Philippians 2:6-7 — Christ hymn, humiliation and exaltation

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form.”

Philippians 2:5–7

Context: The Philippian hymn between exhortation to humility and glorification

The Letter to the Philippians is Paul’s warmest letter — written from prison (Phil 1:7, 13) to a congregation that had supported him financially (Phil 4:15–18) and to which he was bound by a special relationship of trust. Its themes circle around joy in Christ (Phil 1:18, 25; 2:17–18; 3:1; 4:4), Christian unity and humility (Phil 2:1–4; 4:2–3), the knowledge of Christ as the highest good (Phil 3:7–11), and the eschatological citizenship in heaven (Phil 3:20–21). Into this fabric the Christ hymn 2:6–11 is set — not as an inserted doctrinal piece on the two natures of Christ, but as an illustrative paradigm for the humility enjoined just before (Phil 2:1–5).

The immediate context is decisive: Phil 2:1–4 calls the congregation to do “nothing from rivalry or conceit” but to count “others more significant than yourselves” in humility and not to look “to one’s own interests, but also to the interests of others.” V.5 then makes the imperative transition: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” The following verses 6–11, which appear as a Christ hymn, are therefore not a dogmatic excursus but the rhetorical-paradigmatic grounding of the ethical admonition. Paul is not arguing about the doctrine of the Trinity; he is arguing about congregational ethics — and Christ’s way from the highest standing to the lowest self-giving is his example.

Form and structure. Most contemporary exegetes regard Phil 2:6–11 as a pre-Pauline hymn — an early Christian liturgical composition that Paul takes up and embeds in his argument. The strophic division is disputed, but a basic bipartite shape is clearly recognizable: strophe I (vv.6–8) describes the descent in four steps (form of God – self-emptying – form of a servant / becoming human – obedience unto death on the cross); strophe II (vv.9–11) describes the ascent (God exalts – bestows a name – every knee bows – every tongue confesses). The decisive hinge-word is v.9 “dio” — “therefore”: God’s act of exaltation is the answer to Christ’s obedience, not a return to a prior eternal equality.

This structure is decisive for the Socinian reading. The patristic-trinitarian exegesis has understood the movement of vv.6–8 as the incarnatio of a pre-existent divine person: the eternal Logos voluntarily lays aside the glory due to him, takes on human nature, but returns after death and resurrection into his prior deity. Yet the text of the hymn itself does not say this. V.9 speaks not of a return but of an exaltation: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” One who already eternally had the highest name cannot first have it bestowed upon him. The “dio” is relational and causal: because Christ was obedient unto death on the cross, therefore God has exalted him. This logic is the logic of mission and commission, not of ontological identity.

History of interpretation. The hymn was already central in the early church — in the first Arian controversies as well as in the Christological councils of the 5th century. Athanasius, Augustine, and the subsequent Latin tradition have read vv.6–7 throughout in a two-natures key: morphê theou is the eternal divine nature, to which the assumption of human nature in the incarnation is added. This reading became normative through post-Nicene dogmatic development. Yet already the Antiochene school (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius) and later especially the humanist-philological exegesis of the Reformation period raised questions: how does v.5 (“have this mind”) relate to the dogmatic reading? What function does “therefore” in v.9 have, if Christ eternally already held the highest rank? Fausto Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism (1605) radicalized these queries and argued them through consistently: morphê theou is the language of rank, mission, and appearance; the self-emptying (ekénôsen) concerns the renunciation of status-securing, not an ontological self-reduction; the exaltation in v.9 is the reward of obedience, not a return into prior equality with God.

Socinian central thesis

According to the Socinian reading, Philippians 2:6–11 is a redemptive-historical and ethical text about Christ’s way from the standing of a duly authorized envoy of God, through voluntary self-emptying and obedient death, to exaltation by God and the bestowal of the highest name. It does not presuppose an eternal pre-existence as a second divine person — it rather unfolds a pattern of movement in which the Father is the subject of the exaltation (v.9), the Son the subject of the obedience (v.8), and the doxa theou patros the final goal of the whole movement (v.11). Whoever turns the hymn into an ontological statement of essence overturns its rhetorical aim and leaps over its own key terms.

Three linguistic-philological observations carry the Socinian reading. First: morphê in its only other New Testament occurrence (Mark 16:12) denotes the outward appearance of the risen one — not his essence. Second: the verb ekénôsen (“he emptied himself”) is linguistically incompatible with the thought of a self-reduction of the divine nature: God can neither add anything to his nature nor lay it aside. What can be emptied, therefore, is not the nature of God but status, rank, claim — the missional and appearance-standing of the authorized representative. Third: the “dio” (“therefore”) in v.9 makes the exaltation God’s causal answer to Christ’s obedience, not a return into a pre-existent deity. One who eternally possessed the highest rank cannot have it bestowed upon him.

