In this investigation, we have deliberately begun without the Gospels.
We are asking what can be established from the seven letters of Paul whose authenticity is accepted across nearly the entire range of critical scholarship. These are the earliest Christian writings that survive. They take us inside the movement while Peter, James, John, Paul, and other members of the first generation were still alive.
Within Philippians, written around AD 60–61 according to the chronology used in this series, we find one of the oldest surviving literary portraits of the person of Jesus:
“Let this way of thinking be among you that was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, existing in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to seize or exploit,but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
becoming in human likeness.And being found in human form,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.Therefore God highly exalted him
and graciously gave him
the name above every name,so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow—
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth—and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”Philippians 2:5–11, my translation
The poem traces one great movement.
Christ exists in the form of God. He descends into the form of a slave and accepts death on a cross. God then raises him to the highest place, and the entire creation confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord.
If we want to know how the earliest Christians understood Jesus, we cannot begin only with the Gospel of John or the Council of Nicaea.
We must begin here.
Is the Poem Older Than Philippians?
The passage is traditionally called the Christ Hymn, although we cannot prove it was sung. “Christ poem” is the safer description.
Its balanced lines, concentrated movement, unusual vocabulary, and change in style have convinced many scholars that Paul is quoting or adapting material already known to the Philippians. If so, its portrait of Jesus existed before Paul wrote the letter and may reach considerably earlier into the first Christian generation.
This is not merely a Christian confessional claim. Bart Ehrman, who does not accept the Christian claims about Jesus, writes:
“It appears to be a passage Paul is quoting … In other words, it is another pre-Pauline tradition.”
Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, p. 253
Ehrman further concludes that this incarnation Christology emerged remarkably early, possibly during the movement’s first years, although he does not claim that a date before the early 50s can be proved (Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, p. 276).
That does not give us an exact year. “Pre-Pauline” means that the material existed before Paul incorporated it into Philippians; it does not automatically mean it was composed before Paul became a Christian. A date in the 30s is possible, especially if the poem emerged during the first years of the movement, but the surviving evidence cannot prove that date.
We should not present that as a certainty. Paul does not introduce the passage with a reception formula, as he does with the resurrection tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:3. No separate copy survives, and some scholars believe Paul composed it himself.
Either conclusion remains historically significant. If Paul inherited the poem, it preserves an understanding of Jesus from before AD 60–61 and may push the evidence considerably earlier. If Paul wrote it, an uncontested first-century letter still shows him presenting this understanding to an established church as shared Christian truth. Pauline authorship would not make the passage late; either way, it remains among the oldest surviving descriptions of who Christians believed Jesus to be.
The Confession Is Older Than the Letter
The poem ends with the confession “Jesus Christ is Lord,” but Paul did not introduce that confession in Philippians. Several years earlier he had already treated Kyrios Iēsous—“Jesus is Lord”—as the identifying confession of Christian faith:
“No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”
1 Corinthians 12:3
Philippians 2:11 repeats the same Greek confession with “Christ” added: Kyrios Iēsous Christos.
At the end of 1 Corinthians, Paul also preserves an untranslated Aramaic prayer:
Marana tha—“Our Lord, come!”
1 Corinthians 16:22
The Aramaic letters can also be divided maran atha—“our Lord has come”; either reading calls Jesus “our Lord.” Their appearance in a Greek letter to Corinth points behind Paul’s Greek-speaking churches toward Aramaic-speaking Christian worship. The atheist New Testament historian Gerd Lüdemann, reconstructing Christianity’s first three years from the seven undisputed letters, therefore concluded:
“Christians in Jerusalem venerated Jesus as their Lord: witness the Aramaic acclamation and prayer marana tha (our Lord come).”
Gerd Lüdemann, “The First Three Years of Christianity,” p. 35
Lüdemann did not claim that the Jerusalem church had already developed the later language of the Nicene Creed. His conclusion is narrower and historically important: even a thoroughly skeptical reconstruction places the invocation of Jesus as “our Lord” within the movement’s earliest years. The debate concerns the title’s precise divine significance, not whether Christians began using it early.
This does not prove that every line of Philippians 2 predates Paul; an older confession could have been expanded into a poem later. It does establish that the confession at the poem’s climax is older than the letter. The poem did not invent the confession “Jesus is Lord.” It took the church’s existing confession and unfolded its meaning.
