Think this among yourselves which (is) also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider being equal to God a thing to be grasped at, but made himself of no account, taking the form of a servant, having become in the likeness of men; and having been found in outward appearance as a man, he humbled himself, having become obedient to the point of death, and death on a cross.
Therefore also God highly exalted him and favoured him with the name which is above every name, in order that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is kyrios to the glory of God the Father.
This is a much debated passage, a good part of the discussion having to do with the question of whether it reflects a “high christology”. Is Jesus presented here as a preexisting divine figure who becomes incarnate as man, who dies (for the sins of the world), and who then is re-identified with the divine kyrios? The part about preexistence and incarnation I have my doubts about, though I wouldn’t rule it out—it appears to rely far too heavily on the single phrase “being in the form of God”. The climactic identification of Jesus as kyrios is clear.
But the standard high christological or incarnational reading in most cases completely misses the Jewish-narrative-historical-eschatological-whatever import of the passage. In other words, Philippians 2:6-11 is not another iteration of the evangelical divine redeemer myth; rather it speaks of the significance of Jesus in the historical clash between YHWH and ancient paganism. To recover this perspective we simply need to suppose that Paul, or whoever wrote this extraordinary hymn to the anti-Caesar, was thinking both biblically and contextually.
1. There is a prominent type of pagan ruler in scripture who does think that equality with God is a thing to be grasped. For example, the king of Babylon said in his heart:
I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. (Is. 14:13-14)
God says to the ruler of Tyre:
Because your heart was exalted and you said, “I am a god; I have inhabited a habitation of a god in the heart of the sea,” yet you are human and not a god, and you rendered your heart as a god’s heart. (Ezek. 28:2)
Antiochus Epiphanes “will be exalted over every god and will speak strange things against the God of gods” (Dan. 11:36). Paul describes a “man of lawlessness”, who will be revealed at the time of the Jewish rebellion against Rome, who “opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thess. 2:3-4). Philippians 2:6-11 directly contrasts Jesus with this blasphemous, self-aggrandizing type of pagan ruler who, in direct antipathy to YHWH and his people, makes himself equal to God.1
Remarkably, neither Gordon Fee nor Larry Hurtado considers the significance of these texts for the development of christology in their respective books on the subject.2
2. There is perhaps a further implicit repudiation of pagan idolatry in the statement that Jesus became “in the likeness (homoiōmati) of men”. The true God cannot be represented by a “likeness” manufactured by an artisan:
To whom have you likened (homoiōsate) the Lord, or with what likeness (homoiōmati) have you likened (homoiōsate) him? Has an artisan made an image (eikona), or has a goldsmith, after casting gold, gilded it—prepared a likeness (homoiōma) of it? (Is. 40:18-19; cf. 44:13 NETS)
Having chosen a piece of wood, the artisan set it up with a measure and arranged it with glue; he made it like the form (morphēn) of a man, like human beauty, to set it up in a house. (Is. 44:13 NETS)
The God who is powerful to act both to save his people and to judge the nations is represented by this “likeness” of humanity, who has made himself of no account, who has humbled himself, who is obedient.
3. As the “servant” or “slave” (doulos) who humbles himself and suffers, in the end being executed on the Roman cross—a detail not to be overlooked in this anti-imperial paean—Jesus fulfils the role of the servant Jacob. The servant will not only be instrumental in restoring Israel, not least through his suffering (cf. Is. 53), but will be “a light of nations… for salvation to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:5-6 LXX), so that the pagan nations will also participate in the extraordinary restoration of the people of God (Is. 49:22-23).
4. The anti-pagan thrust of the passage is further indicated by the assertion that God “highly exalted” (hyperypsōsen) Jesus (2:9). On the one hand, the Psalmist sees an impious person “being highly lifted up and being raised up like the cedars of Lebanon”, but the next time he passes by he is no longer there (Ps. 36:35-36). On the other, the nations which worship idols will be judged, but the Lord is “most high over all the earth, …exalted (hyperypsōthēs) far above all the gods” (Ps. 96:7-9). This is not the language of an abstract christology; it is the language of eschatological conflict.
