Chapter 2 – One God Translation

Philippians

   2 If then there is any encouragement in Messiah, if any comfort from love, if any fellowship in the spirit, if any sympathy or mercy, 2 make my joy complete by all thinking the same way, having the same love, being of one mind, and focusing on the one goal. 3 Do nothing out of rivalry or arrogance, but in humility consider others to be more significant than yourselves. 4 Everyone should think about not only his own interests, but also the interests of other people. 5 Think the same way Messiah Jesus thought: [1230] 6 having the status of God[1231] as His unique agent, he did not consider this representative equality with God as something to be used for his own advantage. [1232] 7 Rather he constantly emptied himself[1233] by assuming the status of a servant,[1234] looking like other men. 8 And appearing to be just an ordinary man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death — even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God exalted him to the highest position and gave him the authority above every authority, 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Messiah is lord, to the glory of God who is the Father.
     12 So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only when I am present, but now even more when I am absent, work out your own salvation with reverence and fear. 13 For God is the One who is at work in you, energizing you both to desire and to work for His good purpose. [1235]
     14 Do everything without complaining and disputing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in the midst of a crooked and perverted society, in which you shine like stars in the world. 16 Hold firmly to the Gospel-word of life.[1236] Then I may be proud on the Day of Messiah[1237] that I did not run the race or labor for nothing. 17 But even if I am being poured out[1238] like a drink offering over the sacrificial service of your faith, I am happy and share my joy with all of you. 18 In the same way you should rejoice and share your joy with me.
   19 I hope in the lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I also may be encouraged when I hear news about you. 20 For I have no one else like-minded who will genuinely care about your interests. 21 All the others are seeking their own interests, not those of Messiah Jesus. 22 But you know Timothy’s proven character, that he has served with me in the Gospel like a son working with his father. [1239] 23 So I hope to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. 24 And I am convinced in the lord that I myself will also come to you soon. 25 But now I think it necessary to send you Epaphroditus — my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, as well as your messenger and minister to my needs — 26 since he has been longing for you all and was distressed because you heard that he was sick. 27 Indeed, he was so sick that he nearly died. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, so that I would not have one grief piled on another. 28 Now I am very eager to send him so that you may rejoice when you see him again, and I may be less concerned. 29 So welcome him in the lord with all joy, and hold people like him in great honor, 30 because he came close to death for the work of Messiah, risking his life to serve me when you could not.

Philippians

[1230]

When Paul speaks of “Messiah Jesus” he means “the man Messiah Jesus” in his fundamental and easy creedal statement in 1 Tim. 2:5. The man, the historical Messiah Jesus, was indeed in the image of God, and was the visible image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). Paul knew of no second Person of the Trinity who was alive before coming into existence in the womb of his mother Mary (Lk. 1:35). Mary is “the mother of my lord” (Lk. 1:43; cp. adoni, my lord, Ps. 110:1), certainly not “the mother of God.” “Mother of God” is a blasphemous title suggesting that the mother is somehow superior to GOD!

[1231]

“in the form of God.” Morphe (form) is the status of the human, historical Jesus who reflected God his Father. Morphe has to do with visible, outward appearance (cp. Ex. 24:17; Num. 12:8: “form,” LXX “glory”). It carries in this passage the notion of position and status as in Tobit 1:13 (“status”). The NIV translation “being in very nature God” is false to the Greek and simply reads the much later post-biblical philosophical definition of “God the Son” into Paul. In the form of God is equivalent to being in the image of God, having the position of God, reflecting the character and glory of God. The comparison with the “form of a servant” (v. 7) enables us to understand “form” here as more like status, position, or rank. In British English we happen to use “form” as “rank” in the school terminology: “first, second, etc. form.” We speak about a person being in good “form” or “shape.” Jesus as the sinless Son of God was the closest reflection of his Father, God. But he was not a preexisting “God the Son,” a title which appears nowhere in the Bible and belongs to a theology worked out after Bible times. Dr. Colin Brown at Fuller Seminary observed that “Phil. 2 is not about pre-existence and post-existence, but about the contrast between Christ and Adam…Adam, the original image, vainly sought to be like God” (“Ernst Lohmeyer’s Kyrios Jesus Revisited”). So also Dr. James Dunn, Christology in the Making. F.F. Bruce expressed to me in correspondence in 1981 that he did not think that Paul believed in a preexisting Son.

[1232]

Much discussion surrounds Paul’s meaning here. Either Jesus did not take advantage of or exploit his unique position as the Son of God; or it may be that Jesus did not grasp at a position wrongly as did Adam. The error of Adam was reversed in Jesus.

[1233]

The portrait of the Messiah is drawn from Isa. 53:12; the servant poured himself out in service to others. Note also 52:14; 53:2: “form,” “appearance.”

[1234]

“the form [morphe] of a servant.” Paul clearly means the activity or function (status) of a servant, not Jesus’ intrinsic being or nature. This shows that morphe of theos, “form of God” (v. 6) refers to the activity or function (status) of God. See John 14:10, ‘It is the Father abiding in me who does the works.’ Similarly for the Philippians: ‘It is God at work in you’ (2:13). They too are in the morphe of theos but are not to become arrogant, but rather to take the morphe, status, of a servant and serve others as Jesus did.

[1235]

His great immortality program through the word of the Kingdom Gospel and through Messiah Jesus.

[1236]

I.e. immortality which is revealed in the Gospel (1 Tim. 1:10) and will be received when Jesus comes back to the earth to establish the Kingdom of God on a renewed earth.

[1237]

At his second coming.

[1238]

Paul was being poured out, just as Jesus emptied himself. The reference is to Isa. 53:12: “poured himself out,” the selfless devotion of the suffering servant. Paul saw himself in the same category as the suffering servant, who is primarily the Messiah Jesus. Paul applied Isa. 42:6; 49:6 to himself and Barnabas in Acts 13:47.

[1239]

Just as Jesus served with his Father in the ministry of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Lk. 4:43).