Rob, Dave said that you hadn’t provided any evidence that Philppians 2 is speaking of Christ’s pre-existence. Your outraged response was ‘But that’s exactly how I interpreted it!. You listed three points, which I can’t reproduce here because of space limitations:

There are at least three key points that I made in my brief discussion of Philippians 2 that support my view and that you completely side-stepped.

Leaving aside the fact that you pointed to your conclusions as your evidence, there are other issues.

* Paul is using Christ as an example of deference, but where does he say anything about this deference being from one equal to another?

* You claim Paul saying Christ existed in the ‘morphe’ of God means Christ existed in heaven before he was born, but that is not what Paul says. He simply says that Christ was in the ‘morphe’ of God, without saying ‘this was back in time when Jesus was in heaven, by the way’. You’ve brought an assumption to the text.

* You say’A human being cannot humble himself to become a human being because that is what he already and originally is’. But Dave doesn’t argue Paul juxtaposes ‘human being’ and ‘human being’. Paul juxtaposes the pair form of God/in the likeness of men and the form of a man, and the pair did not regard equality with God something to be grasped/emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant.

Rob,

In your second comment on Philippians 2, your only remark that was in any way directed to my discussion of the passage was this statement: “Rob, harpagmos is not a ‘notoriously difficult word.’” I confess that I found that statement amusing. Anyone familiar with the scholarship on Philippians 2:6 knows that harpagmon is perhaps the most controversial word in the NT! Cullmann, whom you quoted, observed that the words “did not consider equality with God harpagmon” were a “difficult phrase” (Christology of the New Testament, 177). Peter T. O’Brien refers to the word harpagmon as an “enigmatic expression” (The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Eerdmans, 1991], 212). Examples of such statements can easily be multiplied. N. T. Wright grouped as many as twenty different explanations into a still nearly unmanageable list of ten types of explanations (“Harpagmos and the Meaning of Philippians 2:5-11,” Journal of Theological Studies 37 [1986]: 321-52).

You’ve done a bait and switch here. Dave said that ‘harpagmos’ is not a difficult word in the context of defining its meaning. You cite a number of Trinitarians who find it incredibly difficult to exegete in Philippians 2:6. The 20 different explanations Wright lists are not lists of 20 different lexical definitions for ‘harpagmos’, they are lists of different explanations by Trinitarians as to how this word can possibly be reconciled in Philippians 2:6 with orthodox Christology.

The fact that the meaning of ‘harpagmos’ is non-controversial, yet Trinitarians find it exruciatingly difficult to reconcile its use in Philippians 2:6 with their theology, only exposes a weakness in Trinitarian theology.

Dave,

Rob, I think it’s important to tell our readers that the Greek word translated “world” here is “aion.” We saw earlier that this word does not mean “world” or “universe”; it means “age, generation” (Liddell-Scott-James), “space of time” (TDNT), “a long period of time, without reference to beginning or end” (BDAG).

That gives the impression that ‘world’, in the sense of ‘universe’ or ‘creation’, is not part of the lexical range of the word. Perhaps you only meant that it doesn’t have that meaning in Hebrews 1, but that is certainly not what your post sounds like.

Even if you did, that’s difficult to assert without substantiation, and it is opposed by standard lexical glosses. BDAG says ‘the world as a spatial concept, the world’, and glosses Hebrews 1:2 with this meaning (‘Created by God through the Son Hb 1:2′), and TDNT says ‘the αἰῶνες of Hb. 1:2 (διʼ οὗ καὶ ἐποίησεν τοὺς αἰῶνας) and 11:3 (κατηρτίσθαι τοὺς αἰῶνας ῥήματι θεοῦ) are to be understood spatially as “worlds” or “spheres.”’.

EDNT says ‘According to Hebrews God created the αἰῶνες (in 1:2 through the Son, in 11:3 by means of God’s word)’, and ‘ Formally the pl. is of Semitic origin; materially it designates the sequence of worlds, esp. perhaps the sequence of this world and the “world” to come’

LSJ has ‘this present world’, but places this definition under ‘space of time’, an ‘epoch, age’ in opposition to ‘the world to come’ (‘ὁ μέλλων’, citing Matthew 13:22), rather than as a reference to the material universe, and does not gloss Hebrews 1:2.

I believe Bowman is wrong to cite LSJ in support of his reading, but he has strong support for the physical creation being included in the lexical range of ‘aion’, and three standard lexicons gloss Hebrews 1:2 with this meaning.

So as to respect the character limit I have offered some brief responses to Rob Bowman’s points concerning my interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8 on my blog:

http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2010/05/trinitarians-without-colons-rob-bowman.html

[...] Rob Bowman on Jesus Christ, continued. David Burke on Jesus Christ, continued. [...]

