The following is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes, Chapter 11: Preexistence in Paul and Hebrews, 213-221.
In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.
CHRIST WAS IN GOD’S FORM AND BECAME A MAN
(PHILIPPIANS 2:5–8)
One of the most important biblical passages for Christology is Philippians 2:5–11. Most scholars think Paul wrote Philippians from Rome about AD 62,25 although a date as early as the mid-50s is sometimes defended.26 As Christians have traditionally understood this passage, Paul teaches that Christ was a preexistent person who was fully God and yet who humbled himself by becoming human and dying on a cross (vv. 5–8). Then, in Christ’s resurrection, God the Father exalted him so that all creation would honor him as their divine Lord (vv. 9–11). Although this understanding of the passage has come under criticism, the evidence is decisive that Paul was affirming the divine preexistence of Christ. Here we will discuss the interpretation of the first part of the text (vv. 5–8). We will examine the second part of the passage (vv. 9–11) in some detail later in the book (see pp. 488–93).
Christians who accept the deity of Christ are not alone in understanding the passage to speak of Christ as preexistent. Many scholars of other perspectives, including secular or skeptical ones, agree on this point. Bart Ehrman, for example, states that the passage “is an elevated reflection on Christ coming into the world (from heaven) for the sake of others and being glorified by God as a result.”27 However, Ehrman does not think the passage views the preexistent Christ as God, but as “an angel or an angel-like being, who only after his act of obedience to the point of death was made God’s equal.”28
Jehovah’s Witnesses may like Ehrman’s view that the preexistent Christ in Paul’s teaching was an angel, but they will not like his view that Paul thought Christ became God’s equal after his death and resurrection. (We should also recall that Ehrman claimed to find conflicting views in other parts of the New Testament.) Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Christ began as Michael the archangel, was a man on earth, and is now Michael the archangel again. The Watchtower Society interprets Philippians 2:5–11 according to this doctrinal position: “So Michael the archangel is Jesus in his prehuman existence. After his resurrection and return to heaven, Jesus resumed his service as Michael, the chief angel, ‘to the glory of God the Father’” (note the quotation from Philippians 2:11).29 The Society understands the expression “form of God” in verse 6 to mean simply that “Jesus was a spirit person just as ‘God is a Spirit.’”30
Our focus here will be on the preexistence of Christ, although we will find some evidence in Philippians 2:6 that Christ was deity, not angelic, in nature. In chapter 19, we will directly address the claim that Paul viewed Christ as a preexistent angelic creature (see especially pp. 371–75).
Oneness Pentecostals interpret Philippians 2:5–11 very differently. When Paul says that Christ existed “in the form of God” (v. 6), David Bernard understands this to mean that Christ simply was God. Jesus embodies both “Father and Son” because he is “identical” to God. When Paul says that “God highly exalted him,” that is, Christ (v. 9), Bernard interprets this to mean that “God (the Spirit of Jesus) has highly exalted Jesus Christ (God manifested in flesh).”31 In effect, God exalted himself, or at least exalted the human manifestation of himself. Thus, Oneness Pentecostalism denies that Christ existed as someone distinct from the Father prior to the incarnation. We shall see that Philippians 2:5–11 strongly challenges Oneness Christology on this point.
The most influential alternative interpretation comes from Unitarians and those with a similar understanding of Paul’s Christology. Unitarians hold that Christ was not God and did not preexist his human life. They interpret all of Philippians 2:5–11 as describing the human Jesus. Buzzard summarizes verses 5–8 as follows: “Enjoying the status of God as God’s unique agent, Jesus did not consider such likeness to God as something to be used for his own advantage. Instead he took the role of servant and conducted his whole ministry in the service of human beings, even giving up his life for them.”32
Buzzard bases his interpretation of Philippians 2 at least in part on the notion that the passage reflects Paul’s “Adam Christology,” in which Jesus was a second figure like Adam who undid the damage that the first Adam had done. Specifically, he argues that “the form of God” in Philippians 2:6 is equivalent to “the image of God” in which God created Adam (Gen. 1:26–27).33 James Dunn is especially influential in advocating this interpretation of the expression “form of God.”34 Dunn interprets the passage to mean that Christ, like Adam, was in God’s image and was tempted to grasp after equality with God, but, unlike Adam, Christ refused to give into that temptation (v. 6). Finding himself in our fallen human condition, Christ humbly obeyed God, again unlike Adam, redemptively submitting to the death that Adam had brought on all humanity (vv. 7–8). Dunn traces the Jewish theological background of these Adamic themes to Genesis 1–3 and Psalm 8 and cites evidence of Adamic Christology elsewhere in Paul’s epistles.35 This line of interpretation, then, understands all of Philippians 2:5–8 as describing the human life of Christ and as making no reference to or implication of his preexistence.
