The God
Chapter Thirteen
Philippians, Chapter Two
Philippians 2:5-8: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature (Greek morphe) God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, (Greek heauton ekenosen) but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
It is argued that in Paul saying Jesus is in very nature God, He must be God. Some see in this passage the Son emptying Himself of being God in becoming Jesus and returning to being God at the time of His ascension. Several versions translate the Greek heauton ekenosen as “emptied Himself.” For example, the Revised Standard Version translates it this way:
“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, (Greek: heauton ekenosen ) taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Greek Lexicons show heauton ekenosen to mean “to empty or make empty.” If Jesus is God, He would be eternal having neither beginning nor end. To empty oneself of being eternal is an oxymoron. The Son could not have emptied himself of being God in order to become the man Jesus. Those who recognize this as an oxymoron theorize the Son emptied Himself of the glory He eternally had with the Father but did not empty Himself if his deity. It is believed the Son did not give up His divine nature but added human nature to His divine nature in becoming the human Jesus. Therefore, Jesus is seen as totally divine and totally human, the “God/man.” It is believed when Jesus died his humanity died but His deity did not die as it isn’t possible for an eternally existing God to die. When Jesus was resurrected He was resurrected as the fully human and fully God Being He was believed to be before the crucifixion.
The problem with this perspective is that if only the humanity of Jesus died and was resurrected, and the divinity of Jesus did not die, the whole of Jesus was not resurrected. All Scripture relating to the death and resurrection of Jesus indicates the entire entity called the Son of God died and was resurrected.
The postulation that Jesus had dual nature is not based on Biblical Scripture. Nowhere does Scripture identify Jesus as being totally God and totally human. As previously pointed out, being totally God excludes being totally human and vice versa. They are mutually exclusive. To be God is to be immortal. To be human is to be mortal. Nowhere does Scripture identify Jesus as being totally immortal and totally mortal at the same time. The Scriptures identify God the Father as the only one having intrinsic immortality. Jesus was granted immorality as a result of God resurrecting Him from the dead. Jesus is no longer mortal. He cannot ever die again. God began the process of granted immortality by resurrecting His Son who was dead. The postulation that Jesus had duel nature is a human construct not supported by the Scriptures.
The word translated “nature” or “form” in the passage under consideration is the Greek word morphe. This word appears only here in Philippians 2:5-8 and in Matthew 16:12 where it is recorded Jesus appeared in a different form to two of His disciples after the resurrection. Trinitarian discussion of Philippians 2:5-8 often define morphe as describing the very essence or nature of Jesus. It is concluded that for Jesus to be in the morphe of God is to be of the same essence/nature as God. Greek lexicons, however, show morphe to define outward appearance. It is used in the Greek literature of the first century to express outward appearance. In the Septuagint morphe is used to show outward appearance. It occurs seven times in the Septuagint and in every case can be seen to mean outward appearance. For example, in Daniel 5:6, where King Belshazzar sees the hand writing on the wall, it is recorded that his appearance (morphe) changed. Obviously his essence or nature did not change. A recent Greek to English translation of the Septuagint and New Testament Scriptures called the Apostolic Bible Polyglot consistently translates morphe as “appearance”
Morphe does not speak to the essence or nature of a person as some teach. Translations such as the NIV that render morphe as “nature,” appear to do so not because the Greek implies this meaning but because of a predisposition toward Trinitarianism. This word is translated as “form” in most translations and as appearance in some. The KJV translates it this way:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery (Greek harpagee) to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Some interpret the phrase “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation” as meaning Jesus had equality with God which He thought it not robbery to have. He was willing to give it all up to become a human sacrifice for sin. Greek lexicons show harpagee literally means to rob or steal and take by force. The KJV translates it as “robbery” but most translations use the word “grasp.” Jesus is seen as not grasping or wanting to take by force equality with God despite being in the form of God which Trinitarians interpret as being the same as being God.
