In this post I will revisit the issue of the meaning of Philippians 2:6, which states that Christ had been existing in the form of God before he became flesh and chose to be born as a man.

Here is the passage in question:

“Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God (en morphe theou hyperchon), did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant (morphen doulou), taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death—even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

Note how the following versions translate the relevant phrase:

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;” Philippians 2:6 New International Version (NIV)

“Which, being in the shape of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Modern Spelling Tyndale-Coverdale (MSTC(i))

The following New Testament scholar explains what it means for Christ to have been existing in God’s form:

One of the turning-points of New Testament study has been the investigation of the Old Testament background of many of the key-terms of the Christian Gospel. This may be illustrated from the term now under discussion. The appearance of H. A. A. Kennedy’s commentary in 1903 showed the influence of this new trend. He indicated that from the usage of morphe in the LXX ‘the word had come, in later Greek, to receive a vague, general meaning far removed from the accurate, metaphysical content which belonged to it in writers like Plato and Aristotle’. An examination of the word in the LXX reveals that eidos and homoioma are synonymous with it; and this would give the sense of the outward form or appearance of the thing so described… Kennedy went on, however, to state that the word ‘always signifies a form which truly and fully expresses the being which underlies it’. Confirmation of this is offered in the parallels from the papyri in Moulton-Milligan’s Vocabulary.  

The upshot of this discussion is seen in the tendency to move away from philosophical usage according to which morphe carries the meaning of ‘substance, essence’; and to relate it to the visible form which is characteristic of the object under consideration. Vincent Taylor accepts this by quoting the later phrase morphe doulou which he takes to imply that the slave is recognized and known by the form he assumes. So the preexistent Lord possessed a visible form which was characteristic of His being. Of this ‘form of God’ the best thing we can say is that it is His ‘glory’, the shining light in which, according to the Old Testament and Inter-Testamental literature, God was pictured. On this view, the term morphe is not rendered by ‘essence’ or ‘nature’ in the ontological sense; but rather by some such expression as ‘condition’ or ‘state’ or even ‘stamp’, ‘character’; for as P. Bonnard acutely points out the first translation cannot be fitted into the required meaning of Philippians ii. 7. It is, he says, the situation, the historical condition, the humble obedience of the slave that is there described. Bonnard offers the rendering ‘condition’ or ‘position’ or ‘glory’. The last-mentioned word had been used by earlier writers.

H. A. W. Meyer, in the commentary which is part of the series which bears his name, had defined morphe as the divine ‘glory’; it denotes ‘the form of being corresponding to the essence and exhibiting the condition’. This idea of the interrelation of inner being and outward expression has been appealed to recently by E. Schweizer who comments that the Old Testament thinking ‘does not separate form and substance as the Greek does, but regards the existence of a thing as bound up with its appearance’.

J. Weiss similarly maintained that ‘“the divine form” which he possessed before becoming man (Phil. ii. 6) was nothing less than the divine Doxa, and may we not understand this statement to mean, in the Pauline sense, Christ was from the beginning no other than the Kabod, the Doxa, of God himself, the glory and radiation of his being, which appears almost as an independent hypostasis of God and yet is intimately connected with God?’ And in a later decade J. Behm in the article contributed to Kittel arrives at the same conclusion: ‘“the form of God”, in which the pre-existent Christ was, is nothing else than the divine “glory”; the Pauline “being in the form of God” corresponds completely with John xvii. 5: “the glory which I had with thee before the world was”.’ (Ralph P. Martin, A Hymn of Christ: Philippians 2:5-11 in Recent Interpretation & in the Setting of Early Christian Worship [Intervarsity Press, First Edition, November, 1997, paperback], Part II. An Exegetical Study of the Hymn in Philippians ii. 6-11 in the Light of Recent Interpretation, V. The Pre-Existent Being (Verse 6a), pp. 102-105; bold emphasis mine)

