| DIAGNOSIS. What is the problem? |
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Note 1. Dia-gnosis is a seeing-through, in this case God's seeing through us. That is bad news. So the diagnosis dare not be blurted out all at once but instead step by step: initial, advanced, final. Else it is too much to take in, like trying to fill a glass with the faucet on full-force. |
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D-1) INITIAL DIAGNOSIS: Our External Problem--with one another
The problem with Paul's readers, at least their most conspicuous problem, is that because of each one's vainglorious self-concern they are losing Christ's concern for one another. (vv. 2-4) |
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Note 1. Who are "Paul's readers?" Only the first century Philippians? Or also his readers today? Does the shoe fit? Then why not use "they" and "we" interchangeably? |
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D-2) ADVANCED DIAGNOSIS: Our Internal Problem--with Christ
Worse, if the readers are losing Christ's concern for one another they must also be losing the concern which Christ has for them. For if we don't believe in spending ourselves for others, we must not believe all that much in Christ's spending himself for us. And not believing him is to lose him. |
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Note 1. The King James version mistranslates verse five to read, "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." No, that is not where Paul places the distinction, between "this mind" which Christ has but which his readers do not have. He begins more subtly. He allows, at least for the sake of the argument, that they too have Christ's mind, since that is what they assume. For example, Evodia thinks the same thing about herself that Christ thinks about her, namely, that she is dear to God. Trouble is, she does not think the same thing about Syntyche. And vice versa. (4:21) But with that sort of self-inflation we not only get ourselves wrong, as if we were better than others, we also get Christ wrong, as if he loved us because we are better. That, frankly, is unbelief. That is not-having Christ--not only his "mind" but himself. No wonder we can't give his love. We don't have it from him to give. |
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D-3) FINAL DIAGNOSIS: Our Internal Problem--with God
Worst of all, mindless of others because mindless of the read Christ, the self-gloriers face a humiliating end: their glory turns out to be hollow ("vain"), empty of all approval from God; they die as God's defeated competitors, compelled to "bend the knee" to the very Jesus they spurned, having concede him--rather than themselves--dominion. (vv. 9-11) |
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Note 1. This Final Diagnosis, where our gravest problem becomes not merely ourselves but God as well, an angered God, is the hardest step for Crossings students to make. Some never do. It would be easier if all we were up against were ourselves, our own sin--"sin and grace," our sin versus God's grace. But biblically, what we need saving from is not only ourselves, who are bad enough, but an accusing Creator, whose accusing (diagnosing) makes us even worse. So it is worse than "sin and grace." It is "law and gospel," God's gospel versus God's (the same God's) law. Our whole folk religion protests, People may be bad but they're not as bad, or as badly off as all that. Crossings risks a more radical source, scripture. Alas, that does drain the swamp for all to see. |