Doctrine #4: God's Thinking

Christ was/is humble.

We are to be a living sacrifice. The word "sacrifice" meant "to kill flesh." This implied progress in being led by the Spirit.

We ARE our Mind/Soul. This showed the topic dealt with who the person is, not their office/position. We ought to be conformed to God, not the world. We ought to think well of God, not think well of the world. Transforming ourselves by the renewing of our minds comes by using these five behaviors:

1. Non-Contradiction

2. Causality

3. Contrastive Thinking

4. Growth

5. Fellowship

The result of all of this would be humility, not pride.

Paul's premise: We ought to see others as more excellent than ourselves, and they ought to see us as more excellent than themselves. This is humility. We ought to think well of others instead of thinking well of ourselves. How can we do this? By uniqueness. We can see everyone as better than ourselves in what God made them to be, and everyone can see us as more excellent in what God made us to be. Without valuing uniqueness, someone will be more excellent and someone will be less excellent, which opens the door to pride. Notice how this topic is built on the foundation of everything that came before it: people ought to think well of God because they recognize His intrinsic value. That is really the First Command. The effect of doing the First Command is the Second Command: that we think well of others. Paul then presented a physical example that valued uniqueness.

Blessed (effects) is the man who does the following causes...

Causes - his delight is in God's Law (law, direction (grace), instruction) and he meditates in God's Law. Because "law" meant "direction/instruction," you can interpret these verses to mean "delight in God's Word, meditate in God's Word."

The man who does these causes will produce fruit (growth) and will prosper (profitability). The Book of Psalms began with the analogy of a tree. A tree is on Israel's flag.

The peace of God passes all understanding. This did not mean that we couldn't have "all understanding." This meant that having the peace of God is greater than all understanding.

Verse 8 contained things that we ought to think on. In the first chapter of this letter, Paul told the Philippians that when he thinks of them, he was thankful and joyful. Thinking on the things in verse 8 ought to cause you to be content: thankful and joyful. When you think about God and when you think about scripture, do you feel better or worse? We are going to be surrounded by things that are not pleasant, but we have the choice on what we think about.

Paul told them to do the things that they had learned, heard, and seen Paul do and it would result in peace from God.

Job thought the wicked and good were treated the same before God. Elihu had shown Job's Conclusion #1 was wrong. Remember, Job reached this Conclusion after his suffering began.

We ought to seek God while we have the opportunity. Eventually, it will be too late. Are you seeking God? If not, what are you waiting for?

A call for the wicked and unrighteous to repent. God would have mercy on the repentant.

God's ways and thoughts were Right and Just. Our ways and thoughts are not Right nor Just.

Paul began this next section with four if's. The most critical one was "fellowship of the Spirit," which would lead to fellowship with each other (consolation of love, tender mercies, compassions, etc.). Paul stated that if the Philippians had any fellowship of the Spirit (and any fellowship with each other)...

...then they should do the following:

1. Make Paul's joy full.

2. Unity - same mind and same love.

The overarching theme of this letter was joy, so it was no surprise that believers' fellowship with God (First Command) and fellowship with each other (Second Command) would make Paul's joy full. What is interesting was Paul's additional focus on unity, which was a theme of Ephesians - "unity through uniqueness." During the commentary for the Book of Ephesians we presented a "1-2-3" model. Fellowship with the Holy Spirit is a "1" - the individual. Fellowship with others is a "2" - exchanging with other individuals. Everyone being of one accord is a "3" - the community as a whole. How did Paul think believers could have unity? How can people achieve "3"?

Paul first explained a "not 1" - not doing things for the immediate benefit of the individual. Then he followed up with a "2" - do all things in humility, thinking of others as more excellent than ourselves. The principle of uniqueness allows everyone to see everyone else as more excellent than themselves, because everyone can be the most excellent in what God made them to be, in their "1."

Again, Paul explained a "not 1" - not doing things for the immediate benefit of the individual. Then he followed up with a "2" - do things for others.

