If you’ve made it this far, and have actually read the 165 pages worth of material leading up to this, then pat yourself on the back. You’re a god in your own right! Only a concluding post remains after this post. In this penultimate post, we will analyze the final major proof text for the deity of Christ—Philippians 2:5-11. In order to do this text justice, there is a lot of material to cover. At the same time, I don’t want to be the preacher who says “in conclusion” and then drags the sermon out for another twenty-five minutes. So I’ll try to walk the fine line between doing the text justice, and getting you home on time for the game. If in the spirit of brevity I don’t give enough support for one of my claims, I will be happy to fill out the argument in the comment thread, so just say the word. That said, if I err, it’ll probably be on the side of doing the text justice, as you’ve probably come to expect. And if you haven’t yet noticed the irony of the fact that I am taking forever to tell you that I’m going to try to be concise, then you just don’t realize how mean spirited I can be when I put my mind to it. Now that I’ve tipped my hand, we probably ought to get on with it. Let’s begin by looking at the text in question:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
and became in the very likeness of humankind.
And being found in likeness as a human being,
he humbled himself
and became obedient unto death,
even the death of a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him
and bestowed on 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 the Father.
(Philippians 2:5-11)

Now, you’re all aware of the standard reading of this text. To us good Trinitarian Christians, the most “natural” reading goes something like this: Jesus was fully God, but he loved us so much that he gave up all the trimmings of Godhood and came down to earth to be a human being, in order to save humankind from its sins. In order to do that, he had to die a sacrificial death on humanity’s behalf. Once he had been obedient to the mission of his Father (the First Person of the Trinity), Jesus was raised from the dead and exalted back to his original divine status: and soon the whole world will worship him as the God that he was and is.

It’s easy to read the text this way, especially for those of us on this side of the council of Nicaea. But there is a better reading of this passage, and one that fits with Paul’s christology throughout the rest of his corpus.

The first thing we need to note is that this is a hymn, and that most scholars believe that it is pre-Pauline, representing some of the earliest christology the church had to offer. Now, scholars generally agree that during the 40s and 50s, the earliest and most pervasive type of christology was Adam christology—that is, early Christians often saw Jesus as a “Second Adam” figure, who redeemed humanity from the curse of the First Adam. This theology pervades Paul’s thought. We see it explicitly in places like Rom 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15:45-49. But it is also present implicitly, through allusion, in Romans 1, and 7. Indeed, even Paul’s language of “in Christ,” one of his most pervasive motifs, should be understood in contrast to “in Adam.” It is as humans are reincorporated “in Christ” that they are redeemed from their corruptible inheritance “in Adam.” Corporate identity was how people generally thought in the ancient world—not just in Palestine, but everywhere. Adam christology also plays a large role (as we have already seen) in the argument of the book of Hebrews chapters 1 and 2, although Adam’s name is never mentioned there. It is found quite strongly in multiple places in Acts, especially Acts 17, verses 26 and 31. In broader second temple Judaism, outside of Christian circles, Adam typology played a pervasive role as well. Many accounts were developing about Adam’s exaltation and glorification prior to and during the time Christianity was developing.

As it happens, the Adam typology fits the hymn in Philippians 2 to a tee. Let’s look at the basic features of the hymn and compare it to the story of Adam:

. . .

Movement 1:
Phil 2:6a: “in the form of God”
=
Gen 1:27: “in the image of God”
Wis 2:23: “in the image of his own nature”

Movement 2:
Phil 2:6bc: tempted “to grasp equality with God”
=
Gen 3:5: tempted to “be like God”

Movement 3:
Phil 2:7: “took the form of a slave” to corruption and the powers
=
Gen 3:17-19: cursed to labor and to corruptibility
Wis 2:23-24: incorruptibility lost, belonging to the devil
Rom 8:21: “bondage to decay”
1 Cor 15:42: “what is sown is perishable”
Heb 2:7a: subjected to the dominion of angelic powers
Heb 2:15: “held in slavery by the fear of death”

Movement 4:
Phil 2:8: “obedient to death”
=
Gen 2:17: disobedient to death
Gen 3:22-24: prohibited from the tree of life
Wis 2:24: “death entered the world”
Rom 5:12: Adam’s sin brought death to all
1 Cor 15:21-22: “all die in Adam”

Movement 5:
Phil 2:9-11: exalted and glorified
=
Psa 8:5b-6: exalted and glorified

. . .

