Joy in chains: Paul to the Philippians, and the Christ hymn

Philippi was a city in Macedonia, named for Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. After the battle fought there in 42 BC, Rome settled army veterans in it, and it became a Roman colony with the privileges of Italian soil. Paul brought the gospel there on his second journey, around AD 49-50, in his first mission on European soil. Acts 16 tells of Lydia, the dealer in purple, a slave girl freed of a spirit, and a jailer converted after an earthquake. Paul and Silas were beaten and jailed in that city. The church was Paul's closest partner: it sent him support more than once (Philippians 4:15-16).

The letter is from 'Paul and Timothy' and addressed to the saints in Philippi with the overseers and deacons. Paul is in prison (1:7, 13-14). He writes to thank the church for a gift brought by Epaphroditus, who fell gravely ill and is now being sent home (2:25-30), to report on his situation, and to urge unity and steadiness amid opposition and suffering. Few scholars doubt that Paul wrote it.

Where was he imprisoned? The traditional answer is Rome, around AD 60-62, as Acts 28 describes. The 'praetorian guard' (1:13) and 'Caesar's household' (4:22) fit Rome, but they could also fit a provincial capital. Ephesus (about AD 53-55) and Caesarea (about 57-59) are proposed by others: the distance from Rome to Philippi is large, and the letter implies several journeys between prison and church. The class follows Rome as the more likely, while noting that the content of the letter reads much the same either way. A smaller debate concerns unity: because the tone changes at 3:1, some scholars think the letter combines two or three notes written close together. Others defend it as one letter.

Philippians is a letter, and ancient letters have an opening, a thanksgiving, a body and closing greetings. Paul's thanksgiving (1:3-11) is not a courtesy: it states the themes he will develop, namely partnership, joy, the day of Christ, and growth in love and discernment. The letter also belongs to the type often called a 'letter of friendship', in which affection, news and mutual obligation are normal, yet Paul turns each to the gospel.

The central chapter-2 passage, 2:6-11, is carefully shaped, in two stages, and is often called a hymn. Since the early twentieth century scholars have discussed whether Paul quoted an existing Christian hymn or composed it. Nothing in the interpretation depends on the answer. The harder questions are about particular words, discussed below. The important rule is to read the hymn in its letter context. Paul introduces it in 2:5 as a pattern for how the church should think and act toward one another (2:1-4). It is both a statement of who Christ is and an example, and Paul does not make the second the whole of it.

The interpretive principle is to let the argument of the paragraph decide among possible readings of single words. Paul's concern is unity among believers who might be tempted to selfish ambition, so the humility of Christ is the lead idea, but Paul gives it its full weight by saying who humbled himself and what he was exalted to.

1:1-11. Paul and Timothy call themselves 'servants' (literally slaves) of Christ Jesus. The mention of 'overseers and deacons' is unusual in Paul's greetings and shows that the church already had recognised leaders. Paul thanks God for the church's 'partnership in the gospel from the first day' until now (1:5). The Greek word for partnership is koinonia, sharing together in a common work. He is confident that the one who began a good work in them will complete it 'until the day of Christ Jesus' (1:6). He prays for their love to grow with knowledge and discernment so that they may be pure and blameless on that day.

1:12-26. Paul says that his imprisonment has served to advance the gospel. The whole praetorian guard and others have learned that he is in chains for Christ, and most believers have become bolder to speak. Some preach from envy and rivalry, others from goodwill, but Paul rejoices that Christ is proclaimed either way. He expects deliverance, either by release or by death, and sets out the choice before him: 'to live is Christ, and to die is gain'. To depart and be with Christ is far better, yet remaining is needed for the church. He is confident he will remain for their progress and joy.

1:27-30. Their 'citizenship' (the verb politeuesthe) is to be worthy of the gospel. Philippi was proud of its Roman status, and Paul calls the church to live as citizens of another commonwealth. They should stand firm in one spirit, 'contending as one' for the faith, unafraid of opponents. Paul says that suffering for Christ has been granted to them as well as believing in him. They are in the same struggle that they saw in him (see Acts 16).

