An antidote to evangelical leadership cults

Philippians 2 may not strike you as a ‘go to’ passage as we approach Advent and Christmas, but its picture of the incarnation is beautiful.

The one who was ‘in the form of God’ (2:6), enjoying the freedom of eternity at the Father’s side, did not feel it necessary to hang onto that elevated status. So He ‘emptied himself’ (2:7), a phrase that has led to PhD dissertations and strong scholarly disagreements.

Clearly, we don’t want to say that He became less than God, and several have questioned Charles Wesley’s emotive line ‘emptied himself of all but love’. But over-analysing the Greek verb risks losing the beauty of the act. Jesus was willing to forgo the outward display of divine glory that is His by nature, in order to become like you and me – flesh and bone, tears and shame, hunger and nakedness, Isaiah’s ‘man of sorrows’.

Athanasius said: ‘He became like us, so that He could make us like Him.’ Jesus’ self-emptying began with taking the form of a ‘servant’ (2:7) – a man who would wash disciples’ feet – before humbling Himself further to ‘become obedient to death’ (2:8).

That God the Son should have to ‘become obedient’ to anything is a mystery. That He should become ‘obedient to death, even death on a cross’ is beyond words. Paul refuses to separate Christmas from Easter, and so should we. Jesus’ loving condescension was not from heaven to Bethlehem, but from heaven to Calvary. ‘O come let us adore Him!’

But the ground of worship is also the springboard for challenge. Paul does not place this wonderful Christ hymn in Philippians 2 purely to increase our adoration, but to encourage our Christlikeness – ‘let this mind be in you which was also in Christ’ (2:5) is how the hymn is introduced. Paul later highlights the kind of divisions in the Philippian church, headlined by Euodia and Syntyche (4:2), that can only be overcome when we learn Christlikeness.

God calls us to ‘empty ourselves’ of any thought of status or rights. If you are facing rejection in some way right now, for the sake of the gospel, you are moving closer to the Christ of the cross. Paul says in the very next chapter, that he wants to know Christ through the ‘fellowship of his sufferings’. When we face rejection, however easy it is to want to kick back, it is more Christlike to accept the reproach, and lean on the rich comfort of your Saviour. That doesn’t mean we should be a doormat to be trampled on, but it does mean we leave ultimate vindication to the Lord and make whatever peace we can.

We are called not only to empty ourselves, but to become a ‘servant’. Jesus is emphatic that leadership in His kingdom is not about ordering people around, but about washing their feet. If we want servant-heartedness in the church, we can’t shout about it from the pulpit. We need to exemplify it by loving the needy, and spending time with those who can’t pay us back.

And having emptied ourselves and taken on servanthood, we are called to die. Die to any ambition that is contrary to the Christ we serve. Including the ambition to be ‘most-popular-leader-of-the-21st-century’! A church cannot grow if its leaders are addicted to popularity. A church cannot be challenged, and face up to its idols, if a preacher wants to be lauded.

Paul was despised by elements in Corinth, derided by Galatians, and had run-ins in Ephesus, because his desire was not to be popular, but to be ‘in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you’ Those kinds of birth pains are ultimately what the incarnation is all about!