These three arguments are developed in the Racovian Catechism (chapter on the person of Christ) and in Sozzini’s letters. They connect to the Pauline Adam-Christ typology: Adam wanted to be “like God” (Gen 3:5) and reached for it — Christ, who really stood in the rank of God’s envoy, did not grasp at self-exaltation but chose the way into lowliness. Thereby v.6 (“did not count it robbery”) is not a metaphysical riddle but a pointed redemptive-historical antithesis to Adam. The second Adam does what the first Adam did not do: he does not hold on to his standing as plunder, but gives it away.

The consequence for Christology: Christ is the authorized envoy of God, equipped with the highest commissional authority. He did not hold on to this standing as a presumed right but realized it in obedience unto death on the cross. God answers this with cosmic glorification: bestowal of the name “Lord” (kyrios), bowing of knees and confession of tongues by all beings. Yet this does not happen for Christ’s own self-glorification — but eis doxan theou patros (v.11), “to the glory of God the Father.” The whole movement of the hymn is referred to the glorification of the Father.

Key concepts and word field

Six Greek expressions carry the exegetical decision concerning Philippians 2:6–7 and the entire exaltation saying in vv.9–11:

morphê theou — “form of God”

The Greek morphê denotes in classical as in Hellenistic usage primarily outward shape, form, appearance. In Aristotle’s philosophy of essence morphê can also denote the inner principle of essence (over against hylê, matter); but in everyday Greek it overwhelmingly means outward form. The New Testament itself gives the decisive evidence: apart from Phil 2:6–7, morphê appears only in Mark 16:12 — and there explicitly of an outward mode of appearance: “After this he appeared in another form (en hetera morphê) to two of them, as they were walking.” The risen one was not another being but appeared in another outward shape. This is exactly the lexical sense closest to Phil 2:6.

Sozzini argues with great sharpness (Racovian Catechism, chapter on the person of Christ): “form of God” cannot here mean the nature of God, since the apostle writes that Christ emptied himself of this form; but God can in no way empty himself of his nature. This argumentation is not polemical but logical: the verb ekenosen (he emptied himself) constructs a reflexive movement of self-reduction; such a movement is incompatible with the divine nature, which God cannot lay aside. What can be laid aside cannot be the nature of God. It must be something else: status, claim, mode of appearance, rank — precisely what morphê by lexical meaning suggests.

Morphê theou thereby denotes Socinianly the “mode of appearance of God” or the “rank standing of God” in the sense of the missional authority. Christ stood in a standing of divine authority and representation: equipped with the power to work miracles (Acts 2:22), with the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:10), with authority of word (Matt 7:29), with the testimony of the Father (Matt 3:17). This missional standing is the morphê theou — not an ontological equality of essence, but the highest conceivable standing of mission and representation. Christ is God’s “visible image” (cf. Col 1:15) in the sense of representation, not of essence-identity.

harpagmos — “robbery” or “something to be grasped”

V.6b: “ouch harpagmon hêgêsato to einai isa theôi” — literally “he did not count it robbery to be equal with God.” The word harpagmos is a hapax in the NT; in the whole of Greek literature before and after Paul it is rarely attested. It can be understood actively (“robbery as deed”, act of seizing) or passively (“plunder”, the thing seized). Exegetical research knows two main lines: (a) res rapienda — something one does not yet possess and would have to seize; (b) res rapta — something one already possesses and holds fast. Both readings can be interpreted without presupposing ontological pre-existence.

Reading (a): Christ, in the missional standing of God (morphê theou), did not strive to seize divine equality by force — in contrast to Adam, who reached for being “like God” (Gen 3:5: “you will be like God”). The second Adam did not grasp at the status which the first Adam tried to seize. This Adam-Christ typology is Pauline (cf. Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:21–22, 45–49). It lies close to the Socinian reading and has been argued strongly especially by James Dunn, N.T. Wright, and recent historical-critical exegesis.

Reading (b): Christ, in the missional standing of God, did not hold this standing as “plunder” — he did not jealously cling to his rank. Sozzini himself (Racovian Catechism) uses this reading implicitly when he says that Christ “temporarily laid aside this his equality with God.” In both readings the rhetorical result is the same: Christ renounces status-securing. Ontological equality of essence is neither presupposed nor implied by harpagmos. Both readings fit the Socinian logic of mission.

to einai isa theôi — “the being equal with God”

Important here is a philological detail which Sozzini works out with particular care in the Racovian Catechism: in Greek there does not stand einai isos theôi (“to be equal to God” in the personal sense), but einai isa theôi — with the neuter plural isa (“equal things,” “the same things”). This adverbial construction is a Graecism that denotes not full identity of essence but likeness of acting, working, or representing. Sozzini writes: “in Greek there does not stand ‘to be equal to God,’ but ‘equal things,’ that is, according to a Graecism, ‘to be in the same manner as God, to be as God is.’”

