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P-3) FINAL PROGNOSIS: God's external solution--through one another
Best of all, the readers begin to think with the same Christ-mind toward one another. True, if you look only at their behavior their one-anothering still falls short. But if you look at it as Paul does, in his preaching, it already sounds better than it looks. To head him tell about it, their same-mindedness is already assured, just a matter of time. He preaches them into it. Or Christ does. At this level of give-and-take, preaching and hearing, saying so makes it so. Here, quite publicly, they are already a promising one-anotherhood. |
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Note 1. Their faith is not just inside them. As believers in Christ they are "in" him. They feel about themselves what he feels about them, with his same "mind." (v. 5) And how is that? Not indulgently or permissively but as being crucified and raised with him, his history as theirs. Their faith, internalizing his passion for them, echoes his chutzpah. |
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P-2) ADVANCED PROGNOSIS: God's internal solution--in us
Better yet, because the readers believe in this God-equalling, glorified slave as the Lord to whom they now belong, they are--as believers--"in" him. |
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Note 3. "Sain" is Old English for sign, making the sign of the cross. The glory of Christ is the cross. Still, glory it is. In this Christ Hymn Jesus is not exactly a shrinking violet, bereft of all ambition. Look how gloriously he ends up--up!--and from what depths. That took chutzpah. And the Father who likes being equaled by the Child? What a great good sport! |
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Note 2. The Christian solution is not what any practical person might do. Ordinarily if your congregation were divided by some vainglorious prima donnas who put themselves ahead of one another, wouldn't then practical thing be to confront them directly, say, by means to some sort of conflict management? Then why Paul's scenic route, reciting as he does this whole long "Christ Hymn" about Jesus' humiliation and exaltation? Ah, but that is because Paul grasps the depth of the problem: God. The other, "practical" approach not only is shallow, it is Law-shy and, worse, has no need of Christ. But popular? Oh, yes. |
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Note 1. Here again the "initial" stage focuses on that part of the solution which is most conspicuous. And what is not always most conspicuous--to non-Christians "scandalous"--about the Christian solution is the way it, so to speak, changes the subject. Throughout the diagnosis it was we, the sinners, who were the subject of investigation. Now suddenly, with the prognosis, Christ Jesus becomes the subject. He and we change places. Luther called this The Happy Exchange. (My students have learned to call it, affectionately, The Sweet Swap.) |
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| P-1) INITIAL PROGNOSIS: God's eternal solution--for us
Unlike us, Christ did not seek to equal God by clutching onto what he had, deity though he was. Instead he humbled himself to become one of use slaves, Christ Jesus: empty, guilty, executed. Yet that is just how he did equal God, who in return for Christ's identifying with us raised him from the dead and, to God's lasting credit, gave him title to use and to the whole creation. (vv. 6-11) |
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| Note 1. Pro-gnosis here means God's "seeing us through." This is Good News, almost too good to believe. Especially its news about believers prompts the folk religion to scoff, People may be good but nobody is as good as all that. So, again, it is best to break the news gently: initial, advanced, final--just so it comes across as too good not to believe. |
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PROGNOSIS. What is the solution? |
| READ UPWARD |