Why did Christians call the crucified Jesus Lord? Philippians 2 answers by telling the whole story: the one in God’s form accepted a slave’s form and death on a cross; God therefore exalted him and gave him the supreme name; and the homage Isaiah directed toward YHWH was offered to Jesus as Kyrios. What Christians were already confessing in their assemblies, the poem projects onto every tongue in the cosmos.
The early confession therefore supplies the natural historical setting for the poem and strengthens—without by itself proving—the cumulative case that Paul inherited it. It also removes a common reason for resisting an early date: the assumption that the first Christians could not yet have spoken about Jesus this way. The evidence shows that they already called him Lord.
The Chiasm Reveals the Movement
The poem can be expressed through a simple mirror-like pattern:
A — Divine Lord
“Existing in the form of God … equality with God”
B — Loss of recognition
“He did not consider equality with God something to use for himself … but emptied himself”
C — Common name and human status
“Taking the form of a slave … becoming in human likeness”
D — Obedient death on a cross
“He humbled himself … even death on a cross”
C′ — The highest name and status
“God highly exalted him and gave him the name above every name”
B′ — Universal recognition
“Every knee should bow … every tongue confess”
A′ — Divine Lord
“Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”
All quotations in this structure are from Philippians 2:6–11, my translation.
The first half is Christ’s voluntary descent. The second is God’s act of exaltation. At the center stands the cross.
That matters historically. The crucifixion was not an embarrassment that Christians gradually concealed beneath claims of divinity. One of their earliest portraits placed the cross directly between the form of God and the name above every name.
“Existing in the Form of God”
The poem begins before Jesus’ ordinary human life:
“Who, existing in the form of God …”
Philippians 2:6, my translation
The Greek expression is en morphē theou hyparchōn.
The word morphē can refer to form, appearance, condition, or mode of existence. It does not by itself provide the later philosophical language of “divine essence.” The stronger evidence comes from the poem’s own contrast:
morphē theou — form of God
morphē doulou — form of a slavePhilippians 2:6–7
The same word appears on both sides. The form of a slave is not a costume: Christ actually enters human life and assumes the slave’s condition. The parallel therefore suggests that the form of God is likewise more than a passing outward resemblance; it describes the condition from which his movement begins. The poem does not begin with an ordinary man rising toward divinity, but with Christ in the form of God moving downward into human likeness.
Even a skeptical interpretation must recognize this. Bart Ehrman likewise concludes that the passage depicts Christ as a preexistent divine being and that Paul presumably believed what he quoted (Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, p. 260).
That concession is historically important. Within our earliest Christian literature, a preexistent divine or heavenly figure has already entered human life.
Did Christ Possess Equality or Refuse to Seize It?
The most difficult line says:
“Existing in the form of God, he did not regard being equal with God as harpagmos.”
Philippians 2:6, my translation
Because harpagmos appears nowhere else in the New Testament, the line has produced two major interpretations.
On one reading, equality with God is something Christ already possesses but refuses to exploit for himself. He does not use divine status to protect or advance himself. Instead, he descends into the condition of a slave.
On the other reading, equality with God is something he refuses to seize. Christ begins as God’s supreme heavenly representative but does not grasp for God’s position. Some understand this as a contrast with Adam: Adam reached upward toward becoming like God, while Christ refused self-exaltation and moved downward in obedience.
Both readings preserve Christ’s preexistence. They differ over whether the divine condition expressed by “the form of God” already included complete equality with God.
The Greek word itself cannot settle that question. A major philological reassessment concluded that the expression means something like “something to seize upon for advantage,” but that it does not tell us whether the object was already possessed (Michael Wade Martin, “Ἁρπαγμός Revisited,” p. 194). “Form of God” and “being equal with God” may describe the same status, but the grammar does not require them to be identical.
That leaves room for an important middle possibility. Christ could exist in God’s form as God’s unique image and heavenly self-manifestation while remaining ordered beneath the Father as his source and supreme authority. In that case, “being in the form of God” would place Christ above ordinary creation without necessarily saying that he already possessed the Father’s own rank.
Paul’s other undisputed letters contain precisely this kind of order. He calls Christ “the image of God” and says that the knowledge of God’s glory is found “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6). The Father is not unknowable, but he is made known through Christ. Paul says that all things are “from” the Father but “through” Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6), that “the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3), and that at the end “the Son himself will also be subjected” to God (1 Corinthians 15:28).