5. It is emphatically stated that it will be by virtue of the exaltatation of Jesus and at the name of Jesus that the pagan nations which threatened Israel will come to acknowledge that the God who saves his people is the only true God. This is what will constitute “salvation” for the idolatrous Greek-Roman world.
Turn to me, and you shall be saved, you who are from the end of the earth! I am God, and there is no other. By myself I swear, “Verily righteousness shall go forth from my mouth; my words shall not be turned back, because to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall acknowledge God, saying, Righteousness and glory shall come to him, and all who separate themselves shall be ashamed.” By the Lord shall they be justified, and all the offspring of the sons of Israel shall be glorified in God. (Is. 45:22-25 NETS)
So here’s how I would read this hymn, setting aside for now the tricky but background question of preexistence. Jesus has pursued a course quite contrary to the hubristic aspirations of pagan rulers such as the king of Babylon, the prince of Tyre, Antiochus Epiphanes, or the Roman Caesars. By making himself of no account, he assumes the role of the Isaianic servant through whom, and through whose suffering, YHWH will both restore his people and ultimately overthrow the imperial paganism that dominated Europe, Asia Minor and the Near East. Because Jesus was faithful to the point of death at the hands of the pagan oppressor, God exalted him and gave him authority above all pagan powers, giving rise to the conviction that eventually the pagan world would confess Jesus as Lord, to the glory of Israel’s God.
- 1. See further myRe: Mission: Biblical Mission for a Post-Biblical Church, 137-138.
- 2. G.D. Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological study (Hendrickson, 2007); L.W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Eerdmans, 2003).
Comments
Perhaps the crucial evidence in the passage for a high christology is the direct echo, in verses 10-11, of Isaiah 45:23 - "Before me every knee shall bow; by me every tongue shall swear". But now, this is expressed towards Jesus. The high christology is emphasised, if we were in danger of missing the point, by the preceding verse: "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name".
This preface to the verse which then echoes Isaiah 45:23 makes a direct identification of Jesus with YHWH impossible to avoid. There is no suggestion at all that Jesus was YHWH's representative or proxy.
The anti-imperial theme of the passage is quite plain to see, and very helpfully augmented by the OT parallels, and therefore contrasts, you cite. I can't see, though, that "the Jewish-narrative-historical-eschatological-whatever import of the passage" in any way here contradicts a high christology. The two surely here go hand in hand - much to the consternation of those approaching the passage, and Jesus himself, from your standpoint.
Peter, the passage does not identify Jesus with YHWH. What it says is that YHWH exalted Jesus and graciously bestowed on him the name which is above every name—that is, the name “Lord”.
God has made Jesus Lord or King by raising him from the dead. That cannot be taken to mean that God made Jesus identical with himself.
God makes Jesus his Son, he gives him the nations as an inheritance, he gives him authority over the kings of the nations (cf. Ps. 2:7-9). He has been given authority by God to reign until all his enemies are suppressed (1 Cor. 15:25). He is seated at the right hand of the Father; he is never identified with the Father.
What Isaiah 45:23 says is “to me every knee shall bow and every tongue shall acknowledge God”. That prospect is changed in Philippians 2 to the extent that the clash with paganism will reach its climax at the moment when the nations confess that Jesus and not Caesar is Lord.
YHWH formerly claimed direct sovereignty over the nations but he has transferred that sovereignty to Jesus because it is through Jesus’ faithfulness—and the concomitant faithfulness of his followers—that the victory over paganism will come about.
That entails a repudiation of Caesar’s divinity and, therefore, in some sense, an affirmation of Jesus’ divinity. But I think it is premature here to claim that this amounts to an identification of Jesus with YHWH.
It seems to me that this anti-pagan ruler interpretation provides the key for understanding how the apocalyptic narrative gives rise to a high christology and even potentially a trinitarian theology. I’m not sure it directly explains or requires the notions of preexistence and incarnation, which is partly why I hesitate at that point.
But nobody is consternated. Honestly.
Andrew - I think your interpretation of the passage is more eisogesis than exegesis.
The parallel of verse 10 with Isaiah 45:23 says something quite different from God bestowing a name on Jesus which makes him distinct from YHWH. It describes Jesus in terms of YHWH himself. Paul has no authority to take an unambiguous reference to YHWH in Isaiah, and then insert Jesus where YHWH should be, which is what he does without any qualification at all here.
