From an old sinner for whom Christ died.
This is an early Christian hymn beginning with verse 6. It describes Christ in the servant role. He had equality with God but did not cling to it but rather for our sakes he humbled himself and became even obedient unto death, death on a cross.
Paul introduces it in verse 5. That is THE CRITICAL VERSE that sets the tone for the rest. IT ALL DEPENDS ON how one reads verse 5.
Free willers (that is, those who hold that we have free will to chooses good or evil) read it as a call to imitate Jesus. For those who know that free will is a lie and that we have NO FREE WILL it is a remarkable expression by Paul of that which permeates all of his writings, which is conformity to Christ, not imitating Jesus.
I pulled several Bibles from my library and checked how they translated verse 5. I knew in advance that because FREE WILL dominates our religious culture most of the translations would push “imitate” Jesus. So we have the following:
“The attitude YOU SHOULD HAVE is the one that Christ Jesus had…”(Today’s English Version)
“Your attitude SHOULD BE the same as that of Christ Jesus…” (NIV)
“THINK the same way that Christ Jesus thought…” (CEV)
“LET the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” (NRSV)
Imitate, imitate, imitate, these translations shout. “You should,” “your attitude should,” “think,” “let,” they scream at us. It’s in your hands they insist. You have the free will to choose they argue. All of which is a big fat lie!
The RSV comes close with this translation, “Have this mind among yourselves WHICH YOU HAVE IN CHRIST JESUS…”
For Paul, EVERYTHING depends on being IN CHRIST. Baptized we are therein united with Christ in his death and resurrection so that we DIED with him and now HE is the life in us. IN CHRIST we have been discharged from THE LAW (Romans 7:6). WE have died to the demands of the Law. Therefore the translations above (except for the RSV) seek to put us back under the demands of the Law thereby discharging us from CHRIST HIMSELF.
Paul points out in I Cor. 2:16, that “we have the MIND of CHRIST” because of our baptism into CHRIST. Thus it is consistent for him to state in verse 5 of Philippians 2: “have his mind among yourselves which in fact you already have because of your incorporation into CHRIST JESUS through the waters of baptism.” This is the very opposite of “imitating” Jesus. It is “conformity to CHRIST” which is God conforming us to CHRIST HIMSELF.
Where “imitating” would call for us to be active trying to achieve this, Paul is setting forth “conformity” which calls for us to be TOTALLY PASSIVE in the face of God’s activity in us; totally passive because we have already died. Dead things don’t do anything. And we are dead through baptism (Col. 3:4; Rom. 6:3-4).
In II Corinthians 3:17-18, Paul makes it so obvious that the free willers have to wince when it is read: “Now where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord ARE BEING TRANSFIGURED in his image from one degree of glory to another. And all this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit!”
“ARE BEING TRANSFIGURED” is the phrase that declares “conformity to CHRIST.” There is NO PLACE for the person’s participation in this. It is happening to us by God alone, period.
There is NO PLACE for “imitation of Jesus.” There is ONLY “conformity to CHRIST.”
Free Will is exposed for the lie that it is.
THE END OF FREE WILL IS THE BEGINNING OF FAITH!
The servant role described in Phil. 2:5-11 is your role and mine because you are IN CHRIST JESUS. You HAVE the mind of CHRIST. IT is the role being played out in you and me because the life in you and me is CHRIST HIMSELF.
This is not a SHOULD but an IS.
©Richard J. Smith
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