The Assumed Trinity: A look at Philippians 2:6

who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped Philippians 2:6 NASB

I apologize that this is long and technical. There is no other way to do this.

Frankly, I would just as soon let this go. I don’t like coming back to an investigation of verses used to support the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact, thinking about these things really bothers me. It keeps me up at night. It scares me. All my life I thought that the statement “Jesus is God” was unassailable, fixed in concrete theologically, fundamental to faith. Now I’m scared that I might have simply swallowed the doctrine without examination. Now the foundation of what I used to believe (and maybe still do) is a bit shaken. But I am not about to just sweep the issues under the Pope’s rug and pretend everything is perfectly fine in Bibleland. Everything isn’t perfectly fine. The more I dig into the Jewish world of the first century, the more I see how my own presuppositions may have been in error. I grew up on Calvin, Berkouwer and Campus Crusade. I know the drill. But the drill has bored through to something I never expected.

Ureil ben-Mordechai[1] points out that the Greek negative in this verse (ouk) is not attached to the verb (hegesato) but rather to the noun harpagmon. That means the reading of this verse should be “counted not something to be grasped,” instead of “not counted something to be grasped.” Let me make the difference clearer. The standard Christian translation of this Greek phrase suggests that Yeshua did not consider equality something to be grasped. But the actual Greek text reads, “counted equality not something that could be grasped.” In other words, if the negative particle ouk is tied to the noun rather than the verb, the implication is the Yeshua saw equality with God as something unattainable. Do you realize what this means? It means that this verse does not say that Yeshua gave up equality with God voluntarily because it did not serve the purposes of the Messiah. It says that Yeshua never aspired to be equal with God because equality with God is not possible.

Before you go crazy, remember that the Greek text is the issue, not the translation. In the Greek text, the negative ouk is clearly present before the noun, not before the verb. The Greek reads hos en morphe theos hyparchon ouk harpagmon hegesato, literally, “who in morphe theos (we will get back to this) is, was regarded not something to be gained (or esteemed).” So, was is it that he did not regard equality as something or was it that he regarded equality as not something. Oh, my aching head!

Do you suppose that Paul, in this great Trinitarian passage, isn’t really talking about the Trinity at all? What if Paul is saying that Yeshua, as the Messiah, didn’t try to be equal with God because no one can be equal with God? What if the entire purpose of Paul’s statement is not a declaration of “Jesus is God” but rather a proclamation that Yeshua took on the role of a servant as Messiah, rather than trying to be God? The Greek text puts the ouk in a very funny place if Paul meant to say something about Yeshua’s God-likeness. The same negative particle + noun arrangement is found in Hebrew 12:8 and in the LXX at 2 Chronicles 15:3. The particle negates the noun, not the verb. It’s a problem. A big problem.

Whatever we discovered about the relationship of the negative particle (ouk) and the noun (harpagmon) seems to make absolutely no difference at all if the translation of hos en morphe theou really means, “although He existed in the form of God.” Could there be any clearer statement of the pre-existence of Yeshua as God? If He already existed as God before He emptied Himself, then the rest of the discussion is moot. But what does hos en morphe theou really mean?

There’s not much debate about hos. It means “who, which, as long as, that means,” depending on context. Here is must mean “who.” But now we have a problem. There is no Greek word for the translation “although.” And, by the way, there is no Greek word for “He existed” either. The verb, hyparchon, comes from hypo and archomai, literally means, “to begin under (quietly).” The verb here is a participle in the present tense so it cannot be translated “He existed.” It should be translated as “existing” or “belonging” or “being present as.” Without a past tense it is difficult to understand why the translators determine that this is a statement about pre-existence. But consider the statement of F. F. Bruce:

“Who, being in the very nature of God: literally, ‘being already in the form of God.’ Possession of the form implies participation in the essence. It seems fruitless to argue that these words do not assume the pre-existence of Christ. In another example where Paul points to Christ’s self-denial as an example for his people—‘Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor. 8:9)—his pre-existence is similarly assumed (although there Paul makes his own choice of language, whereas here he uses a form of words that lay ready to hand).[2]

But is Bruce’s assumption so evident? Does possession of form imply participation in essence? It might is you are Aristotle or Plato[3], but does it if you are a rabbinic scholar steeped in Torah? Existence in Hebrew is a function of purpose. Everything exists because it fulfills the purpose that the Creator intended. Merely having the form of something does not presuppose its essential characteristic. If that were the case in biblical Hebrew, then God’s complaint (and Paul’s) about having the form of worship but not exhibiting the purpose or essence of righteousness would make no sense at all. According to Bruce’s logic, if I have the proper form of worship, then that means I automatically have the essence of worship. But we all recognize that this isn’t the case. Why, then, does Bruce claim that it must be the case in Philippians 2?