8. That God was thought of as enveloped by an effulgent light, which also radiated from His person and was seen as a light-stream–and that His angels and other heavenly beings shared in this effulgence–seems clear from many strata of Old Testament and post-Old Testament sources: Ex. xvi. 10; xxiv. 16; xxxiii. 17-23; xl. 34 f.; I Kings viii. 11; Isa. vi. 3; lx. 1, 2; Ezek. i. 28; xliii. 2; xliv. 4; II Macc. ii. 8; III Macc. vi. 18; I Enoch xiv. 21, l. 4, civ. 1; Test. Levi iii. 4; II Esd. viii. 21; Asc. Isa. x. 16; Philo, De Monarch. I, 6; and for Philo, cf. E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (1935), pp. 11 ff., for his idea of God under the symbol of a light-stream. Onthe picture of God in II Enoch, Goodenough says: ‘it is interesting to see that the view of God as Light had become so proverbial in Hellenistic Judaism as to be axiomatic even in an apocalypse’ (267). Angels and other celestial beings are described in Asc. Isa. ix. 9; 11 Enoch xix. 1; xxii. 7; Test. Levi xviii. 5; I Enoch lxii. 15, xxii. 8; II Bar. li. 10; II Esd. ii. 39. (Ibid., pp. 103-104; bold emphasis mine)

The gospel according to Paul is one of the revelation of God’s glory (I Tim. i. 11; Tit. ii. 13). This divine doxa is the otherworldly splendour in which the Old Testament envisages the immediate presence of Yahweh. It is used in the Old Testament under the Hebrew term kabod as ‘a kind of totality of the qualities which make up his divine power; it has close affinities with the holiness which is of the nature of deity and it is a visible extension for the purpose of manifesting holiness to men’. Yet no finite being can see the uncovered glory of God in its full blaze of light and majesty. Normally, therefore, it is veiled behind a cloud (Ex. xvi. 10; Num. xvii. 7); and Moses is permitted to see only the reflection of the kebod Yahweh (Ex. xxxiii. 18).    

There is an important development of teaching in the writing of Ezekiel. According to this prophet, the ‘glory’ is not merely a manifestation of God in concrete form (as it had been earlier, in such phenomena as fire, earthquake and cloud); but is identical with Him. Thus God and His kabod are interchangeable. But no man can see Him in Himself; yet He reveals Himself in His glory. Thus we arrive at an important conclusion, endorsed by Ezekiel i. 26-28, that God cannot be seen in His essence–the unfailing witness of the scripture in both Testaments–but only in His image.

We may suppose that Paul inherited this line of theological reasoning in II Corinthians iv where verses 4 and 6 explain each other. The gospel promises the dispelling of human darkness and the lifting of the veil of unbelief (cf. II Cor. iii. 12-18) by an exhibiting of divine glory. But this outward shining of the inner being of God may not be known directly. The rubric of John i. 18: ‘No one has seen God at any time’ is true for Paul as for all scripture-writers (cf. Col. i. 15; I Tim. vi. 16). His manifest presence is shown forth in the person (prosopon, verse 6) of His Son in whom the glory of God appears to men (e.g. John i. 14)… (Ibid., pp. 110-111; bold emphasis mine)

… Further, the idea of ‘glory’ suggests a source whence it derives. The Christ, therefore, who as the heavenly man was from the beginning of the creation as the image and glory of God and at the same time the Son of His love (Col. i. 13) must be regarded as deriving His being from God, and also as reflecting, like an image seen in a mirror, the divine glory, as Christians in turn are to reflect with unveiled faces the ‘glory’ of the Lord Jesus… (Ibid., p. 118; bold emphasis mine)

The ‘form of God’ is to be read against an Old Testament background. The morphe theou may be the equivalent of eikon = doxa of God; and thus describes the first man, Adam at his creation (Gen. i. 26, 27). Adam reflected the glory of the eternal Son of God who, from eternity, is Himself the ‘image’ of the invisible and ineffable God. Both Adams are thought of as the possessors of celestial light. What Paul had learned at the feet of Gamaliel about the ‘glory’ of the first Adam–the idealized picture of the Rabbinic schools–he transferred to the last Adam as He had revealed Himself to him in a blaze of glory. This contrast is the key to the phrase en morphe theou; and points us back to the pre-temporal existence of the heavenly Lord in His unique relationship to God. It also prepares for the soteriological mission on which He came in ‘the fulness of time’. For His coming and redeeming enterprise is nothing other than the recovery of the ‘image’ in His people. In taking our nature upon Him (Rom. viii. 3) and fulfilling the role of the obedient last Adam as the perfect Man in whom the image of true manhood is seen, He reversed the baneful effect of what the first Adam did. So he is described as the ‘last Adam’ (I Cor. xv. 45); ‘the second Man’ (1 Cor. xv. 47) and the ‘new man’ whose image–the image of humanity as God intended it (so Kittel)– is renewed in His Church (Col. iii. 10; cf. II Cor. iii. 18; I Cor. xv. 49; Rom. viii. 29; Ignatius, ad Ephes. xx, 1). (Ibid., p. 119; bold emphasis mine)

As the foregoing scholarly reference demonstrates the form of God refers to the visible manifestation, i.e., the glory, that God displays so that those beholding that glory will have no doubt that the Being appearing before them is YHVH Almighty.