We will first set out our own literal translation of the passage, presenting the text in lines representing the distinct clauses of this complex statement, and with the verbs shown in italics. The clauses that use participles (in English, verbs that end in –ing) are subordinate to the main clauses (using indicative verbs) and are indented further to make it easier to see the relations among the various clauses.
6a who existing in the form of God,
6b did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped/exploited,
7a but emptied himself,
7b taking the form of a servant,
7c coming to be in the likeness of humans.
8a And being found in appearance as a human,
8b he humbled himself,
8c coming to be obedient to the point of death, death of a cross.
A massive body of literature exists on this passage, so much so that Joseph Hellerman, who has published extensively on it, acknowledges in his commentary on Philippians that “the literature on Philippians 2:5–11 has become virtually unmanageable.”36 Much academic discussion of the passage concerns whether it was a pre-Pauline hymn that Paul inserted or adapted in his epistle and, if so, what its original form was. Many scholars think it was a pre-Pauline hymn, which would make it an exceptionally early source for the church’s view of Christ—perhaps composed within ten or fifteen years of his resurrection.37 Other scholars either question its hymnic origins or maintain that if it was a hymn Paul has thoroughly integrated it into his argument.38 Dunn is surely right in saying that even if the passage derived from a pre-Pauline hymn, “Paul presumably made use of it as an appropriate expression of his own theology.”39
The natural way of understanding this passage—and the way the vast majority of Christian interpreters have historically understood it—is that Christ existed “in the form of God” in heaven before he became a man. Thus, Paul goes on immediately to say that Christ “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, coming to be in the likeness of humans,” and that he was “found in appearance as a human.”
There is no doubt that the Adam/Christ typology is a significant motif in Pauline theology (most notably in Rom. 5:12–19; 1 Cor. 15:20–22, 45–49). It is also plausible to find some contrast with Adam implicit in Philippians 2. However, as Dunn himself acknowledges, one may see some Adam-Christ allusions in Philippians 2 while still understanding it to mean that Christ preexisted his human life.40 For example, New Testament scholar N. T. Wright understands the contrast this way: “Adam, in arrogance, thought to become like God: Christ, in humility, became man.”41
We consider the key to interpreting Philippians 2:5–11 is to understand it in the context of Paul’s pastoral concern immediately preceding the passage. Paul urges the Philippians to be of one mind with each other, humbly considering others as more important than themselves, looking out not just for their own interests but also for the interests of others (vv. 1–4). Paul presupposes here that the Philippians are all in fact equal because of their common status as believers in Christ, but each is to act humbly as if others are more important. Several clear verbal links connect verses 1–4 to verses 5–11, especially “the same mind” and “this mind” (vv. 2, 5), “count” (vv. 3, 6), and “in humility” and “humbled” (vv. 3, 8).42 Thus, verses 1–4 express how the Philippians are to conduct themselves, and then verses 5–11 present Christ as the ultimate example.
We therefore disagree with those exegetes who interpret Philippians 2:5 to say, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (ESV), meaning that those who are “in Christ” share a corporate unity with one another. Instead, we firmly side with those exegetes who understand Philippians 2:5 to mean “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (NKJV; cf. LEB, NASB, NET, NRSV), referring to Christ as providing the preeminent example of the “mind” or attitude believers should have.43 Paul is holding up Christ as an example of someone who humbly acted as though someone who was his equal was more important than himself. In context, who is that someone with whom Christ was equal but toward whom Christ humbled himself? The answer comes immediately in verse 6, which says that Christ, “existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited” (CSB). (We are not concerned yet with the best way to translate harpagmon, which the CSB translates “something to be exploited.”) Paul’s point here is not that the human Jesus resisted the temptation to sin against God, as Adam had. Instead, Paul compares Christ to God in a way that rather clearly indicates they were equals in some way. The point is that Christ is the supreme example of humility in our relationships with one another by the way he humbled himself to God (the Father).
We see how Christ humbled himself in what comes next. Paul says that Christ “emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity” (v. 7 CSB). A great deal of fruitless speculation about this text has proceeded on the faulty assumption that Paul means that Christ literally emptied himself of something, as if he had some specific thing and then got rid of it. Think of our similar idiom, “He put himself down”; it would make no sense to ask, “Put himself down where?” Likewise, we should not ask, “Emptied himself of what?” because such a question reflects a misunderstanding of the idiom. In context, “emptied himself” is the positive alternative that Christ pursued rather than to “consider equality with God as something to be exploited” (v. 6 CSB; note the flow of these two clauses: “did not . . . instead”). There is now widespread agreement, therefore, that “emptied himself” is metaphorical language, expressing Christ’s “divestiture of position or prestige.”44 Loh and Nida made the point cogently almost half a century ago:
It should be said at the outset that the verb [“to empty”] must be understood metaphorically, not metaphysically. . . . The verb “to empty” is used elsewhere in the Pauline Epistles four times (Rom 4:14; 1 Cor 1:17; 9:15; 2 Cor 9:3), and in each instance it is used metaphorically in the sense of “to bring to nothing,” “to make worthless,” or “to empty of significance.”45
The translation “made himself of no reputation” (KJV, NKJV) is a nice paraphrase, as is the NIV rendering “made himself nothing.” It means that Christ acted as if his divine status was unimportant.
