Last time I put forth my interpretation of the Philippian Christ Hymn. In contrast, here is Robert Price’s reading:

Our Catholic pseudepigraphist or redactor has incorporated in 2:6-11 what virtually all scholars recognize as a hymn fragment. It is archaic compared to the surrounding Catholic text, whose author no longer grasps the meaning of it. For as F. C. Baur saw, the hymn clearly embodies Gnostic mythology. In it, an unnamed savior ventures forth from the pleroma of divine light into the Kenoma, which is the empty void outside the Godhead. In doing this he is reversing the fall of Sophia, the last of the divine aions emitted from the Godhead. Sophia had longed to look into the mysteries of the Father, which were so far distant from her. In her Pandora-like hubris, she gave birth to the bungling demiurge, the Gnostic Creator of a miserable world of disgusting matter. But the savior secretly penetrates the world of the evil archons, the angels who rule the planetary spheres, to come to earth and take on the illusory semblance of human flesh. At death, his saving mission accomplished, he returns triumphantly to the pleroma and receives the titular name of Jesus, which means “salvation.” As P. L. Couchoud recognized, the hymn predates the process of re-conceiving the god Jesus as a historical figure since “Jesus” becomes his name only after his earthly mission is complete. Those who first sang this hymn never thought of a man named Jesus traveling the roads of Galilee, teaching and casting out demons, much less getting crucified on earth at a Roman governor’s order. What the Catholic redactor appreciates about the hymn, the self-sacrifice of Christ on others’ behalf, is there, but he has missed the cosmic-theological framework. He recognizes the basic pattern of descent and ascent, but the Gnostic elements go right over his head.

Price, Robert M.. The Amazing Colossal Apostle: The Search for the Historical Paul (pp. 483-484). Signature Books. Kindle Edition.

Instead of thinking the author didn’t understand the hymn/poetry he incorporated, let us suppose he did understand it.  What did the author of Philippians think the poem he quoted was about?  He said it was about imitating Christ’s Humility:

2 If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus (2:1-5)”

Last time this is exactly what we said.  Christ did not reach for God’s status by using the Word for his own end like the Jewish elite did, but to discern the will of God more fully.  This ultimately led to Christ being the ultimate servant dying to save his enemies.  The poetry reads:

(Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,)

⁶ who, though he existed in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be grasped,
⁷ but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
⁸     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God exalted him even more highly
    and gave him the name
    that is above every other name,
¹⁰ so that at the name given to Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

To recapitulate from last time, I’m not persuaded that the Philippian Christ hymn needs to be about pre-existence.  It could, but to say Jesus was in the form/morphe of God, this could just mean he was analogous to being the law incarnate discerning the spirit of the law beyond the letter of it: “You have heard it said … but I say to you….”  Jesus thus beats Satan’s temptation in Matthew with his godly wisdom disposition when Satan tries to cite scripture out of context, and in the gospels this contrasts Jesus with the religious elite at the Jewish trial who are experts on scripture but use it to their own ends and are not guided by the spirit of what God wants (John 18:31), effectively placing themselves above God  But this was not enough, and so Jesus needed to empty himself/die to save his enemies. 

We mean form/morphe in this sense like in the movie Hook when Captain Hook says “Good Form,” which does not refer to the stuff one is constituted with.  And so in Greek we might say the morphe of the van Gogh is Art incarnate, or the beautiful woman is Beauty incarnate, as though Beauty itself was “presencing” through her.

I think this goes back to Satan and the Jewish elite who were experts in the Word but tried to put themselves on par with God by manipulating the word for their own ends rather than trying to do God’s will.  Jesus was an expert who used his expertise to further God’s will, not Jesus’ own agenda. 

This also seems to be behind the Fall in the garden: The snake uses his cunning to get Eve to question God’s word, and Adam’s sin is one of reaching to become Godly in terms of knowledge of good and evil.  God is often seen as grossly overreacting by booting Adam and Eve out of Eden, but this sin of trying to become God is a root of evil, and so we see the satire of the Jewish trial of Jesus where the experts commit infraction after infraction but find loophole after loophole to wrongfully convict sinless Jesus.

In Genesis 3, the serpent puts himself over God and tempted Eve by first questioning God’s command (“Did God really say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”) and then directly contradicting it by saying, “You will not surely die”. The serpent promised that eating the forbidden fruit would make them like God, knowing good and evil.   The serpent claimed that “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  I think this parallels exactly the Jewish elite becoming experts in God’s Word so they can use it for their own agenda in the Gospels.

The Old Testament contains several clear examples of people (priests, kings, and prophets) who twisted, falsely claimed, or selectively applied God’s word or prophetic authority to serve their own agendas—such as gaining popularity, avoiding conflict, pursuing power, or pleasing others—rather than obeying God’s actual will.  These stories illustrate a recurring pattern: leaders or self-proclaimed spokesmen for God took legitimate elements of His word (feasts, sacrifice, prophetic formulas, etc.) and twisted them to justify disobedience, idolatry, political ambition, or crowd-pleasing. The Old Testament repeatedly condemns this behavior (see also Deuteronomy 13:1–5; Jeremiah 23:16–32; Ezekiel 13), emphasizing that God’s word is never to be manipulated for human ends. Obedience and truth always take priority.

CONCLUSION Recapitulated

Jesus is explicitly portrayed as an exceptionally smart (wise and insightful) kid in the Bible—specifically in the only detailed canonical account of his childhood. In the Gospel of Luke (chapter 2, verses 41–52), when Jesus is 12 years old, his family travels to Jerusalem for Passover. They lose track of him and eventually find him in the Temple:

“After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.” (Luke 2:46–47)

The teachers (rabbis and scribes) — the smartest religious experts of the day — are stunned by how a 12-year-old boy can hold his own in deep theological discussion. Luke even summarizes his growth this way:

“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)

That’s the Bible’s direct portrayal: a child prodigy in wisdom and understanding, far beyond his years.

Extra-biblical / apocryphal stories (non-canonical):

Later writings like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (2nd century) go even further, showing young Jesus as a supernatural genius kid who:

• instantly masters reading and the law when teachers try to instruct him,
• debates and corrects adult scholars,
• knows hidden things no one else does.

(These texts are not in the Bible and were never accepted as scripture, but they were popular in early Christianity and reinforce the “brilliant child” image.).

So across both the official New Testament story and early Christian legends, Jesus is consistently shown as an unusually intelligent, wise kid — not just “smart for his age,” but astonishingly so. That single Temple scene at age 12 is the main reason Christians have always thought of him that way.

So, Jesus could have become one of those experts who appropriated God’s word for his own gain, putting himself on the level of God, but Jesus chose not to and instead obeyed the spirit of the Word rather than manipulating the letter of it. Jesus was godly in his knowledge of the word and a servant in how he applied it in his life. Paul was encouraging his flock to be the same: wise servants.