Every Knee Will Bow

Hello readers to Deeper Waters, hopefully a blog you frequent in your quest for Christian truth. Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our Trinitarian commentary in the book of Philippians. Right now, we’re in the masterful hymn in the second chapter of that book and we’re going to be looking at verse 10. Let’s go to the text.

10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

Again, the first part of this passage spoke of what the Son did in obedience to the Father. The second part now takes the shame that the Son went through as he took on the lowliest position of all and how the Father honored that by giving him the highest position of all. It was the position he could rightly claim by nature, but that he did not grasp onto as an excuse to avoid going to the cross. God gave him what was rightfully his as a result of the obedience he fulfilled.

Does the language bear any resemblance to an Old Testament passage? Definitely. Consider this from Isaiah 45:22-23.

22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all you ends of the earth;
for I am God, and there is no other.

23 By myself I have sworn,
my mouth has uttered in all integrity
a word that will not be revoked:
Before me every knee will bow;
by me every tongue will swear.

The language is identical and the speaker is no doubt God. Yet in this case, we are told that every knee will bow at the name of Jesus, which would refer to his person. This is the same God who said he would not share his glory with another yet in Philippians 2, we find that Jesus is receiving the worship that was to be given God alone.

The bending of the knee was a position of subservience. Those who came were those who would finally kneel before Jesus as inferiors recognizing that their superiors were before them. This would be the ultimate juxtaposition in that the one who came as a servant ended up being the Lord of all the universe. There could hardly be any greater contrast.

The recognition of who Jesus is goes to all places and all peoples as well. Everyone in Heaven will bow down before Jesus. All of the angels will acknowledge him and kneel (hypothetically seeing as they’re non-physical of course) before him as their master. Jesus is the Lord of the angels.

Everyone on Earth will bow before him. Whenever Jesus returns, anyone who is on the Earth, which would mean those who have not yet tasted death, will kneel before him as well and acknowledge him rightly as their king.

Finally, this even extends to the realm of the dead. The Bible does speak of the conscious existence of those who are dead and all of them will come out and kneel before the throne of Jesus. The conclusion that comes from all of this? Jesus is Lord of all.

I don’t know about you, but it sounds like deity to me.

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