Is there a divine-identity christology in Philippians 3:20-21?

Crispin Fletcher-Louis has written a monster book—nearly a thousand pages—about the Christ encomium in Philippians 2:6-11: The Divine Heartset: Paul’s Philippians Christ Hymn, Metaphysical Affections, and Civic Virtues (Wipf & Stock, 2023). About 20% is available on Google Books. We get a pretty good idea of the thrust of it from the blurb:

The passage’s praise of Christ engages the language of Hellenistic ruler cults, Platonic metaphysics and moral philosophy, popular (Homeric) beliefs about the gods, and Greek love (eros), to articulate a scripturally grounded theology in which God is revealed to be one in two persons (God the Father and LORD Jesus Christ).

So the passage engages everything but scripture in order to articulate a “scripturally grounded” divine identity christology? I wonder if there isn’t a really quite fundamental problem there. But it looks like a very thorough piece of work, and I plan to save up and buy a copy to see if he has come up with anything that seriously contradicts my own reading of the encomium.

In the meantime….

The book also aims to explore “hitherto unseen ways in which the central Christ Hymn is tightly connected to the rest of Paul’s argument.” So we have the claim, for example, that a divine identity christology is present in Philippians 3:20-4:1 (20-22)—a section that can be read on Google Books.

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which indeed we await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation conformed to the body of his glory according to the power enabling him also to subject (hypotaxai) all things to himself. (Phil. 3:20-21*)

Fletcher-Louis argues that behind the language of the subjection of all things is Psalm 8:

What is man that you are mindful of him or son of man that you attend to him? You diminished him a little in comparison with angels; with glory and honor you crowned him. And you set him over the works of your hands; you subjected (hypetaxas) all under his feet… (Ps. 8:5-7 LXX)

But in Philippians 3:21 it is not God who does the subjecting but Christ, from which a christology of divine identity is inferred. The conclusion is reinforced by the fact that in other passages it is “God who works that transformation” (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 15:38; cf. 2 Cor. 5:1).

The inference is mistaken, I think…

1. There is reason to doubt that Paul’s language comes principally from Psalm 8. The context of the subjection of all things to humanity in the psalm is creation: the works of God’s hands were subjected (aorist) under the feet of humanity—sheep, cattle, birds, fish, etc. More relevant, I think, is Daniel 7:27 LXX, which Fletcher-Louis only mentions in passing in a footnote:

And he shall give the authority and the kingdom and the magnitude of all the kingdoms, which are under heaven, to the holy people of the Most High, to reign over an everlasting kingdom, and all authorities will be subjected (hypotagēsontai) to him and obey him until the conclusion of the word.

Here the context is both political and future, which fits the eschatological outlook of Philippians much better. We don’t really need an “eschatological construal of Ps. 8” (22) because Daniel has done it for us.

How Christ would attain sovereignty over the nations is what the Philippians 2 encomium is all about. Believers can expect the Lord Jesus Christ to come as saviour because their “citizenship” (politeuma) is in heaven (3:20). It is not sheep and cattle that are subjected to him but the political-religious powers, Jewish and pagan, mundane and transcendent, which inflict suffering on the apostles and the churches. Jesus, the apostles, and the persecuted churches are the “son of man” community which suffers at the hands of both the wicked in Israel and the blasphemous pagan oppressor.

2. The context of suffering and vindication is also suggested by the thought that the saviour “will transform the body of our humiliation.” There is ample support for the idea that such humiliation (tapeinōsis) entails subjection to violence—not least Isaiah 53:7-8 LXX:

And he, because he has been ill–treated, does not open his mouth; like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before the one shearing it, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation (tapeinōsei) his judgment was taken away. Who will describe his generation? Because his life is being taken from the earth, he was led to death on account of the acts of lawlessness of my people.

And we have in 4 Maccabees the account of the torture of the oldest of the seven sons, a “true son of Abraham,” who “did not groan, but as though transformed (metaschēmatizomenos) in the fire into immortality, …nobly endured the torments,” and who called on his brothers to “imitate” (mimēsasthe) him (4 Macc. 9:21-23).

