Philippians 2:6

ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ. What is μορφή? Lightfoot, in a “detached note” to this chapter, traces the use of the word in Greek philosophy, in Philo (the link between the language of Scripture and of Plato), and in the N. T. The conclusion is that it denotes the “form” of a thing in the most ideal sense of form; its specific character, its correspondence with its true notion. Visible shew may or may not enter into it; for invisibles have their μορφή, to pure thought. The μορφὴ θεοῦ is thus in fact His Nature “seen” in its attributes; and to be “in” it is to be invested with them. See Lightfoot as quoted, and Trench Syn. of N.T., under μορφή.

ὑπάρχων. R.V. text, “being,” margin, “originally being”; but the American Revisers expressly omit the margin (and give “existing” in the text). Ὑπάρχειν in the classics, meaning first “to begin” (doing or being), then comes to mean “to be there,” “to be ready”; e.g. when the Athenians equipped a fleet against the Persians, they had to build some ships, but some ὕπηρχον αὐτοῖσι (Hdt. vii. 144). Thence apparently the word came to mean simply “to be,” though the use was not common. In Biblical Greek the use fluctuates between a mere equivalence to εἶναι and the distinct suggestion of a being already; as Acts 7:55, ὑπάρχων πλήρης πνεύματος: Acts 8:16, βεβαπτισμένοι ὑπῆρχον. In this passage the context decidedly favours this latter meaning. For though some expositors have referred the whole statement to our Lord’s incarnate state, as if it viewed Him as e.g. resolving when on earth to decline a majesty and dominion which He might have exerted, while yet He shewed Himself at least God-like in His deeds, this is impossible when the context is fairly remembered. For it is plainly implied (Philippians 2:7) that His voluntary humiliation included His becoming δοῦλος and taking ὁμοίωμα�. So the will to humble Himself was antecedent to that condition, and so to Incarnation. Thus the tendency of ὑπάρχειν to indicate being already, or beforehand, has legitimate scope here, and an impressive fitness.

Here then our Redeeming Lord is revealed as so “antecedently being in the form of God” that He was, before He stooped to our life, nothing less than Bearer of Divine Attributes, that is to say, GOD. “Though μορφὴ is not the same as οὐσία, yet the possession of the μορφὴ involves participation in the οὐσία also; for μορφὴ implies not the external accidents but the essential attributes” (Lightfoot).

ἁρπαγμὸν. The word occurs only here in Biblical Greek, and only once (Lightfoot) in secular Greek (Plutarch, Mor. p. 12 A). Words ending in -μος properly suggest an act or process; in this case, therefore, a “seizing,” or “robbery.” But in usage they readily get the meaning of the matter or aim of the act; e.g. θεσμός, properly “a setting,” is by usage “a thing set,” “a statute.” Ἁρπαγμός may therefore be an equivalent here to ἅρπαγμα, a thing seized, or grasped, as plunder or as prize. And the phrase ἅρπαγμα ἡγεῖσθαί τι is not uncommon in later Greek, in the sense of “highly prizing,” “welcoming as an unexpected gain” (ἕρμαιον). So explained, οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο here gives a sense perfectly fitting the context: “Possessed of the Divine Attributes, He did not treat His co-equality as a prize, to be held only for Himself, but rather made it occasion for an infinite act of self-sacrifice for others.” Such on the whole is the explanation given by the Greek fathers and by some of the ablest Latins (see Lightfoot’s “detached note” on ἁρπαγμός). On the other hand some Latins, and St Augustine in particular, give a different turn to the thought, which appears in our A.V. Taking the Latin rendering, non rapinam arbitratus est, they made the meaning to be that the Lord Christ claimed co-equality, as not a usurpation but a right, and yet humbled Himself. To this the objection is that (a) it lays a needless stress on the derivation of ἁρπαγμός, for by usage it (or its equivalent ἅρπαγμα) need not mean more than a prize or treasure; (b) it makes ἀλλὰ equal to ἀλλὰ ὅμως, which is forced Greek; (c) most of all, it dislocates text and context. St Paul is emphasizing not mainly our Lord’s majesty but His self-sacrificing mercy. His majesty is sufficiently (for the purpose) given in the words ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων: the point now is that He made an infinitely generous use of His majesty. This is exactly given, and at the right point, by οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν κτλ., explained as, “He treated it not as a treasure for Himself but as something to lay aside (in a sense) for us.”