There is therefore real asymmetry in Paul. The Father is the source, sender, exalter, and ultimate end; Christ is the image, mediator, obedient Son, and universal Lord. That establishes subordination in relation and role. It does not by itself tell us, in later metaphysical language, that Christ possesses an inferior nature.
Against that background, the seizure reading becomes coherent. Christ may be portrayed as the preexistent image who reveals God but refuses to grasp equality with the God he reveals. He chooses the obedience of a slave rather than independent sovereignty. God then exalts him and bestows the universal Lordship that Christ did not seize for himself.
This possibility also makes the angelic interpretation worth considering. Bart Ehrman finds support for it in Galatians 4:14, where Paul tells the Galatians:
“You received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 4:14, my translation
Ehrman reads the second “as” appositionally: “as God’s Angel—namely, Christ Jesus.” He argues that two similar constructions elsewhere in Paul show that the descriptions identify the same thing (Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, pp. 252–53).
Those parallels deserve consideration, but the Greek is not exactly the same.
In 1 Corinthians 3:1, Paul says that he addressed the Corinthians “as fleshly people, as infants in Christ.” The two descriptions stand together after the verb. In 2 Corinthians 2:17, Paul says that he speaks “but as from sincerity, but as from God,” repeating “but as” before the second phrase and placing the verb after both.
Galatians has a different order:
“As an angel of God—you received me—as Christ Jesus.”
Galatians 4:14, Greek word order represented
The verb and its object—“you received me”—stand between the two comparisons.
More importantly, compatible descriptions do not have to be identical. “Fleshly people” and “infants in Christ” describe the same Corinthians, but the expressions are not synonyms. “From sincerity” and “from God” characterize the same preaching, but sincerity is not identical with God.
The parallels therefore show that Paul can accumulate descriptions of the same person or action. They do not prove that the things named by those descriptions are the same being.
The appositional reading remains grammatically possible: “You received me as God’s Angel—namely, Christ Jesus.” But the word order makes a rising comparison at least as natural: “You received me as an angel of God—indeed, as you would have received Christ Jesus himself.”
One further correction matters. Charles Gieschen, whose work Ehrman cited, later objected to the conclusion that Paul regarded Christ as one created angel among others. His own conclusion was:
“Paul understood Christ Jesus as God’s Angel (i.e., the Angel of YHWH).”
Charles A. Gieschen, “Misquoting Gieschen,” p. 140
In that reading, “Angel” describes the visible manifestation of the invisible God—the divine figure who bears God’s name, speaks as God, and makes the unseen Father known. It does not reduce Christ to one created angel among others.
Galatians 4:14 therefore preserves an interesting possibility, but its grammar cannot settle the question. If the progressive reading is correct, Paul does not call Christ an angel there. If the appositional reading is correct, Christ may be identified with God’s unique Angel rather than with the created angelic ranks.
The alternative reading nevertheless remains strong. Christ begins in the form of God, and the poem then uses the same word for the real condition of the slave he assumes. His emptying is explained not as abandoning an ambition but as taking that slave’s form. Within Paul’s appeal to humility, refusing to exploit a status already possessed also provides a direct example for Christians who were tempted to use their own position for advantage.
We should therefore resist making either translation carry more than the Greek can bear. The poem clearly presents Christ as preexistent and divine. What remains open is whether that divine status already included complete equality with the Father or whether Christ, as the Father’s unique image and manifestation, remained beneath him in rank and refused to seize equality.
What is unmistakable is the ordered relationship. Christ does not exalt himself. He obeys, and God exalts him. The universal Lordship he receives is bestowed rather than grasped, and even the final confession occurs “to the glory of God the Father.” Yet the exalted Christ is not left among ordinary heavenly agents: the entire creation bows before him, and Isaiah’s homage to YHWH is offered at his name.
The Form of a Slave
The poem says:
heauton ekenōsen — “he emptied himself.”
Philippians 2:7
The poem does not say that Christ stopped being divine or identify divine attributes he surrendered. Instead, it explains the emptying through the words that follow:
“Taking the form of a slave, becoming in human likeness.”