THE DEITY OF CHRIST IN HEBREWS 1: THE CATENA

The Catena and the Davidic King

Dave,

You quote me as saying: “Not one of the proof texts in the catena in Hebrews 1 applied in reality to the Davidic king.” You then comment:

“This is a staggering assertion, flatly contradicted by Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian commentators alike. As with every other Messianic passage, the OT texts applied to Christ in Hebrews 1 have a dual application. Some parts are equally true of Jesus and the Davidic king; others can only apply to the Davidic king; still others only find their true completion in Christ.”

Your criticism here completely misses my point and yet in a way ends up agreeing with it. You admit that some parts of these OT passages “only find their true completion in Christ.” There you go. That was my point: the specific statements that Hebrews excerpts from those OT passages “only find their true completion in Christ.” Of course most (not all) of the passages (mostly from the Psalms) from which these quotations come in general were written about or addressed to the Jerusalem king, and much of what those Psalms say did have at least partial application to that OT individual. But the specific statements that Hebrews quotes did not have direct application to those kings or other types of the Messiah. The Psalms look forward to the coming of the Messiah, and often speak of the earthly, merely human Davidic king as a type of the Messiah—a figure who anticipates the reality that was to come, realized in Jesus. As I explained: “In effect, at least some of the things that the Psalms say in reference to the contemporary rulers in Jerusalem are really not directly about David or his dynastic heirs in the first half of the first millennium BC” (emphasis added). That means that some of what they said did apply to those men, at least in part. But the specific statements that Hebrews quotes did not apply to them, at least not fully. Hence, I wrote: “No Davidic king ruled over all the nations (Ps. 2:8), received worship from all the angels (Ps. 97:7), ruled forever (Ps. 45:6), made the universe (Ps. 102:25-27), or sat at God’s right hand as king and priest forever (Ps. 110:1, 4).” You ignored that statement and went to town knocking down a straw man argument, instead of wrestling with the point I actually made.

Hebrews 1:6

Your discussion of Hebrews 1:6 suffers from some confusion, both with regard to the text itself and to scholarly interpretations of the text. You correctly state that “commentators generally agree that it cites Deuteronomy 32:43 from the LXX.” Then you assert, “The referent here is not God but Israel, described elsewhere as God’s ‘firstborn’ (Exodus 4:22, ‘“Israel is my son, my firstborn”’).” As support for this interpretation of Deuteronomy 32:43, you quote Buchanan as saying:

“In Hebrew texts of Deut 32:43, the object of adoration was probably intended to be ‘his people’, with the ‘heavens’, ‘nations’, ‘gods’, ‘sons of God’, or ‘angels of God’ doing the worshipping. The LXX translator understood God to the object of worship throughout. He was probably dissatisfied with the theology that suggested any object of worship other than God…”

So, is Hebrews 1:6 dependent on the LXX or a Hebrew version of Deuteronomy 32:43? According to your quotation from Buchanan, the LXX “understood God to be the object of worship,” whereas the Hebrew versions probably understood “his people” to be the object of worship. Yet you agree that Hebrews 1:6 quotes the LXX, not one of those Hebrew versions.

You then assert, “By the author’s own rules, the use of ‘firstborn’ in Hebrews 1:6 can only be valid if the original referent is a Messianic type, and thus the reference is to Israel, not God Himself.” In support you quote Gareth Lee Cockerill as saying, “Just as God once brought His people into Canaan, now He has brought His firstborn Son into the true heavenly homeland and thus opened the way for His other sons to enter this homeland.” Cockerill does indeed suggest that the words introducing the quotation in Hebrews 1:6, “when he brings the firstborn into the inhabited world,” allude to God bringing Israel into the Promised Land. However, he does not agree that the reference of the quotation itself is to angels worshipping Israel. Here is how he interprets the first four lines of Deuteronomy 32:43 in the LXX:

“First, the heavens are called on to rejoice with God (line a), and the angels are commanded to worship Him (line b). Then the nations are called to rejoice with God’s people (line c), and His sons are told to strengthen themselves in Him (line d)” (Gareth Lee Cockerill, “Hebrews 1:6: Source and Significance,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 9 [1999]: 60).

As for how Hebrews 1:6 applies Deuteronomy 32:43, Cockerill concludes that the author of Hebrews 1:6 understood “him” in the quoted line to refer to the Son:

“Thus the writer to the Hebrews probably understood the first ‘him’ as referring to the Son and the next two as referring to God: ‘let all the angels of God worship him [the Son] for he [God] will avenge the blood of his [God’s] sons.’ Ellingworth says: ‘the reference to God in the LXX is less than explicit . . . and rapid changes of person in the passage may have been understood by the author of Hebrews, not as a peculiarity of Hebrew poetic style, but as implying a dialogue of divine persons in which the Father presents the Son to the angels, to be worshipped by them’” (Cockerill, 61 n. 24, quoting Ellingworth, Hebrews, 120).

