steve7150 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:44 pm
That doesn’t necessarily imply some pre-incarnate existence as God, the Godness of which He emptied himself. Besides, how could he still be fully God if he emptied himself of that Godness?
Paul did say "He existed in the form of God" before getting to the section about emptying himself and this sounds like a pre-incarnate existence to me, not to mention John 1.
Once he emptied himself he was not fully God , he was the man Jesus , fully human & filled with the HS.
This has been discussed before, and I guess I'll start a separate thread here
https://theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=6110 if we want to delve into that aspect further, bug generally, this is another place where your presuppositions can affect greatly your translation and interpretaion. "Morphe" has a pretty wide usage and semantic range. It can refer to inner appearance, outer appearance, nature, shape, form, etc. I think the main point is that Jesus had all the vestiges and prerogatives and authority of God or "a god" and reflected and represented God in every way and YET did not hold Himself up, but humbled Himself in every way, giving God the glory in all and for all that He did. The key here is not necessarily some existential or ontological identity, but that the contrast may have been given to make another point about his lowering Himself and humbling Himself in obedience and service, not parading around as the Messiah the Jews were looking for.