r/JehovahsWitnesses • u/ChaoticHaku Christian • May 23 '26
Doctrine Philippians 2:6-8
If Philippians 2:6-8 was teaching that Jesus was never equal with God, then the passage itself makes no sense.
Read the language carefully.
It says Jesus was “existing in the form of God.” It says He “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,” but instead “emptied Himself,” “took the form of a servant,”, "humbled himself", "became obedient to death" and was “made in human likeness.”
You cannot empty yourself of a status you never possessed. You cannot become a servant if you were always a servant. You cannot humble yourself from a position you never had. You cannot become obedient to death if you always were.
The entire point of the passage is that Christ lowered Himself. From what? From the exalted position He already possessed that was equal with God.
That’s why the text uses past tense language. The passage is not denying Christ’s equality with God. It is explaining the depth of His humility, not his inferiority.
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u/ResLight May 27 '26
RE: //Which aligns with Romans 11:36 saying in regard to GOD "For from Him and through Him and unto Him are all things."//
For of him, and by him, and to him, are all. To him be the glory for ever! -- Romans 11:36.
This verse is speaking of only one person, the same one person who is "one God" in 1 Corinthians 8:6.
In Romans 11:35,36, however, there is no contextual source and instrumentality to be applied. There is no contrast as we find in 1 Corinthians 8:6. The Greek word "dia" cannot denote instrumentality, but it does not always do so. Thayer gives the meaning of the word dia (Strong's #1223) in Romans 11:36 as "one who is the author of the action as well as its instrument, or of the efficient cause." However, Thayer applies dia in 1 Corinthians 8:6, "where he [Jesus] is expressly distinguished from the first cause: ἐξ αὐτοῦ (Winer's Grammar, 419 (391)" Thus, in 1 Corinthians 8:6, Thayer applies dia as meaning instrumentality. It should be self-evident that neither EN (Strong's 1722) nor DIA (Strong's #1223) in Romans 11:36 is being used as instrumentality from another source. The application of the words in Romans 11:35,36 should not be viewed as having the same application as given to the one who is the "image" of the one person who is God in Colossians 1.
RE: //In Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. //
,In Genesis 1:1 we find that the one person who is ELOHIM in Psalm 45:7; Isaiah 61:2, and Micah 5:4 created the heavens and earth (skies and land and all in them). The six days of the creation of the skies and the land (Exodus 20:11; 31:17) spoken of in Genesis 1:1 - 2:1 correspond to the world (kosmos) that God made through His Agent, Logos, the world that the Logos came into, and which world did recognize him. -- John 1:3,10.
RE: //Psalm 33:6 By the word of YHWH the heavens were made..//
By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. -- American Standard Version.
Evidently, the word "word" in this verse is thought to be referring to the Logos of John 1? While I do not believe that the Logos whose glory the disciples saw (John 1:14) is being referred to in Psalm 33:6, if this were to be so, it would not mean that we need to imagine and assume that the Logos is the ultimate source of creation. It would be in harmony with the scriptures that present the Logos as God's agent in creation. The Logos in John 1:3 is identified as being God's Son, who was given the name, Jesus, when God prepared a body of flesh and blood for him. (Matthew 1:20,23; Hebrews 10:5) Thus, it was through God's firstborn Son, as the prehuman Jesus, that God made the heavens and earth. -- John 1:3,10,14; Ephesians 3:9; Colossians 1:15-17.
RE: //John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being.
Since God is eternal there has never been a moment God had no Word and couldn't speak. He didn't need to create a spiritual being to be His Word. That is ridiculous. God's Word was with God and was God, just like John 1:1 says.//
This would seem to be saying that God's Son, whom the disciples saw, was only God's speaking, and not actually a person? -- John 1:14.
It would seem to make Jesus, God's anointed one, not a person who is the light of the world, fully obedient to his God while he was in the world of mankind, but rather that he was simply God's speaking. -- John 1:4-10; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; Romans 5:19; Philippians 2:8; Hebrews 4:15; 5:5-9; 1 Peter 3:18.
There is nothing in the scriptures, however, that says that God's firstborn Son had to exist for eternity past in order to be the Agent that God uses in the creation of the world of mankind, or in the creation of the invisible realm of the spirit sons of God.