Philippians

Philippians Study Bible, click here

Below is a brief summary of what I found in Philippians concerning each of my four questions. The full evidence and commentary are available in the Philippians Study Bible linked above.

Summary: Insights from Philippians

1. Who is God?

Philippians most explicitly identifies God as the Father—the ultimate source of salvation, transformation, power, provision, exaltation, and glory.

The letter begins with “God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” distinguishing the two. Paul thanks God, makes his requests to God, and says that God is the One who begins His good work in Christians and will bring it to completion. Righteousness comes through Jesus Christ, but it ultimately results in the “glory and praise of God.”

Philippians 2 makes this distinction particularly clear. Jesus obeys and dies; God highly exalts him and gives him the supreme name. Every knee bows to Jesus, but the final result is “the glory of God the Father.” In my understanding, God is therefore the ultimate authority behind Christ’s lordship and exaltation.

God is also the One actively transforming Christians: “It is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Salvation itself is described as being “from God.” Prayer and thanksgiving are directed to God, and it is the “peace of God” that guards believers’ hearts.

Finally, Paul says explicitly:

“My God will supply every need of yours…”

and immediately concludes:

“Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever!”

Thus Philippians portrays God the Father as the ultimate source, while Jesus is the Lord and Messiah through whom believers receive God’s salvation and riches.

Based on Philippians alone, I would therefore state the conclusion more narrowly than I did in Hebrews: God is explicitly identified as the Father and repeatedly distinguished from Jesus Christ. Philippians does not develop the identity of the Holy Spirit sufficiently to establish from this book alone that God should be defined as the Father and Holy Spirit together.

Specifically, who is the Holy Spirit?

Philippians gives relatively little information about the identity of the Holy Spirit.

Paul speaks of the “supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:19), the “fellowship of the Spirit” (Philippians 2:1), and Christians as those who “worship God in the Spirit” (Philippians 3:3). The Spirit is therefore clearly involved in Christian life, fellowship, worship, and Paul’s experience of salvation.

However, Philippians does not substantially explain who the Spirit is. Therefore, based on Philippians alone, I would not claim that the book establishes either that the Holy Spirit is God or that She is the divine Mother. Neither does Philippians contradict those conclusions. It simply does not focus on the question.

The clearest conclusion available from Philippians is that the Spirit is intimately involved in the life of the Church: believers fellowship in the Spirit, worship God in the Spirit, and receive spiritual provision associated with Jesus Christ. My fuller understanding of the Holy Spirit as personal, divine, and Mother must therefore come from the wider biblical evidence rather than from Philippians alone.

2. What is God's plan for the world?

Philippians presents God’s plan as culminating in universal acknowledgment of Jesus Christ as Lord: every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, to the glory of God the Father.

The strongest universal language occurs in Philippians 2:10–11, where Paul says that every knee will bow at the name of Jesus and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The scope is explicitly universal: those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth all ultimately acknowledge Jesus’ God-given lordship, and this results in the glory of God the Father.

Some day, every knee will bow and all will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. By my reading, this verse is a clear reference to universal salvation. If all will do that, all will be saved.

Romans 10:9-10 says that all who believe Jesus Christ is Lord, confessing that with their mouth and believing in their heart that God raises Christ from the grave, will be saved. In all of humanity bowing before Jesus and confessing that He is Lord, all will be following Romans 10:9-10. This passage says nothing about this confession and bowing being forced. Paul simply states this will happen.

So, by my reading, the plainest reading of this text is that all will, in the end, be saved, bowing before Christ and confessing that he is Lord. What is more, given this is to the glory of God the Father, this bowing and confession will not be forced. God gets much greater glory by the voluntary praise and confession of people than anything forced. Additionally, such a phenomenon involving force would contradict 1 Corinthians 12:3 that says that “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit.” This confession means all are filled with the Holy Spirit and thus are saved. Finally, given God never forces worship from Genesis to the present time, this worship will not be forced either, and as such this I believe this is great proof of universal salvation.

3. Who is Jesus?

Jesus is God’s uniquely exalted human Son, Messiah, Lord, Savior, King, example, and the one through whom believers are reconciled to and transformed by God—not God Himself.

Philippians gives Jesus extraordinary honor. Paul loves Christ deeply, calls him “my Lord,” desires to know him and share in his sufferings, longs to depart and “be with Christ,” and presents Jesus as the pattern Christians are to follow. Jesus will ultimately transform believers’ bodies to be conformed to his glorious body, and every knee will bow to him and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Yet Philippians repeatedly distinguishes Jesus from God. Paul opens by distinguishing “God our Father” from “the Lord Jesus Christ.” He thanks and prays to God, while Jesus is separately identified as the one whose coming believers await. Righteousness comes through Jesus Christ and results in the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 2:5–11 is particularly important. Jesus existed “in the form of God,” but Paul does not simply say that Jesus was God. In my understanding, Jesus represented and reflected God. He did not grasp at equality with God or use his extraordinary position for self-exaltation. Instead, he humbled himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient even to death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name above every name. Jesus’ supreme exaltation is consequently something God gives him following his obedience; the entire universal acknowledgment of Jesus ultimately results “to the glory of God the Father.”

I therefore believe Philippians presents Jesus as God’s faithful human Son and supreme representative. He humbles himself, obeys God, dies, and is then exalted by God as Lord and King. His greatness does not require that he be God; rather, his exaltation displays the glory of the God who exalted him.

4. Who are Christians?

In Philippians, Christians are people God is transforming to share Christ’s mind, character, obedience, suffering, perfection, and ultimately glory.

Paul explicitly tells Christians:

“Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus’ humility, selflessness, service, and obedience are therefore not presented merely as qualities Christians should admire from a distance. Christians are commanded to think and live as he did. Immediately afterward, Paul tells believers to work out their salvation because God is working in them both to will and to act, with the goal that they become “blameless and harmless, children of God without defect.”

Philippians 3 develops this even further. Paul wants to know Christ, share in his sufferings, and become “conformed to his death.” Knowing Jesus therefore includes actually becoming like him—walking his path of surrender, suffering, obedience, and self-sacrificial love.

Paul then says that he has not yet been “made perfect” but continues pressing forward toward the goal. At the same time, he can call mature Christians teleioi—“perfect” or “mature.” In my understanding, this depicts genuine growth toward complete Christlike character: righteousness, holiness, obedience, and love. God has begun this work and is bringing it to completion.

Finally, Philippians makes conformity to Christ astonishingly literal: Jesus “will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory.” Christians will therefore not merely imitate Christ ethically; they will ultimately share in his glorified human condition.

Thus, Philippians presents Christian salvation as profound transformation into Christlikeness. Jesus is the perfected human pattern, and God is working in His other children to bring them toward the same obedience, holiness, love, and ultimately glory.