The Philippian Christ hymn appears to be a piece of poetry (experts deny it is music, although we call it a hymn) outlining Jesus’ transition from a pre-existent heavenly creature to a man who suffers and dies for humanity.  In other words, it is taken as our earliest attestation of the incarnation, although this isn’t found elsewhere in Paul and I don’t think that is what the hymn is arguing.  In translation it reads:

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.

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 Philosophy, 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 using his godlike intelligence 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. Here are some prominent cases:

1. Aaron and the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:1–6).  While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving God’s law (including the explicit command “You shall not make for yourself an idol”), the people demanded visible gods. Aaron collected their gold earrings, crafted a golden calf, built an altar in front of it, and announced:

“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt… Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD.”  He deliberately used the language of legitimate worship and the concept of festivals (which God had commanded elsewhere) to dress up blatant idolatry as “worship of the LORD.”

His motive was fear and crowd-pleasing: he wanted to calm the restless people and maintain his leadership role. God’s response through Moses was swift judgment, showing this was a direct misuse of sacred language and ideas for human convenience rather than God’s revealed will.

2. King Saul’s Partial Obedience (1 Samuel 15:1–23).  God gave Saul a clear command through the prophet Samuel: totally destroy the Amalekites and everything belonging to them as judgment. Saul defeated them but spared King Agag and the best livestock, claiming:

“The people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God.” 

He invoked the legitimate biblical practice of animal sacrifice (approved in the Law) to justify deliberate disobedience. His real motives were personal gain (keeping spoils) and fear of the people’s opinion. Samuel’s famous rebuke—“To obey is better than sacrifice”—exposed the misuse: Saul was weaponizing one part of God’s word to nullify another, prioritizing his own agenda over full obedience.

3. The 400 False Prophets under King Ahab (1 Kings 22:1–28). Ahab wanted to attack Ramoth-Gilead for political and territorial reasons. He gathered 400 prophets who unanimously declared:

“Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.” 

They used the standard prophetic formula (“Thus says the LORD”) and claimed divine authority to tell the king exactly what he wanted to hear. In reality, they were influenced by a lying spirit (as the true prophet Micaiah later revealed) and were flattering Ahab to stay in favor and support his war plans. This was textbook misuse of “God’s word” for political expediency and personal security. The true word from God (through Micaiah) warned of disaster.

4. Hananiah the False Prophet (Jeremiah 28:1–17).  During the Babylonian crisis, God told Jeremiah to prophesy submission to Babylon and long-term exile. Publicly confronting Jeremiah in the temple, Hananiah declared:

“Thus says the LORD… I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon… Within two years… all the exiles will return.” 

He used the exact authoritative phrase “Thus says the LORD” to contradict God’s true message, offering false hope and short-term comfort. His apparent motives were popularity and undermining Jeremiah’s unpopular warnings. God immediately exposed the lie through Jeremiah and pronounced Hananiah’s death as judgment—proof that he had hijacked the prophetic office for his own agenda.

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.