This linguistic observation is not trivial. In LXX usage the analogous construction is found in Job 11:12 and 30:19, each time in the sense of likeness (“as dust,” “as ashes”) — not in the sense of ontological identity. So too in John 5:18 Jesus’ opponents cite him as having “made himself equal with God” (ison heautôn poiôn tôi theôi) — and Jesus replies: “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). The Johannine reply relativizes the equality as a statement of essence: it is equality of authority and mission, not ontological identity. Exactly the same logic carries Phil 2:6.

heauton ekénôsen — “he emptied himself”

The reflexive verb kenôein (to empty, to make empty, to render void) is used elsewhere in Pauline usage metaphorically of the “emptying” of a thing: 1 Cor 1:17 (the cross of Christ not to be “emptied”), 1 Cor 9:15 (his boasting not to be “emptied”), 2 Cor 9:3 (the praise not to be “emptied”), Rom 4:14 (faith would “be void”). In all of these the issue is devaluation, setting aside, depriving of force of a position or meaning — not ontological self-reduction.

Applied to Phil 2:7: Christ “emptied himself” means that he laid aside his missional standing as God’s authorized representative. He renounced the privileges that his rank would have brought (honour, recognition, protection from humiliation and suffering). He entered the standing of the servant, of the lowly, of the suffering one. Sozzini’s argument remains compelling: what Christ emptied himself of cannot have been the nature of God, for that nature cannot be laid aside. The self-emptying concerns rank, mode of appearance, the status usually connected with divine authority — not being as such.

Later Protestant kenotic theory (Th. Forsyth, Charles Gore, in the 19th/20th century) tried to grasp the self-emptying ontologically: the eternal Logos in the incarnation “laid aside” certain divine attributes (omniscience, omnipotence). But this doctrine runs into insoluble difficulties: a God who can lay aside his own essential attributes is no longer the unchangeable God of Scripture (cf. Mal 3:6; Heb 13:8). The Socinian reading escapes this difficulty: what is laid aside is status and rank, not nature — and that makes far more sense linguistically, theologically, and logically.

morphên doulou labôn — “taking the form of a servant”

Here the hymn uses the same word morphê in the counter-movement: no longer morphê theou (form of God) but morphên doulou (form of a servant). The parallel construction is hermeneutically decisive: if morphê theou meant the ontological nature of God, then morphên doulou would correspondingly have to mean the ontological nature of a servant — which is obviously absurd (for “servant” is not a category of nature but a social standing). The word must therefore have the same semantic centre of gravity in both occurrences: standing, rank, mode of appearance.

Sozzini argues precisely in the Racovian Catechism: “Nor does ‘form of a servant’ denote the human nature, since being a servant refers to the outward state and condition of a man.” This is not semantic hairsplitting but is borne out by the text itself: Paul himself describes the actual becoming-human with v.7b “being born in the likeness of men” (en homoiômati anthrôpôn) and v.8a “being found in human form” (schemati heuretheis hôs anthrôpos). The morphên doulou does not mean the becoming-human itself but the state of servanthood — the state of the humiliated, the serving, the one subjected to death.

Christ thus does not pass from divine being into human being (transition of essence) — he passes from the missional standing of the authorized envoy of God into the state of a servant. The linguistic precision of the hymn suggests this reading: three stages of descent (v.6a → v.7a → v.7b/8a/8b) correspond to three steps of self-giving — in the highest missional standing, in the standing of a servant, in human lowliness unto death on the cross.

dio kai ho theos auton hyperüpsôsen — “therefore God has highly exalted him”

The key word in v.9 is dio — “therefore,” “for this reason.” This particle makes vv.9–11 the causal answer to vv.6–8. Because Christ has gone the way of obedience unto death on the cross, therefore God has exalted him. The subject of the exaltation is ho theos — God (with the article, i.e., the Father in Pauline usage). The verb hyperhypsoun (to highly exalt) is a hapax in the NT and intensifies the movement: Christ is set into the highest conceivable standing.

Sozzini argues with almost geometrical sharpness (Racovian Catechism, chapter on the exaltation of Christ): “For if Christ was the supreme God, he could neither have been exalted, nor, even if he could have been, would he ever have ascribed that exaltation entirely to anyone other than his own divine nature.” The argument is logically compelling: exaltation presupposes that the exalted one was not previously in the highest standing. One who eternally already had the highest rank cannot be exalted — he can at most return to his earlier standing. But the text does not say “return” (apokathistêmi) — it says hyperhypsoun: highly to exalt, to set into the highest standing. That is the language of conferral, not of return.

