Will you kindly turn with me in the
Word of Scripture to Philippians chapter 2, and
we are going to be meditating this morning
upon verses 9 to 11.
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place,
and gave him the name that is above
every name, that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow, in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father.
The exaltation of Jesus Christ, our Lord's immeasurable
stoop in becoming man and assuming our human
nature to his divine nature, in order to
bear our sins in his body to the
tree, is not the end of the story.
The cross is the heart of the gospel,
but it is not the only aspect of
the gospel, and here we find something which
is exceedingly precious and necessary to the glad
tidings, which the New Testament proclaims in and
through Jesus, the Son of God.
The condescension described by Paul in verses 6
to 8 was followed by the glorious exaltation,
announced here in verses 9 to 11 and
elsewhere in scripture.
Obedience to the Father in the service of
others will never, never be unrewarded.
The first word in verse 9, if you
look at it, the word therefore points to
the moral propriety of the exaltation of our
Lord Jesus Christ, not to a logical necessity,
but a moral propriety.
He did not cling to equality with deity.
As he saw mankind in sin and lostness,
he was prepared to take to himself our
nature, and in our nature to become a
humble servant, a servant of the law and
of the edicts he himself had been involved
in making, to make himself servant even to
the point of death, even to the death
of the cross.
Therefore, there is a moral necessity written into
the very dealings of God with men, whereby
you cannot humble yourself for his name and
his glory and the service of his kingdom
in vain.
Now, in referring to our Lord's exaltation, Paul
here telescopes the two events of his resurrection
from the dead and his ascension to the
Father's right hand.
He does not refer to them by name,
but you can see that he brings both
of them together as one movement.
Sometimes they are considered as two separate movements.
We can certainly separate them in thought and
in history.
Jesus rose again from the dead on the
third day after he was crucified, and he
ascended a period after that.
But they belong to one movement of God
in his reaction to the crucifixion of his
son on the cross of Calvary.
God exalted him, and within that movement of
exaltation, we have particularly the raising of the
Lord Jesus from the dead and his ascension
to the Father's right hand to be a
prince and a savior, Lord of lords and
King of kings, from whence he shall come
to judge the living and the dead.
Now, it is to this theme of his
exaltation that we turn this morning.
And we need great grace, were it only
to have a glimpse of what is involved
here.
I don't think it is possible for us
to live the same again when once we've
caught a glimpse of our exalted Lord.
It matters not whether we are involved, as
they say, in full-time Christian ministries, missionaries
or ministers or whatever, or whether we are
involved in a secular task and there witnessing
as Christians and seeking to make Christ known
there.
It makes no difference.
When once you and I have seen the
exalted Savior, it will transform our lives, it
will transform our understanding of our human situation,
and it will transform the manner in which
we see things and the opportunities of each
succeeding day.
God grant us that vision in some measure
today.
Now, we focus first of all on the
divine action here.
This is basic to everything else.
Therefore God exalted him, says the NIV, to
the highest place and gave him the name
that is above every name.
There are two distinguishable aspects to God's sovereign
action in response to his son's self-humbling
in his incarnation and death for others.
The one focuses upon his elevation as God
-man to the highest place.
Now, if you find difficulty in remembering things,
think first of the highest place.
God exalted him to the highest place.
The King James Version used to say, God
has highly exalted him.
Well, that's good, but this goes a little
further and I'm sure it represents the underlying
Greek.
God has not only highly exalted him, but
God has exalted him to the highest place.
There is no higher.
Now, you may read your books, you may
study your philosophies and your history of religions,
but it is the affirmation of this passage
of Scripture that no one anywhere at any
time has or ever will occupy a place
higher than the place that Jesus Christ, the
Son of God, occupies this morning.
He's been exalted to the highest place.
Now, matching this, he is in his exaltation
given the loftiest name.
And the two things match, of course.
You see, God never does things in halves.
We do.
He doesn't.
He is able.
And he matches this exaltation of his Son
to the highest place with the conferring upon
him of the loftiest of all names.
Now, let's look at these two as expounding
our first point, the divine action in the
exaltation of the man Christ Jesus.
The exaltation, first of all, of the person
of Christ to the highest place.