Philippians 2:7, my translation
The Greek word doulos normally means “slave,” not merely a helpful servant. Yet no surviving source suggests that Jesus was legally owned as a slave. Paul is not inserting an otherwise unknown fact into Jesus’ biography; he is describing the real condition and role Christ freely accepted. The one who existed in God’s form entered mortal human life at its lowest level of status and placed himself entirely at the Father’s disposal.
The connection becomes clear in the next line:
“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death.”
Philippians 2:8, my translation
The slave’s condition is explained through obedience. A doulos lived under the authority of a kyrios, and Christ accepts that position in relation to the Father. This does not mean that Christ lacked a will of his own. The repeated reflexive language—“he emptied himself” and “he humbled himself”—emphasizes that his action was voluntary. He freely aligned his will with the Father’s purpose, and his obedience continued even when it led to death.
The wording is also precise. Christ was not obedient to death, as though death were his master. He was obedient to the point of death. The Father is the one he obeys; death is the measure of how far that obedience goes.
Paul describes the same movement elsewhere:
“Although he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.”
2 Corinthians 8:9
The one in God’s form takes a slave’s form; the one who was rich becomes poor; and the preexistent heavenly Christ enters the lowest human condition for the sake of others.
Even his human name belonged to the ordinary life he accepted. Yeshua—Jesus—was among the most common Jewish male names of the period. Josephus repeatedly distinguishes different men named Jesus by adding “son of Damneus,” “son of Gamaliel,” or “who was called Christ” (Jewish Antiquities 20.200, 203, 213).
The one who existed in the form of God therefore entered history bearing a name heard throughout Judea, and he ultimately accepted the death Rome used to erase a person’s dignity. Crucifixion was particularly associated with slaves, rebels, and people denied ordinary social honor. The poem’s movement into the slave’s condition thus reaches its dreadful completion at the cross.
Cicero described a Roman citizen hanging on a cross as suffering:
“The worst extreme of the tortures inflicted upon slaves.”
Cicero, Against Verres 2.5.169
The poem joins realities that the ancient world believed should never meet: the form of God, the form of a slave, a common human name, and death on a cross. Christianity’s earliest literature does not hide that collision; it makes the collision the point.
The Name Above Every Name
After the cross, the direction reverses:
“Therefore God highly exalted him and graciously gave him the name above every name.”
Philippians 2:9, my translation
The word translated “highly exalted” is hyperypsōsen, an intensified form of “exalt.” God raises Jesus to the highest place.
The name he receives is probably not simply Jesus. He possessed that human name before his crucifixion. The supreme name is revealed in the final confession:
“Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Philippians 2:11
The Greek word is Kyrios.
In ordinary Greek, kyrios could mean master or owner. In the Greek translation of Israel’s Scriptures, however, it was also the word regularly used in place of the divine name YHWH.
The common name is not discarded but joined permanently to the divine title: Yeshua is Kyrios.
This produces another remarkable reversal within the poem. Christ takes the form of a doulos, a slave, but God gives him the name Kyrios, Lord. A slave and a lord stood at opposite ends of the same social relationship. Christ does not seize lordship for himself; he accepts the slave’s position in obedience, and God exalts him as the Lord before whom the entire creation bows. The world knew many men named Jesus, but the earliest Christians proclaimed that this Jesus bears the name above every name.
Isaiah’s Worship of YHWH Is Directed Toward Jesus
The poem’s climax draws upon one of Israel’s strongest declarations about the uniqueness of God.
YHWH says through Isaiah:
“I am YHWH, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.”
Isaiah 45:5
Later in the same chapter:
“To me every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear allegiance.”
Isaiah 45:23
Philippians applies that universal homage to Jesus:
“At the name of Jesus every knee should bow—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth—and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Philippians 2:10–11, my translation
The poem does not use the ordinary Greek verb proskyneō, often translated “worship.” It does something more specific: it takes the bending of every knee and confession of every tongue that Isaiah directed toward YHWH and centers them upon Jesus.
The scope is cosmic. Heavenly beings bow. Earthly beings bow. Those beneath the earth bow.
Jesus does not replace God the Father. God exalts him, and the confession occurs “to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus and the Father remain distinguishable.
Yet Jesus is not left outside God’s identity. The title used for YHWH is bestowed upon him, and the universal homage reserved for YHWH is offered at his name.
