God’s Word for You

Philippians 2:8 even death on a cross

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Friday, March 13, 2026

he appeared in human likeness, 8 and being found in the form of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Paul is walking us to the cross, not chronologically, nor in terms of the Apostles’ experience which is what we naturally find in the Gospels. Paul brings us there theologically and doctrinally, laying out carefully and specifically who it is who was crucified on Calvary.

First: “He was in human likeness.” Christ had taken on the human nature from his mother; no one who met him, heard him, saw him, or even heard accounts about him doubted that he was anything but human. His humanity was not questioned until the Docetists came along imagining him to have been a spirit of some kind who pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes—a position that would most easily have been refuted if anyone had simply asked his mother if he was a real person or not; if her pregnancy had been a phantom in the womb, if delivery had been nothing more than a rumor, if he had no human needs as a baby, no need to nurse, no soiled diapers or swaddling clothes, no tears, no toddler’s achievements of learning to roll over, crawl, stand, walk, run, or play. Did he come from the womb fully conversant in theology and philosophy, or are the reports in Luke 2 a falsified account, that “the child grew and became strong” (Luke 2:40) and that he “grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52)?

Second: “He was found in the form of a man.” The one who needed to pay for the sins of the world needed to be able to pay: Able to be under the law of Moses. A goat would not do for the sin of mankind, nor a bull, or a dove. Those sacrifices only pointed ahead to the true sacrifice, the true death of men for the sins of men. As God said from his judgment seat: “They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abandoned my decrees” (Leviticus 26:43). And again: “The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:4).

Here we must confess that many sceptics argue that the God they imagine could not or would not command such a terrible price for sin. Gottfried Hoffman (1669-1728) writes: “The necessity of the satisfaction is demonstrated first a priori from God’s essential and natural righteousness because of which he cannot dismiss unpunished sins (Romans 1:32). Then a posteriori because if God could overlook sins without satisfaction, it is not credible that he could want to carry out such an easy thing at such a cost.”

Luther used less academic words which speak more closely to our terrified sinful hearts: “There must be as great a payment for sin as God himself is, who is insulted by the sin . . . But if God’s wrath is to be taken from me and I am to obtain grace and forgiveness, then that must be worked off by someone. For God cannot be favorable and gracious to sins, nor cancel the punishment and wrath, unless sufficient payment is made for them; now for the eternal and irreparable harm and eternal wrath of God, which we have deserved with our sins, no one can make compensation, not even an angel in heaven, except the eternal person of God himself and in this way that he steps into our place and takes our sins onto himself and confesses himself guilty of them.”

This explains Paul’s third clause: “he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!” We ponder the cross, the pain of it, the shame of it, the finality of it, year upon year in the blessing of our Good Friday worship, without which the Easter service is nothing but bunnies and flowers and rainbows, springtime with no resolution from the horror of sin’s punishment. But let us ponder the key word here: “himself.” This is Greek’s reflexive pronoun, used with precision. Jesus Christ did this himself, and he did it to himself. He took the punishment for our sins and stepped in, loving us, and said, “Not them. Me. I will suffer and die for them, Father. Here am I. Take me. Punish me. Kill me in their place.” Remember how quickly and briefly the Creed puts it, omitting his entire ministry saying so simply, “Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Those two people saw to the beginning and ending of his life, Mary with faith and love, Pilate with unbelief and cruelty. In both matters, Jesus was passive in his work, born through Mary, dying at the orders of Pilate.

Isaiah says: “Surely he was taking up our weaknesses, and he was carrying our sufferings. We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). Isaiah paints the image with terrible words, images that live in our minds that even the Gospels don’t approach. The prophet helps us to remember the point that Paul makes in our verse here: Christ did not only become obedient to the cross. He made himself obedient to death, and the means was the cross. That is why Paul repeats himself by saying, “to death—even death on a cross.”

It seems strange to say that a servant or slave would be “obedient” to death by crucifixion unless we remember the “himself” of the verse. Christ did this to himself, by his own will, not climbing the cross, but descending onto it, to be suspended above the earth to receive the Father’s wrath there, in the air above the hill, on the cross, like a criminal. We say it again with awe and choking back our emotional realization: “Christ did this to himself.” For us.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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