Verses 5-8: foundational Doctrine that showed how Christ was fully man and fully God.

Paul exhorted us to conform ourselves to the same mind that was in Christ, and Paul then specifically explained Christ's perspective.

Doctrine: Jesus is fully God. Jesus' Nature is Right and Just. The one man who ever lived that was God in the flesh did not see being equal with God as something He would do as a cause.

Huge Point: Jesus did not act directly in His God Nature while He was on earth. How did Jesus act?

Doctrine: Jesus was fully man. Man has a free will, which meant man has the ability to act apart from his nature. God the Father is Right and Just, and cannot act apart from this Nature. God still has choice, but all the choices are within His Nature. Jesus could act apart from His God Nature, and He did by emptying Himself, by becoming a servant.

John 8:28 documented Jesus said He did nothing of Himself, which was the same as Jesus not thinking that being equal with God was a thing He could intentionally do. While Jesus was on earth, He could have chosen to do wrong. Isaiah 7:14-16 (the most famous prophecy concerning Jesus' virginal birth) stated that He would eat butter and honey until He knew to refuse the evil and choose the good. Once Jesus went to heaven after His resurrection and was judged, His Nature was set. Today, Jesus does not have free will. Paul stated Jesus did not act in His equality with God by directly acting as God. Jesus humbled Himself and allowed God the Father to do everything through Him via the Holy Spirit, via grace. How humble was Christ?

Doctrine: Jesus humbled Himself even unto death on the cross. Paul's point was that we should humble ourselves towards other believers because even Jesus, who could have acted directly in His divinity, did not do it, so why do we think we can directly do divine behavior? The only way we can do divine works is if we humble ourselves and allow God to do the divine works through us via the Holy Spirit, which is grace. We need to choose to conform our mind to this same mind that was in Christ.

We can get God's wisdom revealed to us only through the Holy Spirit, only once we choose to believe. Our recognition that we are flawed and fleshly ought to lead to us humbling ourselves: willing to consider our beliefs and methods are wrong. Once we humble ourselves and accept the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can then receive the wisdom of God.

We have received the Spirit of God that we might know all things. Notice, we end up having spiritual things (actions) with spiritual words.

Paul proved his premise from chapter 1: The natural man sees the things of the Spirit of God as foolishness because the things and words of the Spirit are wisdom to those who choose to walk in the Spirit and not according to the flesh. For example, the natural man desires comfort; God desires growth.

Verse 16 was in two parts. The first part showed that none of us knows the mind of Jesus Christ well enough that we are able to teach Him. All this meant was that we will never be wiser than Jesus. However, some can try to interpret this verse as "We'll never know anything, so why try?"

The second part ought to prevent this fleshly comparative thinking by realizing: We have the mind of Christ. Verse 16 showed us that we can have God's wisdom, but we will never have more wisdom than Jesus Christ.

Theme of Chapter 2: Paul furthered his premise from the first chapter by giving more resolution between the physical things of the world that the flesh values and the spiritual things from God that mature Christians value.

Verses 6-10: each "if"/then statements.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness (contradiction), we lie and do not the truth:

• "If we say that we have fellowship with him" was a declaration. Our actions will prove whether what we say is a lie or factual.
• Walking in darkness did not mean making a mistake. It meant intentionally making progress away from God.
• If we have said we are in fellowship with God but are intentionally moving away from God, we are liars and "do not the truth".
• Truth was the measurement of whether or not we were in fellowship with God. The measurement for truth was not lack of contradiction because we may not have all the facts. The measurement for lying (lack of truth) was contradiction.

Walking in the light was intentionally making progress towards God. If we have fellowship with God, as Jesus did, we would have fellowship with each other. The effect of having fellowship with God was that Jesus' Blood would cleanse us from all sin.

This verse was presented the way things ought to be. We need to keep "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" in context with the rest of this verse and not add to the context an outside source.