This is the poem’s strongest evidence that the earliest Christians understood Jesus as divine.
The Church’s Worship Interprets the Poem
We can debate the possible meanings of morphē and harpagmos. We can ask whether the Angel of YHWH, divine Wisdom, Daniel’s Son of Man, or Philo’s Logos provides the closest background.
But the earliest Christians did not leave us only possible definitions.
They showed us how they understood Jesus by the way they treated him.
They worshiped him.
Bowing by itself could sometimes express homage to a king or heavenly messenger. The complete Pauline pattern goes far beyond one act of respect.
Paul addresses the Corinthians together with:
“All those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
1 Corinthians 1:2
In Israel’s Scriptures, calling upon the name of YHWH is the language of prayer and worship. Paul now identifies Christians everywhere as people who call upon Jesus’ name. As we have already seen, the Aramaic prayer Marana tha shows the earliest believers addressing Jesus as “our Lord” and praying for his return.
They also gathered for a sacred meal centered upon his body and blood, proclaimed his death, and awaited his return.
Paul writes:
“For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”
1 Corinthians 8:6
Paul does not present the Father and Jesus as competing gods. He distinguishes them while including Jesus within the divine work and identity: all things come from the Father, and all things exist through Jesus Christ.
Romans contains the same pattern:
“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9
Paul then quotes Joel:
“Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Romans 10:13, quoting Joel 2:32
In Joel, “the Lord” is YHWH. Paul applies that promise within a proclamation centered upon calling Jesus Lord.
The churches therefore did not merely regard Jesus as an honored teacher or one heavenly messenger among others. They called upon his name, prayed for his return, gathered around his body and blood, confessed him as Lord, believed that all things existed through him, and applied YHWH texts to him. In Philippians 2, that pattern reaches its cosmic expression as every knee bows and every tongue confesses his Lordship.
Their practice tells us how they understood the poem. They distinguished Jesus from God the Father while including him within the identity, activity, name, and worship of Israel’s God.
In ordinary Christian language, they understood Jesus as God. The later councils did not create this worship; they attempted to explain how Christians could worship Jesus without believing in two gods. The worship came before the definitions.
The Worship Extends Beyond Paul
Philippians 2 does not stand alone. Even if someone disputes the traditional authorship of other New Testament books, the documents still preserve the beliefs and worship of first-century Christian communities.
Matthew ends with the disciples encountering the risen Jesus:
“When they saw him, they worshiped him.”
Matthew 28:17
In Acts, Stephen directs his final prayer to Jesus:
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Acts 7:59
The Gospel of John reaches its confessional climax when Thomas addresses Jesus:
“My Lord and my God!”
John 20:28
Hebrews describes the Son as the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s being. It then places him above every angel and says:
“Let all God’s angels worship him.”
Hebrews 1:6
Revelation presents the most expansive scene. Every creature in the cosmos joins in one act of praise directed toward God and the Lamb:
“To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and power forever and ever.”
Revelation 5:13
The scene is the worshiping fulfillment of Philippians 2. Beings in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth confess the divine Lordship of Jesus.
These writings differ in style, setting, and theological emphasis, but together they show that the worship visible in Paul’s undisputed letters continued across the wider first-century church. Jesus is worshiped after his resurrection, prayer is directed to him, he is addressed as Lord and God, angels are commanded to worship him, and every creature praises God and the Lamb together. That is the first-century pattern of belief and worship within which claims such as “the form of God” and “the name above every name” were heard.
The Church at Philippi After Paul
One early witness brings us especially close to the reception of Paul’s letter.
During the first half of the second century, Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, wrote directly to the church at Philippi. Scholars debate the letter’s exact date and whether it combines material written on two occasions. Its connection to Paul’s congregation, however, is explicit.
Polycarp reminded the Philippians that Paul had taught among them and afterward:
“When he was absent he wrote you letters; if you study them carefully, you will be able to build yourselves up in the faith given to you.”
Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 3.2, my translation
Polycarp therefore knew that the Philippian Christians possessed Pauline correspondence and expected them to study it.
He then described the exalted Christ:
“To him all things in heaven and on earth have been subjected; him every breathing creature worships; he comes as judge of the living and the dead.”
Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians 2.1, my translation
The Greek verb translated “worships” is latreuei. It can mean “serves,” but in religious contexts it denotes cultic service or worship. Polycarp portrays every living creature rendering that worshipful service to Jesus.
This is not a word-for-word quotation of Philippians 2. The language also resembles Philippians 3:21, 1 Peter 3:22, and Psalm 150:6. We should therefore call it a strong echo or continuation of the poem’s vision, not claim direct literary dependence where it cannot be proved.
The connection is nevertheless striking. A bishop writes to the same congregation that received Paul’s letter, tells them to study Paul’s correspondence, and describes the cosmic submission of all creation to Christ in the language of worshipful service.
Polycarp also follows the ethical movement of Paul’s poem. Christ endured death for others, became the servant of all, and provided an example that Christians were expected to imitate.
His knowledge of this portion of Philippians is even clearer in chapter 9, where he says that Paul and the other apostles “did not run in vain”—an almost exact echo of Philippians 2:16 (Letter to the Philippians 9.1).
The Philippians had not preserved Paul’s theology as an abstract statement about Christ.
They received it as a confession that shaped both worship and life.
A later account of Polycarp’s martyrdom makes the distinction unmistakable. Explaining why Christians honored martyrs but did not worship them, the church at Smyrna declared:
“For him we worship as the Son of God, but the martyrs we love as disciples and imitators of the Lord.”
Martyrdom of Polycarp 17.3, my translation
The account was not written by Polycarp himself, and its precise date remains debated. Its statement is still important: Christians knew the difference between honoring a saint and worshiping Christ. Worship belonged to Jesus because he was the Son of God.
What Outsiders Saw
The evidence then moves outside Christian literature.
The earliest and clearest outside description comes from Pliny the Younger. While governing Bithynia around AD 112, Pliny interrogated people accused of being Christians and reported their practices to the emperor Trajan:
“They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.”
Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96.7, my translation
Pliny was not repeating Christian theology in order to promote it; he was a Roman governor explaining why this movement had become a legal problem. His language is therefore unusually valuable. The Christians met before dawn and sang responsively as a community, and Pliny understood their song as worship offered to Christ “as to a god”—Christo quasi deo.
Several decades later, the pagan satirist Lucian of Samosata mocked Christians for abandoning the Greek gods and:
“Worshiping that crucified sophist himself and living under his laws.”
Lucian of Samosata, The Passing of Peregrinus 13
“Sophist” is Lucian’s insult. The practice he describes is unmistakable. Christians worshiped the man who had been crucified and ordered their lives around his teaching.
Near the end of the second century, Celsus attacked Christianity for compromising the worship of one God. He complained:
“They pay excessive reverence to one who has but lately appeared among men … they worship also his servant.”
Celsus, True Doctrine, in Origen, Against Celsus 8.12
Celsus’s work no longer survives independently, so his words come to us through the Christian writer Origen. But Origen does not deny the central charge. He answers by explaining that Christians worship the Father and the Son without believing they worship two competing gods.
Even mockery preserved the same memory. The Alexamenos graffito, probably dating from around AD 200, depicts a man raising his hand toward a crucified figure with a donkey’s head. Its mocking inscription reads:
“Alexamenos worships [his] god.”
Alexamenos graffito, Graf. Pal. 1.246, my translation
The image was meant as ridicule. Yet the ridicule depended upon something everyone involved understood: Christians worshiped the crucified Jesus as God.
None of these outsiders tells us that Christians consciously based their worship upon Philippians 2. They establish something more basic: interpreting the poem’s universal bowing and confession as divine worship agrees with what Christians actually did.
Paul’s churches called upon Jesus’ name and prayed for his return. The wider New Testament depicts humans, angels, and the entire creation worshiping him, while Polycarp tells the Philippian congregation that every breathing creature renders Christ worshipful service. Pliny observes Christians singing to Christ as to a god; Lucian mocks them for worshiping the crucified sophist; Celsus accuses them of worshiping Jesus alongside God; and a Roman graffito ridicules a Christian for worshiping his crucified God. The language changes from witness to witness, but the central fact does not: the early church did not merely believe propositions about Christ. It worshiped him.
How Could Jewish Monotheists Worship Jesus?
The first Christians did not invent their language from nothing. Israel’s Scriptures already contained categories through which the invisible God could make himself known.
