Every Knee Will Bow

Today’s Passage: Philippians 2:5–11

All week we have listened to Jesus and watched God’s people worship Him as God, and today Paul reaches back and quotes an old song that the first Christians were already singing. In a few short lines it tells the whole story: Jesus, who was fully God, took a servant’s place and obeyed all the way to a cross, and now God has lifted Him up, so that every knee will bow to Him.

As you read, hold this: He emptied Himself by taking, not by losing. Every knee will bow to Him.

Philippians 2:5–6 (BSB)

⁵ Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

Paul is not only describing Jesus here; he is telling us to think the way Jesus thinks. And then verse 6 says something enormous, that Jesus already existed “in the form of God.” He did not become God at some later point, and He did not earn His way up to it.

Equality with God was never a prize He had to reach out and seize. It was simply true of Him, and it always had been.

Philippians 2:7–8 (BSB)

⁷ but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.

Watch how far down He goes. God the Son takes the form of a servant and is made in human likeness, and He does not stop even at being born among us. He goes on to obey, and His obedience runs all the way down to death.

Rome saved the cross for slaves and rebels, and it was built on purpose to shame the person dying on it. That is how low the God of the universe was willing to go, and He went there deliberately, for us.

Philippians 2:9–11 (BSB)

⁹ Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, ¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

That one word, Therefore, turns the whole song around. Because He went all the way down, God has lifted Him all the way up, not partway, but to the very highest place.

Every knee will bow and every tongue confess, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, which is another way of saying everyone, everywhere. No one sits this one out.

Greek-speaking Jews used that word Lord to stand for God’s own name, so Paul is not merely calling Jesus a great teacher. He is saying, as plainly as it can be said, that Jesus is God.

He emptied (κενόω) kenoō, pronounced ken-OH-oh. Strong's G2758, to empty, pour out completely. This word means to pour out, like emptying a jar all the way. Jesus poured Himself out by taking on our lowly life, not by losing His divine nature. He never stopped being God, not even for one second. Himself by taking, not by losing. Every knee will bow to Him.

Personal Application

1. Where do you hold on to status, or to being right, instead of going low the way Jesus did?

2. Jesus already has your worship, whether you give it to Him now or later, so will you bow to Him today, freely and gladly?

Today’s decision: I will bow, on my knees or quietly in my heart, and say out loud, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Pray to Close

The central truth: He emptied Himself by taking, not by losing. Every knee will bow to Him.

Give thanks: thank Jesus, true God, who did not have to come down to us and chose to anyway.

Confess: tell Him about any pride in you that wants to be lifted up now, instead of trusting Him to lift you in His own time.

Ask: ask Him for a willing knee today, long before the day comes when every knee must bow.