Philippians 2:8-9

THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST

‘And became obedient unto death.’

Php_2:8

There are four things which Christ obeyed.

I. He obeyed the law.—He had grand views of law. ‘Thy law is within my heart’ was the language of His whole life. Everything He did was an obedience of law.

II. He obeyed inward principle.—It is a thing greatly to be admired when the outer and visible life is always a reflection of a deep, inner life, which is always working in a man’s mind. This Christ had intimately. There was an irrepressible expansion of duty. ‘How am I straitened till it be accomplished?’ And these two words several times repeated, ‘I must.’

III. He always set His life to the meridian of Scripture.—It was not the word was written because the act was done; but the act was done because the word was written. ‘So saith the Scripture.’ ‘The things concerning me have an end.’ ‘Have you not heard?’ ‘It is written.’ So supreme and ultimate to Christ was every word of the Bible.

IV. He was the most obedient of sons to His heavenly Father.—His Father, in a sense beyond all others. Ours, because His. And He never lost an opportunity of honouring His Father. His works were the works which His Father gave Him to do.

Illustration

‘The difficulty at once meets us—“Christ was God: how can God be obedient?” Jesus Christ was, and is, and ever shall be, eternally and essentially and infinitely God. But when He came to this earth, to teach it, to elevate it, to save it, He was pleased to forego, and divest Himself for a while, during His sojourn, of the privileges, and the immunities, and the externals of God. The expression of St. Paul is, “He emptied Himself.” As respects these things, those thirty-three years were a parenthesis. He laid them down that He might take them again, and take them again after His humiliation more magnificently than before.’