The Philippian Hymn

Philippians 2:5 through 11 contains one of the densest Christological passages in the entire New Testament. The passage is often treated as an ancient Christian hymn that Paul is quoting or adapting, because it has poetic structure, balanced parallelism, and high Christological content. Whatever its origin, the passage has been read for two thousand years as a statement about who Christ is.

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:5-11, KJV)

The traditional reading of this passage, standard in Trinitarian theology, goes something like this. Christ pre-existed in the "form of God" (morphē theou), which is taken to mean the eternal divine state. He did not consider his equality with God something to be grasped or exploited. He voluntarily emptied himself (the "kenosis"), took on human form, and was born as a man. He humbled himself further by dying on the cross. Because of this voluntary self-emptying, God exalted him above all names.

This reading makes the passage a statement about the pre-existence, voluntary incarnation, and post-resurrection exaltation of a divine Christ.

Biblical Unitarian scholarship has developed a different reading, primarily through engagement with James D. G. Dunn (Christology in the Making, 1980) and with the broader Adam-Christology tradition. The passage can be read, just as coherently, as a statement about the second Adam who did not grasp at divinity the way the first Adam did, and who was exalted precisely because of his humble obedience as a human being.

This deep dive walks through the exegesis.

The harpagmos question

The crux of the interpretation is what Paul means by harpagmon in verse 6. The Greek phrase is ouch harpagmon hēgēsato to einai isa theō. Literally: "did not consider [it] harpagmon to be equal with God."

Harpagmos (from the verb harpazō, "to seize" or "to snatch") has a range of meanings. It can mean:

• An act of grasping or seizing something one does not have (active sense)
• Something that is held fast, a possession already grasped (passive sense)
• A prize to be grasped at (goal sense)

The English translations divide. Some render it as "grasped" or "held onto" (treating "equality with God" as something Christ had and did not cling to). Others render it as "snatched at" or "exploited" (treating "equality with God" as something Christ could have seized but did not).

The grammatical and lexical work on harpagmos is substantial. Roy W. Hoover's 1971 Harvard Theological Review article ("The Harpagmos Enigma: A Philological Solution") examined the Greek literature and concluded that the noun harpagmos functions idiomatically in the phrase hēgēsato harpagmon. Hoover argued that harpagmon hēgeisthai means "to regard [something] as a matter for exploitation" or "to treat [something] as a prize to be used for one's own advantage."

This reading is significant because it allows the interpretation of Philippians 2:6 to go either way on the pre-existence question. If Christ had equality with God (a pre-existent divine status), the passage says he did not exploit it. If Christ did not have equality with God but could have grasped at it (as the first Adam did), the passage says he did not grasp. The Greek is idiomatic enough that both readings are grammatically defensible.

The Adam-Christology reading

The Biblical Unitarian case draws primarily on the Adam-Christology that Paul develops elsewhere in his letters. In Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49, Paul treats Christ as the "last Adam" or "second Adam" who reverses what the first Adam did. Paul's Christology is consistently Adamic: Christ is the new humanity, the representative of a restored creation, the man through whom God is undoing the effects of the Fall.

Read Philippians 2:6-11 through the Adam-Christology framework, and a specific reading emerges.

"Being in the form of God" (en morphē theou hyparchōn). Adam was created in the "image" (Greek: eikōn in LXX Genesis 1:26-27) and "likeness" of God. The Septuagint uses morphē in related passages describing the divine likeness of humanity. Christ, as the second Adam, is in the form of God in the same sense Adam was: as the true human, the one who bears God's image rightly. This is not a statement about pre-existent divine nature; it is a statement about the true humanness that Christ embodies as the new Adam.

"Thought it not harpagmon to be equal with God." The first Adam was told he could become "like God" by eating from the tree (Genesis 3:5: "ye shall be as gods"). Adam grasped at this divinity. He seized it. He reached for what was not given. Christ, as the second Adam, did not grasp. He was in the form of God (rightly image-bearing) but did not consider equality with God something to be seized for his own advantage. Where Adam grasped, Christ did not grasp.

"Made himself of no reputation, took the form of a servant." Christ emptied himself (ekenōsen heauton) not by laying aside pre-existent divine attributes, but by embracing the servant form that Adam refused. Adam was called to serve as God's representative in the garden; Adam instead grasped at godhood. Christ, as the true Adam, embraced the servant form. The "emptying" is not a subtraction from a pre-existent divine state; it is the choice to live as a true servant, which the first Adam refused to do.

"Was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man." The repetition is emphatic. Christ is a human being. The Adam-Christology is explicit: Christ is the new humanity, the true Adam, the one who fulfills the human vocation that the first Adam failed.

