Recently, I received an email addressed ‘Dear Christ’. It was
obvious that the writer had meant to have put ‘Dear Chris’: thanks,
nonetheless, for the compliment! However, it made me give some thought to the
issue of Christ likeness. During this part of the year we are being treated to
St Paul’s wonderful letter to the Philippians. It is often regarded as Paul’s
most positive letter, and is filled with ‘joy, friendship and thanksgiving’[1].
It is an encouraging letter, but only if we grasp Paul’s central point that we
endeavour to have ‘the same mind in us that was in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians
2: 5). Philippians chapter 2, and the hymn that is contained within it (Vv 6 –
11), is regarding as being at the very centre of Paul’s theology; certainly at
the heart of the letter to the Philippians.
The hymn speaks of Jesus’ humility and his reversion of status: ‘who though
he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be
exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...’ (Philippians 2:
6 -7).
Humility is something that if you say you have it, you obviously
don’t. In Jesus we find the true model of humility. Biblical scholar, Michael
Gorman, calls this Cruciformity: a wonderful word whereby Christians are shaped
by the cross of Jesus into Christ like humility. Humility is something that
shapes us, rather than something we shape. Paul begins chapter 2 by encouraging
the Philippians ‘in humility to regard others better than yourselves. Let each
of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others’
(Philippians 2: 3 – 4). This perception of others we might call a circle of deference:
humility encircles and permeates the Christian community creating a people
shaped by cruciform love. So often we all look to increase our status or try to
have ‘one up’ on someone else, but Paul reminds us that this is not the way of
Christ, and it is not the way of Christ likeness.
[1]
Gorman, M 2004, Apostle of the crucified
Lord: a theological introduction to Paul and his letters, (Eerdmans, Grand
Rapids/Cambridge) P. 412.