Regarding O’Brien, on whom you are dependent for your quotation from Cockerill’s article, he also asserts that the statement that Hebrews 1:6 quotes in its original context referred to the worship of God. “In the original contexts of both Deuteronomy and the Psalms the texts constitute a summons to the worship and homage due to God” (O’Brien, Letter to the Hebrews, 71).

Hebrews 1:8

On Hebrews 1:8, it is only necessary to point out that what the NET Bible describes as “royal hyperbole” when the Psalmist addresses the Israelite king as “God” (Ps. 45:6) is no hyperbole in the context of Hebrews 1. The NET Bible footnote on Psalm 45:6, which you quoted, refers the reader to its note on Isaiah 9:6, where the editors comment that it also may be an instance of “royal hyperbole” (n. 19). That footnote then adds: “The New Testament indicates that the hyperbolic language (as in the case of the title ‘Mighty God’) is literally realized in the ultimate fulfillment of the prophecy.” This is consistent with the interpretation that I advanced, in which statements that were not literally applicable to the Israelite king are literally applied to the Son in Hebrews 1.

Hebrews 1:10-12

Finally, I must address your claim that Hebrews 1:10-12 is not identifying the Son as the maker of the universe in Psalm 102:25-27. To justify this claim, you argue that the lack of an introductory reference to the Son preceding the quotation suggests that he is not the subject of that quotation:

“Every other OT quotation has always been preceded by a phrase which points directly to the Son, either by mentioning him specifically, drawing upon a previous reference, or presenting a comparison.”

Your statement is incorrect, because the introductory phrase introducing the second quotation in verse 5 is simply “and again.” Furthermore, your argument overlooks the careful structure of the introductory formulae in the catena of quotations in Hebrews 1. The seven quotations are arranged in a literary structure called a chiasmus, with the introductory formulae marking the parallel lines of the chiasmus, as follows:

(A) For to which of the angels did He ever say (v. 5a)
— (B) And again (v. 5b)
— — (C) And again when He brings the Firstborn into the world, He says (v. 6)
— — — (D) And of the angels He says (v. 7)
— — (C’) But of the Son (vv. 8-9)
— (B’) And (vv. 10-12)
(A’) But to which of the angels has He ever said (v. 13)

Note that lines (A) and (A’) are parallel, using the words “to which of the angels.” Lines (B) and (B’) are also parallel, using the simplest introductory formula “and,” with “again” added in (B) as also in (C). Lines (C) and (C’) are parallel because they both use synonymous designations for Christ, “the Firstborn” and “the Son” (note that no nouns designating Christ appear in any of the other introductory lines). The use of “again” in both (B) and (C) advance the chiasmus forward and is dropped once the center line of the chiasmus, line (D), is reached. The center line (D) contains a quotation about the angels (“and of the angels he says”) in contrast to the surrounding quotations about the Son. Everyone admits, as they must, that the quotations in lines (A), (B), (C), (C’), and (A’) are about the Son. But then, given the literary arrangement of the catena into this chiasmus, we must acknowledge that the quotation in line (B’), like the one in line (B), is also about the Son. The colorless introductory formula “and” (kai) in verse 10 is exactly parallel to the formula in verse 5 except for the use of “again” (palin), which is also used in verse 6 and is evidently, as I have said, advancing the top half of the chiasmus forward toward the center line.

Thus, the introductory formula in verse 10 does not suggest that the quotation refers to someone other than the Son. Quite the opposite is true: the place and wording of the formula in the chiasmic structure of the catena confirms that the quotation refers to the Son.

If further confirmation is needed that verses 10-12 refer to the Son, one must consider the fact that the quotations in verses 5-13 are scriptural proof texts for the Christological affirmations in the exordium in verses 1-4. You can see a table that sets out the correlations between the affirmations and the proof texts in Putting Jesus in His Place (192). The affirmation that God has spoken to us in his Son (vv. 1-2) is backed up with two quotations calling the Messiah (typified by the Davidic king) God’s “Son” (vv. 4-5). The affirmation that the Son is heir of all things (v. 2) is backed up with the quotation that the Firstborn (= heir) is to be worshipped by all God’s angels (v. 6). The affirmations that God made the worlds (or ages) through the Son, that the Son is exactly like God in nature, and that the Son upholds the universe (vv. 2-3), are backed up with the quotation from Psalm 102:25. Finally, the affirmation that the Son sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (v. 3) is backed up with the quotation from Psalm 110:1 (v. 13). For a similar analysis, see James W. Thompson, Hebrews, Paideia Commentaries on the NT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 52. These correlations clearly support the conclusion that the author’s quotation of Psalm 102:25-27 is meant to support the affirmation that the worlds or ages were made through the Son.

