I just watched a video on Philippians 2:5-11 made by unitarians J.J. Fletcher and Dustin Smith [I had originally said Justin, my apologies] available here and I noted many errors–too many to address in one blog post.  But one thing I did want to comment on was a misuse (if we can even call this a use at all) of the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.   Dustin Smith said: 

Our top dictionaries, the, um, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament or the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology will tell us that morphe is the image or the expression or the role or the status.  So we’re going to see in here it has nothing to do with being in very nature God, none of these dictionaries say nature, these are the top uh scholarly works that we have this is the best that the people can do and it’s very rare in the New Testament do its not the easiest thing to understand that’s why we have to go with the best we have to offer.

Now in making this statement he picks up the TDNT and looks at it, but he doesn’t actually read from it.  But let’s test his claim by quoting from a portion of the section called The μορφη of Christ in the New Testament.
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The lofty terminology of the hymn can venture to speak of the form or visible appearance of God in this antithesis on the theological basis of the δοξα concept of the Greek Bible, which is also that of Paul, and according to which the majesty of God is visibly expressed in radiant light (→ II, 237ff.). The μορφη θεου in which the pre-existent Christ was is simply the divine doxa; Paul’s εν μορφη θεου υπαρχων corresponds exactly to Jn. 17:5: τη δοξη η ειχον προ του τον κοσμον ειναι παρα σοι. The wealth of the Christological content of Phil. 2:5 f. rests on the fact that Paul does not deny the incomparable measure of the self-denial displayed by the pre-existent Christ in His incarnation merely as the opposite of the egotistic exploitation of what he possessed (→ I, 474) or as the surrender of His own will, nor is he concerned merely to emphasize the contrast between his eternal and temporal existence, His deity and humanity, but he brings out in clear-cut contrast the absolute distinction between the modes of being. Christ came down from the height of power and splendor to the abyss of weakness and lowliness proper to a slave, and herein is revealed for the apostle, the inner nature of the Redeemer who is both above history and yet also in history.  He did not consider Himself; He set before the eyes of those who believe in Him the example of forgetfulness of his own ego.[1]

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And one more small point that I wanted to raise in this post—the gentlemen in the video claimed that Philippians 2 was not teaching pre-existence (they makes reference to Martin Luther and James D.G. Dunn as some who agree with the position), but the article in the TDNT says otherwise.  We saw this in the quote above and we will see it further in the footnote below.
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That the pre-existent Christ is meant may be seen from the structure of the hymn, which traces the whole path of the Redeemer from its beginning in heaven by way of the status exinanitionis to the goal of exaltation and glorification. The ref. to the historical Jesus (Eus. Hist. Eccl., V, 2, 2ff., Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons; v. Loofs, 67 ff.; also Loofs, 92 ff.; Kattenbusch, 404 f.; Bornhäuser, 461) is unable to explain the εν μορφη θεου υπαρχων satisfactorily.  Because of the pre-existent Christology there is no cause to reject Pauline authorship of Phil. 2:6 f…[2]

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Remember, according to Mr. Smith “these are the top uh scholarly works that we have this is the best that the people can do”

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Notes 

[1] Behm, J. “μορφη” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. IV: Λ – Ν. Ed. Gerhard Kittel, Trans.  Geoffrey W. Bromiley, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1967, rpt. 2006), 751-52. [Bold mine]

[2] Ibid., Footnote 48, 751. [Bold mine] 

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