Real unselfishness, so often talked about but so little practiced, would deliver from the

bondage to self and the claiming of one's rights, "not looking each of you to his own

things, but each of you also to the things of others" (verse 4 R.V.).  The spirit that

wins the prize is not concern for ourselves, but first of all for the needs of others.

Self-renunciation is a hard lesson to learn, for with all of us the "I" has great pull, and we

must watch constantly that self-interest does not enter into our motives for Christian

In order to enforce this most necessary lesson, in fact it is the very essence of this

letter to the Philippians, Paul brings forward examples in the lives of others, the first

thing being the supreme example of the Lord Himself:

There is no verb in the second part of the sentence. The A.V. and R.V. supply the

verb "to be", but most modern expositors take the phrase "in Christ Jesus" in the usual

Pauline sense of being positionally in Christ.  F. F. Bruce's paraphrase is, "Let your

purpose and attitude of heart be that which is becoming in those who are one in Christ

Jesus". This is acceptable if it does not remove the introduction of the Lord as the

Example above all others. If we still keep to the A.V. and R.V. rendering, we must

realize that it is not the mind of Christ as a whole which Paul is exhorting the Philippians

to have. It would be impossible for any limited human being to contain all the mind of

God. Here it is rather the particular aspect of complete unselfishness which the Lord so

wonderfully exhibited when He left all the glory that was His before the creation, and

was willing to stoop so low, ending in the death of the cross for our sakes.

The great passage that now follows, is one of the most profound in the Bible, and has

been recognized as such by Biblical scholars from the first centuries onwards. It abounds

with difficulties in interpretation. The Scriptures say very little about the pre-existence of

Christ before creation and this very fact complicates the teaching even further. One thing

we may be sure of--Paul was not writing this passage to overwhelm the believers at

Philippi, nor Christians of succeeding generations. The primary purpose was not to give

a complete revelation of the position Christ had in eternity past, but to stress the

exceeding love which was willing to give Himself to the limit and which we must have, if

we are going to "run well" in the heavenly race.

In examining this context, we shall find there are seven steps of the Lord downward

from the glory to the cross, and seven steps upward to that same glory that was His,

originally, and this is balanced in the structure of the epistle by the seven gains of Paul in

the flesh an his seven gains in the Spirit in chapter 3: 7-11.