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Morphe
A. The noun morphe (morfhv) belongs to the following word group:
2. Summorphos (suVmmorfoς) (adjective), “being conformed, having the same form.”
3. Summorphizo (summorfiVzw) (verb), “to be conformed to, to take on the same form as.”
4. Summorphoo (summorfoVw) (verb), “to take on the same form.”
5. Metamorphoo (metamorfoVw) (verb), “to be transformed, to be renovated, to be transfigured, to be
changed in form.”
6. Morphosis (moVrfwsiς) (noun), “form, appearance, semblance, embodiment, outward form.”
7. Morphoo (morfoVw) (verb), “to take on form, to be formed, to shape, to fashion.”
B. Classical Usage
1. Morphe occurs twice in Homer where it refers to comeliness or shapeliness of words (Od. II, 367; Od.
8, 170).
2. It became common in later on in classical literature.
3. The word in general meant “form, fashion, external or outward appearance.”
4. It also could mean “gesticulations, complexion, kind, sort.”
5. Georg Braumann makes the following excellent comment on the word’s usage in classical
literature, he writes, “Morphe is instanced form Homer onwards and means form in the sense of
outward appearance. Aeschylus speaks of seeing neither voice nor form of man (PV, 21 f.). It can
also mean the embodiment of the form, the person in so far as it comes into view. ‘The spirit of
misfortune...has robbed me in sending to me dust and a vain shade instead of your most loved
form’ (Soph., El., 1156 ff.). Greek philosophy was concerned with the question of matter and
form. Plato presents Socrates as saying that an exact description of the nature of the soul will
enable us to see ‘whether she be single and the same, or, like the morphe of the soul’ (Phdr., 271;
cf. 103, 104). Aristotle worked out a more precise set of concepts. He distinguished matter (hule)
from form (morphe, also eidos). Matter has within itself a great number of possibilities for
becoming a form and thus becoming manifest as a form. See further Aristotle, Met. 990b, 9;
1029a, 29; 1057b, 7; Phys., 187a, 18; Cat. 2b, 7. These concepts do not imply that form and matter
are separable like husk and kernel. Rather they represent different principles and ways of
looking at the same object. The outward appearance cannot be detached from the essence of the
thing. The essence of the thing is indicated by its outward form. Similarly, morphosis means
embodiment, receiving form; summorphos having the same form; summorphizomai and
summorphoomai to take on the same form; and metamorphoomai to be transformed (cf. Arndt, 513,
530, 786). Of special interest is the use of the word in the literature of Gnosticism and the
Hellenistic mystery religions. In the first instance, these texts are not to be compared with the
accounts of the appearance of the gods in various forms (e.g. Jupiter in mortal form, specie
mortali, Ovid, Metamorphoses, 8, 262). For it is not so much the question of the transformation of
the deity into human form (though cf. Phil. 2:6), but that of men into divine form. It is not
merely the external appearance that is changed. Rather, the change of the morphe involves a
change of essential character. According to Pistis Sophia, c. 66, one of the emanations changed
itself into the form of a great serpent, whilst another changed itself into the form of a basilisk.
The meaning of external appearance can even recede behind that of essential character. There is a
place where there is neither man nor woman nor even forms, but a perpetual ineffable light
(Pistis Sophia, c. 143). ‘All the very mournful form he [Uriel] will lead to judgment’ (Sibylline
Oracles, 2, 230). The external appearance is undoubtedly meant not as an antithesis to the
essential character, but as the expression of it. Thus the Hellenistic mystery religions contain a
great number of stories about transformations. The initiate is transformed by dedication and rites
into divine substances and so is deified. ‘I passed into an immortal body, and now I am not what
I was before but am born again in nous [mind]’ (Corp. Herm., 13, 3). The whole man is affected
and not just a part or something in him” (The New International Dictionary of New Testament
Theology, volume 1, page 705).
2007 William E. Wenstrom, Jr. Bible Ministries
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6.
Behm commenting on the word’s classical usage in relation to schema and eidos, writes, “Eidos
denotes the appearance of the kind, what is common to the individuals, while morphe is the
individual form of appearance. To eidos clings the idea of what may be perceived and known by
others, but morphe indicates what is objectively there. Morphe differs from schema inasmuch as it
indicates the individual appearance as it is, while schema refers to its outward representation.
Morphe is the whole (of the body etc.) in and for itself, while schema is what belongs or has ref. to
the whole (form, outward characteristics, manner of appearance etc.)” (Theological Dictionary of the
New Testament, volume IV, pages 743-744).
7. Morphe has no unequivocal and definite sense in Greek philosophy.
8. Parmenides, the first to use it, speaks of light and darkness as two forms of being.
9. Morphe is a concept of pure form.
10. Phaedrus distinguishes morphe as the characteristic or distinctive form.
11. Plato did not use the word much and used it as an equivalent to eidos or idea for external
appearance.
12. The word acquires a fixed meaning in the writings of Aristotle and occupies a central place in his
structure.
13. Behm makes the following excellent comment on Aristotle’s usage of morphe, he writes, “In
Aristotle morphe acquires a fixed meaning, and it occupies a central place in his structure. The
four principles of all being (form or nature, matter, moving cause and end) may be reduced
finally to two, form (morphe, eidos) and matter (hule, to hupokeimenon, Phys. I, 7, p. 190b, 20: gignetai
pan ek te tou hupokeimenou kai tes morphes. Morphe and eidos, which often occur together (e.g., An.
