How do we best translate Philippians 2
“… Christ Jesus:
6 Who, existing in the form of God (or ‘a god’)
did not consider equality with God (or ‘god’)
something to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.”
How do you translate the middle of verse 7? The NIV translates it “taking the form” but could it be translated as something less voluntary? ‘lambano’ is the Greek word. It can mean ‘receiving’ rather than ‘taking’: A more submissive meaning. This would fit with “being made in …” later in the verse. The Father has the initiative and the command. It is the Father who is making and the Son who is “being made …”. The Son has the more submissive action of being made.
Parallels are made between this passage and Isaiah 52:13 “Behold, My Servant …”. A servant is submissive. A servant does not decide how to serve, what tasks to do. A servant is assigned their tasks. Was there a point where the servant was not a servant, in order to become one? Or was he even then in a submissive position of receiving from the Father and being made a servant by the Father?
It is a very fine point. Perhaps even Paul struggled in choosing the words as he wrote it in Greek.
The Son forever will be subject to the Father and calls the Father “the one true God” who sent him. He was godlike and received it from the Father to be a servant of the Father and humanlike. Before Jesus came his godlike form was there with the Most High God. He was there with the Father. The Jews and later the Pharisee Rabbis did not like this. To the Jews in his time it looked like blasphemy, because they did not believe the Father made him godlike. Then later the Pharisees after 70 AD made it law that to even afford high status to a godlike being other than the Most High God was heresy, polytheism. The blindness took hold of them. Nevertheless the Father, the Most High God saw fit to raise him from the dead so although human, he had immortality in a spirit empowered body, again godlike forever. He will raise up his true disciples in this same way.
