Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name,
The verse opens with "Therefore." Everything in it depends on what came before: the servant's place, and obedience all the way to death. So what could God add to One who was already infinitely great? (Older translations read "Wherefore" here, and the writers quoted below use that word.)
The word looks back over the whole path down. Notice too who does the exalting.
"Wherefore" is the word with which His exaltation begins. It reminds us of our Lord's own words, repeated twice: "He that humbles himself shall be exalted" (Luke 14:11 and 18:14). And none ever humbled Himself as the Lord of glory: it is well indeed that He should be supremely exalted! "HE humbled Himself" — but notice, it does not say "He exalted Himself." No, "GOD supremely exalted Him." And we must not pass over that little word "also"… In Greek it stands in a very emphatic position. It is as if to contrast God's thoughts of His Son with man's treatment of Him.
"Highly exalted" is a single Greek word, and it appears nowhere else in the New Testament.
"Supremely exalted" is one word in the Greek. The Spirit of God through Paul loves to add the little word "huper" to many words. It matches our word "super." So we read "super-intercede" in Romans 8:26 and "super-conqueror" in Romans 8:37… How well this word of "supreme exaltation" fits the position due to such supreme humiliation! It appears nowhere else in the New Testament, as though the Spirit of God had reserved it for this special passage.
The verse creates a real difficulty. He was already the Son, already infinitely great.
We are only in new wonders when we read these words. For what, we may ask, could exalt Him? Before He began His path of sufferings and glories, He was in Himself infinitely great and blessed. Nothing could personally exalt Him, being, as He was, "the Son." His glory was divine, unspeakable and infinite. No other honours could ever increase His personal glory. Yet we still see Him walking a path that leads Him on to honour and glory.
The answer lies in the character in which He stooped. God lifted Him up as the very same One who had gone down.
Here God gives glory to Jesus, not because He was equal with God, but because He humbled Himself, appeared as a man, and became obedient to death. As God, all dominion and glory were His own; nor could anything be given Him. But as man He had voluntarily emptied Himself, taking the lowest place, and bowing even to the power of death, to carry out God's purposes of grace. God's righteous response, then, to this obedience and devotedness was to exalt Him in the same character in which He had humbled Himself.
The word for "gave" comes from the word for grace. And the better reading is "the Name," not "a name."
"Bestowed" translates a Greek word formed from the word always used for Grace… The better reading is not "given him a name," but "the Name." It is a special Name, "the (Name) supreme above every name."… We may ask, what is "the Name"? Some think it to be the mystic Name JEHOVAH; others, that it may be "My new Name" in Revelation 3:12. But from what follows, "That in the Name JESUS every knee should bow," I cannot but think that JESUS is "the Name." And let us remember that the Name JESUS means JEHOVAH-the-SAVIOUR.
Commentators differ on what the Name is. Another writer says the question cannot be settled, and points to what the Name shows.
We cannot decide what "the name" is, or whether it is the name of Jesus… and indeed the Spirit of God would point us to the thing it stands for. The meaning, to say it again, is this: whatever exalted beings may surround the heavenly throne, the glorified Jesus is above and beyond them all. The name given to Him, because He humbled Himself, speaks of a dignity far above the highest ranks of heaven, and tells us more: He is supreme in every world of God's universe.
Put beside the first man, this Man went the opposite way.
He made Himself nothing in becoming a man. Death to Him was the highest, fullest act of obedience and of confidence in His Father, as man. And therefore God highly exalted Him. Sinful man had sought to exalt himself and to be like God, and his disobedience cast him down. In this, then, we have the great doctrine of the exaltation of Jesus as the new man, the Second Adam, the Head of a new race.
- Wherefore — the exaltation is God's answer, not Christ's achievement. He humbled Himself; God exalted Him.
- Supremely — the verb occurs once in the whole New Testament, matching a height to a depth no one else ever went down.
- As Man — nothing could be added to Him as God. God gave the glory to the One who emptied Himself, in the very character in which He stooped.
- The Name — a gift of grace. It sets the glorified Jesus above every rank of heaven. Writers differ on whether the Name is "Jesus" itself.
- Second Man — the first man grasped at being like God and fell; this Man obeyed to death, and God lifted Him above all.
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal [beings],
This verse closes Christ's path: from the highest glory, down to death on a cross, and up to the place God gives Him. It says what that exaltation must produce — a bow from every knee, in all three spheres.
The name that every knee bows to is not a title picked at random. He carried this name through His humiliation. One writer links it to what He refused to do at the cross.
The Name of Jesus expresses the fame of this lowly Man. It means, as we know, Saviour, and as such it is a Name that is above every name. May we not say it is the one Name that the Lord had to come down from the glory to a cross of shame to secure? Over the cross it was written, "This is JESUS". Men in their scorn said, "Let Him now come down from the cross." Had He done so, He would have left the Name of JESUS behind Him. He would still have been the Creator, the mighty God, but never more would He have been JESUS — the Saviour. Blessed be His Name! His lowly mind led Him to be obedient to the death of the cross, and as a result every knee will bow to the Name of Jesus, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Some have read the older English translation as a call to bow the head whenever the name is spoken. One writer traces that to a misreading of a single preposition.
In the Authorised Version and others, Philippians 2:10 is, as we all know, rendered "at" the name of Jesus. That rendering became the basis of a well known and widespread superstitious practice. The Revisers here say "in" (ἐν). If that is right, it means, as usual, that all creatures will bow because of His name.
The three groups are not decoration. The third carries the heaviest weight. It settles who counts as part of "every knee."
It is not just a question of saints or of Israel. Every knee shall bow. This takes in angels and saints, and even those who are forever under the judgment of God, because "under the earth" carries the worst possible sense. So the lost, those in hell, come in here. The verse includes those who have rejected salvation, just as much as those who confess the Saviour. It is the universal subjection of all to Christ. Jesus has won the title even as man. If unbelievers despised Him as man, as Son of man He will judge them.
It would be easy to read universal bowing as universal salvation. One writer marks the limit: one sphere bows and stays cut off.
One sphere is excluded — the sphere of judgment. Yet even this — "the things under the earth" — is to bow at the name of Jesus according to Philippians 2:10. It must acknowledge Him, though cut off from Him and under the frown of God.
God first swore these words about Himself. One writer sets that oath beside this verse.
In the second chapter of Philippians it is a beautiful thing to see that what is due to God is going to be given to a Man. We read in the Old Testament: "By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance'" (Isaiah 45:23). Oh, but you say, that is God speaking, and He has a divine right to claim this subjection. Quite true, and He will have it. But notice, it is all going to be given to a Man — and that Man is the Man of sorrows, the lowly Nazarene. What He can claim as God, He is worthy of as Man.
The bowing is certain. Only the timing is open, and the timing decides everything.
It is a solemn thing to think that every knee must bow to Jesus in the day of His coming. But is it not a joy that when people bow now to Christ and accept His gospel, they are saved? When forced to bow in the day of God by power, they will not be saved. When divine power compels them, before the judgment seat of Christ, there will be no salvation.
- Cause — The name came out of the cross. He kept it by staying there, and God answered that obedience with the highest place.
- Ground — Every knee bows because of His name, not at the sound of it. Honour belongs to the Person, not to a word.
- Reach — Three spheres, and the third is the darkest: angels, saints, men, and the lost. Nobody is left out.
- Limit — Universal bowing is not universal salvation. Some acknowledge Him while still cut off from Him.
- Choice — Every knee bows; only the timing is yours. Bow now and be saved, or bow under power when bowing saves nothing.