Philippians 2:6

Who in His pre-existent glory. We have in this passage a N.T. counterpart to the O.T. revelation of Messiah's "coming to do the will of His God" (Psalms 40:6-8, interpreted Hebrews 10:5).

being The Greek word slightly indicates that He not only "was," but "already was," in a state antecedent to and independent of the action to be described. R.V. margin has "Gr. originally being"; but the American Revisers dissent.

in the form of God The word rendered "form" is morphê. This word, unlike our "form" in its popular meaning, connotes reality along with appearance, or in other words denotes an appearance which is manifestation. It thus differs from the word (schêma) rendered "fashion" in Philippians 2:8 below; where see note. See notes on Romans 12:2 in this Series for further remarks on the difference between the two words; and cp. for full discussions, Abp Trench's Synonyms, under μορφή, and Bp Lightfoot's Philippians, detached note to ch. 2.

Here then our Redeeming Lord is revealed as so subsisting "in the form of God" that He was what He seemed, and seemed what He was God. (See further, the next note below, and on Philippians 2:7.) "Though [morphê is not the same as [ousia, essence, yet the possession of the [morphê involves participation in the [ousia also, for [morphê implies not the external accidents [only?] but the essential attributes" (Lightfoot).

thought The glorious Person is viewed as (speaking in the forms of human conception) engaged in an act of reflection and resolve.

robbery The Greek word occurs only here in the Greek Scriptures, and only once (in Plutarch, cent. 2) in secular Greek writers. Its form suggests the meaning of a processor actof grasp or seizure. But similar forms in actual usage are found to take readily the meaning of the result, or material, of an act or process. "An invader's or plunderer's prize" would thus fairly represent the word here. This interpretation is adopted and justified by Bp Lightfoot here. R.V. reads "a prize," and in the margin "Gr. a thing to be grasped." Liddell and Scott render, "a matter of robbery," which is substantially the same; Bp Ellicott, "a thing to be seized on, or grasped at." The context is the best interpreter of the practical bearing of the word. In that context it appears that the Lord's view of His Equality (see below) was notsuch as to withstandHis gracious and mysterious Humiliation for our sakes, while yet the conditions of His Equality were such as to enhance the wonderand merit of that Humiliation to the utmost. Accordingly the phrase before us, to suit the context, (a) must notimply that He deemed Equality an unlawful possession, a thing which it would be robbery to claim, as some expositors, ancient and modern, have in error explained the words (see Alford's note here, and St Chrysostom on this passage at large); (b) mustimply that His thought about the Equality was one of supremely exemplary kindnesstowards us. These conditions are satisfied by the paraphrase "He dealt with His true and rightful Equality not as a thing held anxiously, and only for Himself, as the gains of force or fraud are held, but as a thing in regard of which a most gracious sacrifice and surrender was possible, for us and our salvation."

The A.V., along with many interpreters, appears to understand the Greek word as nearly equal to "usurpation"; as if to say, "He knew it was His just and rightful possession to be equal with God, and yet" &c. But the context and the Greek phraseology are unfavourable to this.

to be equal with God R.V., to be on an equality with God, a phrase which perhaps better conveys what the original words suggest, that the reference is to equality of attributesrather than person(Lightfoot). The glorious Personage in view is not another and independent God, of rival power and glory, but the Christ of God, as truly and fully Divine as the Father.

Let us remember that these words occur not in a polytheistic reverie, but in the Holy Scriptures, which everywhere are jealous for the prerogative of the Lord God, and that they come from the pen of a man whose Pharisaic monotheism sympathized with this 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?

The word "God" on the other hand is here used manifestly with a certain distinctiveness of the Father. Christian orthodoxy, collecting the whole Scripture evidence, sees in this a testimony not to the view (e.g. of Arius, cent. 4) that the Son is God only in a secondary and inferior sense, but that the Father is the eternal, true, and necessary Fountain of the eternal, true, and necessary Godhead of the Son. For this use of the word God, see e.g. John 1:1; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Hebrews 1:9; Revelation 20:6; Revelation 22:1.