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Php_2:11 appends the express confession combined with the adoration in Php_2:10, in doing which the concrete form of representation is continued, comp. Rom_14:11; Isa_45:23; hence γλῶσσα is tongue, correlative to the previous γόνυ , not language (Theodoret, Beza, and others).
ἐξομολ .] a strengthening compound. Comp. on Mat_3:6. Respecting the future (see the critical remarks) depending on ἵνα , see on Gal_2:4; Eph_6:3; 1Co_9:18.
κύριος ] predicate, placed first with strong emphasis: that Lord is Jesus Christ. This is the specific confession of the apostolic church (Rom_10:9; 2Co_4:5; Act_2:36), whose antithesis is: ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦς 1Co_12:3. The κύριον εἶναι refers to the fellowship of the divine dominion (comp. on Eph_1:22 f., Php_4:10; 1Co_15:27 f.); hence it is not to be limited to the rational creatures (Hoelemann, following Flatt and others), or to the church (Rheinwald, Schenkel).
εἰς δόξ . Θεοῦ πατρ .] may be attached to the entire bipartite clause of purpose (Hofmann). Since, however, in the second part a modification of the expression is introduced by the future, it is more probably to be joined to this portion, of which the telic destination, i.e. the final cause, is specified. It is not to be connected merely with κύριος Ἰ . Χ ., as Bengel wished: “J. Ch. esse dominum, quippe qui sit in gloria Dei patris,” making εἰς stand for ἐν , for which the Vulgate, Pelagius, Estius, and others also took it. Schneckenburger also, p. 341 (comp. Calvin, Rheinwald, Matthies, Hoelemann), joins it with κύριος , but takes εἰς δόξαν rightly: to the honour. But, in accordance with Php_2:9, it was self-evident that the κυριότης of the Son tends to the honour of the Father; and the point of importance for the full conclusion was not this, but to bring into prominence that the universal confessing recognition of the κυριότης of Jesus Christ glorifies the Father (whose will and work Christ’s entire work of salvation is; see especially Ephesians 1; Rom_15:7-9; 2Co_1:20), whereby alone the exaltation, which Christ has received as a recompense from the Father, appears in its fullest splendour. Comp. Joh_12:28; Joh_17:1. The whole contents of Php_2:9 f. is parallel to the ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ , namely, as the recompensing re-elevation to this original estate, now accorded to the divine-human person after the completion of the work of humiliation. Complicated and at variance with the words is the view of van Hengel, that ἐξομολ . εἰς δόξαν Θεοῦ is equivalent to ἐξομολ . Θεῷ , to praise God (Gen_29:34, al.; Rom_15:9; Mat_11:25; Luk_10:21), and that ὅτι is quod; hence: “laudibus celebrarent, quod hunc filium suum principem fecerit regni divini.”
REMARK.
From Php_2:6-11, Baur, whom Schwegler follows, derives his arguments for the assertion that our epistle moves in the circle of Gnostic ideas and expressions, [121] and must therefore belong to the post-apostolic period of Gnostic speculation. But with the true explanation of the various points these arguments [122] fall to pieces of themselves. For (1) if τὸ εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ be related to ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ εἶναι as the essence to its adequate manifestation, and if our explanation of ἁρπαγμός be the linguistically correct one, then must the Gnostic conception of the Aeon Sophia—which vehemently desired to penetrate into the essence of the original Father (Iren. Haer. i. 2. 2), and thus before the close of the world’s course (Theol. Jahrb. 1849, p. 507 ff.) wished to usurp forcibly something not de jure belonging to it (Paulus, II. p. 51 ff.)