Unfortunately, a whole christological tradition called “kenotic” Christology, or “kenosis” theories, named for the Greek word translated “emptied himself” (ekenōsen) in Philippians 2:7, arose as an attempt to explain what was “emptied.” These theories speculate that Christ divested himself of at least some of his divine attributes in order to become human. (Such theories should be distinguished from the more general use of the terms “kenosis” and “kenotic” to refer to whatever Philippians 2:7 means by Christ having “emptied himself.”) The idea of a divine Person ceasing to possess some of the essential divine attributes is theologically problematic and misses the point of Paul’s statement.46 Paul then says that the way Christ “emptied himself ” was by “taking the form of a slave.” This does not mean that Christ became the servant of other people (though he acted that way toward other people as well), but that he became God’s servant. (Remember, this is about Christ as an example of someone humbling himself toward an equal.) The Father’s Son became the Master’s Servant. And the way in which Christ took the form of a servant was by “becoming in the likeness of human beings.” Again, Paul’s line of thought here presupposes that Christ existed in heaven before becoming a man. A human being cannot take a lower status by becoming a human being because that is what he already and originally is. What Paul says here, then, must refer to Christ’s intention before the incarnation to become a human being.
Paul emphasizes next that being human was a change for Christ, the result of his emptying himself: “And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (v. 8 NKJV). We find two “stages” in Christ’s self-humiliation:
1. Christ did not regard equality with God in a self-serving way (v. 6) but instead emptied himself to take on a servant’s form and human likeness (v. 7).
2. Christ further humbled himself to be obedient to the extent of dying on the cross (v. 8).
These two stages correspond to the main (indicative) clauses in verses 6–8, “did not regard . . . but emptied himself” and “humbled himself.” Since Christ’s humbling himself to obey God to the point of death was the second stage of his descent, the first stage was something prior to his life of obedience. Here again, the text very clearly indicates that Christ existed before he became a man.
Now that we have traced the thread of Paul’s complex statements in verses 6–8, we can go back and comment on the two highly controversial expressions in verse 6. First, when Paul says that Christ existed in “the form of God” (en morphē theou), what does this mean? It does not mean, as Dunn argues, that Christ existed as a man in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27). In context, Christ’s existing in the form of God was something true about him prior to him emptying himself by becoming human. This natural reading of the text is confirmed by the grammar: the present-tense participle “existing” (hyparchōn) “suggests an ongoing essential status” in contrast to the string of aorist verbs that follow (“emptied,” “taking,” “coming to be,” “being found,” “humbled,” “becoming”).47 Nor does “form of God” mean, as Jehovah’s Witnesses maintain, merely that Christ preexisted as a spirit. Rather, it means that Christ’s intrinsic or original mode of appearance was that of God, the brilliant, shining glorious appearance associated with his divine nature and status.48 Christ “emptied himself,” or made himself nothing, by coming in the form of God’s human, earthly servant, completely unexceptional in appearance (cf. Isa. 53:2).
Finally, a great deal of the scholarly debate regarding Philippians 2:5–11 has focused on the meaning of the Greek word harpagmos. Since the word occurs only once in the Greek Bible and is rare in extrabiblical literature, scholars have limited lexical data on which to base their understandings of Paul’s intended meaning. It is now generally understood in two different ways, both of which are consistent with the divine preexistence of Christ.
First, the traditional interpretation is that Paul was saying that Christ did not consider equality with God “something to be grasped” (ESV, LEB, NABRE, NASB, NET, NJB, NRSV). In context this statement cannot mean that Christ was an inferior being who did not wrongfully try to seize equality with God (as Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, interpret the verse). We have already shown that Paul’s argument in the passage depends on Christ’s essential equality with God. In this context, then, the translation “something to be grasped” would mean that the preexistent divine Christ did not try to seize recognition of his rightful status of equality with God but chose to put the glory of the Father ahead of his own glory.
Second, the interpretation that a majority of exegetes now favors understands Paul to mean that Christ did not think of equality with God as “something to be exploited” (CSB; similarly, CEB) or “to be used to his own advantage” (NIV).49 This translation would mean that Christ was equal with God but did not seek to take advantage of that status for his own personal gain. Whichever of these two translations of harpagmon we accept, Paul is saying that Christ was divine but did not act in the self-serving manner one might have expected an omnipotent deity to act—taking whatever he wanted, demanding to be treated as superior. This understanding fits the context well. Paul’s point is that although Christ was in God’s form and was (at least by right) God’s equal, he did not demand his divine right but humbly took a servant’s form and became a human being.