This view is problematic because if Jesus being in the form of God means He is God why would Paul speak in terms of Jesus not wanting to rob (to steal or take by force) or grasp at being God? This would be tantamount to Jesus seeking to be what He already was. Under Trinitarian thought, Jesus would already have equality with God the Father and wanting or not wanting to have it would be irrelevant. You don’t grasp for something you already have.
It is argued that Paul is speaking in terms of Jesus not seeking to retain His equal status with the Father, Son and Spirit but was willing to give it up such status to become the human Jesus. If this is the case, what did the Son of God give up in becoming the human Jesus while still remaining fully God? What did He empty Himself of? God is considered omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Did the Son empty himself of any of these qualities? If these are all eternal qualities associated with being God, How could Jesus, as God, empty Himself of such qualities and still be God. If the Son did empty himself of these qualities, He wasn’t God in the Flesh as claimed. If Christ was fully God while being fully human He would have had these qualities while in the flesh.
The primary question is what does Paul mean when He writes of Jesus being in the form or appearance of God but taking on the form or appearance of a servant? As already discussed, the Greek morphe relates to outward appearance. English words such as endomorphic (a stocky person), ectomorphic (a slim person) and mesomorphic (a big boned, muscular person) are derived from this Greek word. These are all words that describe outward appearance.
Some have suggested that because Paul says Jesus was in the form (outward appearance) of God but took the form (outward appearance) of man, it was the outward appearance of God that the Son gave up to take on the outward appearance of the human Jesus. Therefore, Jesus was a human only in outward appearance while His essence remained divine. This was the position of the second century theologian/philosopher Marcion, a position called Docetism. This position is problematical because the scriptures show the Son of God died, not just an outward appearance of God called the Son.
Throughout the NT it is implicitly and sometimes explicitly stated that Jesus came to reveal the Father. As we have already covered in this book, Jesus was a perfect manifestation of the logos of God. As such, Jesus was in appearance as God. There is no Scriptural reason to believe when Paul writes about Jesus being in appearance as God he is saying Jesus is God in essence and substance. Paul plainly wrote to the Corinthians that the Father was the one and only God. Paul is not telling the Philippians Jesus is God. Paul is saying what Jesus said. Jesus said He was in the Father and the Father was in him. In his teaching and in His demonstration of power, Jesus represented God. He did this because He had a full measure of God’s Spirit and God granted Him the wherewithal to be what He was and accomplish what He accomplished.
When Paul tells the Philippians Jesus was in appearance as God, he is talking about the human agent to whom the one and only true God had given extraordinary power and authority in order to demonstrate He was indeed the promised Messiah who would become the sacrifice for the sins of humanity and reconcile humanity back to God. Jesus was in the appearance of God because He perfectly represented God in everything He did. Jesus knew He was the promised Messiah and that God had given Him supernatural power and authority as God’s agent. Jesus new He was the heir to David’s throne. Jesus could have at any time used His granted power to overthrow the Romans and become the king of
Matthew 26:53-54: Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"
Jesus was apparently given the latitude to submit to the crucifixion or dramatically stop the whole process. While praying in the garden before His arrest, He petitioned His Father for a way out of the pending ordeal.
Matthew 26:39: Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
These recorded events in the life of Jesus demonstrate Jesus had His own human will and the God given power to exercise his own will. What he did, however, was to totally submit His will and His granted power and authority to the will and purpose of God His Father. Jesus was willing to humble Himself by emptying Himself of the power He had been granted and totally submit to the will of His Father. It was the power and authority God gave Jesus as the human Messiah that Jesus emptied Himself of in going to the cross to become the sacrifice for sin. Jesus didn’t use His power to deliver Himself from the ordeal of the crucifixion. Instead, He laid it all aside and submitted Himself as a powerless human Being in the face of his accusers and the Roman authority.