In other words, God’s form refers to God’s visible appearance, to God assuming a visible shape, so that all those gazing upon that divine manifestation become aware that they are standing before the face/presence of God.

This understanding is supported by the following OT texts:

“Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up.They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet they saw what looked like a pavement of sapphire as clear as the sky.The Lord did not lay his hand on the dignitaries of the people of Israel. They gazed at God, and they ate and drank. The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain. Wait there, and I will give you the stone tablets with the law and the commands that I have written, so that you can teach them.’ Moses set out with his assistant Joshua and went up onto the mountain of God.He said to the elders, ‘Wait here for us, until we come back to you. Look, here are Aaron and Hur. They will be with you. Whoever is involved in a dispute can go to them.’ Moses went up onto the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The Glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered the mountain for six days. On the seventh day the Lord called to Moses out of the middle of the cloud.The appearance of the Glory of the Lord looked like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.Moses entered into the middle of the cloud and climbed up the mountain. Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights.” Exodus 24:9-18 Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)

“The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance to the tent. He called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.He said, ‘Now listen to my words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, will make myself known to him in a vision. In a dream I will speak with him. Not so, however, with my servant Moses. He is faithful in my whole household.With him I speak face-to-face, clearly, and not in riddles. He sees the form of the Lord (utemunat YHVH). Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?’” Numbers 12:5-8 EHV

Contrast the English rendering of the Hebrew with the way the Greek versions of the OT translated this passage:

Bible rendered “I will speak to him mouth to mouth apparently, and not in dark speeches; and he has seen the glory of the Lord (ten doxan Kyriou); and why were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” Numbers 12:8 LXX

Note! To behold YHVH’s form is to look upon the glory of YHVH.

Here’s a text where God is said to be clothed with splendid and majestic light:

“Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you are very great. You are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wears light like a robe. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy. He lays beams on the waters to support his upper chambers. He makes clouds his chariot. He travels on the wings of the wind.” Psalm 104:1-3 EHV

In the following cases, the prophet Ezekiel equates God’s Glory with God’s manifesting as a radiant, luminescent human figure:

“Above the dome that was over their heads, there was something that appeared to be a sapphire that was shaped like a throne. Seated on that throne-like form there was a figure that looked like a man. I saw something like the gleam of glowing metal with fire in it and all around it. It extended upward from what appeared to be the man’s waist. Below what appeared to be his waist, I saw what appeared to be fire, and a bright light surrounded him. The bright light that surrounded him looked like the rainbow that is in the clouds on a rainy day. This was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the LORD. When I saw this, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice speaking.” Ezekiel 1:26-28 EHV

“In the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting in front of me. The hand of the LORD God fell upon me there. I looked, and there I saw a figure that looked like a man. From what appeared to be his waist down, he looked like fire, and from his waist up, he had the appearance of a dazzling light, something like glowing metal. He reached out with what looked like a hand and seized me by a lock of hair. Then the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me to Jerusalem, while I was experiencing visions from God. He brought me to the entrance of the north gate into the inner courtyard of the Temple, where the idolatrous image of jealousy, which provokes jealousy, was located. Then I looked, and there was the Glory of the God of Israel, as it was in the vision that I had seen in the middle of the river valley.” Ezekiel 8:1-4 EHV

“Then he led me to the gate, the gate that faces east. Suddenly I saw that the Glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. His voice sounded like the roar of rushing water, and the earth was shining with his glory. The appearance of the vision that I saw was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city—visions like the vision I saw by the Kebar Canal, and I fell on my face. The Glory of the LORD entered the temple through the gate facing east. Then the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court, and the Glory of the LORD filled the temple. I heard someone speaking to me from the temple while the man was standing beside me. The voice said to me: Son of man, this is the place of my throne, and this is the place for the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel forever. Never again will the house of Israel profane my holy name, neither they nor their kings, neither by their prostitution nor by the memorials to their dead kings at their high places. Whenever they placed their threshold next to my threshold and their doorpost beside my doorpost with only a wall between me and them, they would defile my holy name by their abominations that they did, so I exterminated them in my anger. Now let them remove their prostitution and the memorials of their dead kings from my presence, and I will dwell among them forever.” Ezekiel 43:1-9 EHV  

And now for an example from the pre-Christian Jewish pseudepigrapha:

