Philippians 2:7,8 - Taking the nature of a servant

2:7

Some versions talk of Jesus emptying Himself, translating the word kenosis, and this has led to various erroneous ideas about Jesus becoming less than God, giving up His divinity, or at least some of it. However, the Greek can also be translated “give up status”, and the NIV is perhaps better than ESV here when it says “”he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant”, rather than the ESV “he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant”. The emphasis of Paul in this section is on Jesus being a servant, and encouraging the Philippians to have same attitude. Jesus was fully God all of the time. He was born in the same way that all of us were born. Note that it does not say He was conceived in the same way as we were conceived, as we know from Matthew and Luke He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Also, if we take this verse with the previous one (which we most certainly should do!) we see that the train of thought is of Jesus not seeking greatness, not exalting Himself. So if the Son of God did not exalt Himself, neither should we.

2:8

Becoming human (while still being God) was not all that Jesus did. He did not just live a normal human life, though for the first thirty years of His life he did live a “normal” life (with one or two extraordinary incidents). But then He humbled Himself even further and became obedient to death on a cross. This is the most humiliating and excruciatingly painful death one could imagine. So in instructing the Philippians Paul is directing them to look at the life of Christ, to consider how He lived, the attitude that He had, and this attitude was one of humble obedience to the Father, prepared to do anything to fulfil the plan of the Father. We should do likewise.