Looking To The Cross | Day 28 | Philippians 2:5-8

When the serpent questioned God’s command to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden, he was subtlety enticing the first couple to a life of upward mobility. According to the serpent, God was holding back knowledge and position.

The phrase, you shall be like God has been the theme of humanity ever since and has been the source of sin and strife with God and fellow humans. 

The first Adam failed miserably, but the second Adam, Christ, defeated Satan by overturning his evil intentions. Paul urges the church in Philippi to have the same mind as Christ and follow his example. Instead of exploiting the opportunity to be like God, Christ did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Instead of disobeying God by seeking life for himself, Christ obeyed God and humbled himself to the point of death on the cross. 

Christ as God clothed himself in humanity and was able to experience firsthand the humility of the incarnation. In His humanity, Christ modeled the life of a servant by washing the disciples’ feet and thus overturning the expectations of what a good upwardly mobile Rabbi should be.

On the cross, Jesus’ obedience to the Father in death defeated the devil’s schemes by redeeming humanity from sin and a life of self-exaltation. Only in humility can there be genuine unity in Christ.