With regard to Movement 1, the word in Phil 2:6 is morphē, which means form. The Greek word used for “image” (of God) in Gen 1:27 is eikōn, but there are numerous examples in the LXX where morphē is used to translate the Hebrew word for image. Peter O’Brien acknowledges that “most exegetes recognize that the semantic fields of the two terms [morphē and eikōn] overlap considerably.”¹

But why didn’t the writer of the hymn just use eikōn to make the allusion absolutely clear? We must bear in mind that this is a hymn, which means it is more concerned with the aesthetic value of language than with philological or doctrinal precision. Morphē theou (“the form of God”) was obviously selected here in order to contrast with morphē doulou (“the form of a slave”) in verse 7. In fact, when 6a and 7 are placed next to each other, the symmetry is clear:

Morphē theou huparchōn
Morphēn doulou labōn

The first words in each line are identical, and both of the second and third words in the first phrase rhyme with their counterparts in the second phrase. Since eikōn doulou (“the image of a slave”) would not make sense, morphē could pull double duty, given its semantic range. It was clearly the right choice, at once alluding to the Adam narrative and contributing to the lyrical symmetry of the hymn.

With regard to Movement 2, although “equality with God” is not precisely the same idea as being “like” God, we must note that the Greek word translated here as “equality” (isa) is also used on numerous occasions in the LXX to translate the Hebrew prefix meaning “like.”² So once again, the semantic domains of the two words contain significant overlap. The other Greek word for “like” is hōs, a one syllable word. Perhaps the melody of the hymn called for a two syllable word, making isa the easy choice. But again we must stress, especially in poetry, the art of allusion is not concerned with precise philology. It is the ambiguous allusions that are often the most effective. As a songwriter myself, I often intentionally obscure allusions precisely because I think it is sometimes uncreative or cheap to quote directly.

But the allusions to the Adam narrative remain absolutely clear. And the fact that there are so many, and, moreover, that they all appear in the same order chronologically in the hymn that they do in the Adam cycle—that speaks volumes.

The power of the hymn is the contrast between the first Adam and the second. The first Adam existed in God’s image/form/likeness. He was made for immortality. But when he learned that he was not like God in every way, he coveted, and considered equality with God something to be grasped. As a result of his disobedience to the commandment, Adam was punished with enslavement to the angels (chiefly the devil) and the loss of immortality. Adam lost the glory of incorruptibility that made him like God.

The hymn contrasts this narrative with Jesus, a son of Adam, who being righteous chose freely to subject himself to enslavement and death, not as a consequence of his disobedience to God, but precisely out of obedience to God. As a result of this second Adam’s obedience, God raised him from corruptibility to incorruptibility and exalted him to the original position of his father Adam. As Adam was God’s son, now Jesus Christ has become God’s son,³ making it possible for those who are reincorporated into him to become children of God as well. This is spelled out explicitly in the next chapter of the book of Philippians:

He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. (Phil 3:21)

Note first by what power Christ will transform us into his likeness. It is not by his own power, but by the power of the one that subjects all things to him. In 1 Cor 15:27, Paul makes it abundantly clear that this power is God’s, not Jesus’.

Note next that humanity’s “body of humiliation” parallels the humiliation Christ endured in 2:8. Note also that, significantly, those who have been reincorporated into Christ share in his exaltation. His “body of glory” was only the first body of many. Similarly, just as Christ is given authority over all things, even the authority to judge, so too those who are reincorporated into Christ will be given the authority to judge angels (1 Cor 6:3). Just as Christ is given the authority to rule over all nations, so too those who are reincorporated into the Second Adam:

To everyone who conquers and continues to do my works to the end,
I will give authority over the nations;
to rule them with an iron rod,
as when clay pots are shattered—
even as I also received authority from my Father.
(Rev 2:26-28a)

Indeed, the language of Christ’s exaltation at the end of the hymn mirrors the language used to describe Adam’s dominion over all creation at the beginning.

On the fourth day you commanded the brightness of the sun, the light of the moon, and the arrangement of the stars to come into being; and you commanded them to serve humankind, about to be formed. . . . and over these you placed Adam, as ruler over all the works that you had made; and from him we have all come, the people whom you have chosen. (4 Ezra 6:45-46, 54)

In this apocalyptic work from the first century CE, the “stars” here, who are commanded to serve Adam, are the angels. Adam is appointed ruler over all created things, including the angelic beings. Adam is second only to God.

