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Philippians 2.5-
touto phroneite en hymin ho kai Christō Iēsou hos en morphē Theou
τοῦτο φρονεῖτε ἐν ὑμῖν , ὃ καὶ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ ; ὃς , ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ
This let mind be in you which also Christ Jesus [was] who in [the] form of God
hyparchōn ouch harpagmon hēgēsato to einai isa Theō alla heauton
ὑπάρχων , οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ , ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν
subsisting not something to be grasped esteemed it -
ἐκένωσεν , μορφὴν δούλου λαβών , ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος .
emptied [the] form of a servant having taken in [the] likeness of men having been made
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
The structure of this passage, as many writers have observed, suggests that it belongs to an early Christian hymn or creed. Strictly speaking, it provides an indirect rather than a direct reference to Christ’s deity, stating that he possessed ‘the form of God’ (RSV). However, since several modern translations interpret this as a direct statement of deity (‘Though he was God’ NLT; ‘Christ was truly God’ CEV) and since the passage contains problems of interpretation similar to the other verses we are examining here, it deserves consideration alongside them.
a) The meaning of morphe theou
By referring to Christ as morphe theou (‘the form of God’) what is actually Paul actually implying? One possible suggestion, favoured by writers such as Cullmann and Dunn,<1> is that it is another way of describing the creation of man in God’s image in Genesis 1: 26. If this is the case, the passage may then be going on to compare Christ’s obedience in refusing to act independently of the Father with Adam’s disobedience in following the serpent’s suggestion to make himself like God (Gen 3: 5-
Persuasive though it is, however, there are several problems with this idea. Firstly, although morphe can mean ‘image’, ‘likeness’ or ‘appearance’, it more typically refers to the inner nature or essence of something. Confirmation of this can be found in Phil 2:7, which states that Christ took the morphe of a servant. Given that Christ did not simply ‘look’ or ‘appear’ to be a servant, but was a servant, we ought logically to assume that by possessing the morphe of God, Christ was ‘in very nature God’, to quote the NIV’s translation. (A similar implication can be found in Gal 4:19 where Paul talks about Christ being formed [morphoo] in us.)
Secondly, if Paul had intended a direct reference to the Genesis story, he could have done so much more openly, either by introducing a direct reference to Adam, as in Romans 5: 12-
Furthermore, if we understand morphe theou to be a reference to Christ’s human nature, it seems unnecessary to go on to talk about him ‘being made in human likeness’ and ‘being found in appearance as a man’ (v 7-
b) The meaning of harpagmos
According to how one translates this Greek word, the next part of the verse can variously be taken to mean that Christ
(i) refused to grasp at an equal status he did not share with the Father
(ii) refused to exploit an equality he did share with the Father
(iii) regarded equality with the Father as his by natural right
The likely choice, which probably centres on the first two of these, hinges partly on the way we interpret morphe theou. If it is understood as describing Christ’s human nature, (or even, following the belief system of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, as a created angelic being), the first version makes excellent sense: ‘Though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped’ (RSV). It is also attractive in setting up a direct contrast with Isaiah 14: 12-
There are problems, however, with this view. For a start, there is no direct warrant in the text for a reference back to Isaiah 14: 12-
c) The meaning of kenoo
This word in Greek refers to an emptying: it appears elsewhere in the New Testament at Rom 4: 14; 1 Cor 1: 17, 9: 15; and 2 Cor 9: 3. The question here is what, precisely, did Christ give up in ‘taking the very nature of a servant’? Did he lose all his attributes as God in the incarnation? Or did he simply lay aside his glory and majesty? In the past a number of writers have suggested that the Son surrendered something permanent in the incarnation, and perhaps that the human Jesus lost all consciousness of deity.
But the sense of the word kenoo is affected by two other Greek words which help to define the context. Huparchon (‘Christ Jesus ... being [or ‘continuing to be’] in very nature God’, v 5-
He divested Himself, not of His divine nature, which was impossible, but of the condition of glory and majesty which is His by right of that nature, and He did this by entering into man’s nature and making it His own . . . <3>
The balance of probabilities, therefore, seems to favour the interpretation that Christ, though possessing the nature of God, did not cling on to the privileges that were his by right as the Father’s equal, but freely laid aside his majesty, ‘neither losing nor diminishing the form of God’ (to use Augustine’s words)<4> but at the same time taking the role of a slave, who, in the Roman world, possessed no status or rights of any kind.
Given the range of possible options, however, we should not be too dogmatic in our interpretation of the passage. In particular, we should note that the verses which follow do not obviously suggest the restoration of a glory that Christ already possessed (the glory we read about in John 17: 5), but rather suggest that he acquired something completely new. Robert Reymond has argued that the second half of the hymn makes little sense unless it is Christ’s human nature which is primarily in view in verses 5-
In any case, we should remember that what we are dealing with here is poetry, not prose. It makes sense, therefore, to search out a variety of different levels of meaning in the passage’s portrayal of Christ, who like the ‘Arm of the LORD’ discussed in Chapter Five of But is he God appears both as an extension of the personality of Yahweh and also as the ‘suffering servant’ who acts on his behalf. If this leaves us with another paradox, it is a paradox which leads us into the very heart of the mystery of redemption.