Does the phrase “in the form of God” in Philippians 2:6 suggest that Christ was not divine?
Sometimes a few words in a text strike us in such a way that we don’t notice the rest of the passage. In most cases the meaning of those words is located within its own context. This is the case with the phrase you quoted. The noun “form” (Greek morphē) is used twice in Philippians 2:6, 7, and in both cases it refers to Christ: “Being in the form of God” (verse 6), and “taking the form of a bondservant” (verse 7). The first time it describes Christ before He became a man. The second time the word describes Him as the Savior in human flesh. This suggests that the term has to do with Christ’s mode of being. Second, notice that in the second usage the verb employed is “to take, to accept,” suggesting that this new mode of existence was not Christ’s natural mode of existence. It is not who the preincarnated Lord was in Himself, but who He became. When the text says that Christ took “the form of a bondservant,” it does not mean that He looked like or had the appearance of a servant. It mean