These considerations show that the quotation in 1:10-12 is fully integrated into the author’s argument in Hebrews 1 if the referent of the quotation is the Son. If, on the other hand, we suppose that the referent is the Father, the quotation is simply hanging in the passage with no purpose or function in the argument of the passage. This explains why the vast majority of scholars, even those who find the idea theologically problematic, agree that the author is applying Psalm 102:25-27 to the Son.

But if what Hebrews is saying is true—if the Son made heaven and earth, if he providentially sustains the universe and moves it forward toward its consummation by his own divinely powerful word, and if the angels worship him—then the Son is preexistent, eternal Deity, not merely a man exalted to divine status.

THE DEITY OF CHRIST IN HEBREWS 1: THE EXORDIUM

Dave,

You begin your response to my treatment of Hebrews 1 with an odd criticism:

“I find it interesting that you cite Hebrews 1:1-13 as your text and then completely ignore verse 1. Perhaps it’s because you’re not sure how to deal with this verse, which clearly states that God formerly spoke to people through His prophets, but has spoken through His Son ‘in these last days.’ Such a statement has obvious implications for the concept of Jesus’ pre-existence and undermines the popular claim that OT angelic theophanies were actually appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ.”

You seem to reach for arguments from silence a lot, Dave. I said nothing specifically about verse 1 because I had a lot of ground to cover and little room to cover it. Verse 1 poses absolutely no problem for my Christology. God spoke in the past in the prophets; in these last days he has spoken to us in the Son. This statement has no implications, obvious or otherwise, as to when the Son began to exist. Nor does this statement mean that the Son could not have spoken as the preincarnate angel of the LORD. By your reasoning, the order is rigidly (1) prophets and no Son, (2) Son and no prophets. But we know, as it turns out, that there were prophets after the Son came (Acts 11:27; 13:1; 15:32; 21:10; 1 Cor. 12:28-29; 14:29, 32, 37; Eph. 2:20; 3:5; 4:11). The author’s point is simply that the revelation that came through the Son “in these last days” represents the climax, the high point, of the history of revelation.

You wrote:

“Despite this, you appear to approach the text with your usual preconception of pre-existence, as you did with Philippians 2.”

Dave, this refrain is getting annoying. Both of us have our interpretive paradigms; that is not the issue. Your constant criticism that I “presuppose” Christ’s preexistence, or that this is merely a “preconception” of mine, is a bit of debating rhetoric, not a substantive argument.

You claimed that you “could accept [my] entire excursus on Hebrews 1 and still reject Trinitarianism,” that is, by adopting Arianism in place of your Unitarianism. Well, in some respects that might represent a bit of progress, but your statement is false. Arians do not admit that the Son sustains the universe by his own powerful word (v. 3), that the angels give the Son the same worship due God (v. 6), that the Son’s designation as “God” has its full, usual biblical sense (v. 8), or that the Son is the eternal Lord who made heaven and earth (vv. 10-12). These are key conclusions for which I argued in my treatment of Hebrews 1, and they are no more acceptable to Arians than they are to Unitarians.

You argue that the use of aiōn in Hebrews 1:2 shows that it is not referring to the creation of the world. Rather, “Hebrews 1:2b is part of the ‘new creation’ schema that we find in places like Colossians 1 and II Peter 3. It tells us that the era of the new creation was itself created through Christ; that is, made possible through his sacrificial death.” Unfortunately, you cited not a single text in which this usage appears, nor a single scholarly reference to back it up. The only secondary source that you did cite (Vincent) disagrees with your interpretation of Hebrews 1:2, which you chalk up to “his preconceptions” as a “Trinitarian”! You are quick to cite lexicons and other reference works where you think it suits your purpose; where are these citations here? Here are a few that I have handy at the moment:

• Friberg: “plural, as a spatial concept, of the creation as having a beginning and moving forward through long but limited time universe, world (He 1.2; 9.26; 11.3)”
• United Bible Societies: “age; world order; eternity”
• Louw-Nida: “always occurring in the plural): the universe, perhaps with some associated meaning of ‘eon’ or ‘age’ in the sense of the transitory nature of the universe (but this is doubtful in the contexts of He 1.2 and .3) – ‘universe.’ di’ hou kai epoiēsen tous aiōnas ‘through whom (God) made the universe’ He .2. In He 1.2 it may be essential in a number of languages to translate ‘he is the one through whom God created everything,’ though in some instances a more idiomatic and satisfactory way of rendering the meaning would involve a phrase such as ‘… created both the earth and the sky’ or ‘… the heavens and the earth.’”
• Thayer: “by metonymy of the container for the contained, hoi aiōnes denotes the worlds, the universe, i. e. the aggregate of things contained in time”