2 Corinthians 8:9: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
Paul instructed the Philippian Christians to have the same attitude of humility as Christ showed in not seeking power and authority over others but in humility serving others. If Jesus was a God/man as commonly believed, Paul could not have used Him as an example of giving up status in becoming a humble servant. As a God/man, Jesus would have retained his status of deity and would not have truly emptied Himself of anything. If the Son of God is eternal as is the Father, how can it be said the Son of God humbled Himself to the point of the cross? As an eternal Being, the Son could not die.
It is far more reasonable to see Paul writing about a purely human Son of God who was willing to lay aside the power and authority granted to Him and in humility submit to the will of the Father and in so doing provide an example of how we should also in humility submit to one another and to God in obedience to His will.
Paul may have had in mind the comparison between the two Adam’s. The first Adam was made in the image of God and granted power and authority over creation. This Adam, rather than submitting himself to God in obedience to God’s command, sought to become like God by eating the forbidden fruit. Jesus, who Paul refers to as the second Adam, was granted power and authority but did not seek to become like God but totally submitted to God’s will even to death on the cross.
When Paul writes of Jesus being in the outward appearance of God he is talking about Jesus reflecting attributes of God that God had conferred upon Jesus so He could fulfill God’s will. During his ministry, Jesus made it very plain that seeing Him was the same as seeing the Father.
John 14:7-11: If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him." Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.
Is Jesus revealing Himself here as being God by saying He is in the Father and the Father is in Him? Are we seeing here a mutual indwelling of Father and Son that equates with Father and Son being co-equal, co-eternal and con-substantial? Jesus tells Phillip that seeing Him is seeing the Father. We know Scripture identifies the Father as God. Is Jesus telling Phillip he is seeing God when seeing Jesus? If this is the case, then Jesus is blatantly contradicting what He said at other times during his ministry and what the NT authors say about Him. As previously seen in this book, Jesus identifies the Father as the one and only God. The Apostles do the same. Jesus also said no one has seen God the Father.
John 1:18: No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known (NIV).
The NIV translation of this passage implies that Jesus is the One and Only God who has made known the Father. The NIV translation is derived from a reading of Alexandrian Greek texts that predate the texts most commonly used when translating this passage. These Alexandrian texts have monogenes theos where the word mono means only and genes means to be born or begotten or, as more recent scholarship has identified, genes means kind, type or unique. Theos means god. Most Bible versions use later Greek texts that read monogenes huios where huios is the Greek word for son. Typical of such translations is the KJV:
“No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, (monogenes huios) which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Bosom is from the Greek kolpos which literally means “the front part of the body between the arms.” In Greek literature it is used both literally and figuratively.
There has been much discussion in scholarly circles as to which Greek manuscripts reflect what John intended. Some argue that since the Alexandrian manuscripts are older, they better reflect what John said as they are closer to the time he wrote his Gospel. Others believe scribes altered the text to read “theos” in order to promote the belief Jesus was God against a first century teaching known as Adoptionism which taught Jesus was only a man born in the normal way and declared to be the Son of God sometime after His birth. Some scholars see the Alexandrian rendering of this passage as spurious because they virtually say the One and Only God resides in the One and Only God which makes no sense. It is questioned that if the Son is the One and Only God then what does that make the Father? Jesus, Paul and John clearly taught the Father was the one and only God. It is also pointed out that the Alexandrian renderings of John 3:16, 18 and 1 John 4:9, which are all passages that speak of the only begotten Son, read monogenes huios which coordinates with the reading of later Greek texts.
In view of the foregoing, it appears Jesus was saying no man has seen God at any time but He, as the one and only uniquely begotten Son of God the Father has declared Him which is to say has revealed Him. When Jesus told Phillip that to see Him is to see the Father, He wasn’t telling Phillip in seeing Jesus he was literally seeing God.
When Jesus speaks of He being in the Father and the Father being in Him, He is not telling us He and the Father are the one God. Jesus is not speaking about the intrinsic identify of who/what God is or what is the substance of His Being. Jesus is speaking of manifesting the spirit of God which was reflected in the power and authority Jesus projected during His earthly ministry. Jesus being in the Father and the Father being in Jesus is not a statement of oneness of Being. It is a statement of oneness of spirit. This is made very evident in the prayer Jesus offered up to the Father on behalf of his followers shortly before His crucifixion.
