/files_JETS-PDFs_52_52-4_JETS-52-4-779-797-Hellerman.pdf. ↩

  7. LSJ entry for ἁρπαγμός, https://atlas.perseus.tufts.edu/dictionaries/entry/urn:cite2:scaife-viewer:dictionaries.v1:lsj-n15397/; Michael Wade Martin, ἁρπαγμός Revisited, Journal of Biblical Literature 135.1 (2016): 175-194, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.15699/jbl.1351.2016.2978. ↩

  8. SBL Greek New Testament, Philippians 2:7-8, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Faithlife/SBLGNT/master/data/sblgnt/text/Phil.txt; MorphGNT Philippians morphology, https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morphgnt/sblgnt/master/71-Php-morphgnt.txt; κενόω lexical entry, https://biblehub.com/greek/2758.htm. ↩

  9. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians, Homily VI, New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230206.htm. ↩

  10. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians, Homily VII, New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230207.htm. ↩

  11. St. Athanasius, Letter 60: To Adelphius, section 4, New Advent, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2806060.htm. ↩

  12. Tasbeha, Good Friday Ninth Hour Pauline, https://tasbeha.org/hymn_library/view/1762; Coptic Heritage, Good Friday rite, https://copticheritage.org/16-good-friday/; St. Bishoy Coptic Orthodox Church, Ethve Ti Anastasees PDF, https://saintbishoy.ca/wp-content/uploads/Hazzat_Hymn_Ethve_Ti_Anastasees_Pauline_9-Hour.pdf. ↩

  13. Coptic readings for Monday of the fifth week of Great Lent, sample 16 March 2026, https://copticchurch.net/readings?g_year=2026&g_month=03&g_day=16. ↩

  14. Larry W. Hurtado, Two Case Studies in Earliest Christological Readings of Biblical Texts, https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/perth-symposium-paper.pdf; Isaiah 45:23, https://biblehub.com/isaiah/45-23.htm; Κύριος lexical entry, https://biblehub.com/greek/2962.htm. ↩

  15. St. Athanasius, Four Discourses Against the Arians, Discourse I, chapters 37-40, CCEL, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf204.xxi.ii.i.xi.html#xxi.ii.i.xi-p1. ↩

  16. UNESCO nomination dossier for the Archaeological Site of Philippi, https://whc.unesco.org/uploads/nominations/1517.pdf; Borvan53, English plan of the Philippi archaeological site, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Philippi_archeological_site-en.png; Berthold Werner, photograph of the archaeological site of Philippi, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archaeological_site_of_Philippi_BW_2017-10-05_13-01-05.jpg; Christ Pantocrator from Sinai, public-domain reproduction, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christ_Icon_Sinai_6th_century.jpg. ↩

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