Notice that this use of the word has to do especially with the plural form, hoi aiōnes (in Heb. 1:2, the accusative case, tous aiōnas). I am not aware of any recent commentator or exegete that does not agree that the term in this context refers to the original creation. Nor can I see any plausible way that “through whom also he made the ages” can mean “through whom he brought about the (redemptive) age of the new creation.” If you wish to construe the term in purely temporal terms, its meaning will be “the ages” or “the eons” rather than “the world(s),” but the conclusion will be the same: the whole order of creation, “the ages,” were created through the Son. Vincent’s translation, which you rejected, is quite accurate. The Jewish worldview divided history broadly into two ages (with some subdivisions possible): the present age, and the age to come. The unqualified expression “the ages” in Jewish usage would refer to the totality of the ages of creation. Thus, to draw a connection to your first objection, we may understand Hebrews to affirm that the “age” in which prophets dominated divine revelation (v. 1), along with all other “ages,” were created through the Son. This means, of course, that he was already there.

The cosmic scope of the text’s affirmations is evident from the clauses that surround the one concerning the making of the aiōnes. The Son, whom God appointed “heir of all things [pantōn]” (v. 2), “upholds all things [ta panta] by the word of his power” (v. 3). None of this language is in any way restricted or narrowed to refer to the “new creation”; it is all standard Jewish rhetorical language for creation itself, the cosmos. Peter T. O’Brien’s new commentary (which you quoted on another point) draws the connection in this way: “The universe of time and space has always belonged to the Son since it was through his agency that it came into being. As the exalted Son and heir he rules over what was created through him in the beginning” (The Letter to the Hebrews, Pillar NT Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010], 53).

The clause “and upholds all things by the word of his power” is an especially potent affirmation of the Son’s deity. As I pointed out in my discussion of this passage, the writer says that the Son does this by his word, not by the word of his Father. As to the meaning of this action, the late Hugh W. Montefiore, a Jewish Christian scholar, had this comment: “What is here being ascribed to the Son is the providential government of the universe, which is the function of God Himself” (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [New York: Harper & Row, 1964], 35). Your statement that Christ “sustains the new creation era” is not so much wrong as it is weak and incomplete. The writer says that the Son sustains and bears along “all things”; he is providentially guiding history toward its redemptive, new-creation consummation by his own powerful, creative fiat.

Sounds like God to me.

[...] Rob Bowman has been giving Dave Burke.  I just read Rob’s latest round of comments (start here and keep going) and thought, “Wow!  It’s like watching Mayweather/Mosley or [...]

PHILIPPIANS 2:3-11

Dave,

Your five-part series of comments on Philippians 2:3-11 is really not a rebuttal to my treatment of the passage in the above post. Only 148 words of the 1,193 words in your first comment, regarding “form of God” in verse 6, even pretend to address anything I wrote. The rest of that comment criticizes a position I did not take. Only 8 of the 1,318 words in your second comment, regarding the Greek word harpagmon, have anything to do with my treatment of the passage! In your third comment, 167 words of the comment’s 753 words purport to be addressed to my position, but in fact (as I shall explain below) completely ignore what I actually wrote. The rest of that third comment does not even pretend to address anything I wrote. Your fourth comment, consisting of 708 words, on “kenosis,” actually ignores me entirely! Finally, about 370 words of the 1,428 words in your fifth post, regarding Christ’s being in the form of a servant and his exaltation, do address something I wrote.

In sum, less than 700 words of the 5,400 words in your five-part series of comments on Philippians 2 even pretend to engage anything I wrote. If we remove those 700 words, what we find is a multi-part examination from you of Philippians 2 that critiques other people’s views, not my view. It appears that you wrote something on Philippians 2 and decided to use it as a “rebuttal” to my argument, adding a few comments here or there directed at something I said (and in a couple of instances something I did not say!) to make it appear that you were rebutting my argument.

“Form of God”

Your comments completely ignored what I wrote about verses 3-5, which, as I clearly explained, is the key to my interpretation of verses 6-11. Instead, you jumped immediately to verse 6. That alone disqualifies your series of posts as a rebuttal to my argument.

In your first comment, you focused on the expression “form of God” (morphē theou), arguing at length that it does not mean the essence or nature of God; instead, you argued, morphē must mean “appearance.” In my treatment of the passage, I had explained that my interpretation does not depend on choosing definitely between “nature” and “appearance” as the meaning of morphē in this context. Your one and only criticism of my argument in this comment was that I had failed to come down decisively on one explanation or the other. I don’t think there was anything wrong with me framing the argument to show that it didn’t matter which way we understand morphē, but I am happy to tell you what I think. I actually tend to agree with Strimple, Decker, and other recent exegetes who conclude that the meaning of morphē is “appearance.”