John 17:20-23, 26: "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Verse 26: I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
When Jesus said He and the Father are one (John 10:30), He was not alluding to their oneness of Being. When Jesus told Philip He was in the Father and the Father was in Him (John 14:11), He was not teaching He and the Father are co-equal, co-eternal and con-substantial. Jesus is using relational language in showing how He and the Father are of the same mind and spirit. In the passage cited above, Jesus uses the same terminology in speaking of our relationship with Him and the Father as He does in regard to his relationship with the Father. Jesus being in the Father, the Father being in Jesus, we being in the Father and Jesus being in us are all relational statements pointing to being of like mind and spirit and participating in mutual love. There are multiple dozens of statements in the NT that speak of our being one in spirit with God and Jesus and they being one in spirit with us.
Trinitarian theology teaches God is a mutual indwelling of Father, Son and Spirit. Therefore, God is seen as one Being in three dimensions or distinctions. The Scriptures, however, show God to be a single and separate Being above all other Beings including the Being Jesus. The concept of mutual indwelling is a valid concept only as it pertains to how the one God who is the Father spiritually indwells the Son and the Son spiritually indwells the Father. This has to do with shared spiritual dynamics, not oneness of Being. We humans can share in those same spiritual dynamics through mutual indwelling involving the Father, the Son and us. By participating in mutual indwelling with the Father and the Son we become one with the Father and the Son and they become one with us. This doesn’t make us one in Being with the Father or the Son anymore than it makes the Father and Son one Being. We all remain separate entities united by one spirit.
There is one additional passage in Philippians chapter 2 that is often used as a “proof text” to show that Jesus is YHWH and is therefore the one God.
Philippians 2:9-11: Therefore God (Theos) exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God (Theos) the Father.
This statement by Paul appears to be a quote or paraphrase of a passage of scripture found in Isaiah where YHWH is quoted as saying:
Isaiah 45:23: By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked: Before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.
The context of Isaiah 45 clearly shows it is YHWH who is speaking. Because Paul is using an OT quote of YHWH that relates to YHWH, it is believed Paul must be identifying Jesus as YHWH by applying this quote to Jesus.
Paul writes that God (the Father) exalted Jesus to the highest place and that every knee should bow to Jesus and every tongue confess Jesus is Lord. All this is done to the glory of God the Father. YHWH is identified as Father some fifteen times in the OT. Paul consistently identifies God (YHWH) as the Father in the NT. If Jesus is as much YHWH as the Father is YHWH, Paul is saying YHWH the Father exalted YHWH the Son to the glory of YHWH the Father.
This is problematic because if YHWH the Son is co-eternal, co-equal and con-substantial with YHWH the Father, how can it be said YHWH the Father is exalting him to the highest place. As YHWH, the Son could not be made to be greater than He already was and always has been. The very language of this passage and other passages like it show YHWH the Father to be superior and greater than the Son which the Son readily admitted when He said the Father was greater than He. Therefore, Jesus is not YHWH but is the exalted Son of YHWH.
Paul shows God the Father rewarded Jesus for humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of being crucified (verse 8). The highest place Jesus was exalted to is shown in other Scriptures as being the right hand of God. YHWH the Father does the exalting of Jesus which in itself shows the Father being over the Son in power and authority as has already been shown in a number of other Scriptures. Rather than the passage under consideration showing Jesus is YHWH, it shows instead how YHWH is superior to Jesus. In applying an OT statement to Christ that applies to YHWH is not a proof that Christ is YHWH. Because of what Jesus accomplished as the Messiah, YHWH has exalted Him to His right hand. Therefore, YHWH has ordained that Jesus receives the same level of respect and worship as He does which, as Paul writes, is all done to the glory of God the Father who is the one and only YHWH, the Most High God.