Now, having already noted that the divine action
in our Lord's exaltation involved the resurrection and
the ascension, we can come straight to this
and just look it straight in the face.
What does it say?
What is involved?
What is the significance of this great act
of God involving his resurrection and his ascension
to the right hand of the Father upon
high?
I think we must proceed to consider at
least two major implications in the significance of
that act of God.
One, the twofold action concertedly affirms the divine
reversal of every false evaluation of Jesus Christ.
When God raised him from the dead and
caused him to ascend to his own right
hand and seated him there, crowned with glory
and honor, God contradicted the contradictions of men.
God challenged the false views of Christ's enemies
and he turned the whole verdict of Calvary
upside down.
And that is something that is awesomely significant.
This honor bestowed upon our Lord by the
Father is an outright rejection and reversal by
him of the evaluation of Christ's life and
person which lay behind his crucifixion and death.
Why was Jesus crucified?
Now, we don't need to go into the
details.
Let's just get the pith, the principle.
Jesus was crucified because neither Jew nor Gentile
believed that he deserved to live.
Put positively, the religious leaders of his day
believed that he should die, that he was
unfit for life and that he should die
the cruelest kind of death imaginable because of
crimes he had allegedly committed against their religion.
They persuaded Herod, representative of the Gentile authority,
to carry out the deed.
Now, Herod tells us, I'm sorry, Pontius Pilate
tells us three times that he found no
fault in him but Pontius Pilate did not
think that Jesus of Nazareth deserved that he
should take much trouble to try and defend
him and if the Jews are making this
awful row and threatening turmoil in order to
crucify Jesus of Nazareth well then, says Pontius
Pilate to himself I'd better hand him over.
I'm not going to get into difficulty.
I'm not going to jeopardize my future in
the civil service or whatever.
I'm going to see that my own skin
is unscarred.
Let him be handed over.
That's why Jesus was crucified.
No one thought he was worthy to live.
They thought he was worthy of death.
Now, the resurrection confounded that arrogant and jaundiced
notion.
God, you see, moved in the very opposite
direction and raised his son up from the
grave with a view to elevating him on
high.
The blind arrogance and perverted judgment of Jew
and Gentile both of them are contradicted by
God himself by an act that only could
be an act of God.
The God of Abram and the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob and the
God of David contradicted what the representatives of
Moses had done in their day and what
the Gentile authorities had done.
Now, you see, had we been in their
shoes we would probably have done exactly the
same thing.
So don't let's look at anybody and say
we're better than you are.
God have mercy upon us, but this is
what they did.
The apostle Peter particularly lays hold of this
fact and he there most graphically, I think
more graphically than any of the apostles.
He makes use of it, you remember, on
the day of Pentecost.
The point that I am making, Peter seemed
to take hold of it and he used
it with tremendous effect in Acts chapter 2.
This man Jesus, you, he says, with the
help of wicked men referring to the Gentiles
Pontius Pilate and so forth you with the
help of wicked men put to death by
nailing him on a cross.
But God, you see, the opposition, you see
the contrast you did this, but God raised
him from the dead exalted to the right
hand of God.
It is he who has poured forth this
that you now see and hear.
That is the Holy Spirit with the evidences
of his presence on the day of Pentecost.
He's exalted, God has exalted him and in
so doing he has contradicted all and sundry
and they come under his judgment.
The exaltation of our Lord needs also to
be seen of course as the reward of
his voluntary mission and passion.
Such obedience and such voluntary services as is
rendered by our Lord to his Father here
could not go unrewarded.
He earned this.
He deserved this.
He merited this.
The fact that the exaltation of Jesus was
merited by his deeds appears as already indicated
from the word therefore to which we've referred
right at the beginning of verse 11.
Therefore God has highly exalted him.
It could not be otherwise.
He in mercy became our slave, our servant
to bear the heaviest burden ever placed on
a human soul or on a human shoulder.
And he took it all away.
There was a moral necessity that God should
recognize the merits of Jesus Christ.
For he was no sinner and he had
no sin.
But for sinners he became and took our
bodies, took bodies, a body like ours and
died.
But now this is a principle shot through
the scriptures.