Aristotle proposed that essence is the characteristics or attributes that make something what it is by necessity, not accidentally. Plato viewed essence as a relation to “Form,” that is, the abstract ontological universal that separates one individual object from another. Individual examples of these universal forms are “copies” of the universal. For example, in Platonic thought there is a universal form of the essence of a chair. Each individual example of a chair is a chair because it is related to the universal idea of a chair. The combination of Aristotle’s idea of essence and Plato’s idea of Form leads theologians to say that anything that participates in the essence of God must be God even if its individual representation isn’t exactly the same. With this Greek metaphysics in mind, Bruce can claim that if Yeshua is in the “form” of God (reading this as a Greek philosophical statement), then Yeshua is of the same “essence” as God. Therefore, Yeshua is God even if he appears in slightly different ways. Of course, if we applied this logic to Genesis 1:26-27, we would have to conclude that Man is God since Man is made in God’s image (image must mean, in some sense, logical form, especially since God has no physical image).

But Hebraic thought does not make this Greek philosophical equivalence. In the thought of the ancient Middle East (in Semitic cultures), essence is a functional concept related to purpose, not attribute.   In Hebrew thought, I am what I do. God is not defined by some set of attributes (e.g. the via negativa of Aquinas) but rather by His actions. Purpose determines existence. So Man is not God even though he bears the divine image because image is about purpose, not attribute, and Man can act according to God’s purposes. If we apply this Hebraic, rabbinic idea to the “Son of God,” we discover that the purpose of the Son is to fulfill the role of the Messiah, not necessarily to be God Himself. Read according to Hebraic thought, this passage in Philippians does not make any claim about equivalent “essence.” It says that Yeshua the Messiah did not attempt to become God but rather took on the role of the Messiah as servant.

The remaining text says merely en morphe theou, literally, “in form of God.” The word “form” is dative (i.e., an indirect object of the preposition en. The word “God” is genitive, i.e., indicating possession, therefore “of God.” There is no definite article (no “the”). So now we need to know what morphe (“form”) means. It turns out that morphe in the LXX is associated with “facial expression” or “facial color.” In classical Greek, morphe theou is often used of the gods of Greek religion; gods who have obvious physical forms. Of course, the Tanakh absolutely rejects any such application to YHVH, as does Yeshua in John 4. While YHVH manifests Himself in physical form (not always as a man), He has no form in His essence, as the second commandment clearly implies. No Jew in the first century would have ever thought of God in terms of physical form. But when Christian thought interprets Paul’s remark in Philippians, Behm’s statement is typical:

Exhorting to unselfish humility, the passage says that Jesus took the form of a doúlos in an act of exemplary renunciation. Prior to the incarnation he is in the form of God, i.e., he bears the image of the divine majesty, and after the incarnation he is exalted again as the kýrios. In antithesis to the earlier and the later glory, his incarnation is a time of humble service when he bends his own will to that of others. His self-denial is not just the opposite of a selfish exploitation of his position but stands in the sharpest possible contrast to his former mode of being in divine power and splendor. He comes down from the height of glory to the abyss of lowliness as the Redeemer who is both above history and in history. There is here no mythical concept of a god in human form, nor is there any idea of a metamorphosis. Materially the phrase morphē theoú is wholly in the biblical tradition;^[4]

Consider once more Behm’s statement. If it is true, then prior to the incarnation Yeshua as God had no form because God has no form. In what way did He then bear the “image of divine majesty”? In function? Behm hints at this in his remark about “divine power and splendor.” But again, there is no morphe here. Morphe is a word about appearance, matter, what is perceived by the senses and not what is mentally apprehended. If this is the standard usage of morphe, then Paul is saying that Yeshua looked like God. How? How did Yeshua look like God? That is the whole point of Paul’s argument. He looked like God because he chose the way of humility rather than glory. He acted as God would act and in so doing appeared as God-like in purpose. It simply cannot be the case that Yeshua existed in some human form as God prior to the incarnation since that would violate everything the Tanakh teaches about God, so Paul must mean that Yeshua exhibited characteristics like God and in this way morphe theou (is perceived in appearance like God). This makes all the more sense if we take into account that Yeshua is the Messiah, the unique, only-begotten, divinely appointed Savior and Ruler who will act as Judge before turning all glory back to the Father. There is no textual justification for translating the words with the added “although He existed.” Those are theological imports, not Greek inclusions.

