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Philippians 2:5-11 - In the "form" of God?
Grasping equality?
Philippians 2:5-11 is a wonderful poem or hymn
about the work of Christ but many people have misunderstood some of its
statements and concluded that Christ is a lesser God than the Father. Verses
5-6 say: "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something
to be grasped,�" (NIV). Other Bible translations such as the NASB,
NRSV and NKJV have "in the form of God" instead of "being
in very nature God" but this does not accurately convey the meaning
of the underlying Greek. The Greek word expresses the idea of "form
which fully expresses the being which underlies it." Another clause
that has been misunderstood is "did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped" This is a difficult clause to understand
even in the Greek. However, some recent research has shown that the phrase
"something to be grasped" is in fact an idiom which should be
translated "something to be used for His own advantage" or "something
to be exploited" (as the NRSV does). This makes a lot more sense of
the whole passage and is consistent with Luke 22:42, John 6:38, Romans
15:3 and 2 Corinthians 8:9.
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