And those who humble themselves in the service
of God are always honored.
Let me just read to you, throw out
a few passages.
You can follow them up.
I read in Matthew chapter 23 and verse
12.
Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever
humbles himself will be exalted.
Again in James 4.10. Humble yourselves before
the Lord and he will lift you up.
And again Peter says almost identically the same
thing.
1 Peter 5.6. Humble yourselves therefore under
God's mighty hand that he may lift you
up in due time.
You humble yourselves, says Peter, and sooner or
later the God of all grace and mercy
will lift you up again.
There is always an exaltation that follows the
self-humbling of a man or a woman.
The writer to the epistle to the Hebrews
makes the point and makes it very clear
unequivocally so.
Stressing the fact that Jesus was crowned with
glory and honor quote, because of the sufferings
of death.
Hebrews 2.9. That is, his honor, his
coronation was merited.
You and I will never merit things like
this.
But he merited, he merited his position on
the throne.
The honor he merited was nevertheless fully and
ungrudgingly given by God the Father.
And this is the way I like to
look at the words before us.
Therefore God has exalted him to the highest
place.
You know, God does not begrudge him this.
God does not just say, all right, sir,
I'll put you in the honors list.
No, no.
As a matter of fact, Paul employs a
word at this point which is not found
anywhere in classical Greek nor in the New
Testament.
He seems to have coined it himself.
Winston Churchill used to do that.
When he found that he couldn't find a
word in the vocabulary that expressed what he
wanted it to express, he coined it himself.
I heard him say so.
He said, why can't I?
Well, why can't the apostle Paul?
And he's got a word here which nobody
knows where it's come from unless from Paul's
own imagination.
One commentator at least translates it as super
exalted.
It means that God exalted him abundantly over
and above what you can imagine or think.
You can study it.
You can read the record of it.
But you can't take the half of it
in.
There is always more to it than meets
the eye.
Super exalted him.
You cannot see the furthermost reaches of the
glory which he has inherited.
Now, other scriptures, of course, will more clearly
enlarge upon that.
Scripture interprets scripture.
And that is how, I suppose, we are
meant to read the Bible one passage interprets
another passage.
Many people, many people miss the glories of
scripture because when they're reading a passage they
only think of one passage and they forget
about the whole of the rest of scripture.
But you see, one passage needs to come
under the light of another passage.
And the light of the whole must come
upon the part and that's why we must
read the whole.
There are many passages of scripture that cast
a gleaming light upon what we have before
us this morning.
Think, for example, of how the epistle to
the Hebrews throws light upon this that we
are considering now.
The honor that our Lord merited and that
was ungrudgingly given him by the Father exalted
him to the highest place.
I read in Hebrews 4.14 Therefore, since
we have a great high priest who has
gone through the heavens through the heavens he
wasn't simply exalted into heaven.
I read in Hebrews 7.26 Such a
high priest meets our need one who is
holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners exalted,
listen, above the heavens.
He's not only gone through the heavens, he's
above the heavens.
Wait a minute.
In Hebrews 4.10 He who descended is
the very one who ascended higher than all
the heavens.
Listen to Hebrews 9.24 For Christ did
not enter a man-made sanctuary that was
only a copy of the true one.
He entered heaven itself.
Now to appear in the very presence of
God for us.
What are these scriptures saying?
They're saying, my dear friends, that God exalted
Christ his Son in his exalted manhood into
his very presence the presence of his throne
and he sits at his right hand, whatever
that means.
There is no conceivable glory that is beyond
this.
Paul, in his attempt to express this you
know he really baffles us with thought upon
thought in Ephesians 1.20-22 Do you
remember his words?
He that is God, says Paul, raised him
up from the dead and seated him at
his right hand in the heavenly realms.
Now follows this startling statement.
Far above all rule and authority power and
dominion and every title that can be given
not only in the present age but also
in the one to come.
And God placed all things under his feet
and appointed him to be the head over
everything to the church.
My friend, can you see it?
However dimly.
He who condescended to be a babe in
the virgin mother's womb and in her arms
he who was slandered and spat upon and
crucified and nailed to the tree and buried
in the borrowed tomb he who died under
the curse of our sin is now raised
from the dead and exalted and everything is
under his feet.