What if Paul is saying, “who, existing [being present] as an appearance of God [in character and action], considered equality with God unattainable, and humbled himself and took on the form of a slave”? What if this is a statement of the contrast between ha-Satan, who attempted to be equal with God, and Yeshua, who didn’t even try to do such a thing?

Could you live with that? I am not sure if I can, but it’s hard to kick against the grammar.

There is so much at stake in this verse that understanding what Paul says must be very carefully considered. First we need to clean up the obvious translation additions. We start by removing the capital letters. The Greek text was written in all capitals, so any insertion of capitals to signify definite nouns is merely a translator’s decision. This is particularly important when the capitalization of the pronoun presupposes divinity (“He”). The Greek text actually doesn’t even include the pronoun as a separate word. It is assumed in the verb construct (present, active, singular, masculine).

Secondly, we must recognize that the verb, hyparcho, is in the present tense, not the past tense. It cannot mean “he existed.” At best it must mean, “he exists.” But hyparcho has other translation problems. It is the combination of two Greek words, hypo and archomai. Hypo is a preposition usually meaning “under” (in relation to place) or “through” (in relation to agency, i.e., with verbs). Combined, these words usually mean “to commence, to begin, to exist,” but you can see that the nuance of the verb is not a continually state of being but rather the beginning of existence (as archomai means the first in a temporal order). The verb is also a participle, so we must remove the idea that this is about a past state of being and correct the translation to something like, “who, beginning in morphe theou,” or “who, existing in morphe theou.” There is no necessity to posit that this person existed in some past state as God. That means that the key to this verse is the translation of morphe theou (“form of God). We have already investigated morphe, discovering that it usually means external appearance in classical Greek and is rarely used in the LXX. Morphe theou is connected to the representation of pagan gods (their physical appearance) in Greek religion but philosophically the terms take on the idea of the “works” of the gods or the ideals found in the gods. Greek philosophers did not think of the gods in human forms like the legends of Homer but rather as superterrestrial beings who are “seen” in actions and values.

The use of morphe in the apostolic writings often means outward appearance (Mark 16:12, Luke 24:16). When Paul uses the term in Philippians, the point of the comparison is focused on the “form” of a slave. The passage is not primarily about a pre-existent state of being but rather about the choice to become a doulos, a man who in outward appearance is completely humble and subservient. Behm’s comment in the TDNT seems particularly theologically motivated rather than linguistically accurate. The theological interpretation of the terms morphe theou cause other English translations to follow the same path, sometimes even more explicitly Trinitarian and unwarranted. For example,

Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; NIV

Notice the change from morphe (appearance) to “very nature,” a thought that would require a completely different word in Greek.

Who, though existing in the demut of the mode of being of Elohim [His etzem or essential nature], nevertheless Moshiach did not regard being equal with G-d as a thing to be seized   Orthodox Jewish Bible

Even though the claim is that this translation accurately depicts a Jewish view, the choice of demut and etzem suggest that Mashiach is connected directly to the Genesis account. The addition of “the mode of being of Elohim” is theologically motivated, not warranted by the Greek text.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to. NLT

This translation (?) is as boldly Trinitarian as one could wish, simply asserting that morphe theou means “he was God.” There is no linguistic justification for this but it certainly settles the issue for any reader unaware of the Greek grammar.

Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained, Amplified Bible

The Amplified Bible does more than amplify the meanings of the terms. It adds a complex layer of theology to the text, essentially compressing an entire Trinitarian doctrine into the two Greek terms morphe theou.

What’s the bottom line? Unless you recognize the oddities of the Greek text (the present participle, the nuances of hyparcho, the complexities of morphe theou), you would assume that the English translation in any of the Bible choices proves that the Messiah is God. And you would be mistaken. This text isn’t enough. Stripped of its theological additions, the text says nothing more than Yeshua appears with god-like actions but chose to be a humble slave. Which version is more likely to be consistent with first century rabbinic Jewish thought?

Topical Index: Philippians 2:6, form, morphe, Trinity

This is the last of my ruminations on this subject. I am sure it will also engender many comments. But before we get fast and furious with each other, perhaps you might consider reading some or all of the following:

Patrick Navas Divine Truth or Human Tradition

Anthony Buzzard The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound

Anthony Buzzard Jesus was not a Trinitarian  This is particularly good to demonstrate that opposition to the doctrine of the Trinity has been around since the second century.

Ureil ben-Mordechai If: the End of a Messianic Lie

[1] Ureil ben Mordechai, If: the End of a Messianic Lie, p. 427 ff.

[2] F. F. Bruce, Philippians: New International Biblical Commentary, p. 68.

[3] Aristotle, “By form I mean the essence of each thing and its primary substance.” (Z7, 1032b1-2)

^[4] J. Behm in Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (608–609). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.