"Humbled himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." Where the first Adam refused obedience (eating what he was told not to eat), the second Adam embraced obedience to the point of death. Adam's disobedience brought death into the world; Christ's obedience even unto death was the reversal.

"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him." The exaltation is the Father's vindication of the true Adam. Because Christ did not grasp but humbled himself, God has exalted him above all names. This is exactly what Acts 2:36 says: "God has made him both Lord and Christ." The exaltation is a gift from the Father to the obedient Messiah.

"Every knee should bow... every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." The Pauline signature. The Son is confessed as Lord, but the confession is "to the glory of God the Father." The Father remains the one to whom glory is ultimately directed. The Son is exalted as Lord, but the Lord's exaltation serves the Father's glory.

On the Adam-Christology reading, the hymn tells the story of the second Adam who refused what the first Adam grasped, who lived as a true servant unto death, and who was exalted by the Father precisely because of his humble obedience as a human being. The hymn does not require the pre-existence of a divine Christ. It requires the obedience of a human Messiah who undid what the first Adam did.

James Dunn's contribution

James D. G. Dunn, a major British New Testament scholar (Durham, not a Biblical Unitarian, but careful enough to be worth engaging), argued for the Adam-Christology reading of Philippians 2 in his Christology in the Making (1980, with a second edition in 1989 adding a significant response to critics). Dunn's argument can be summarized.

First, the Adam-Christology framework runs throughout Paul's letters. Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 15, and 2 Corinthians 4 all use Adamic categories for Christ. If Philippians 2 is Pauline in theology, the Adamic reading is the default.

Second, the specific vocabulary of Philippians 2 (morphē, eikōn, homoiōma, schēma) resonates with the LXX Genesis 1-3 Adamic vocabulary. Paul is drawing on a rich Adamic semantic field.

Third, the choice-and-exaltation structure of the hymn (Christ chose humble obedience; God responded with exaltation) fits the Adam-Christology narrative shape much more naturally than it fits a pre-existence-descent narrative. A pre-existent divine Christ would not need to be exalted as a response to his obedience; he would already have the exalted status. The exaltation makes sense if the exalted status is genuinely new, granted to Christ as the reward for his faithful obedience as the second Adam.

Fourth, the Adamic reading fits the moral purpose of the passage. Paul is exhorting the Philippians to have the mind of Christ, to live humbly in service of each other. The pre-existence reading makes Christ's example inimitable (no one else can voluntarily empty themselves from divinity). The Adam-Christology reading makes Christ's example paradigmatic (the Philippians can follow Christ in refusing to grasp and in embracing humble service).

Dunn's work has been substantially engaged by Trinitarian scholars. Some have accepted key elements of his argument; others have argued the passage still requires pre-existence. The engagement has produced a rich secondary literature. What is important for Biblical Unitarianism is that the Adam-Christology reading is a serious mainstream academic position, not a fringe Biblical Unitarian novelty. It has been defended by non-Unitarian scholars on grounds of textual and contextual exegesis.

N.T. Wright's kenotic Trinitarianism

N.T. Wright has engaged Philippians 2 extensively, notably in his The Climax of the Covenant (1991). Wright holds a form of Trinitarian theology but reads Philippians 2 with significant Adam-Christology overtones. Wright argues that Christ's "emptying" is his refusal to exploit his divine status, which he genuinely had, in order to fulfill the Adamic vocation as the true human.

Wright's reading is more Trinitarian than Dunn's in that it retains pre-existence. It is more Adamic than traditional Trinitarian readings in that it takes the Adam-Christology seriously and reads the "emptying" as the embrace of humanness rather than the laying aside of divinity.

For Biblical Unitarians, Wright's engagement is instructive. It shows that the Adam-Christology framework is compatible with various forms of Christology. A Trinitarian can adopt Adamic overtones. A Biblical Unitarian can go further and read the hymn as fully Adamic without pre-existence.

The question between Wright's reading and the Biblical Unitarian reading is whether the "form of God" language requires pre-existent divine status. Wright argues it does. Dunn argues it does not; the "form of God" can be the true image-bearing humanness that Adam was created for. The Biblical Unitarian follows Dunn on this.

Gordon Fee and the conservative evangelical reading

Gordon Fee, a respected evangelical New Testament scholar, has defended the pre-existence reading of Philippians 2 in his Philippians commentary (NICNT, 1995). Fee's argument is representative of careful conservative evangelical scholarship.

Fee grants that Adam-Christology is present in Paul. He grants that the hymn has Adamic echoes. He argues, however, that the specific language of "being in the form of God" and "equality with God" goes beyond what Adam-Christology alone requires. In Fee's reading, the hymn presents Christ as having a pre-existent divine status that he did not exploit, and the "emptying" includes the humiliation of taking on human form.