There is nothing above, not a thing, not
a person not anyone, no authority, no power
no name that is named in this world
or the world to come.
Everything is under his feet.
Hallelujah.
There's an awesomeness about this that ought to
grip our souls as we go out into
the world for a new week's witness and
service and perfecting of our own sanctification.
The highest place that heaven affords is his
and his by right the king of kings
and lord of lords and heaven's eternal light.
If this is not so then there's no
reason why we should be so full of
zeal.
There's no reason why we should be missionaries
of the gospel.
There's no reason why the church should bear
its testimony and suffer.
There's no reason why we should deny ourselves.
All the rationale is based upon this.
We have such a wonderful savior.
God became incarnate.
When the work of the incarnate lord was
finished in his glorified humanity he is seated
at the father's right hand from whence he
shall come to judge the living and the
dead.
But now corresponding to this is the bestowal
upon him in the highest place of the
loftiest name and gave him the name that
is above every name.
I must hurry.
What is this?
We've sung this morning about the name of
Jesus.
What is this one name?
What is this name that is above every
name?
Every name given to our lord Jesus either
by Old Testament scriptures looking forward prophetically, symbolically
or whatever every name given him is precious.
And I suppose most of us would want
to say that the name Jesus has a
peculiar a peculiar beauty and attraction to us.
He was given this before he was born
by the angel.
Really, by God the father through the angel.
It was at the divine commission that he
was given the name Jesus.
He himself apparently loved to refer to himself
as the son of man Probably understanding it
in the sense of Daniel 7.
You'll read that passage.
He was also called the son of God.
He was called so many things and there
were so many epithets so many descriptions of
him given so many chosen by himself.
I am the way, I am the truth,
I am the life I'm the bread of
life, I'm the water of life I'm the
door, I'm the first and the last.
What's this name that is above every name?
Well of course that is easier to identify
than perhaps we might at first appreciate because
when we go on you notice what we're
told here.
God exalted him to the highest place gave
him the name that is above every name
that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow in heaven and on earth and
under the earth and that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
There's no question about it.
That is the name that is above every
other.
That name was above every other in the
Roman world.
The Roman world called Caesar Curias meaning Lord,
the very word we have here not because
he was the head of state not because
he ruled not because of his power though
all these things were involved.
Do you know why the Romans called him
Curias Caesar?
For this reason they believed he was divine
and they worshipped him of course they burnt
incense to him they thought that the Caesar
was what was a God and because of
that they called him Curias.
In the New Testament it is the equivalent
of the Old Testament words for God to
especially, I don't need to I can't take
the time this morning to describe why to
Adonai and Jehovah this is the equivalent of
the highest loftiest name used by the Jews
of Old Testament days for their God, the
God of Abram and Isaac and of Jacob
Jesus is given the name that is above
every other name the exaltation of Jesus Christ
then is something that took place by the
sovereign action of almighty God in response to
his son's gross humiliation in becoming incarnate and
dying our death it focuses upon his elevation
to the highest place and being given the
loftiest name and the second thing, the other
thing I wanted to speak about this morning
is the intention behind that that at the
name of Jesus, the exalted one in the
highest of all places that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth and
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of God the Father the
super exaltation of Jesus Christ and his endowment
to the highest of all names is not
simply a symbolic or a decorative thing it's
not a decorative gesture as when someone is
given a title by her majesty in the
New Year's honors list no, no, there is
more to it than that God purposed the
most far-reaching consequences when he gave his
son the name that is above every name
his own name as God-man seen against
the background of the whole New Testament the
exaltation of our Lord is shown both to
involve privilege and responsibility privilege of course that
we have such a wonderful Savior you and
I should never be ashamed of him when
we see him either in his humiliation or
his exaltation but the emphasis here is not
on the privilege but on the responsibility Paul
here expresses the demands that our Lord's exaltation
will make and does make upon mankind in
all ages to the end of time and
there is no one left out it applies
to everybody I want to say two main
things one, since God has highly exalted him
the whole creation must humbly bow down before
him that, at the name of Jesus, the
Exalted One every knee should bow in heaven
and on earth and under the earth God's
intention in the exaltation of his son is
hinted at in the opening word that which
means in order that in order that God
exalted him in order that what?