If we simply accept this conclusion without qualification, it does not undermine my interpretation at all. Christ existed in the outward appearance of God (v. 6) but humbly took on the outward appearance of a servant (v. 7). If we set aside the “nature” interpretation of morphē, it actually simplifies the reading of the passage from an orthodox theological perspective: Christ could have come in the blazing glorious appearance of deity that was properly his, but he chose to come in the humble, self-effacing appearance of a lowly servant. He exchanged the robes of deity for the loin cloth of the slave. He stripped off his outer garments of divine glory and wrapped himself in the towel of a human servant to wash our feet. Not only is this way of reading the text consistent with my position, it really demands it.

By contrast, interpreting morphē consistently to mean “appearance” will not fit the Unitarian interpretation. Christ “existed in the appearance of God…but emptied himself, taking the appearance of a servant.” How does this fit Unitarian Christology? You don’t think it does, either, which is why, after all the argument to show that morphē means “appearance,” you assert that what this really means is “image” (citing Cullmann, whose views on what this means in context you do not mention and certainly do not accept). Well, then, if you want to take this view, then you must be consistent: Christ “existed in the image of God…but emptied himself, taking the image of a servant.” This would appear to mean that Christ exchanged the image of God for the image of a servant. So, did Christ stop existing in God’s image? When did he do that?

By the way, I agree with Strimple, whom you quoted to refute a claim I did not make. He wrote: “The argument that because morphē translates the Aramaic [TSELEM] in Daniel 3:19, it is synonymous with eikōn (image) which translates the Hebrew [TSELEM] in Genesis 1:26—and therefore Christ being in the form of God equals Adam (and all men) being in the image of God—is just too facile” (“Philippians 2:5-11 in Recent Studies,” Westminster Theological Journal 41 [1979]: 260-61). More recent studies have also seriously undermined this popular argument. See, for example, Dave Steenburg, “The Case against the Synonymity of morphē and eikōn,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 34 (1988): 77-86; Gerald F. Hawthorne, “In the Form of God and Equal with God (Philippians 2:6),” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, ed. Ralph P. Martin and Brian J. Dodds (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), 96-110.

I’m content that the orthodox belief that Christ preexisted in heaven as God, existing in God’s glorious appearance, before coming to earth as the Servant, makes far better sense of the passage than your Unitarian reading.

“Did not consider equality with God harpagmon”

In your second comment on Philippians 2, your only remark that was in any way directed to my discussion of the passage was this statement: “Rob, harpagmos is not a ‘notoriously difficult word.’” I confess that I found that statement amusing. Anyone familiar with the scholarship on Philippians 2:6 knows that harpagmon is perhaps the most controversial word in the NT! Cullmann, whom you quoted, observed that the words “did not consider equality with God harpagmon” were a “difficult phrase” (Christology of the New Testament, 177). Peter T. O’Brien refers to the word harpagmon as an “enigmatic expression” (The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Eerdmans, 1991], 212). Examples of such statements can easily be multiplied. N. T. Wright grouped as many as twenty different explanations into a still nearly unmanageable list of ten types of explanations (“Harpagmos and the Meaning of Philippians 2:5-11,” Journal of Theological Studies 37 [1986]: 321-52).

If you’re going to argue about the meaning of the word and cite scholarly reference works, you simply cannot do this adequately without at least mentioning the now dominant interpretation of harpagmon as “something to be exploited” (Phil. 2:6 NRSV) and the work of such scholars as Wright and Roy W. Hoover (“The HARPAGMOS Enigma: A Philological Solution,” Harvard Theological Review 64 [1971]: 95-119). But you don’t do this, despite the fact that you cite scholars who mention these things. I can only conclude that you omitted any reference to this information because it spoils your claim that harpagmon is a non-controversial word that indisputably means that Christ did not have equality with God and did not try to get it.

Christ v. Adam in Philippians 2

In the remainder of your second comment on Philippians 2, you argue strenuously for an “Adam Christology” approach to the passage that would understand it to mean that Jesus was, in effect, a better man than Adam. You admit, though, that some scholars agree that Philippians 2 implicitly contrasts Christ with Adam while maintaining that it does so in a way that still means that Christ preexisted his human life. In other words, that the passage implicitly contrasts Christ and Adam does not settle the question of whether Christ is a preexistent divine person. Pauline scholar Lincoln D. Hurst makes the following important observation: “The central issue to be decided is whether the act of Adam is contrasted with the act of the heavenly Christ or with that of the human Jesus” (“Christ, Adam, and Preexistence Revisited,” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, ed. Martin and Dodd, 84).