The Biblical Unitarian response to Fee is that the Adamic reading accounts for all of the language without requiring pre-existence. The "form of God" can be the true image-bearing humanness. "Equality with God" can be the grasping-at-divinity that Adam did. The "emptying" can be the embrace of servant existence that Adam refused. Each element has an Adamic referent.

Fee's reading and the Biblical Unitarian reading both account for the text. The choice between them is driven by theological priors. A reader who comes to the text with Trinitarian commitments will find the pre-existence reading more natural. A reader who comes to the text with Biblical Unitarian commitments will find the Adam-Christology reading more natural. The text is thick enough to sustain both readings, and the decision between them is made at the level of the frameworks, not at the level of the text alone.

The Shaliach exaltation

One additional feature of Philippians 2:9-11 deserves attention. The exaltation passage describes Christ being given "the name that is above every name" by God the Father. The name is then confessed in the formulation "Jesus Christ is Lord" (kurios). This is the same kurios language Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 8:6 for Jesus as the one Lord alongside the one God (the Father).

Paul is drawing on Isaiah 45:23, where Yahweh declares "unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear." Paul's application of this Yahweh-text to Jesus is significant. Every knee now bows at the name of Jesus. Every tongue confesses Jesus as kurios. This is an extraordinary Christological claim.

The Biblical Unitarian framework handles this through the Shaliach principle. Jesus, as the exalted Messiah, has been given the kurios title that belongs to Yahweh, because Jesus is Yahweh's authorized representative, the one through whom Yahweh has acted decisively. What is done in honor of the Shaliach is done in honor of the sender. The worship directed to Jesus is worship that ultimately glorifies God the Father (Philippians 2:11 is explicit: "to the glory of God the Father").

This is Paul's theology throughout. Jesus is the exalted Messiah, given the divine name, worshiped as Lord, and all of this is to the glory of the Father. The Father remains the one to whom ultimate glory belongs. The Son is the exalted Lord through whom the Father's glory is now being displayed.

What this deep dive establishes

Philippians 2:5-11 is a dense passage that has been used as a proof text for pre-existence Christology throughout Christian history. This deep dive has shown several things.

First, the harpagmos question is grammatically open. Both pre-existence and Adam-Christology readings are defensible on the Greek.

Second, the Adam-Christology reading fits Paul's overall framework. Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 15, and 2 Corinthians 4 all treat Christ as the second Adam. Reading Philippians 2 in this framework is consistent with Paul's theology elsewhere.

Third, serious mainstream scholarship has defended the Adam-Christology reading. Dunn's work is the most comprehensive. Wright has incorporated Adamic elements into a Trinitarian framework. Fee has defended the pre-existence reading in response. The conversation is lively and the positions are defensible.

Fourth, the exaltation language at the end of the hymn fits the Shaliach framework. Jesus is given the divine name by the Father, and the confession of Jesus as Lord is "to the glory of God the Father." This is consistent with the pattern of the rest of the New Testament: the Father is the one true God; Jesus is the Messiah exalted by the Father.

The Biblical Unitarian case for Philippians 2 is not a fringe reading. It is a serious mainstream reading, developed with careful engagement with Greek scholarship and the wider Pauline corpus. The passage does not require pre-existence, and read through the Adam-Christology framework, it becomes a powerful statement of Jesus as the true human Messiah who reversed what the first Adam did.

Why this matters

The Philippian hymn is one of the passages most often cited as decisive for the pre-existence and divinity of Christ. If the passage does not, in fact, teach pre-existence, the cumulative case for the Nicene Christology loses one of its most important supports. The hymn is not incidental to Trinitarian argument; it is load-bearing.

Biblical Unitarianism does not require the Adam-Christology reading to be the only possible reading. It requires the Adam-Christology reading to be a defensible reading. If it is defensible, the passage does not mandate a Trinitarian conclusion, and the theological framework must be decided on other grounds.

The other grounds are exactly what the rest of this site is laying out. John 17:3 with the Father as the only true God. The Shema as the foundation of Christian monotheism. 1 Corinthians 8:6 with the Father as the one God and Jesus as the one Lord. The New Testament's sending-language and subordination-language. The apostolic preaching in Acts. The absence of Trinitarian vocabulary before the fourth century.

Philippians 2, read through Adam-Christology, fits this larger pattern. Read through a pre-existence framework, it becomes one of the textual supports that a Trinitarian theology leans on. The deep dive has shown that the pre-existence reading is not required by the Greek, that serious scholarship has defended the Adam-Christology reading, and that the Biblical Unitarian framework accounts for the passage as well as or better than the traditional reading.