Wisdom protected the first-formed father of the world,
when he alone had been created;
she delivered him from his transgression,
and gave him strength to rule all things.
(Wisdom of Solomon 10:1-2)

Here a clear reference is made to Adam’s rule over “all things” prior to his transgression.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what is man [adam] that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than God,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
(Psalm 8:3-9)

Notice again, humankind, represented by Adam, was created to be second only to God, and was given dominion over all creation. Notice also the parallel in Psa 8:9 to Phil 2:11. Adam’s sovereignty over all creation generates praise to God, just as Jesus’ sovereignty over all creation is “to the glory of God the Father.”

Recall also, from post #05 (Worship), the long passage from The Life of Adam and Eve, another work from the first century CE. There it is said that when God created Adam, he commanded the angels to worship Adam:

And God the Lord spake: “Here is Adam. I have made thee in our image and likeness.” And Michael went out and called all the angels saying: “Worship the image of God as the Lord God hath commanded.” And Michael himself worshipped first. (The Life of Adam and Eve, 11-16)

Now, with regard to the hymn’s precise language depicting the exaltation of Jesus, much ado has been made.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and bestowed on 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.

The “name that is above every name” here is not “Jesus,” but “Lord.” This is of course the euphemism for the divine name Yahweh. Many take this to be a statement of Christ’s divinity. That is one thing.

The other thing is that there is a fairly clear allusion here to Isaiah 45:23, which says:

To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear.

Of course, in Isaiah 45, Yahweh is the “me” to whom every knee will bow and every tongue will swear. As such, many interpreters think this is undeniable proof that the hymn is ascribing full, unique deity to Jesus. But this is not so, for a number of reasons.

You will recall in post #06 (God’s Name), that the divine name is sometimes conferred upon God’s agent or messenger. This is a very common concept in the ancient world, not just in second temple Judaism, but throughout. It is the concept of the royal emissary, who is commissioned with all the authority of the monarch, to speak and act on his behalf, and to bear his name or seal. That Jesus is given the name of God means that Jesus has been appointed as God’s preeminent agent.

We have also noted that the Similitudes of Enoch and 4 Ezra (two separate non-Christian second temple traditions) both take different passages about Yahweh and apply them to the Son of Man/Messiah. In both cases, it is absolutely clear that this does not amount to any claim that the Son of Man is really Yahweh. All it means is that the Son of Man is Yahweh’s agent. It simply means that Yahweh is accomplishing what he promised to do through this agent. To apply the text to a human figure means neither that God isn’t doing it nor that the human doing it is God. It simply means, quite obviously I think, that Yahweh is fulfilling the text through the agency of the human.

And that is precisely what is never discussed by those who point to Isaiah 45 as though it were evidence for Christ’s deity. Isaiah 45 is all about Yahweh accomplishing his defeat of Babylon through a human agent! It is a long chapter, but it merits our full attention. You’ll be startled from the outset. (I have set off the important bits in bold type for your convenience):

Thus says the LORD to his Messiah—to Cyrus,
whose right hand I have grasped
to subdue nations before him
and strip kings of their robes,
to open doors before him—
and the gates shall not be closed:
I will go before you
and level the mountains,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the LORD,
the God of Israel, who call you by your name.
For the sake of my servant Jacob,
and Israel my chosen,
I call you by your name,
I surname you, though you do not know me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other;
besides me there is no god.
I arm you, though you do not know me,
so that they may know, from the rising of the sun
and from the west, that there is no one besides me;
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe;
I the LORD do all these things.
Shower, O heavens, from above,
and let the skies rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation may spring up,
and let it cause righteousness to sprout up also;
I the LORD have created it.
Woe to you who strive with your Maker,
earthen vessels with the potter!
Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, “What are you making”?
or “Your work has no handles”?
Woe to anyone who says to a father, “What are you begetting?”
or to a woman, “With what are you in labor?”
Thus says the LORD,
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Will you question me about my children,
or command me concerning the work of my hands?
I made the earth,
and created humankind upon it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their host.
I have aroused Cyrus to be a king with righteousness,
and I will make all his paths straight;
he shall build my city
and set my exiles free,
not for price or reward,
says the LORD of hosts.
Thus says the LORD:
The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia,
and the Sabeans, tall of stature,
shall come over to you and be yours,
they shall follow you;
they shall come over in chains and worship you.
They will make supplication to you, saying,
“God is with you alone, and there is no other;
there is no god besides him.”
Truly, you are a God who hides himself,
O God of Israel, the Savior.
All of them are put to shame and confounded,
the makers of idols go in confusion together.
But Israel is saved by the LORD
with everlasting salvation;
you shall not be put to shame or confounded
to all eternity.
For thus says the LORD,
who created the heavens
(he is God!),
who formed the earth and made it
(he established it;
he did not create it a chaos,
he formed it to be inhabited!):
I am the LORD, and there is no other.
I did not speak in secret,
in a land of darkness;
I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
“Seek me in chaos.”
I the LORD speak the truth,
I declare what is right.
Assemble yourselves and come together,
draw near, you survivors of the nations!
They have no knowledge—
those who carry about their wooden idols,
and keep on praying to a god
that cannot save.
Declare and present your case;
let them take counsel together!
Who told this long ago?
Who declared it of old?
Was it not I, the LORD?
There is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior;
there is no one besides me.
Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
By myself I have sworn,
from my mouth has gone forth in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
“To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear.”
“Only in the LORD,” it shall be said of me,
“are righteousness and strength;
all who were incensed against him
shall come to him and be ashamed.
In the LORD all the offspring of Israel
shall triumph and glory.”
(Isaiah 45)