Again, if we hadn't got the message, verse 9 speaks of Jesus being given the name that is above every name -without any qualification that YHWH's name alone was to be excepted.
Verse 10 reinforces the same message. Every knee in the cosmos, heaven - earth - the underworld, will bow, not at the name of YHWH, but at the name of Jesus.
Kyrios in verse 11 is an unreconstructed repetition of the title given for YHWH in Isaiah 45 and elsewhere in the LXX.
It really couldn't be clearer, from whichever angle you look at it. Paul was either being blasphemous, or very careless with words, or identifying Jesus with YHWH himself.
Even the Jehovah's Witnesses have had to wriggle out of the implications of this passage by saying that Jesus was somewhere in between human and divine - not God himself, but a god. But the passage will not even allow for that - the association of Jesus with YHWH could not have been clearer.
Well, I notice at least that you’ve changed from “direct identification of Jesus with YHWH” to “association of Jesus with YHWH”.
You may be right—my original hesitation, as I said, was not with this point but with the preexistence/incarnation argument. On the whole I am still inclined to think that the identification of Jesus as kyrios here is a statement about the authority that has been given to him by YHWH and not a direct identification of Jesus with the one God who will be confessed by the nations in Isaiah 45:20-25. But the fact that this one God is also the Lord who saves and justifies his people (4:15, 25), there is admittedly only a very short theological distance to be bridged.
With regard to the pre-existence/incarnation argument, I think the JW's get around "being in the form of God" by interpreting it "being in the form of a god". I can't imagine you approving of that.
The subsequent phrases don't seem to encourage a view of Jesus as nothing more than a human emissary of YHWH: "having become in the likeness of men; and having been found in outward appearance as a man" (your translation).
Apart from the implications of "likeness of men" and "outward appearance as a man", how could Jesus 'become in the likeness of men', or 'be found in outward appearance as a man', if he had already been a man?
"association of Jesus with YHWH" has to be read in the light of my describing a direct identification of Jesus with YHWH in the preceding paragraphs of my comment!
Anyway, you shouldn't be raising these questions, Andrew. It's disturbing my Sunday afternoon.
Andrew, I need a little help in understanding. This is not a question as challenge but for clarity. Are you trying to deconstruct the way we ARRIVE at the conclusion that Jesus is divine/God? I think I get where you are coming from regarding his divinity, for instance, you said you are not excluding the POSSIBILITY of the divinity of Jesus, but that you are simply trying to exclude the presumption that Jesus must be interpreted in such a way as to support certain traditional formulations. From that I surmise you support his divinity(?) Also, what do you see about Jesus as preexistent? In your thinking is he a preexisting divine figure who becomes incarnate as man and who then is re-identified with the divine kyrios? You said something about preexistence and incarnation, that you had your doubts but that you wouldn't rule it out. Could you explain? Thanks.
Jim, there’s too much in that to deal with it properly here. I’ll try to get round to it sometime, but for now:
1. There is an issue regarding how we construe “divinity” in the New Testament. This passage may suggest that Jesus’ divinity is thought of as some sort of counterpart to Caesar’s “divinity”. It is unlikely, in any case, to correspond very closely to our own ideas of what it means to be God.
2. There is an issue regarding the frame within which it becomes possible to talk about the divinity of Jesus. This passage suggests that apocalyptic narratives are more pertinent than later Hellenistic, neo-Platonic narratives, or our modern philosophical conceptualities.
3. I’m not at all sure about the preexistence/incarnational part of this. There are certainly strong statements that associate Jesus with creation, but whether they can really be interpreted in straightfoward incarnational terms I’m not sure.
Two quick comments:
1. Andrew is WRONG when he says this is a much debated passage. Evangelicals agree that this passage points to the divinity of Christ without ambiguity.
2. Andrew knows full well I have pointed out the Greek Syntax in this passage and he has yet to deal with it. “Thing to be grasped” does not mean something to be reached for as if one does not possess it. It means something to be retained by force. Something to be hung on to by force. Not something to be taken hold of.