The traditional understanding has been stated this way: “Adam, who grasped at a dignity to which he had not right, should be contrasted with Christ, who renounced a status to which he had every right” (G. B. Caird, Paul’s Letters from Prison [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976], 121, quoted in Hurst, “Christ, Adam, and Preexistence Revisited,” 84). As New Testament scholar N. T. Wright put it: “Adam, in arrogance, thought to become like God: Christ, in humility, became man” (“Harpagmos and the Meaning of Philippians 2:5-11,” 348).

You don’t offer any exegetical evidence against this understanding of Philippians 2. Instead, you offer a theological objection:

“Philippians 2 is written within the context of Adam Christology, demonstrating that the saving power of Christ’s death is predicated upon his unqualified humanity, thereby precluding the concept of deity. A mortal man brought sin and death into the world; a mortal man was therefore required to bring salvation. Jesus had to be a genuine human being in order to repair the damage of Adam’s sin by succeeding where he had failed. This could not be achieved by a divine saviour, for the atonement is impossible if Jesus is essentially different from Adam.”

This theological objection assumes what you are supposed to be proving. What if Philippians 2 actually teaches that the man who saves us is a divine person who became a man for that very purpose? Again, the contrast between Adam and Christ does not disprove this claim.

The Preexistent Christ in Philippians 2

Two or three times in your third comment on Philippians 2, you allege that I merely presuppose or assume that the passage teaches that Christ is preexistent, rather than presenting any evidence for this conclusion. For example, you wrote:

“Rob, where is your evidence that Philippians 2 is speaking of a pre-existent Christ? I have to ask, because you didn’t present any. You simply asserted it. Our readers should realise that you begin with this assumption simply because it suits your Christology, and not because it accurately reflects the words of Paul.”

Dave, this is so outrageously false that I would be quite justified in simply ignoring everything you said about Philippians 2. Again, your 5,400 words of argumentation about this passage almost completely ignored my presentation and did completely ignore the exegetical arguments I gave for my interpretation.

There are at least three key points that I made in my brief discussion of Philippians 2 that support my view and that you completely side-stepped. (1) Paul is using Christ’s deference to God the Father as the ultimate illustration of a person treating an equal as someone more important than himself (vv. 3-5). This makes perfect sense if Christ is by rights equal with God but makes no sense if Christ is by rights not equal with God. (2) Christ existed in God’s form but took the form of a servant (vv. 6-7). I have already explained why this means that Christ existed in heaven in the glorious appearance of God but graciously took on the humble appearance of God’s servant. (3) Christ “emptied himself,” that is, humbly gave of himself, by “becoming in the likeness of human beings,” and he found himself in outward appearance as a man (v. 7). As I put it, “A human being cannot humble himself to become a human being because that is what he already and originally is. What Paul says here, then, must refer to Christ’s decision before the Incarnation to become a human being.” You failed to engage any of these arguments, and instead falsely claimed that I “didn’t present any” evidence for my view. Shame on you!

In your fifth comment (your fourth comment completely ignored me!), you falsely claimed that I “equate ‘form of a servant’ with ‘human nature.’” No, becoming human was simply part of what was involved in Christ taking on the “form of a servant.” That “form” was fully realized in Christ not only becoming a man but in suffering for our sins in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering “servant of the LORD” (Isa. 52:13-53:12). But Paul clearly indicates that becoming a man was part of what was involved: “he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of human beings” (v. 7).

The rest of your fifth comment ignores my treatment of Philippians 2, so I will not bother with a point-by-point response to that material. Recent scholarship on Philippians 2 has sharply trended in the direction I have defended. Even Dunn, who denies that Paul taught the preexistence of Christ, admitted in an essay published in 1998 that it is “almost inevitable” that the passage should be understood as speaking of the preexistent Christ choosing to become a man. According to Dunn, though, what Paul meant was that “preexistent” Wisdom became embodied in the human person of Christ (James D. G. Dunn, “Christ, Adam, and Preexistence,” in Where Christology Began: Essays on Philippians 2, ed. Martin and Dodd, 78-79). The problem, of course, is that Paul says that Christ “existed in God’s form” (v. 6) and that it was Christ who took a slave’s form, was born in human likeness, and found himself to be a human being (v. 7). Thus, combining “Adam Christology” with “Wisdom Christology,” though creative, cannot eliminate the evidence from Philippians 2 that Paul understood Christ to be a preexistent divine person.

ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST

Dave,

You wrote:

“The second phase of your argument asserts that Jesus is God because he created the world, an idea you derive from I Corinthians 8:6b (‘and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live’).”

Actually, this is not a “second phase” of an argument “that Jesus is God,” but rather the third of four arguments that “one Lord” in 1 Corinthians 8:6 identifies Jesus as the “one Lord” of the Shema. You wrote:

“Strangely, you link this with Romans 11:36, which does not refer to Jesus and provides two additional qualifiers (“from him… to him”) applied exclusively to the Father.”