It amazes me that those who insist the allusion in Phil 2:11 to Isa 45:23 is a claim about Jesus’ deity, never discuss the content of the rest of the chapter! If they did, of course, it would undermine their argument entirely.

Here it is said that the Persian King Cyrus has been chosen by God to deliver Israel from captivity to Babylon. Cyrus is identified by Yahweh as “my Anointed.” The Hebrew word for “Anointed” is Moshiach, better known to us as Messiah. It is no wonder the author of the hymn in Philippians 2 alluded to this particular passage from Isaiah. It is quite literally a messianic text, telling of Yahweh’s deliverance of his people through a human agent.

Note the parallel between Phil 2:9 and Isa 45:4. In the former, God “gave him the name that is above every name.” In the latter God says to Cyrus, “For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I surname you.” God “surnames” Cyrus. Literally, God confers upon Cyrus a title. He gives him a name. The name is not divulged, but the meaning is clear: God has conferred his authority upon Cyrus, “for the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen.”

I have aroused Cyrus to be a king with righteousness,
and I will make all his paths straight;
he shall build my city
and set my exiles free,
not for price or reward,
says the LORD of hosts.

Cyrus, the “righteous king,” is God’s agent to redeem and deliver his people from slavery. Moreover, God will make the nations serve and worship Cyrus:

They shall come over to you and be yours,
they shall follow you;
they shall come over in chains and worship you.
They will make supplication to you, saying,
“God is with you alone, and there is no other;
there is no god besides him.”

The last two lines make the logic of agency explicit: In bowing to and worshiping Cyrus, they are bowing to and worshiping the one true God, so that when God says, “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear,” that is a statement of what is happening as they bow and make supplication to Cyrus. Bowing to Cyrus and calling upon his name, and bowing and swearing to God are not two separate acts, but one and the same. In the same way, although it was Cyrus’ armies that delivered Israel from bondage, the truth is, “Israel is saved by the LORD, with everlasting salvation” (Isa 45:17).

The one aspect of this passage that Christian apologists do pick up on is its sharply monotheistic character. The mantra throughout is “I am the LORD; there is no other god besides me.” They think that the monotheistic character of the passage is further evidence for the ascription of deity to Jesus in Phil 2:10-11. On the contrary! What this indicates is precisely God’s absolute superiority over his agent. It means that it is not the agent who is acting, but the one true God who is acting through him. God called the righteous king. God appointed him. God conferred his authority upon him. God gave him his name, his title. It is not the king who delivers, but God through him. It is not the agent who is worshiped, but God through him. This is precisely the idea that the hymn is expressing when it says that every knee bows to Jesus, and every tongue acknowledges the title conferred upon Jesus, to the glory of God the Father. Far from making any sort of claim for Jesus’ “participation in the unique divine identity,”⁴ the composer of this hymn alluded to the perfect passage for conveying the concept of agency.