At the burning bush, “the Angel of YHWH” appears, but the one speaking from the fire says:
“I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Exodus 3:6
Elsewhere God says of his angel:
“My name is in him.”
Exodus 23:21
The Angel is distinguishable from God yet bears God’s name, presence, speech, and authority. This is not merely one created angel speaking on God’s behalf. The figure provides a scriptural category for the visible self-manifestation of the invisible God—the one through whom the unseen Father makes himself known.
Jewish Wisdom supplied another. The Wisdom of Solomon describes Wisdom as:
“A breath of the power of God … the reflection of eternal light … and the image of his goodness.”
Wisdom of Solomon 7:25–26
Paul later calls Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God” and “the image of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24; 2 Corinthians 4:4).
Daniel describes “one like a son of man” coming with heaven’s clouds and receiving dominion, glory, an everlasting kingdom, and the service of every nation (Daniel 7:13–14). Jewish Scripture could therefore envision a humanlike heavenly figure sharing God’s universal rule.
The closest contemporary parallel comes from Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher living at approximately the same time as Jesus and Paul. Philo describes God’s Logos:
“God’s First-born, the Word, who holds the eldership among the angels, their ruler as it were.”
Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues 146
Philo continues by naming this figure the Beginning, the Name of God, God’s Word, and the Man after God’s image.
He then writes:
“For the Word is the eldest-born image of God.”
Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues 147
Philo reaches this distinction by examining the wording of Genesis 1:27. In the Greek text, the verse says that “God made the human being according to the image of God,” rather than simply saying, “according to his own image.” Philo argues that mortal humanity could not be modeled directly upon the supreme and invisible God. Instead, humanity was made according to the Logos, whom Philo understood to be God’s image and subordinate representative. It is in this carefully qualified sense that he calls the Logos:
“The second God, who is His Logos.”
Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis 2.62
In the same passage, Philo says that the God who exists before the Logos is superior to every rational nature and stands above the Logos. Elsewhere he places the Word on the boundary between God and creation:
“Neither uncreated as God, nor created as you, but midway between the two extremes.”
Philo, Who Is the Heir of Divine Things? 205–206
This hierarchy did not prevent the Logos from functioning as God’s own manifestation. Philo says that people unable to perceive the true God may:
“Regard the image of God, His angel the Word, as His very self.”
Philo, On Dreams 1.239
Here we find something close to the middle possibility raised by Philippians 2. The highest God remains the invisible source. His Logos is distinguishable from him and ordered beneath him, yet bears his image, Name, presence, and revelatory authority. The Logos is not merely one creature within the world, but neither does Philo erase the hierarchy between the Logos and the supreme Father.
Philo was not describing Jesus. That is precisely why his testimony matters. Before Paul wrote Philippians, a Jewish thinker could call one figure God’s firstborn Word, image, Name, ruler among the angels, and even “second God,” while still placing the Father above him.
These categories help us understand how Jewish Christians could distinguish Jesus from the Father while treating him as God’s visible manifestation. They also show why “form of God” need not automatically settle the question of complete equality with God: a heavenly image could share God’s form and authority while remaining ordered toward God as its source. But the backgrounds do not explain the Christian claim itself. Philo never identified his Logos as a crucified man named Jesus; Daniel never required anyone to identify its heavenly figure with Jesus of Nazareth; and the Angel and Wisdom traditions did not require the worship of a Galilean who had died on a Roman cross. The categories supplied the vocabulary, but something else caused the first Christians to apply that vocabulary to Jesus.
The Resurrection Explains the Identification
Paul preserves an earlier tradition in 1 Corinthians 15:
“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and he appeared to Cephas … then to James … and last of all he appeared also to me.”
1 Corinthians 15:3–8
The first Christians believed that God had raised Jesus and that he had appeared to Peter, James, Paul, and others. Those experiences forced them to reconsider who the crucified man must have been. Jewish and Greek categories supplied their vocabulary, while the resurrection appearances supplied the reason to apply that vocabulary to Jesus. Philippians 2 preserves the result: the crucified man was the preexistent one who entered human life, accepted the form of a slave, and now received the universal worship belonging to the divine Lord.
What the Skeptic Can Still Say
The poem establishes what early Christians believed. It does not independently prove that Jesus actually existed in God’s form before his human life.