2:1-4. The four 'if' clauses (encouragement in Christ, comfort from love, fellowship of the Spirit, affection and compassion) are not doubts but grounds. On this basis Paul asks them to complete his joy by being of the same mind, having the same love. He forbids selfish ambition and conceit and tells them to count others more significant than themselves.

2:5-11. The hymn begins by describing Christ Jesus, who 'existed in the form of God' (morphe theou), the visible reality that belongs to God's own nature. He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped (harpagmos). The word is rare, and two readings are possible: he did not treat it as something to seize, or he did not treat it as something to exploit for his own advantage. Either way, equality is presupposed, not denied. Instead 'he emptied himself' (ekenosen), taking the form of a slave and being born in human likeness. The emptying is described by what follows, taking and becoming, not by what he gave up. Being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross, the penalty Rome kept for slaves and rebels.

The second stage begins with 'therefore'. God exalted him and gave him the name above every name. At the name of Jesus every knee in heaven, on earth and under the earth will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. This language comes from Isaiah 45:23, where the LORD declares that to him every knee will bow, so that the title of the one God is given to Jesus. The exaltation does not compete with the Father's glory; it ends in it.

2:12-18. Paul tells them to 'work out' their salvation with fear and trembling, because God is at work in them to will and to do his good pleasure. Both are true together: their action is real, and God's action underlies it. They are to do all things without grumbling, as lights in a crooked generation, holding out the word of life. Paul describes himself as poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice of their faith, and calls them to rejoice with him.

2:19-30. Paul plans to send Timothy, whose concern for the church is genuine and who served with him 'as a son with a father'. Epaphroditus, their messenger, nearly died in carrying out the church's service and is to be received with honour.

The letter holds together several doctrines in a short space. The first is the full divinity and full humanity of Christ. The hymn says he was in the form of God, and equal with God, and that he took the form of a slave in human likeness and died. Later councils turned to this text. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 affirmed that Christ is one person in two natures, and Christian interpreters in the first centuries generally read 'emptied himself' as taking on humanity, not as a surrender of divine nature. Some nineteenth-century theologians proposed that the Son gave up some divine attributes in becoming human (kenotic theology). Most Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed and Baptist interpreters have rejected that as a reading of the verse.

• The second doctrine is the unity of divine action and human responsibility. Paul commands the church to work out their salvation and says in the next breath that God is at work in them. The same logic runs through the Bible: God's gifts are received in obedience (compare Joshua 1 and Ephesians 2:8-10).
• The third is the sovereignty of the exalted Lord. The title 'Lord' (Kyrios) was used in the Greek Old Testament to translate the divine name, so the confession that Jesus is Lord assigns him the place that Isaiah gave the LORD alone. In a Roman colony, where loyalty to the emperor was expected, the confession also had a public edge.

A last theme is suffering. For Paul it is neither accidental nor useless. It is part of sharing in Christ's cause, a gift (1:29), and he sees even his own imprisonment as serving the gospel.

The hymn is one of the New Testament's fullest statements of the person and work of Christ in so short a space, and it makes its claims by narrating a sequence: pre-existence, incarnation, death, exaltation. The pattern is that of descent and ascent. The one who was in the form of God became a slave, and the one who died as a slave was given the name of Lord.

Several Old Testament texts stand behind it. The strongest is Isaiah 45:23, quoted in substance in 2:10-11, where the LORD says every knee will bow to him and every tongue swear loyalty. Paul applies it to Jesus without hesitation, and he does so to the glory of the Father. The suffering servant of Isaiah 52:13-53:12, who is 'exalted and lifted up' after being humbled and poured out in death, is a likely background for the hymn's shape, though Paul does not quote it here. The comparison with Adam is a further suggestion: some scholars, notably James Dunn, read the hymn as contrasting Adam, who grasped at being like God (Genesis 3:5), with Christ, who did not. Others hold that the hymn speaks of the Son's real pre-existence and that an Adam contrast, if present, is secondary. Most interpreters from the early church onward have taken the pre-existence reading.

The answer to the question of how the Old Testament is fulfilled is therefore found in a person: the humiliation foretold in the servant and the exaltation promised to the LORD are both found in Jesus. The hymn also anticipates the church's later confession that Jesus is Lord (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 12:3).