The bestowal of the name “above every name” (to onoma to hyper pan onoma) confirms this. This name is not one already eternally possessed — it is bestowed on Christ by God (echarisato, v.9b, from the verb charizesthai: to give graciously, to hand over freely). One who eternally possessed the highest name cannot have it graciously bestowed. The whole movement of the hymn — mission, humiliation, obedience, exaltation — is a redemptive-historical sequence of events, not an ontological movement of return.

Comparison of interpretations

Reference to Fausto Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism

Fausto Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism (first edition 1605), which he essentially shaped, treat Philippians 2:6–7 in several sections of the chapter on the person of Christ and in the chapter on the exaltation of Christ. Sozzini’s handling is always philologically and logically guided — not polemically reductive, but as a serious engagement with the normatively trinitarian understanding of his time. His central argument: what Christ emptied himself of cannot have been the nature of God; and what God bestows on Christ, he cannot have eternally already possessed.

“It is one thing that the apostle says: ‘being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant,’ and another: ‘the divine nature assumed the human.’ For ‘form of God’ cannot here mean the nature of God, since the apostle writes that Christ emptied himself of this form; but God can in no way empty himself of his nature. Nor does ‘form of a servant’ denote the human nature, since being a servant refers to the outward state and condition of a man. Furthermore, it must not be passed over that the writings of the New Testament use the word ‘form’ perhaps only once elsewhere, namely in Mark 16:12, and there in the sense that it denotes not the nature but the outward appearance, when it says that Jesus appeared to two of his disciples in another form.”

Fausto Sozzini, Racovian Catechism (chapter on the person of Christ)

This passage is the hermeneutic main road of the Socinian Phil 2 exegesis. Sozzini argues threefold: (1) the parallel construction morphê theou / morphê doulou shows that the word morphê in both occurrences has the same semantic sense — and that cannot be “nature,” since “servant” is not a category of nature. (2) The verb ekénôsen (to empty oneself) is incompatible with the conception that the divine nature is emptied — God cannot empty himself of his nature. (3) The only NT parallel for morphê (Mark 16:12) clearly attests the meaning “outward mode of appearance.”

Elsewhere Sozzini deepens the philological observation on v.6 still further:

“The passage in Philippians also shows the same thing on more careful consideration: partly because in the Greek there does not stand ‘to be equal to God,’ but ‘equal things,’ that is, according to a Graecism, ‘to be in the same manner as God, to be as God is’; partly because he temporarily laid aside this his equality with God, which would not have been fitting for one who was God by that nature.”

Fausto Sozzini, Racovian Catechism (chapter on the person of Christ)

Sozzini’s linguistic observation — ta isa theôi as a neuter plural “equal things” with adverbial Graecist construction — is linguistically and historically valid and is again being given greater attention in modern exegesis (cf. R.P. Martin, J. Reumann among others on the hymn). It supports the reading: Christ was God in the same manner (in the sense of authority, working, representation) — not ontologically identical with the Father.

In the chapter on the exaltation of Christ Sozzini delivers perhaps the sharpest argument:

“For if Christ was the supreme God, he could neither have been exalted, nor, even if he could have been, would he ever have ascribed that exaltation entirely to anyone other than his own divine nature. And yet Paul says (Eph 1:19–23) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, has displayed the working of the might of his power in Christ, when he raised him from the dead and set him at his right hand in the heavenly places… And further (Phil 2:9–10), that he has exalted Christ above measure and bestowed upon him the name that is above every name, so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Fausto Sozzini, Racovian Catechism (chapter on the exaltation of Christ)

This argument goes beyond the philological observation to theological logic: if Christ is the supreme God, he cannot be still higher exalted — there is no rank above the highest rank. The Pauline language about the Father as “God of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:17; cf. Rom 15:6; 2 Cor 1:3; 11:31; 1 Pet 1:3) confirms the asymmetry: the Father is God of the Son; the Son is not God of the Father. This asymmetry is insolubly in conflict with ontological equality of essence; but it fits exactly the logic of mission: the Father sends, the Son is sent; the Father exalts, the Son is exalted; the Father bestows the name, the Son receives it.

In the work On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore) Sozzini connects Phil 2:9 with the soteriological point of his work: Christ’s exaltation is the confirmation of his obedience, not the act of an eternal equality of essence. Sozzini asks rhetorically:

“But how could Christ have entered into so great a glory, if not because that obedience was sufficient which reached unto the death of the cross; for the sake of which obedience he was endowed by God himself with majesty and power? Of this Paul expressly testifies in the Letter to the Philippians 2:9.”