II, 1, p. 412a, 8; II, 2, p. 414a, 9; Metaph., IV, 8, p. 1017b, 25f.; IX, 1, p. 1052a, 22 f.), are
interchangeable concepts for ‘form,’ i.e., that which may be perceived, but which is real only by
reference to that which in some way shapes it, the fulfillment of the possibility of form which
matter has within it. As being (to ti esti), cause (to hothen he kinesis) and end (to ou eneka) find their
unity in form (Phys. II, 7, p. 198a, 25 ff. etc.), so essence (to ti hen einai=ousia) and form are
related, Gen. Corr., II, 9, p. 335b, 35; the point is to grasp through eidos that in a thing which it
really was. So, too, are nature (phusis) and form (Phys. II, 1, p. 193a, 28 ff.; II, 8, p. 199a, 30 f.).
Finally, there is unity between form and matter, Metaphys., VII, 6, p. 1045b, 17).
14. Behm summarizing morphe’s usage in classical literature, writes, “In sum, it may be seen from the
majority of instances that in all its many nuances morphe represents something which may be
perceived by the senses, and that it does so strictly, not even touching lightly the concept of being
or appearance” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, volume IV, pages 745-746).
15. The idea that the deity has form and appears in visible form to man, is found in Greek religion,
especially where there is a dominant belief in sensual divine revelation, in the epiphany of
suprahuman beings.
16. In Homer the gods walk on earth in their own or other forms and play a personal part in the
affairs of men (Iliad, 21, 285; 2, 58).
17. A feature of myth is that the gods continually take and change forms such as Aphrodite,
Demeter, and Dionysus.
18. In the speculative Gnostic view the thought of the morphe theou recurs in Hermes mysticism.
19. The popular belief that the gods have figures, once established by Homer persisted and was
nourished by myth and the cults but philosophical criticism also produced skepticism.
20. But on the whole the divine form as a concrete phenomenon though challenged or sublimated in
philosophy, remains current in Hellenistic and Greek thought.
C. LXX Usage
1. Morphe occurs only rarely in the Greek translations of the OT.
2. Altogether it appears 9 times for various Hebrew or Aramaic words such as temunah (Job 4:16, of
physical form), tabnit (Isa. 44:13), selem (Dan. 3:19).
3. The LXX never employs morphe in reference to the form of God; not even in its recounting of the
Lord Jesus Christ’s theophanies or in anthropomorphic terms.
D. NT Usage
2007 William E. Wenstrom, Jr. Bible Ministries
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Morphe appears only 3 times in the NT (Mark 16:12; Phil. 2:6-7).
The verb morphoo is a hapax legomenon (Gal. 4:19).
The noun morphosis is found twice (Rom. 2:20; 2 Tim. 3:5).
Morphe is only used in the NT with reference to our Lord.
In Mark 16:12, morphe was used for a post-resurrection appearance of our Lord.
Morphe is used in 2 antithetical or contrasting statements in Philippians 2:6-7.
In verse 6, the word is used as an expression for the function or expression of our Lord’s divine
attributes in His preincarnate, incarnate and glorified states with the latter continuing up to the
present.
8. In verse 7, it is used with reference to God the Son adding to His divine essence, the essence of a
servant.
E. Philippians 2:6 Usage
1. Morphe refers to the expression of our Lord’s divine attributes which compose His divine essence.
2. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines essence, “the properties or attributes by means of
which something can be placed in its proper class or identified as being what it is.”
3. They also define attribute, “an inherent characteristic.”
4. Morphe denotes the expression of the inherent characteristics of deity in the Person of the Theanthropos,
the Lord Jesus Christ in Hypostatic Union.
5. Vine quoting Gifford, writes, “morphe is therefore properly the nature or essence, not in the
abstract, but as actually subsisting in the individual, and retained as long as the individual exists”
(Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words Unabridged Edition, page 463).
6. Vincent gives an excellent definition of morphe in our passage, he writes, “We must dismiss from
our minds the idea of shape. The word is used in its philosophical sense, to denote that
expression of being which carries in itself the distinctive nature and character of being to whom it
pertains, and is thus permanently identified with that nature and character. Thus it is
distinguished from schema fashion, comprising that which appeals to the senses and which is
changeable. Morphe is identified with the essence of a person or thing” (Vincent’s Word Studies in
the New Testament, volume III, page 431).
7. Wuest makes the following comment, he writes “Our Lord was in the form of God. The word
‘God is without the definite article in the Greek text, and therefore refers to the divine essence.
Thus, our Lord’s outward expression of His inmost being was as to its nature the expression of
the divine essence of Deity. Since that outward expression which this word ‘form’ speaks of,
comes from and is truly representative of the inward being, it follows that our Lord as to His
nature is the possessor of the divine essence Deity, and being that, it also necessarily follows that
He is absolute Deity Himself, a co-participant with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in
that divine essence which constitutes God, God” (Word Studies in the Greek New Testament, volume
II, page 63).
8. Trench commenting on the word’s usage in our passage, writes, “The form of God is not His
divine nature, although He who exists in the form of God is God. This is true because morphe
signifies the form as it expresses the inner life-not ‘being’ but ‘mode of being,’ or better ‘mode of
existence,’ and only God could have the mode of existence of God” (Synonyms of the New
Testament, page 276).
9. Webster’s Unabridged Universal Dictionary defines mode as “the manner of acting or doing;
method; way; the natural disposition or the manner of existence or action of anything; form.”
10. Morphe refers to the expression of our Lord’s divine attributes in His preincarnate, incarnate and
glorified states.
2007 William E. Wenstrom, Jr. Bible Ministries
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