Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped — the Carmen Christi begins with Christ's preincarnate status: morphē theou (form/nature of God) asserts full divine nature. Harpazō (snatch, grasp) is the disputed term: does Christ not seize equality or not regard it as something to seize? The latter (supported by harpagmos, 'thing to be grasped') suggests he possessed equality but did not exploit it. This inversion is radical: power is not clutched but released. Christ's voluntary self-limitation becomes the paradigm for Christian humility.

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