This is most certainly a much debated passage. It is debated in the countless kenosis theories proposed, tweaked, reproposed, retweaked, as well as the non-incarnational prosposals by those who do not see preexistence material in this passage. Scholars who opt for a non-incarnational model include Dunn, Berkhof, Kushel, Harnack, Flesseman, Schillebeeckx, Robinson, Macquarrie, Hick, etc.
The weakness in incarnational/kenotic proposals of this passage lies in the assumption of:
a) atemporality of erchomai in vs. 6
b) inherent divinity implied by morphe in vs. 6
c) inherent non-humanity by morphe in vs. 7
d) the possession of the equality “snatched at” (arpazo) in vs. 6
e) ontological identity with Yahweh in the Isaiah quote of vs. 10
And f) the partial reading of vs. 11.
All these assumptions above have been shown to be lacking serious hermeneutic basis and have proven to be circular in their proofs.
The debate is not over divinity, which is my point, which is Andrew’s implication. You cannot kenosis without divinity. Good greif!
the word ἁρπαγμός means:
that which is to be held on to forcibly—‘something to hold by force, something to be forcibly retained. (Louw-Nida)
The reason this definition is preferred is, as usual, context! Existing (present active participle) continuously in the form of God he existed (aorist participle) in the form of a servant and a man. To regard the word to mean to reach up for and snatch violates that syntax of the verse.
The debate has been around how did Jesus retain divinity and still became man. In what sense did He empty Himself. Empty Himself of what? That is where the debate lies, not in oneness theology and certain NOT in the idea that Jesus was not divine.
Ed Dingess,
Well no. The debate has gone beyond the endless tweaking and re-formulating of an assumed theology (Kenosis theology) in desperate attempts by prima traditione zealots to squeeze their theology into the Scriptural mould. Whether incarnation was intended by this section at all has been the topic of discussion in scholarly circles for decades now. The later invented and imposed idea of Christ’s “divinity” is therefore also of concern here.
And of course one can undergo kenosis without divinity. If the “emptying” in the person is of reputation, prestige and deserved status, then the kenosis described in the Philippian hymn will achieve precisely that.
No, several other scholars, commentaries included, indicate the active grasping or snatching as the central nuance of the verb. In none of its other occurences in the NT (derived forms included) has the idea of passively retaining what which is already possessed. This is forced upon the word due to traditional assumptions.
“So this text would have been a piece of Adam christology, of the kind that also emerges in other contexts in the New Testament. It would be a further example of the widespread two stage christology of the earliest Jewish-Christian communities…and thus would not be in the context of mythical tradition, but of Old Testament tradition. So there is no question here of a pre-existent heavenly figure. Rather Christ is the great contrasting figure to Adam.” Born Before All Time, p. 251.
“Since the hymn deals with Christ in his concrete terrestrial condition, one should begin with the working hypothesis that the author views Christ as man…The anthropology of Wisdom provides an appropriate background on the assumption that the author of the hymn was thinking of Christ as man. ” (Murphy O’Connor).
“[T]hese passages were written in the middle of the first century, and the most obvious and really clear meaning is the Adam theology and christology widespread in earliest Christianity. In short, Adam christology provides not only a plausible context of thought for Phil 2:6-11 but also the most plausible context of thought. Alternative explanations in terms of a Gnostic or proto-Gnostic Primal Man speculation are not only unnecessary but also unconvincing…we have uncovered no real evidence that the concept of a heavenly archetype of Adam had developed beyond that of a Platonic idea by the time of Paul – no real evidence, in other words, of an already established belief in a heavenly first man who became the redeemer of Adam’s offspring.” -Christology in the Making, pp. 125,126.
“[T]he point of the hymn is not a comparison between Christ’s pre-existent state as the divine son in glory and his state of humiliation as a servant. Rather, it is a comparison between Christ and Adam in which the term “form of God” is the equivalent of saying “Image of God.” - Trinity and Incarnation: In Search of Contemporary Orthodoxy
If tradition is assumed, instead of Scripture, the result is the convoluted kenosis theories we see from traditionalists…
In addition, I am not sure who you mean by “Berkhof” in your list of liberal scholars above. But if you mean Louis Berkhof, you would be flat out wrong. Louis Berkhof is a reformed theologian and most certainly holds to an incarnation of the God-man, Jesus Christ.
Dutch Scholar, Hendrikus Berkhof…