Every Tongue Shall Confess: What Does Philippians 2:11 Mean?

Philippians 2:11, “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (King James version)

Also see the meaning of Why Do You Call Me Good

Every Tongue Should Confess: Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary

2:5-11 The example of our Lord Jesus Christ is set before us. We must resemble him in his life, if we would have the benefit of his death. Notice the two natures of Christ; his Divine nature, and human nature.

Who being in the form of God, partaking the Divine nature, as the eternal and only-begotten Son of God, Joh 1:1, had not thought it a robbery to be equal with God, and to receive Divine worship from men. His human nature; herein he became like us in all things except sin.

Thus low, of his own will, he stooped from the glory he had with the Father before the world was. Christ’s two states, of humiliation and exaltation, are noticed. Christ not only took upon him the likeness and fashion, or form of a man, but of one in a low state; not appearing in splendour.

His whole life was a life of poverty and suffering. But the lowest step was his dying the death of the cross, the death of a malefactor and a slave; exposed to public hatred and scorn. The exaltation was of Christ’s human nature, in union with the Divine.

At the name of Jesus, not the mere sound of the word, but the authority of Jesus, all should pay solemn homage. It is to the glory of God the Father, to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; for it is his will, that all men should honour the Son as they honour the Father, Joh 5:23. Here we see such motives to self-denying love as nothing else can supply. Do we thus love and obey the Son of God?

Also see the meaning of Commit Your Way to the Lord

Philippians 2:11 | Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. every tongue—Compare “every knee” (Php 2:10). In every way He shall be acknowledged as Lord (no longer as “servant,” Php 2:7). As none can fully do so “but by the Holy Ghost” (1Co 12:3), the spirits of good men who are dead, must be the class directly meant, Php 2:10, “under the earth.”

to the glory of God the Father—the grand end of Christ’s mediatorial office and kingdom, which shall cease when this end shall have been fully realized (Joh 5:19-23, 30; 17:1, 4-7; 1Co 15:24-28).

Also see the meaning of Having Done All To Stand