An intermediate explanation, by St Chrysostom, gives the thought somewhat thus: “He knew that Deity was so truly His by right that He laid it (in a sense) aside, with the generous grace of the rightful owner (who knows he is owner all along), instead of clasping it with the tenacity of the usurper.” To this Lightfoot objects, with apparent reason, that “it understands too much, requiring links to be supplied which the connexion does not suggest.”

R.V. renders ἁρπαγμὸν “a prize,” and (margin) “Gr., a thing to be grasped”; Ellicott, “a thing to be seized on, or grasped at”; Liddell and Scott, “a matter of robbery.”

τὸ εἷναι ἴσα θεῷ. Not ἴσος. The neuter plural perhaps suggests a reference rather to equality of attributes than of Person (Lightfoot). R.V. “to be on an equality with God.”

Let us remember that these words occur not in a polytheistic reverie but in the Holy Scriptures, which are everywhere jealous for the prerogative of the Lord GOD; and they come from the pen of a man whose Pharisaic monotheism sympathized with that jealousy to the utmost. May it not then be asked how, in any way other than direct assertion, as in John 1:1, the true and proper Deity of Christ could be more plainly stated?

On the use of the word θεός here, distinctively of the Father, see note above on Philippians 1:2. And cp. John 1:1; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Hebrews 1:9; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 22:1.

F. ROBERT HALL ON Philippians 2:5-8. BAUR’S THEORY. (CH. Philippians 2:6)

THE Rev. Robert Hall (1764–1831), one of the greatest of Christian preachers, was in early life much influenced by the Socinian theology. His later testimony to a true Christology is the more remarkable. The following extract is from a sermon “preached at the (Baptist) Chapel in Dean Street, Southwark, June 27, 1813” (Works, ed. 1833; vol. vi., p. 112):

“He was found in fashion as a man: it was a wonderful discovery, an astonishing spectacle in the view of angels, that He who was in the form of God, and adored from eternity, should be made in fashion as a man. But why is it not said that He WAS a man? For the same reason that the Apostle wishes to dwell upon the appearance of our Saviour, not as excluding the reality, but as exemplifying His condescension. His being in the form of God did not prove that He was not God, but rather that He was God, and entitled to supreme honour. So, His assuming the form of a servant and being in the likeness of man, does not prove that He was not man, but, on the contrary, includes it; at the same time including a manifestation of Himself, agreeably to His design of purchasing the salvation of His people, and dying for the sins of the world, by sacrificing Himself upon the Cross.”

BAUR (Paulus, pp. 458–464) goes at length into the Christological passage of our Epistle, and actually contends for the view that it is written by one who had before him the developed Gnosticism of cent. ii., and was not uninfluenced by it. In the words of Philippians 2:6, he finds a consciousness of the Gnostic teaching about the Æon Sophia, striving for an absolute union with the absolute being of the Unknowable Supreme; and again about the Æons in general, striving similarly to “grasp” the πλήρωμα of Absolute Being and discovering only the more deeply in their effort this κένωμα of their own relativity and dependence.

The best refutation of such expositions is the repeated perusal of the Epistle itself, with its noon-day practicality of precept and purity of affections, and not least its high language (ch. 3) about the sanctity of the body—an idea wholly foreign to the Gnostic sphere of thought. As regards this last point, it is true that Schrader, a critic earlier than Baur (see Alford, N.T. III. p. 27), supposed the passage Philippians 3:1 to Philippians 4:9 to be an interpolation. But, not to speak of the total absence of any historical or documentary support for such a theory, the careful reader will find in that section just those minute touches of harmony with the rest of the Epistle, e.g. in the indicated need of internal union at Philippi, which are the surest signs of homogeneity.