Fausto Sozzini, On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore)

Sozzini reads the “therefore” (dio) in v.9 in its full causal weight: Christ’s obedience is the sufficient cause of his exaltation. This reading is not Arian (Christ as a lesser divine being) but fundamentally anti-ontological: it interprets the work of Christ redemptive-historically and functionally, not ontologically and essentially. The obedient man Jesus is installed by God in the highest authority; the glorification is the answer to obedience, not the return into an eternal essence.

Overview of Sozzini’s writings — see especially the Racovian Catechism (person of Christ, exaltation of Christ) and On Jesus Christ the Saviour (on the link between obedience and glorification).

Logical arguments

From the linguistic-philological and contextual analysis the following arguments arise against the ontological-trinitarian reading of Phil 2:6–11:

1. Argument from the kenosis-verb (v.7). The verb ekénôsen (he emptied himself) is reflexive and describes a self-reduction. Applied to the divine nature, this would be logically and theologically impossible: God cannot empty himself of his nature without ceasing to be God. Sozzini’s argument remains compelling: what can be emptied cannot have been the nature of God; it must be rank, status, or mode of appearance.
2. Argument from the Mark 16:12 parallel. Morphê occurs in the NT only twice apart from Phil 2: in Mark 16:12 explicitly of the outward appearance of the risen one (en hetera morphê). If the word in its only other NT attestation means mode of appearance, it is methodologically problematic to assign it in Phil 2 another meaning (essence, nature) without contextual necessity.
3. Argument from the parallel construction. Morphê theou and morphê doulou stand in the hymn in strictly parallel construction. The word morphê must have the same semantic sense in both occurrences. But morphê doulou does not denote the nature-category “servant” (servant is not a nature but a standing). Consequently morphê theou too does not denote the nature-category “God” but a standing — the missional standing of God.
4. Argument from the Graecism ta isa theôi. In Greek there does not stand the masculine isos theôi (equal to God in the personal sense), but the neuter plural isa theôi (the same things as God, in the adverbial construction). Linguistically this suggests a likeness of working or representation, not full equality of essence. Sozzini made this philological observation precisely; modern exegesis confirms it.
5. Argument from the causal dio in v.9. “Therefore God has highly exalted him” makes the exaltation the causal answer to the obedience. One who eternally had the highest rank cannot be exalted (logical impossibility). One who eternally possessed the essence of God cannot have the name “above every name” bestowed on him graciously (charizesthai implies prior non-possession). The exaltation-language of the hymn is incompatible with ontological equality of essence.
6. Argument from the telos eis doxan theou patros (v.11). The universal bowing of the knee and confession of the tongue happen “to the glory of God the Father.” The Father remains the highest goal and the highest instance even in the glorification of the Son. This asymmetry is reconcilable with ontological equality of essence only by complicated auxiliary hypotheses; it is directly reconcilable with the Socinian logic of mission: the Son is glorified so that the Father may receive honour.
7. Argument from the rhetorical aim of the hymn. V.5 expressly sets the hymn in an ethical-paradigmatic frame: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” Christ is to be invoked as an example of humility. An ontologically absolutely unique act (incarnation of the second divine person) is rhetorically ill-suited as a model of humility among Christians — what shall human beings do, if the model is a movement of essence that only God himself can perform? The model only takes hold if Christ’s movement is ethically imitable: renunciation of status, obedience, self-giving.
8. Argument from the Adam-Christ typology. V.6 (“did not count it robbery”) recalls Gen 3:5: “you will be like God.” Adam reached for “being-like-God”; Christ, who really stood in the highest missional standing, did not. Paul develops the Adam-Christ typology also in Rom 5 and 1 Cor 15. In the light of this typology v.6 becomes the pointed antithesis: the second Adam does not do what the first Adam did. This reading does not require ontological pre-existence but a redemptive-historical standing of representation.
9. Argument from Acts 2:36. In the early kerygmatic confession (Peter at Pentecost) Christ is “made Lord and Christ” (kyrion auton kai christon epoiêsen ho theos) — through the exaltation. That is exactly the movement of Phil 2:9: God makes him Lord. This language is the language of mission and installation, not of eternal equality of essence.
10. Argument from Heb 5:8–9. “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” This NT-internal echo confirms the redemptive-historical logic: obedience → perfection → mediatorship of salvation. This logic fits the Socinian Phil 2 reading, not the ontological-trinitarian.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages deepen the interpretation of Phil 2:6–11 in light of the whole biblical witness:

Mark 16:12 — morphê as outward mode of appearance

The only other New Testament attestation of the word morphê: “After this he appeared in another form (en hetera morphê) to two of them, as they were walking.” The risen one was not another being but appeared in another outward form. This NT-internal usage is hermeneutically decisive: in its only parallel attestation morphê means outward mode of appearance, not nature.