In fact, the one thing that the exaltation of Christ emphatically could not mean to Paul is that Jesus is to be understood as God. Paul makes this crystal clear in 1 Corinthians 15:

For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is plain that this does not include the One who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the One who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:21-28)

Here, as in Philippians 2-3, the logic follows this course: death came through Adam, life came through Jesus. Because Christ is the Second Adam, God’s appointed agent of redemption, Christ is exalted to the status of equality with God. But! (and this is a big but) the status of equality with God is temporary. There will come a time when Christ (who presently reigns over all) will turn the kingdom over to God. This will happen only after God (through Jesus’ agency) has brought all his enemies into subjection to his agent. The reversal: man was created to rule over the angels, but became subjected to them; Christ will rule until the angels are again brought under the dominion of humankind. This is precisely why God uses a human agent—because it is about restoring humanity back to its rightful place at the top of the pecking order. But Paul makes it clear, after the enemies have been subjected to Jesus, Jesus will turn the kingdom over to God. “For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” Then Paul quotes Psalm 8 (the Adam psalm!): “God has to put all things in subjection under his feet.” It is clear that Jesus here is representative human. The idea is that by putting all things under Jesus’ feet, God is putting all things under the feet of humankind—so that humankind will again be God’s preeminent creature.

Then, as if it weren’t clear already, Paul proceeds to clearly distinguish Jesus from God. God is not subject to Jesus! God is the one who caused all things to be subjected to Jesus. Then, follow the logic: “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the One who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.” The logic couldn’t be clearer: Right now, Jesus is not subjected to God! Jesus is operating as “acting God.” He is enjoying “equality with God,” which God conferred upon him. But once all things have been accomplished through Jesus, then (not now!) Jesus himself will be brought into subjection to God. In other words, Jesus’ equality with God is a temporary and functional equality, to be dissolved once it has served its purpose. At that time, the rest of humanity will be exalted alongside Jesus, and given glorified bodies and dominion like his. At that time, as the author of Hebrews puts it, Jesus will not be “ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (Heb 2:11).

In fact, the logic in Hebrews 2 parallels that of Philippians 2-3 and 1 Corinthians 15 precisely:

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,
or mortals, that you care for them?
You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned them with glory and honor,
subjecting all things under their feet.”

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:5-11)

God created Adam to be above the angels, crowned with glory and honor, possessing dominion over “all things.” Through Adam’s sin, that plan was temporarily thwarted, and angelic powers took dominion over humankind. But God still intends for humankind to be his preeminent creature. Although we do not yet see that as a reality, “we do see Jesus,” who as representative human was, like everyone else, subjected to angelic dominion, and even to the torment of death. But as a result of his obedience by which he was made “perfect through sufferings,” God exalted him as the first fruits of a new humanity, a humanity to whom dominion over all things has been restored. Although now, only Jesus has gone on ahead, pioneering the path, soon, all who follow him will be elevated to the status of Jesus’ siblings, and with him they will share the same relationship with God as “Father.”

Another close parallel to the logic of the Philippians hymn, actually precedes it by one or two hundred years. It is a Jewish passage, penned long before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth:

For God created us for incorruption,
and made us in the image of his own eternity/nature,
but through the devil’s envy death entered the world,
and those who belong to his company experience it.
But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them forever.
(Wisdom of Solomon 2:23-3:8)

The parallels are not precise, of course, because there is no messianic agent in view here who goes ahead of the others. Instead we have here a picture of the general resurrection of all the righteous martyrs of God. Like Philippians 2, it begins with the statement of Adam’s being “in the image of God’s own nature,” created for “incorruption” (one of Paul’s favorite words). Like Philippians 2, Adam loses his incorruptibility through the temptation of the devil and becomes subject to the devil (angelic powers) and to death. Like Philippians 2, it is righteousness that results in death not having the last word. The righteous who die, subject to sin and death, have a hope “full of immortality.” Their death is only ostensible. It is a “little discipline,” a test from God in order to make them perfect through sufferings. Like Christ’s death, theirs is accepted by God as a “sacrificial burnt offering.” As a result, like Philippians 2, they are raised from the dead, “shining forth,” exalted over the nations and given dominion. Like Philippians 2 (and 1 Corinthians 15), they remain subordinate to God—everything back in its proper order.

One question remains to explore: the question of Jesus’ preexistence. Does the Philippians hymn ascribe preexistence to Jesus, or doesn’t it? It certainly seems to. If the hymn is talking about Jesus, then it certainly seems as though (1) Jesus began in a glorified “Adamic” state (being in the “form” or “image” of God), and as though (2) Jesus at some point chose to take on the form of fallen, enslaved humanity. But this is pressing the hymn too far for literal referents. (Don’t get frustrated. I intend to demonstrate why.)