In the same way, Paul has boasted of his Jewish heritage (“a Hebrew of the Hebrews”), he shares in the sufferings of Christ, expecting to conform (symmorphizomenos) to him in his death (3:9), he urges the Philippian believers to imitate (symmimētai) him, and he awaits the transformation (metaschēmatisei) of his damaged and degraded body so that it is “conformed (symmorphon) to the body of his glory”—if possible, through resurrection from the dead (3:11-12).

3. Paul says that the Lord Jesus Christ will transform their bodies “by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:21 ESV). Here is the Greek:

κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν τοῦ δύνασθαι αὐτὸν καὶ ὑποτάξαι αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα

kata tēn energeian tou dynasthai auton kai hypotaxai autōi ta panta

The word energeia readily suggests a divine power: “This was the working (energeia) of God who is master of all things” (3 Macc. 5:28); wisdom is “a spotless mirror of the activity (energeias) of God and an image of his goodness” (Wis. 7:26).

In Ephesians and Colossians, it is used for the “working” of God by which Jesus was raised from the dead:

…that you might know what is the hope of his calling, what the wealth of the glory of his inheritance among the holy ones, and what the exceeding greatness of his power for us who believe according to the working (kata tēn energeian) of the might of his strength, which he worked in the Christ having raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavens far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come; and he subjected all things under his feet and gave him as head above all things—for the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one filling all in all. (Eph. 1:18-23*)

…having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working (energeias) of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col. 2:12)

It is also used for the “working” of God in Paul:

…the gospel, of which I became a minister by the gift of the grace of God given to me according to the working of his power (kata tēn energeian tēs dynameōs autou). (Eph. 3:7)

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy (energeian) that he powerfully (en dynamei) works within me. (Col. 1:29)

So what this suggests is that “according to the working that empowers him” in Philippians 3:21 refers to the power of God that will work in Jesus, because of the resurrection, to conform the bodies of suffering believers to his glorious resurrection body. There is no requirement of divine identity. It remains the working of God in the resurrected Christ, as in the apostle.

We may have reservations about appealing to Ephesians in particular here, but the passage is an apt gloss on the Philippians text:

• the resurrection and enthronement of Christ are “according to the working” (kata tēn energeian) of God’s might;
• this is not a working which Christ has, it is a working in him;
• this same “power” (dynameōs) has benefits for believers who will receive the ”glory of his inheritance among the holy ones”;
• Christ has received a supreme “political” status above all rule, etc., in keeping with Daniel 7:13-14, 27, effective not only in the present age but also in the age to come;
• this is moreover a status above “every name that is named” (cf. Phil. 2:9);
• God has “subjected (hypetaxen) all things under his feet,” which may recall Psalm 8:6, but since we have had reference to Christ seated at the right hand of God, Psalm 109:1 LXX may have the louder resonance: “The Lord said to my lord, “Sit on my right until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”

4. The working of God which will empower Jesus to transform their bodies may “also” or “even” (kai) enable him to “subject all things to himself.” This would be a remarkable departure both from Psalm 8 and from the usual New Testament pattern, according to which God subjects all things to Jesus:

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet. (1 Cor. 15:25-27; cf. Matt. 28:18; Eph. 1:22).

But I wonder if we shouldn’t translate Philippians 3:20-21 a little differently:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which indeed we await a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation conformed to the body of his glory according to the working (of God) that empowers him and subjected to him all things.

Now both the empowering and the subjecting are outworkings of the energeia of God; there is no need to suppose that Christ does the subjecting. We also have a reason for the change from a present infinitive (dynasthai) to an aorist infinitive (hypotaxai): the working of God empowers the heavenly Jesus to transform their bodies, but it subjected all things to him when God raised Jesus from the dead and seated him at his right hand.

The kai now simply means “and,” and there is no need to read autōi as a reflexive pronoun, as though Paul meant heautō, which is in fact a variant reading.

Identities, therefore, remain distinct: God subjected all things, all powers and authorities, all opponents, to Jesus when he seated him at his right hand to rule in the midst of his enemies; at the parousia Jesus will come as saviour to deliver his people from their enemies and transform their mortal bodies into resurrection bodies by the power that God has invested in him.