THE MEANING OF MORFH IN PHILIPPIANS 2:6–7 dennis

1. The significance of Phil 2:6–7. Numerous texts of the NT suggest, more or less straightforwardly, that Jesus Christ is very God. In the Gospel of John alone, for instance, one reads: “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (1:1); “so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father” (5:23); “before Abraham was born, I am” (8:58); “I and the Father are one” (10:30); “he who sees me sees the one who sent me” (12:45); “you call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am (13:13); “he who has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9); “all things that the Father has are mine” (16:15); “my Lord and my God” (20:28); etc. In the same Gospel, however, one finds numerous statements by and about Christ that seem to call his deity into question. One reads, for example: “Jesus wept” (11:35); “now my soul has become troubled” (12:27); “he . . . began to wash the disciples’ feet” (13:5); “the Father is greater than I” (14:28); “why do you strike me?” (18:23); “Pilate then took Jesus and scourged him” (19:1); “the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head” (19:2); “they crucified him” (19:18); “I am thirsty” (19:28); “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (19:30); “I ascend to . . . my God and your God” (20:17). Faced with such a seeming conflict, one could easily conclude that Scripture contradicts itself in its account of the nature(s) of Christ. Augustine, nonetheless, discerns in Scripture a criterion by which one can distinguish the referents of the seemingly conflicting texts about Christ in such a way as to render their consistency transparent. The “rule for resolving these questions throughout all of the holy Scriptures,” writes Augustine (De Trin. 1.7.14), “is brought forth to us from one chapter of an epistle of the apostle Paul, where that distinction is most plainly commended: ‘who, when he was in the form of God, judged it no robbery to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the similitude of men and found in habit as a man’ ” (Phil 2:6–7). In this passage, Augustine finds a “canonical rule” (De Trin. 2.1.2) for interpreting texts that ascribe seemingly incompatible properties to Christ.