Genesis 3:5 — Adam and “being-like-God”

The serpent promises: “you will be like God” (LXX: esesthe hôs theoi). Adam reached for this standing. Christ, in the real missional standing of God, did not. Phil 2:6 is the redemptive-historical antithesis to Gen 3:5: the second Adam does not do what the first Adam did. This Adam-Christ typology is carried explicitly by Rom 5:12–21 and 1 Cor 15:21–22, 45–49.

Acts 2:36 — “God has made him Lord”

In Peter’s Pentecost sermon: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The language is that of installation: God makes (epoiêsen) Jesus Lord. The same movement as in Phil 2:9: God exalts him and bestows the name “Lord” (kyrios). One who eternally was Lord need not have that standing “made” for him. Cf. the detailed entry on Acts 2:36.

John 20:17 — “my God and your God”

The risen one to Mary: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Even after the resurrection the Father remains Christ’s God. That excludes ontological equality of essence with the Father. The Phil 2 exaltation changes nothing in the fundamental asymmetry between the one God, the Father, and the Son exalted by him. Cf. John 20:17.

John 5:18–19 — “making himself equal with God”

Jesus’ opponents charge him: “He was making himself equal with God” (ison heautôn poiôn tôi theôi). Jesus replies: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.” The equality is qualified by Jesus himself as equality of authority and mission, not as ontological identity. The same logic carries ta isa theôi in Phil 2:6.

1 Corinthians 15:27–28 — the Son subjected to the Father

In the eschatological climax of 1 Cor 15: “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” The final telos is the subjection of the Son to the Father — not an identity of essence. This asymmetry lies on the same line as Phil 2:11: to the glory of God the Father. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24.

Hebrews 5:8–9 — obedience, perfection, mediatorship of salvation

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.” The logic of Hebrews is the logic of Phil 2: obedience leads to perfection; perfection leads to mediatorship. Both are redemptive-historical and functional, not ontological and essential.

Isaiah 45:23 LXX — background of Phil 2:10–11

Phil 2:10–11 cites Isa 45:23 LXX: “To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear by God.” In Isaiah this bowing of the knee belongs to the one God of Israel (YHWH). Paul transfers it to Christ exalted by God — but with the decisive climax eis doxan theou patros: to the glory of God the Father. The bowing of the knee belongs to the Christ who has been bestowed the name kyrios, as representative of the one God — and thereby honours the one who sent him. Cf. Isaiah 45:5.

John 17:5 — the glory “with you”

Jesus’ prayer: “Glorify me, Father, in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” Socinianly this glory is the salvation-glory of Christ foreordained in God’s plan before the creation of the world (cf. 1 Pet 1:20: “foreknown before the foundation of the world”) — not a temporal-personal pre-existence. Cf. John 17:5.

Ephesians 1:20–22 — God installs Christ at his right hand

“With this power he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.” The subject is God (the Father); he installs Christ. Sozzini cites precisely this passage in parallel to Phil 2:9: both attest the exaltation as the Father’s act upon the Son, not as a return.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “Form of God” (morphê theou) means in classical Greek the inner essence, not merely the outward appearance.

Socinian answer: the objection confuses two linguistic layers. In the technical Aristotelian vocabulary morphê can indeed denote the principle of essence. But Paul does not write in Aristotelian technical language; he writes in Hellenistic Koine. In the Koine and in the LXX morphê overwhelmingly means outward form, mode of appearance, shape (cf. Isa 53:2–3 LXX on the outward appearance of the Servant of God; Tob 1:13 on shape). The decisive attestation is NT-internal: Mark 16:12 uses morphê expressly of the outward mode of appearance of the risen one. In its only NT parallel the word therefore means mode of appearance — that is hermeneutically normative for its meaning in Phil 2:6.

Added to this is the hermeneutically compelling argument from parallel construction: if morphê theou meant the essence of God, morphê doulou would have to mean the essence of a servant — which is obviously absurd, since “servant” is not a category of nature. Sozzini named this precisely: “Nor does ‘form of a servant’ denote the human nature, since being a servant refers to the outward state and condition of a man.” Whoever takes morphê in v.6a ontologically and in v.7b in a social-status sense breaks the parallel construction of the hymn and makes the text grammatically inconsistent.

Methodologically: the NT-internal usage has priority over philosophical loadedness of meaning. The LXX-linguistic tradition has priority over the Aristotelian. The context (v.7b!) has priority over isolated meaning-considerations. All three criteria speak for the appearance / rank reading, not for the ontological essence reading.

Objection 2: V.7 says “being born in the likeness of men” — that presupposes that Christ was not previously human. Hence he existed pre-incarnationally in a higher (divine) mode of being.