Clearly, Philippians 2 does indeed speak of Christ as a preexistent divine person who humbled himself by becoming a human being.50 He was not simply a human being, as Unitarians argue, but was someone who became human. Nor was he simply God (the Father), choosing to manifest himself as a human, as Oneness Pentecostals claim, since the preexistent Christ became human as an act of humble deference toward God, in order to glorify the Father. On the other hand, he was not just one of many heavenly spirits, not even the chief angel, but existed in God’s very form or glorious appearance. In short, Philippians 2 reveals that Christ was a preexistent divine person distinct from God the Father yet existing with his same divine, glorious form and rightfully equal with God.
25. E.g., Moisés Silva, Philippians, 2nd ed., BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), 2–7.
26. E.g., G. Walter Hansen, The Letter to the Philippians, PNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 19–24.
27. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 254.
28. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 266.
29. “Is Jesus the Archangel Michael?” Watchtower, April 1, 2010, 19.
30. “Philippians Study Notes—Chapter 2,” in NWT (Study Edition), loc. cit.
31. Bernard, Oneness of God, 221–23.
32. Buzzard, Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian, 188; similarly, Chandler, God of Jesus, 340.
33. Buzzard, Jesus Was Not a Trinitarian, 187; likewise, Chandler, God of Jesus, 335–36.
34. Dunn, Christology in the Making, xix, 115, 117.
35. For Dunn’s interpretation of the passage, see Christology in the Making, xviii–xix, xxxiii–xxxiv, 114– 21; “Christ, Adam, and Preexistence,” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, eds. Ralph P. Martin and Brian J. Dodd (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 74–83; and The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 281–88 (which repeats most of the essay in Where Christology Began).
36. Joseph H. Hellerman, Philippians, EGGNT (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2015), 105.
37. See especially Gordley, New Testament Christological Hymns, chapter 3.
38. An influential early article questioning the hymnic view is Gordon D. Fee, “Philippians 2:5–11: Hymn or Exalted Pauline Prose?” BBR 2 (1992): 29–46; more recently, Benjamin Edsall and Jennifer R. Strawbridge, “The Songs We Used to Sing? Hymn ‘Traditions’ and Reception in Pauline Letters,” JSNT 37, no. 3 (2015): 290–311.
39. Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle, 281 n. 64.
40. Dunn, Theology of Paul the Apostle, 286–87.
41. N. T. Wright, “Harpagmos and the Meaning of Philippians 2:5–11,” JTS 37 (1986): 348.
42. See Hellerman, Philippians, 91.
43. The text literally reads, “Have this mind in/among you [pl.] which also in Christ Jesus.” The literature on this one exegetical issue alone is massive. For a good discussion favoring the exegesis accepted here, see Mark J. Keown, Philippians, EEC (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 1:372–78.
44. BDAG, “kenoō,” 539.
45. I-Jin Loh and Eugene A. Nida, A Translator’s Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, Helps for Translators 19 (Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1977), 57, 58.
46. For helpful overviews and critiques of kenosis theories see Millard J. Erickson, The Word Became Flesh: A Contemporary Incarnational Christology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 78–86, and Gordon R. Lewis and Bruce A. Demarest, Integrative Theology, Three Volumes in One (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 2:252–53, 283–86. Two collections of essays reflecting differing approaches to the topic are C. Stephen Evans, ed., Exploring Kenotic Christology: The Self-Emptying of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), and Paul T. Nimmo and Keith L. Johnson, eds., Kenosis: The Self-Emptying of Christ in Scripture & Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022). A notable critique of kenosis theories is offered by Andrew Ter Ern Loke, A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation, Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies (New York: Routledge, 2016), especially chapters 3 and 6.
47. Keown, Philippians, 384–85.
48. See especially Daniel J. Fabricatore, Form of God, Form of a Servant: An Examination of the Greek Noun μορφή in Philippians 2:6–7 (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2010).
49. The groundbreaking study presenting this interpretation is Roy W. Hoover, “The HARPAGMOS Enigma: A Philological Solution,” HTR 64 (1971): 95–119. A helpful overview of recent discussion on harpagmos is found in Loke, Origin of Divine Christology, 36–41.
50. For further study of Philippians 2:5–11, in addition to the commentaries and the studies already cited, see Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 37–45, 197–210; Fee, Pauline Christology, 372–401; Joseph H. Hellerman, Reconstructing Honor in Roman Philippi: Carmen Christi as Cursus Pudorum, SNTSMS 132 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Wesley Hill, Paul and the Trinity: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 77–110; Larry W. Hurtado, How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 83–107.
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