A skeptic can argue that Jesus’ followers experienced visions, interpreted them as resurrection appearances, and then applied Jewish divine-agent traditions to him. Belief in his exaltation could have developed rapidly into belief in his preexistence.
That is a serious skeptical explanation, and it is much stronger than saying Christians invented a divine Jesus centuries later. It nevertheless requires an important concession: the development occurred extraordinarily early, while Peter, James, John, Paul, and other members of the first generation were still alive.
If Paul inherited the poem, this understanding had already become structured tradition before AD 60–61. If Paul composed it, he still presented it as shared truth to an established church.
The skeptic may argue that the earliest Christians were mistaken, but cannot reasonably argue that belief in a divine Jesus first appeared after the apostles disappeared. The question is no longer whether the belief was early; it is why they believed it and whether they were right.
Why Paul Uses the Poem
Paul does not include this portrait merely to answer a metaphysical question. He is confronting selfish ambition within the church:
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.”
Philippians 2:3
The Christ who begins in God’s form does not advance himself through seizure or use divine status for his own benefit. He takes the lowest position and accepts death for others. The theology and moral demand belong together: the earliest Christians did not merely worship Jesus as divine; they believed his self-emptying revealed what divine greatness looks like, and those who worshiped him were expected to become like him.
Conclusion: The Earliest Portrait of Jesus
Philippians 2 does not use the word Trinity. It does not explain precisely how Jesus and the Father relate within the being of God. It does not settle every possible meaning of morphē or harpagmos. It does not prove that Paul inherited the poem.
It establishes something historically remarkable.
By AD 60–61 at the latest—and possibly earlier—Christians could describe Jesus this way:
He existed in the form of God.
He did not treat equality with God as something to seize upon for himself.
He entered human life.
He took the form of a slave.
He bore the common name Yeshua.
He accepted death on a Roman cross.
God highly exalted him.
God gave him the name above every name.
The entire cosmos bowed before him.
And every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord.
The surrounding Jewish world helps us understand how such language was possible. The Angel of YHWH made the invisible God present. Wisdom reflected God’s eternal light. Daniel’s heavenly human received everlasting dominion. Philo called the Logos God’s firstborn Word, image, Name, ruler among the angels, and even “second God,” while placing the supreme Father above him.
That background helps us recognize the genuine order within Paul’s language. The Father is the source, sender, and exalter; Christ is his image, mediator, obedient Son, and Lord. Philippians may therefore portray God’s unique heavenly image refusing to seize equality with the One he reveals. The other reading remains possible: equality was already Christ’s, but he refused to exploit it. The word harpagmos cannot settle which status was already possessed.
What the poem does settle is the direction of Christ’s action and the result. He does not exalt himself; God exalts him. He does not seize lordship; God bestows the supreme name. Yet the resulting Lordship is not that of an ordinary heavenly messenger. The homage Isaiah directed toward YHWH is offered to Jesus, and the entire creation confesses him as Lord to the glory of God the Father.
The early Christian worship of Jesus tells us what the poem meant to the communities that preserved it. They did not merely honor Jesus as God’s representative; they called upon his name, prayed for his return, gathered around his body and blood, confessed him as Lord, and applied to him the worship and scriptural language of YHWH. They distinguished Jesus from God the Father while including him within the identity and worship of the one God. In ordinary Christian language, they understood Jesus as God.
The confession at the poem’s climax was therefore not a new title coined for the Philippians. “Jesus is Lord” already belonged to the church’s Greek confession and its Aramaic prayer. The poem takes that primitive confession and gives it a cosmic explanation: the Jesus whom the first believers already addressed as their Lord is the one before whom every knee will bow.
The later councils supplied philosophical definitions, but the worship was already present in our earliest evidence.
The doctrine did not create the worship.
The worship created the need for the doctrine.
From the seven undisputed letters alone, we already possess the resurrection proclamation, named witnesses, prayer to Jesus, and one of Christianity’s oldest poems about his identity. In that poem, the man who bore one of Judea’s most common names is already the Lord before whom every knee bows.
The Gospels and the wider first-century literature confirm and enlarge that picture, but they were not needed to create it. Paul’s undisputed letters had already established the central claim.
The seven letters remain the floor of the Christian case, not its ceiling.
Yet even at that floor, every knee is already bending and every tongue is already confessing:
Jesus Christ is Lord.
