If Jesus was/is the form of God, then he certainly is not God. Paul could have easily cut to the chase by saying "Jesus is God" to take away any doubt from the reader, but he does not, because he knows that Jesus the Messiah is not God.
Phil. 2:6 is not talking about Jesus' "nature" (as the NIV translates it) or "substance" as God. In context, the passage has to do with rank or status, not substance. When we try to make Jesus who he is not, this indoctrination of the trinity leads to nonsensical reasoning to make Jesus who he is not and to make the passages claim what it does not claim. An example of this can be shown below:
Once we are freed from the trinitarian indoctrination which insists that being “in the form of God” simply means “being God,” and once we have regained some degree of clear-mindedness, we should easily be able to see that if Jesus was God there would have been absolutely no reason or need for him to “grasp” (harpagmos) as equality with God, since he already possessed it. Only someone who did not possess equality with God (as in the case of Adam) might desire to grasp at it (cf. Gen. 3:5,6). Therefore, to make this verse say that “being God he (Jesus) did not grasp at equality with God” is to reduce this scripture to meaninglessness, indeed, to the verge of making nonsense (lit. “no sense”) of God’s word. This is surely a serious offence against the Lord and His word.
In the KJV translation of Phil. 2:6 (“who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God”) there is something which does not quite makes sense: If the statement is about two equal persons, under what circumstances would it be necessary to use a word like “robbery” in relation to the question of equality? Even allowing for poetic license, how does robbery come into this kind of discussion? Where two equal persons are concerned, there is obviously no relevance whatever for any reference to one “robbing” the other of equality. But even in the case of two non-equal persons, is equality a thing or status that one person can be deprived of by the other by means of “robbery”? For, to rob is not only to seize what is not one’s own, but to remove what rightfully belongs to the other person. So to “rob” is not merely a question of trying by unscrupulous means to attain to equality with the other person, but it is to take away his status so as to make it one’s own. The other person would, if the robber were successful, not only lose his equality but also become subservient to the one who has taken away that equality, and be thereby reduced to an inferior position.
All of this makes absolutely no sense in regard to Phil. 2:6, for if Jesus were God, the question of attainting equality with God is utterly redundant, and what purpose would the word “robbery” serve in this redundant statement? “Rob” in this sentence would make the statement not only meaningless but absurd. On the other hand, if Jesus were not equal to God, in what sense would it be meaningful to speak of “robbery” in regard to his acquiring equality with God? The only sense one could think of is that the attempt to seize equality would be an act of robbery against God, an act of rebellion, and this was something Jesus definitely did not contemplate. This would make sense except for the fact that the KJV has, instead, inverted the meaning by saying that Jesus did not think of it as robbery! What a thought to serve as the centerpiece of the “Christ hymn.” Is it even imaginable that this is what Paul called the believers to emulate (v. 5)?! What is more, it becomes impossible to make such an outrageous statement connect in any meaningful way to the following sentence: “But made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant…(v. 7). Furthermore, if Jesus was already equal with God, then the statement that “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name” etc. (v.9) would have no significance or meaning whatever, since that would not add one iota to the status he already possessed.
Excerpts above from online book (and further reading on this topic): The Only True God:
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