<p>2:6- see on 1 Cor. 15:45.</p><p><i>Who, though being</i>- The Greek word translated &ldquo;being&rdquo; here does not mean &lsquo;being originally, from eternity&rsquo;. Acts 7:55 speaks of Stephen &ldquo;being full of the Holy Spirit&rdquo;. He was full of the Holy Spirit then and had been for some time before; but he had not always been full of it. Other examples will be found in Lk. 16:23; Acts 2:30; Gal. 2:14. Christ &ldquo;being in the form of God&rdquo; therefore just means that he was in God&rsquo;s form (mentally); it does not imply that he was in that form from the beginning of time.</p><p><i>In the mental image of God- </i>Jesus was &ldquo;in the form of God&rdquo;. That &ldquo;form&rdquo; (Greek <i>morphe</i>) cannot refer to essential nature is proved by Phil. 2:7 speaking of Christ taking on &ldquo;the form of a servant&rdquo;. He had the form of God, but he took on the form of a servant. The essential nature of a servant is no different to that of any other man. In harmony with the context, we can safely interpret this as meaning that although Jesus was perfect, He had a totally God-like mind, yet He was willing to take on the demeanour of a servant. Some verses later Paul encourages us to become &ldquo;conformable unto (Christ&rsquo;s) death&rdquo; (Phil. 3:10). We are to share the <i>morphe</i>, the form of Christ which he showed in his death. This cannot mean that we are to share the nature which He had then, because we have human nature already. We do not have to change ourselves to have human nature, but we need to change our way of thinking, so that we can have the <i>morphe</i> or mental image which the Lord had in His death. The Greek word <i>morphe</i> means an image, impress or resemblance. Human beings can have a <i>morphe</i>. Gal. 4:19 speaks of &ldquo;Christ (being) formed in&rdquo; believers. Because He had a perfect character, a perfectly God-like way of thinking, the Lord Jesus was &ldquo;in the form of God&rdquo;. Because of this, He did not consider equality with God &ldquo;something to be grasped at&rdquo;. This totally disproves the theory that Jesus was God. Even according to the N.I.V. translation, the Lord did not for a moment entertain the idea of being equal with God; He knew that He was subject to God, and not co-equal with Him. There are many examples in the Greek Old Testament of the Greek word <i>morphe</i> being used to mean 'outward form' rather than 'essential nature'- e.g. Jud. 8:18 men had the <i>morphe</i> , the outward appearance, of a king's sons; Job 4:16 ; Is. 44:13 a carpenter makes an idol in the <i>morphe</i> or outward appearance of a human being- but not in the very nature of a human being; Dan 3:19 the king's <i>morphe</i> or appearance changed because he got angry; his essential nature remained the same. And likewise in the Apocrypha: Tobit 1:13; Wis. 18:1; 4 Macc. 15:4. If Paul meant nature or essence he would have used the word <i>ousia</i> or <i>physis</i>- as he does in Gal. 2:16 where he speaks of &quot;We who are Jews by nature <i>physis</i>...&quot;.</p><p>We should remember that Philippi was in Macedonia, it was named after Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. Alexander was some sort of hero there. He was held to be successful in his exploits because after conquering a people, he did not have a policy of ruling by suppression but&nbsp;instead made all attempts to befriend them by making himself a&nbsp;servant to the people. Alexander was perceived to have an&nbsp;<i>hypostasis</i> (the substantial quality) of both master and servant. It seems that Paul may be making a conscious connection between the Lord Jesus, and Alexander the Great. But the Lord Jesus went so much further. He emptied Himself of all pride and became a servant to all. In our context, the point I take from this is that Alexander didn't change natures when he, the master, became a servant to his people; and the same is true of the Lord Jesus. His humiliation and self-deprecation was specifically upon the cross; and as such He is our example. We too are to have His spirit. We are unable to change natures; the challenge rather is to change our minds. Peter says the same, perhaps alluding to Paul's words here: &quot;Humble yourselves, therefore, under God&rsquo;s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time&quot;.</p><p><i>Did not consider grasping at being equal with God</i>- The essence of the temptation in Eden was to think that the tree of knowledge could bring salvation; it was an attempt to grasp at equality with God, according to Phil. 2, it was a vain belief that possession of knowledge / truth enables us to play God. And we, with our emphasis on the need for truth, for correct understanding, are especially prone to this major temptation. He did not conceive the equality with God with which He would be rewarded as &quot;booty&quot; (Gk.), something to be grasped for: instead, He concentrated on being a humble servant, working to bring about the salvation of others (Phil. 2). This sense of working for <i>God's</i> glory must really permeate our thinking. Vincent Taylor analyses Paul&rsquo;s hymn of praise to the Lord Jesus in Phil. 2:6-11 and concludes that it is an adaptation of a Jewish hymn which spoke of &ldquo;the appearance of the Heavenly Man on earth&rdquo;. Paul was writing under inspiration, but it seems he purposefully adapted a Jewish hymn and applied it to Jesus- to indicate the status which should truly be ascribed to the Lord Jesus. See on Col. 1:15. The lowest of the 30 aeons, Sophia, &quot;yielded to an ungovernable desire to apprehend God's nature&quot;. And Paul alludes to this in Phil. 2:6 by saying that Jesus by contrast didn't even consider apprehending God's nature, but instead made Himself a servant of all. As more and more is known of the literature and ideas which were extant in the first century, it becomes the more evident that Paul's writings are full of allusions to it- allusions which seek to deconstruct these ideas, replacing them with the true; and by doing so, presenting the Truth of the Gospel in the terms and language of the day, just as we seek to. See on Col. 2:9.</p><p>It has been shown that the hymn of Phil. 2:6-11 is alluding to various Gnostic myths about a redeemer, the son and image of the &quot;highest God&quot;, who comes down to earth, hides himself as a man so as not to be recognized by demons, shares human sufferings, and then disappears to Heaven having redeemed them (Documented in Rudolf Bultmann, <i>Theology Of The New Testament </i>(London: S.C.M., 1955) p. 166. Bultmann showed that many of the 'difficult passages' in John have similar connections (<i>ibid </i>p. 175). I would argue that John likewise was alluding to these Gnostic and other redeemer myths in order to deconstruct them.). I suggest that these allusions are in order to deconstruct those myths. Paul's point is that the redemption of humanity was achieved by the human Jesus, through His death on the cross, and not through some nebulous mythical figure supposedly taking a trip to earth for a few years. The hymn also alludes to the many wrong ideas floating around Judaism at the time concerning Adam. Messiah was <i>not</i> Adam; Adam is compared and contrasted with Jesus in Phil. 2:6-11- he like Jesus was made in the image of God, yet he grasped at equality with God (&quot;you will be like God&quot;, Gen. 3:5), which Jesus didn't do. The description of Jesus &quot;being in the form of God&quot; was therefore to highlight the similarities between Him and Adam, who was also made in the form of God. The choice Jesus faced was to die on the cross or not, and it is this choice which Phil. 2:6-11 glorifies. The context of Phil. 2 shows that it was in this that He was and is our abiding example in the daily choices we face. If His choice was merely to come to earth or stay in Heaven, then there is nothing much to praise Him for and He is not our example in this at all.&nbsp;</p>