There is nothing “strange” about this comparison. I didn’t claim that Romans 11:36 refers to Jesus. I claimed that both texts speak about “all things” being “from” and “through” someone—in Romans 11:36, God. Comparing 1 Corinthians 8:6 to Romans 11:36 is standard fare in the exegetical commentaries.

The statement that all things are “to him” (or “for him,” eis auton) is not something that Paul says exclusively about the Father. He says these very words also about Christ (Col. 1:16). It might help to set out in one place all of the relevant texts:

God, Rom. 11:36—“for from him [ex autou ] and through him [di’ autou] and for him [eis auton] are all things [ta panta]”
God, Acts 17:28—“For in him [en autō] we live and move and exist”
The Father, 1 Cor. 8:6a—“from [ex] whom are all things [ta panta] and we for him [eis auton]”
The Father, Heb. 2:10—“because of whom [di’ hon] are all things [ta panta] and through whom [di’ hou] are all things [ta panta]”
Christ, 1 Cor 8:6b—“through [di’] whom are all things [ta panta] and we through him [di’ autou]”
The Logos, John 1:3—“All things [panta] came into being through him [di’ autou]”
The Son, Col. 1:16—“For in him [en autō] were created all things [ta panta]…all things [ta panta] have been created through him [di’ autou] and for him [eis auton]”
The Son, Heb. 1:2—“through whom [di’ hou] also he made the ages”

What we see here is that both Paul and Hebrews can say that all things were created “through” God (Rom. 11:36), specifically the Father (Heb. 2:10), and that all things were created “through” the Son (Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2), Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 8:6b). Paul can also say that all things are “for” (eis) God (Rom. 11:36), specifically the Father (1 Cor. 8:6a), and that all things are “for” (eis) the Son (Col. 1:16).

You wrote:

“The essential qualifier (‘from him’) appears in I Corinthians 8:6, but here again it is applied exclusively to the Father, demonstrating that He alone is the source of creation.”

If the words “from him” apply exclusively to the Father and therefore not to Christ, then by that same reasoning the words “through whom” could not apply to the Father but must apply only to Christ. But both Paul and Hebrews use these words “through him” for the Father. Therefore, your claim that the words “from him” apply exclusively to the Father cannot stand.

You wrote:

“Even if we concluded that the Son is described as God’s agent of creation, this would still not make Jesus God; at the very most, it supports Arianism.”

Since all things exist “through” the Father without making him a mere agent, the same can be said about the Son. If the Son was God’s agent in creation, then, in light of Isaiah 44:24, he must be Yahweh. Of course, if the Son participated in any way in the making of all things, Unitarianism is dead.

You argued that Christ’s role in 1 Corinthians 8:6, “through whom are all things,” refers to the new creation and not to the original creation of the universe. This idea cannot be extracted from the text of 1 Corinthians; it must be read into the text, which is why to support it you had to go to verses like John 3:7 and Isaiah 66:2. Your main attempt to establish this interpretation depends on a particular reading of Colossians 1:16 that is itself at best debatable. Specifically, your view is that all of Colossians 1:15-20 is about the “new creation” effected by Christ’s redemptive work. You wrote:

“Colossians 1 is a particularly useful chapter, since it establishes the context of the new creation very strongly, using precisely the type of language that we would expect to find. This language do not match the old creation, and it is further qualified by the terms of reference. How can the literal creation be created ‘in’ Christ? What would that even mean? Was the sun created ‘in’ Jesus? Were the animals created ‘through’ him? Were the plants created ‘for’ him? On what day were ‘thrones’, ‘dominions’, ‘principalities’ and ‘powers’ created ‘in’ Jesus? Why aren’t they mentioned in Genesis? Why are they mentioned here at all? What does Trinitarianism say that they are? I’ve never received a consistent reply to this question.”

Perhaps you should answer some of your own questions first, before demanding that Trinitarians answer them. Just what do you think these thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers are, and how are they created for the first time as part of the new creation?

Paul says in Acts 17:28 that all people live, move, and exist “in” God. He is speaking here in the context of creation (vv. 24-27), so his statement here appears to mean that as a result of creation all of us have our existence in some sense “in” God. If Paul can say this about the original creation in reference to God, I don’t see why he cannot use similar language in reference to Christ’s role in the original creation.

In any case, the parallel (not contrast) in 1 Corinthians 8:6 between “all things” being “from” and “for” the Father and “all things” being “through” Christ really requires that “all things” has the same meaning in both cases. Furthermore, the parallel confessions about the Logos in John 1:3, 10 (“all things came into being through him”) and about the Son in Hebrews 1:2 (“whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages”) shows that this is stock NT Christian language for the role of Jesus Christ in the original creation.