First, we have the clear statement by Paul in the parallel of 1 Corinthians 15:

Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. (1 Cor 15:45-46)

Here Paul clearly states that the first Adam came (wait for it. . . ) first, and the second came (you guessed it) second. Now, you may say: Why take Paul literally here and not literally in Philippians 2? That’s a good question. Here’s why: because Philippians 2 is typological language and the role Christ is playing in the typology is that of the corporate identity. This is allusion, and the allusion is to the story of Adam, not to the story of Jesus. Jesus is the twist in the story of Adam. It is the story of Adam that controls the flow of the hymn. In a sense, Jesus is Adam in the hymn. It’s like this: the familiar story of Adam is being told all over again, but this time, Adam makes the right choice. So it is not Jesus who is preexistent. In fact, no one is preexistent here. Time has collapsed. Confusing? Allow me to give you another example of this sort of thing, also from Paul:

What then should we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died, and the very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. . . . We know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. (Romans 7:7-11, 14)

What is going on here? Paul is speaking in the first person, but was there ever really a time when Paul was “alive apart from the law”? Is Paul claiming to be preexistent here? No. Of course not! What is happening then?

What’s happening is that Paul is speaking as Adam, within the corporate identity of the father who conferred death upon the rest of humankind. Paul was never “alive apart from the law,” but Adam was. And notice the commandment that Paul selects as an example: covetousness. This was Adam’s sin, when he coveted the knowledge that would make him more completely “like God,” in other words, “equal to God.” And just as Paul was never “alive apart from the law,” he hadn’t died yet either; still, he says, “I died.” He says that sin “killed me.” Notice that sin “deceived” him, and killed him. Who is Paul? Paul is Adam. What was true of Adam is true of the whole race. Time has collapsed in the metaphor. Recall the aforementioned passage from Wisdom of Solomon. “For God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity/nature” (2:23). Was there ever a time when “we” were in the image of God’s own nature, when “we” were incorruptible? Did “we” lose our immortality to the wiles of the devil? No. Adam did. But because we are Adam’s children, the logic of corporate identity dictates that what was true of Adam is also true of us.

Therefore, it is appropriate for Paul to say that he was once alive apart from the law, because there was a time when Adam was. In the same way, it is appropriate, according to the logic of corporate identity, to say that Jesus was “in the form of God,” because Adam was. It is appropriate to say that Jesus “took on the form of a slave,” because Adam did. It is appropriate to say that Jesus “became in the likeness of Man” (i.e., humankind as it now is under Adam’s curse), because Adam lost his immortality and took on the likeness of mortal flesh. As Dunn puts it, “Not content with being like God, what God had intended, he became like men, what men now are. The contrast in other words is between what Adam was and what he became, and it is this Adam language which is used of Christ.”⁵ The hymn is telling the story of Adam, but it is a story with a twist. The emphasis does not lie on the historical correspondence to Jesus’ own life, but centers on the choice. That is the crux of the hymn—the part that makes all the difference. Adam made the choice to grasp at equality with God, and Jesus made the choice to empty himself. Both resulted in death, but for Adam, death was punishment for disobedience, whereas for Jesus it was freely chosen out of obedience. And that made all the difference.

The crux of the hymn, therefore, and this should hardly be surprising, revolves around the sacrifice of Jesus, which was “like a sacrificial burnt offering accepted by God” (Wis 3:6). It is a beautiful, powerful, and thoroughly Jewish way to express the epochal character of the crucifixion of Jesus. Adam’s sin was the fall of humanity. The Second Adam’s sacrifice was its redemption.

1. O’Brien, Epistle to the Philippians, 263. The philological evidence for this is laid out cogently in Ralph Martin, The Hymn of Christ, 102-119; and Seyoon Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, 200-204. [BACK]
2. For example, Job 5:14; 10:10; 13:28; 15:16; 24:20; 27:16; 29:14; 40:15; Isa 51:23; cf. Deut 13:6; Wis 7:3. [BACK]
3. Even Richard Bauckham, who rejects an Adamic reading of the hymn (virtually out of hand), cannot deny that “the basic conceptual structure of verses 6-9 of Philippians 2 is that because Christ humiliated himself to the point of death, therefore God has highly exalted him.” Jesus and the God of Israel, 205. [BACK]
4. to use the tellingly etic category of Richard Bauckham [BACK]
5. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 116. [BACK]