Socinian answer: the objection confuses narrative presentation with ontological presupposition. The hymn presents Christ’s way in a movement from the higher missional standing to lowliness. This movement is redemptive-historical and rank-related, not ontological-substantial. Socinianly Jesus has his beginning in God’s working from conception by the Holy Spirit on (Luke 1:35); he was at the same time the man set by God in the highest missional standing. Out of this standing — morphê theou as standing of representation, not as eternal nature — he went into the lowliness of the standing of a servant and into death on the cross.

Put differently: morphê theou is not a pre-temporal standing of essence of Christ but the earthly standing of the authorized envoy of God. In this standing Jesus stood from his anointing with the Holy Spirit on (cf. Acts 10:38; Matt 3:17; John 3:34). Out of this standing he “emptied” himself — not in a pre-temporal act before his birth, but in his earthly life through the renunciation of status-securing, self-protection, and the exploitation of authority. The way from Jesus’ transfiguration (Matt 17:2: he was “transfigured” and his face shone; cf. metemorphôthê) to death on the cross is the historical concretion of this “emptying.”

Pauline language strikes here a nearer parallel to 2 Cor 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” Here the movement “becoming rich → becoming poor” is precisely not understood ontologically — Jesus was not at the same time poor and rich in the literally material sense; rather the movement is redemptive-historical and figurative. Exactly so does Phil 2:6–7 work.

Finally: a pre-temporal personal pre-existence of Christ would insolubly contradict vv.9–11. One who eternally had the highest name cannot have it bestowed upon him. The objection-logic “Christ previously existed higher, therefore the transition” falls back into the descent of the hymn and ignores its ascent-logic.

Objection 3: V.10 cites Isaiah 45:23, where the bowing of the knee belongs to God himself. If every knee is to bow before Christ, then Christ is God.

Socinian answer: the objection ignores the decisive climax v.11: “to the glory of God the Father”. The bowing before Christ happens to the glory of the Father — not instead of the glory of the Father. That is the logic of envoys and representation: whoever honours the envoy honours the sender (cf. Matt 10:40: “whoever receives you receives me”; John 13:20). This is precisely the OT logic of representation: Joseph is given cosmic authority by Pharaoh (Gen 41:40–44), and all the people bow the knee before him — without Joseph becoming Pharaoh.

Sozzini described precisely this logic (Racovian Catechism): Christ is worshipped because he has been seated at God’s right hand and endowed with the name “above every name.” The worship is relative — it refers to the Christ installed by God and endowed with authority, not to Christ as eternal God. If Christ were the one God, the phrase “to the glory of God the Father” would become meaningless — for then Christ would be worshipped to his own glory. But Paul draws the line unambiguously: the glory ultimately flows to the Father.

On the use of Isa 45:23: Paul transfers the Old Testament word to Christ not in the sense of identification (Christ = YHWH), but in the sense of redemptive-historical actualization: in the eschatological hour of the bowing of the knee, God’s kingship is realized through the kyrios Christ installed by him. That is representational worship in the functional sense, not ontological identity-worship. Pauline theology knows the one God and the one mediator (1 Tim 2:5); this strict distinction is not lifted even in the act of praise.

Objection 4: If Phil 2:6–11 were only an ethical model, why then the cosmic language (v.10: heavenly, earthly, subterranean; every knee, every tongue)?

Socinian answer: the objection presupposes that an ethical model may not have cosmic consequences. This premise is false. The hymn argues exactly the other way around: because Christ’s obedience and self-humiliation entailed cosmic exaltation (vv.9–11), the ethical call “have this mind as he did” (v.5) is not trivial morality but participation in the redemptive-historical movement. The cosmic language reinforces the ethical argument; it does not replace it.

Moreover, the cosmic language is Socinianly not the expression of divine equality of essence but the expression of authority bestowed by God. Christ is endowed with the “name above every name” — that is, with the highest conceivable standing of conferral. This authority reaches universally: heavenly, earthly, subterranean beings bow the knee before the one to whom God has handed over the cosmic mediator-standing (cf. Matt 28:18: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”). The universal reach follows from the bestowal, not from eternal essence-unity.

The hermeneutical point: Paul argues not despite but because of the cosmic language to humility. If the one endowed with cosmic authority has gone the way of self-humiliation, then how much more must the believers, who stand without such authority, walk in humility. The rhetorical model is one of “how much more”: if the highest empties himself, then so too the smaller. That in turn only works if Christ really stood in the highest missional standing — but that is missional standing, not identity of essence.

Objection 5: If Christ did not exist pre-incarnationally, what did he “lay aside”? What was there to “empty”? The Socinian reading empties the text of content.

Socinian answer: the movement of the hymn is not between pre-existent deity and incarnated humanity, but between the earthly missional standing of God’s envoy and obedient self-giving unto death on the cross. From the beginning of his ministry Jesus stood in the highest conceivable missional authority: he worked miracles (Acts 2:22), forgave sins (Mark 2:10), taught with authority (Matt 7:29), was Son of God by conception of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35) and by anointing at the act of baptism (Acts 10:38). This standing is his morphê theou.