this should take place that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow that includes
you that includes me it includes men and
women of all the nations of all the
earth of all time and there's a day
coming when all men that have ever lived
will have to do that here then is
a major implication of our Lord's exaltation all
creatures whether in heaven or on earth or
under the earth will have to do it
and this of course this must not be
confined to some kind of physical genuflection honoring
the son going on your knees or crossing
yourself as an indication of respect no, no,
no, no this is a matter of of
acknowledging him from the depth of the heart
in a practical way it must be deeper
than any genuflection of the body though that
of course may be truly significant when people
are sincere it's a matter of mind a
matter of will a matter of heart which
concedes all this to him with all that
the concession involves now such an acknowledgement must
needs be intimately personal that at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow every knee
if you'll pardon me I hope I'm not
taking this too literally you can't even do
this on one knee you'll have to bend
both knees so will I this is not
a token submission this is a total acknowledgement
it would appear that we must do this
individually and personally just as Jesus refused to
cling to his equality with God thought of
the things and of the needs of others
and humbled himself to become a servant even
to die so we must die to ourselves
and our ideas of ourselves in order to
obey God and bend the knee to his
son Dr. Paul Rees in his book The
Radiant Cross it was written years ago it's
a lovely little book very well worth reading
I've had it on my shelves for a
long long time and I came across it
when we were moving last summer and in
it he speaks of a friend of his
who was visiting Copenhagen or Copenhagen however you
like to pronounce it and he was in
the cathedral there and was looking at Thorwaldsen's
sculpture of Christ which is on exhibition there
and if you know anything about this sculpture
then you know that the head of Christ
is leaning forward so that the features of
his face are not easily discernible if you're
a tall person you've got to look down
bend down and look up Dr. Paul Rees'
friend was very tall somewhere in the region
of the seven foot mark and he came
in and he was admiring this statue from
a distance but evidently he was not seeing
the glory of it and the custodian came
up behind him and pulled his sleeve and
said Sir, he said pardon me but you
can only see his features and the glory
of his face if you bend at his
feet and look up and that's exactly what
he did he knelt at his feet my
friend whatever you read about the Lord Jesus
Christ whatever you hear about him from others
there is a glory and there is a
grace and there are distinctive features of his
that you can only know for yourself when
you bow at his feet and look up
and that's what it means to acknowledge his
Lordship to bend the knee such humble personal
recognition of Jesus Christ as exalted must be
ultimately universal in heaven and on earth and
under the earth no intelligent being can opt
out of this necessity no one can sidestep
Jesus Christ you know you talk to people
and they're quick in argument and they kind
of evade the issues that you bring up
in your presentation of the gospel of our
Lord Jesus and you say oh these people
are too clever don't get away with it
don't you believe it God has made it
so you can't sidestep him God has raised
him from the dead he's exalted him to
be at his right hand forever a prince
and a saviour he is king of kings
and lord of lords and men and women
will come back from the dead to be
faced with him as judge heaven earth under
the earth the whole cosmos the whole history
of mankind will be involved in this there's
no let out here and the other thing
I wanted to say time is going since
God has personally conferred on our Lord the
name that is above every other name every
tongue must acknowledge him as Lord not
simply must every knee bow but every tongue
every mouth will have to acknowledge that he
is Lord now to confess verbally that Jesus
is Lord out of a heart of repentance
and of faith is to be saved this
is the great gospel if thou shalt believe
in thine heart that God raised him from
the dead and then confess with your lips
you are saved says the apostle Paul believing
in the heart means trusting not only the
historical fact of the resurrection but its essential
significance as setting the seal of God's favour
upon the life and death of his son
have you done that?