—be one entirely alien, and dissimilar to the idea of our passage. But this conception is just as inconsistent with the orthodox explanation of our passage, as with the one which takes the εἶναι ἴσα Θεῷ as something future and greater than the μορφὴ Θεοῦ ; since in the case of the μορφή , as well as in that of the ἴσα , the full fellowship in the divine nature is already the relation assumed as existing. Consequently (2) the ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσε cannot be explained by the idea, according to which the Gnostics made that Aeon, which desired to place itself in unwarranted union with the Absolute, fall from the Pleroma to the κένωμα —as to which Baur, in this alleged basis for the representation of our passage, lays down merely the distinction, that Paul gives a moral turn to what, with the Gnostics, had a purely speculative signification (“Whilst, therefore, in the Gnostic view, that ἁρπαγμός indeed actually takes place, but as an unnatural enterprise neutralizes itself, and has, as its result, merely something negative, in this case, in virtue of a moral self-determination, matters cannot come to any such ἁρπαγμός ; and the negative, which even in this case occurs, not in consequence of an act that has failed, but of one which has not taken place at all, is the voluntary self-renunciation and self-denial by an act of the will, an ἑαυτὸν χενοῦν instead of the γενέσθαι ἐν χενώματι ”). (3) That even the notion of the μορφὴ Θεοῦ arose from the language used by the Gnostics, among whom the expressions μορφή , μορφοῦν , μόρφωσις , were very customary, is all the more arbitrarily assumed by Baur, since these expressions were very prevalent generally, and are not specifically Gnostic designations; indeed, μορφὴ Θεοῦ is not once used by the Gnostics, although it is current among other authors, including philosophers (e.g. Plat. Rep. p. 381 C: μένει ἀεὶ ἁπλῶς ἐν τῇ αὑτοῦ μορφῇ , comp. p. 381 B: ἥχιστʼ ἂν πολλὰς μορφὰς ἴσχοι ὁ Θεός ). Further, (4) the erroneousness of the view, which in the phrases ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων and σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρ . discovers a Gnostic Docetism, is self-evident from the explanation of these expressions in accordance with the context (see on the passage); and Chrysostom and his successors have rightly brought out the essential difference between what the apostle says in Php_2:7 and the Docetic conceptions (Theophylact: οὐχ ἦν δὲ τὸ φαινόμενον μόνον , namely, man, ἀλλὰ καὶ Θεός , οὐχ ἦν ψιλὸς ἄνθρωπος . Διὰ τοῦτο φήσιν ·· ἐν ὁμοιώματι ἀνθρώπων · ἡμεῖς μὲν γὰρ ψυχὴ καὶ σῶμα , ἐκεῖνος δὲ ψυχὴ καὶ σῶμα καὶ Θεός κ . τ . λ . Theodoret: περὶ τοῦ λόγου ταῦτα φήσιν , ὅτι Θεὸς ὢν οὐχ ἑωρᾶτο Θεὸς τὴν ἀνθρωπείαν περικείμενος φύσιν κ . τ . λ .). Comp. on Rom_8:3. Lastly, (5) even the three categories ἐπουρανίων καὶ ἐπιγ . καὶ καταχθ ., and also the notion of the descensus ad inferos which the latter recalls, are alleged by Baur to be genuinely Gnostic. But the idea of the descent to Hades is not distinctively Gnostic; it belongs to the N. T., and is a necessary presupposition lying at the root of many passages (see on Luk_23:43; Mat_12:40; Act_2:27 ff.; Rom_10:6 ff.; Eph_4:8 ff.); it is, in fact, the premiss of the entire belief in Christ’s resurrection ἐκ νεκρῶν . That threefold division of all angels and men (see also Rev_5:13) was, moreover, so appropriate and natural in the connection of the passage (comp. the twofold division, καὶ νεκρῶν καὶ ζώντων , Rom_14:9, Act_10:42, 1Pe_4:5 f., where only men are in question), that its derivation from Gnosticism could only be justified in the event of the Gnostic character of our passage being demonstrated on other grounds. The whole hypothesis is engrafted on isolated expressions, which only become violently perverted into conceptions of this kind by the presupposition of a Gnostic atmosphere. According to the Gnostic view, it would perhaps have been said of the Aeon Sophia: ὃς ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων οὐ προάλλεσθαι ἡγήσατο εἰς τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ Θεοῦ κ . τ . λ . The apostle’s expressions agree entirely with the Christology of his other epistles; it is from these and from his own genuine Gnosis laid down in them, that his words are to be understood fully and rightly, and not from the theosophic phantasmagoria of any subsequent Gnosis whatever.
[121] Its idea is, that Christ “divests Himself of that which He already is, in order to receive back that of which He has divested Himself, with the full reality of the idea filled with its absolute contents,” Baur, Neutest. Theol. p. 265.
[122] Hinsch, l.c. p. 76, does not adopt them, but yet thinks it un-Pauline that the incarnation of Christ is represented detached from its reference to humanity. This, however, is not the case, as may be gathered from the connection of the passage in its practical bearing with ver. 4 ( τὰ ἑτέρων ).