I cannot count the number of times I have explained the full import of this scripture....misinterpreted in many English translations so as to infer the complete opposite of what is actually said.
Let’s see what the original words of this scripture are saying....
I’ll quote from the ESV....a bit at a time....
“5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped”
So Christ existed in God’s “form”......what “form” does God have? John 4:24 says that “God is a spirit”...does a spirit have a “form”...apparently they do, but these are not visible to human eyes. As heaven is full of spirit creatures who are all in the same spirit “form”, we can take from that scripture that Jesus was also a “spirit” before he was “sent” to earth as a human.
Also he “did NOT count equality with God as a thing to be grasped” (Strongs renders that as something “seized by robbery”) so this is something Christ never did...to rob his God and Father of his deity by claiming to be his equal.
“7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Can God really be his own servant? Did he ever need to become a human, lower than his own angels, in order to redeem mankind? If you think that is what this is saying, then you have no idea of the mechanics of redemption. God’s law demanded ‘like for like’....to redeem someone out of a debt that they incurred or inherited, the exact price had to be paid. In order for Adam’s sin to be compensated for, a “sinless life” had to be offered for the “sinless life” that Adam took from his children. All Jesus needed to be was “sinless”...and this is why he needed to come from heaven, since all of Adam’s descendants were now sinful. He never needed to be God to do that…in fact it was impossible for an immortal God to die.
“8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
“Obedient to the point of death”....to whom was Christ obedient? Himself?
“9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”
God “highly exalted” himself? And bestowed on himself “a name that is above” the one he already had?
His name is already the highest in existence. (Psalm 83:18)
“10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
So “in the name of Jesus every knee should bow”…..is bending the knee, or bowing, necessarily worship? Or is it a mark of respect often given to royalty?
And to “confess that Jesus is Lord”…..is that to acknowledge him as “God” or is that also a title of respect?
Sarah called Abraham “Lord”…..was he her God? (Gen 18:12; 1 Peter 3:6)
And Christ’s whole mission that he carried out so faithfully, was to whose glory? His own? No!…all glory went to his God and Father.
Have you ever really read what this scripture is actually saying? Or do you assume to just read over its very clear truth, without relying on the entirety of scripture to furnish your beliefs.
Those who disregard the truth to accept old falsehoods, are blinded by a counterfeit Christianity, created by God’s enemy…..Jesus warned us that this apostasy would take place…but instead of understanding that this happened many centuries ago, and has infiltrated man’s thinking down to this ‘time of the end’, they continue to believe the lies. The seeds of that apostasy were not sown recently. The prophet Daniel foretold that at “the time of the end” God would “cleanse and refine” a people (Daniel 12:4, 9-10) who would stand out as different…..totally separated from the “weeds” who have been in existence for centuries, corrupting everything Christ taught.
Read God’s word as it explains itself, not adding foreign concepts grafted into scripture by a corrupt church, in the centuries following the death of the apostles.
Nothing in a world ruled by the devil, is as it appears…(1 John 5:19)