What did he “lay aside”? He did not use his status as a shield. He did not lift himself out of suffering by demonstrations of authority. He did not expose himself to the worship which would have befitted him in his missional standing (cf. John 6:15: he withdrew when they wanted to make him king). He chose the way into shame, into the hatred of the world, into death on the cross — although as God’s authorized representative he could at any time have acted differently. That is the self-emptying: renunciation of status-securing, of recognition, of self-protection.

In the Socinian reading the text does not become empty but theologically coherent: the movement is the ethically and rhetorically effective movement from “you would have had every right to preserve your standing” to “and yet you gave it away.” This movement is imitable for Christians (v.5!) — whereas the ontological movement of an eternal Logos into human nature is categorically not imitable. If the ethical exemplary function (v.5) gives the key to interpretation, then Christ’s movement must be read as ethically imitable — that is, as renunciation of status, not as transformation of essence.

Objection 6: The Church Fathers and the Council of Chalcedon (451) interpreted Phil 2:6–7 in a two-natures key. A Socinian interpretation rejects the whole early-church tradition.

Socinian answer: Sozzini and the Racovian Catechism do not reject the early-church tradition out of principled anti-traditionalism but on the basis of philological and hermeneutical examination. They show that the patristic reading of Phil 2 produces linguistic and logical difficulties which the text itself does not bear. The appeal to tradition is hermeneutically secondary: it holds only when the tradition meets the sense of the text. If it does not meet it, correction is required — that is the Reformation principle sola scriptura.

Added to this: the early church was in the Phil 2 exegesis not as unified as the objection suggests. The Antiochene school (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius) differentiated the ontological identification of morphê theou with the divine nature; Theodore reads morphê theou as the standing of the authorized agent of God. Later commentators such as Origen and Theodoret also know the reading in terms of mission and rank. The ontological narrowing is post-Nicene and reflects the metaphysical formations of the conciliar era — not the original Pauline sense.

Finally: contemporary historical-critical exegesis has corrected the patristic narrowing at several points. Scholars such as James Dunn, N.T. Wright, Larry Hurtado (even if they draw different dogmatic consequences) today recognize the Adam-Christ typology and the missional logic of the hymn. The Socinian reading is therefore not an antiquated dissenter but is philologically once again highly current.

Theological consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen, or contrast the reading set out here:

• Acts 2:36 — God has “made” Jesus “Lord and Christ”: the same installation-logic as Phil 2:9.
• John 20:17 — “my God and your God”: even after resurrection and exaltation the Father remains Christ’s God.
• John 17:5 — the glory “with you,” to be read from the plan before the foundation of the world.
• Colossians 1:15–17 — “image of the invisible God”: parallel language of rank and representation.
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 — one God, the Father; one Lord, Jesus Christ: strict asymmetry.
• 1 Timothy 2:5 — one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
• John 1:1–3 — Logos as plan/word of God, not as a second person.
• Isaiah 45:5 — “I am the LORD, and there is no other”: background of the bowing of the knee in Phil 2:10.
• 1 Corinthians 15:24 — the Son subjected to the Father, that God may be all in all.

Summary

Philippians 2:6–11 is linguistically, contextually, and theologically a redemptive-historical and ethical hymn about Christ’s way from the missional standing of the authorized envoy of God, through voluntary self-emptying and obedient death, to cosmic exaltation by God. The key concepts — morphê theou, harpagmos, ta isa theôi, ekénôsen, morphên doulou, hyperhypsoun, charizesthai, eis doxan theou patros — all carry the Socinian reading: language of rank and mission, not ontological statement of essence.

Sozzini’s central arguments remain compelling: what Christ emptied himself of cannot have been the nature of God, for God cannot empty himself of his nature. What God bestows on Christ (name, authority, cosmic standing), he cannot have eternally already possessed. What serves as an ethical model (v.5) must be ethically imitable — and that is renunciation of status, not transformation of essence. The parallel construction morphê theou / morphê doulou compels a unified meaning of the word; and the only NT parallel for morphê (Mark 16:12) clearly shows the meaning “outward mode of appearance.”

The theological climax of the hymn lies in v.11: to the glory of God the Father. All glorification of the Son happens to the glory of the Father. The Father remains the highest instance; Christ is the obedient man whose way God answers with cosmic authority. Thereby Phil 2:6–11 is not a proof-text for the ontological doctrine of the Trinity but a key text of the biblical Christology of humiliation-and-exaltation — one of the most central redemptive-historical patterns of movement in the New Testament. Christ is example in obedience and mediator between the one God, the Father, and human beings.