“Violently agitated and trembling, I fell upon my face. In the vision I looked, And behold there was another habitation more spacious than the former, every entrance to which was open before me, erected in the midst of a vibrating flame. So greatly did it excel in all points, in glory, in magnificence, and in magnitude, that it is impossible to describe to you either the splendour or the extent of it. Its floor was on fire; above were lightnings and agitated stars, while its roof exhibited a blazing fire. Attentively I surveyed it, and saw that it contained an exalted throne; The appearance of which was like that of frost; while its circumference resembled the orb of the brilliant sun; and there was the voice of the cherubim. From underneath this mighty throne rivers of flaming fire issued. To look upon it was impossible. One great in glory sat upon it: Whose robe was brighter than the sun, and whiter than snow. No angel was capable of penetrating to view the face of Him, the Glorious and the Effulgent; nor could any mortal behold Him. A fire was flaming around Him. A fire also of great extent continued to rise up before Him; so that not one of those who surrounded Him was capable of approaching Him, among the myriads of ‘myriads who were before Him. To Him holy consultation was needless. Yet did not the sanctified, who were near Him, depart far from Him either by night or by day; nor were they removed from Him. I also was so far advanced, with a veil on my face, and trembling. Then the Lord with his own mouth called me, saying, Approach hither, Enoch, at my holy word. And He raised me up, making me draw near even to the entrance. My eye was directed to the ground.” (Book of Enoch, Chapter 14:13-25)

With the foregoing in perspective, it should now be clear what it means for Christ to be existing in God’s form.

The Son manifested the glory by which those who beheld him knew that they were looking at God Almighty himself, even though they also knew that he wasn’t the same Person as the Father.

This is echoed by the words of our Lord himself in his high priestly prayer to the Father on the night of his betrayal:

“Now, Father, glorify me at your own side with the glory I had at your side before the world existed.” John 17:5

The Evangelist gives us an idea of what that glory was, which Jesus had voluntarily laid aside when he became flesh and tabernacled in the world:

“Even though Jesus had done so many miraculous signs in their presence, they still did not believe in him.This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet, who said: Lord, who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason they could not believe, because Isaiah also said: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes, or understand with their heart, or turn—and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things when he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him. Nevertheless, even many of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing him, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue.” John 12:37-42 EHV

John cites the following OT reference where the prophet Isaiah actually beheld YHVH God Almighty in a visible form:

“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two they covered their faces. With two they covered their feet. With two they flew.One called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory! The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of the one who called, and the temple was filled with smoke. Then I said, ‘I am doomed! I am ruined, because I am a man with unclean lips, and I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Armies!’… Then I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, ‘Whom shall I send? Who will go for US?’ Then I said, ‘Here I am. Send me!’ He said: Go! You are to tell this people, ‘Keep listening, but you will never understand. Keep looking, but you will never get it.’ Make the heart of this people calloused. Make their ears deaf and blind their eyes, so that they do not see with their eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their hearts, and turn again and be healed.” Isaiah 6:1-5, 8-10 EHV

According to the inspired Apostle, this was none other than the preincarnate Christ, e.g., Jesus in his prehuman existence, whom Isaiah saw seated on the throne!

This is further confirmed by what John writes in the prologue to his Gospel:

“The Word became flesh and dwelled among us. We have seen his glory, the glory he has as the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has EVER seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is close to the Father’s side, has made him known.” John 1:14, 18 EHV

Since no one can behold or comprehend God unless the only begotten Son, who is the uncreated Word that brought all creation into existence, makes him known this means that it was the preexistent Son of God whom Isaiah beheld on the throne.

Therefore, being in the form of God basically means that Christ manifested/manifests himself in that very visible shape and radiance that points to his eternal existence as YHVH God Almighty. This divine form confirms Jesus’ identity as God’s uniquely begotten Son who is equal to the Father in essence and glory.

FURTHER READING

Jesus Christ: The God Whose Glory Isaiah Beheld

Jesus Christ: The God of the Patriarchs and Prophets

Who Did Abraham See?

WHO DID THE PROPHETS SEE? A JEHOVAH’S WITNESS DILEMMA

“The Form of a god”? The Translation of Morphē Theou in Philippians 2:6

Philippians 2:6 In Various English Translations

Bart D. Ehrman Proves Muhammad is a false prophet Pt. 2a

Carmen Christi: Worshiping Christ as God

Revisiting the Deity of Christ in Light of the Carmen Christi Pt. 1

Revisiting the Deity of Christ in Light of the Carmen Christi Pt. 2

• Uncategorized