do you verbally acknowledge him as your Lord
your Saviour or do you still see him
as a prophet among prophets a king among
kings a ruler among rulers my friend your
eyes have got to be opened he is
high over all there is no one else
where he is he is the one and
only he is the only king on his
level he sets kings on their thrones and
he takes them down again he is Lord
of lords he is king of kings his
kingdom outlives every other Daniel 7 all other
kingdoms will fall into smithereens they are disintegrating
and they will be judged and all that
offends of all the kingdoms of time will
be cast aside into the fiery burnings of
God but his kingdom lasts forever and he
is king over all the one and only
as a matter of fact it will be
seen that these words from verse 11 are
actually a quotation from Isaiah 45.3 their
God says God Jehovah the triune God of
the Old Testament their God says that all
creatures shall one day bow and swear to
him Paul applies that now to the Son
the incarnate Son glorified and honored to confess
Jesus to be Lord other than out of
such faith of course out of faith and
repentance and submission honest willing submission is not
salvation there are those who will have to
acknowledge Jesus to be Lord not willingly but
grudgingly but you see sooner or later every
mouth will have to acknowledge it audibly Satan
and his hosts of demonic and human followers
will not have the luxury of an eternity
in which they can justify themselves for the
rejection of their Son of God's Son that
is one thing that will not be possible
in hell no man, no woman will be
able to justify himself or herself he deserves
my rejection why?
because before you get there the glory of
the Son of God will be seen again
as he returns in his glory to judge
the world and at the spectacle of that
glory that is yet to be seen by
every eye and those raised from the dead
and brought back from the waters of the
sea they will so recognize his glory that
they will confess that he is Lord and
the gall of eternal misery will be enhanced
by the knowledge that whatever the excuse of
the time it was all wrong God reversed
it he is Lord brothers and sisters I
ask you this morning is there any man
or woman in our worship in our service
who does not acknowledge this where you sit
in your seat without any fuss, without any
bother acknowledge him in your heart this is
biblical Christianity there is no other it's not
just being able to sing heartily or even
know the scriptures but it is acknowledging with
the heart this is so God has exalted
him and I must give him the place
that is his due he deserves it and
notice I haven't said anything about this Paul
has linked up not only the deserts of
Christ but also the glory of God together
it is all to be done to the
glory of God the glory of God is
made to hang upon this that the whole
of creation will have to acknowledge the Lordship
of Jesus Christ one day oh I plead
with you don't be satisfied with a minuscule
vision of Jesus of Nazareth see him for
the one he is in the light of
God's throne and of God's book and crown
him as such and honor him as such
I conclude with this see this kind of
study and I urge you to take it
much further than I can do it this
morning this kind of study shows you Jesus
Christ's total and his exclusive uniqueness and
capability to be the Savior for there is
no one in the same category oh there
are some good men spawned up by other
religions and philosophies which are non-christian and
not even religious some great men great thinkers
great doers great what have you but my
dear friends it is the message of this
book and of our faith that there is
no one in this category so you don't
need to be ashamed of him what is
more he deserves the acknowledgement of the nations
God has made it so abundantly clear that
the view of Jew and Gentile was wrong
and his son in his humanity has been
glorified to the highest place given the highest
name and that is an advance notice that
those who think otherwise and live otherwise are
on a collision course with God hence
the message of the gospel repent and believe
and trust and obey and be saved so
let it be oh that this day would
be a day of salvation oh that it
might be as God meant it to be
a day of grace not only grace manifested
towards us but grace received by us that
we may walk in the ways of the
Lord let us pray great
great God our heavenly father how to thank
you for your word and for your spirit
to help us in our attempt to understand
your word and apply it to ourselves and
to our generation we know not but as
best we can we do acknowledge our privilege
oh Lord and we ask that you will
enable us to respond to what we are
learning of your son in a manner that
is pleasing to you in a manner that
is so pleasing to you that we may
find ourselves here and now fulfilling the very
purpose for which we were first created and
then when we had got lost the purpose
for which we were redeemed and recreated in
Christ and are now being sustained and challenged
from your holy word oh bless your people
remember those among us who have very heavy
problems and burdens and some heartbreaks help them
to look into the face of every foe
every enemy every circumstance from under the arm
of him whom God has exalted high over
all put your arms oh Lord Jesus Christ
around your people this morning and carry them
out and carry them on and carry the
lambs in your arms to your bosom clasp
them until we all reach the end of
our journey and finish our work we ask
it through your blessed name as our mediator
and our savior Amen