Jesus Christ did not empty Himself of any of His attributes as God. Nor did Jesus Christ empty Himself of His divinity. But what some do not understand is the fact that "omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience" ARE His attributes. What Jesus Christ did do because He is God (now pay attention) was render or make void the prerogatives of His attributes which He has always had.
Look at
Philippians 2:6 closely. "who, (meaning Jesus Christ) ALTHOUGH (or in spite of the fact) that He existed in the form of God, ended up taking the form of a servant, by being made in the likeness of men." He was God all along but suspended the use of His attributes by taking the form of a servant/man.
This is also why the Apostle Paul at
Philippians 2:1-4 explains to the Philippians not to be selfish, conceited and put others first before yourself just like Jesus Christ did when Paul says at vs 5 to have the same attitude as Jesus Christ. Now do you get it, I hope? And PS: Can you please give me a list of Gods attributes?
• Deity cannot be gained, lost, laid down, or set aside. It either is or it isn’t.
• Deity is defined as: non-contingent eternal existence.
Christ emptied himself (i.e., poured himself) into the form of a servant. Whether Greek grammar requires, or even permits, this interpretation, it is clear that the context emphasizes the change of form, not the change of content, of the Divine Being. He did not give up deity, but he gained humanity. There was no attribution of the divine nature in the incarnation; his life incarnate, containing the fullness of the Godhead bodily, was offered for man's redemption.ward
Heresy Error Adoptionism Denied true deity
Docetism Denied true humanity
Arianism Denied full deity
Apollinarianism Denied full humanity
Nestorianism Divided Christ’s natures (two persons)
Monophysitism Confused Christ’s natures (tertium quid)
The Chalcedonian Definition In October of 451, 520 bishops gathered in the town of Chalcedon to settle these various Christological disputes. And it was there that the church, following the teaching of Scripture, formulated the doctrine of the hypostatic union—that the incarnate Christ is one divine person who subsists in two distinct yet united natures, divine and human. riccardi
The Chalcedonian Creed is the definition of orthodox Christology, and states:
“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [or rational] soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of nature’s being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.”8
Scripture records Jesus exercising the divine prerogatives that kenoticism claims were incompatible with His humanity. He is the Lord of salvation in the same manner as the Father: “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes” (
John 5:21; cf.
11:25). He heals the paralytic by announcing, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you,” and the Pharisees once again accuse Him of blasphemy, thinking to themselves, “Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” Jesus does not correct them, but only affirms that the Son of Man rightly exercises the divine prerogative to forgive sins (
Luke 5:18–26). Only God can forgive sins, and the incarnate Christ forgives sins. Jesus is not only the Lord of salvation but also the Lord of revelation. He delivers revelation to God’s people, not as the prophets who spoke from the derived authority of God and declared, “Thus saith the Lord.” No, Jesus proclaims revelation from His own authority, declaring, “I say to you” (
Matt. 5:22,
28,
32,
34,
39,
44).
Gregory of Nazianzus wrote of this text, “We are to understand the ignorance in the most reverent sense, by attributing it to the manhood, and not to the Godhead.”33 We ought to say that the person of Christ did know the hour of His return according to His divine nature; otherwise He could not be God. But the one and the same Son did not know the hour of His return according to His human nature. He always had access to His divine consciousness, but He never exploited that privilege for Himself. He only accessed that knowledge when it was in accordance with the mission His Father had given Him.riccardi
Now, “form” does not mean that Jesus only seemed to be like God. The Greek term μορφή does not connote merely the outward appearance of something, as we think of in English. The word is notoriously difficult to translate. One scholar writes, “‘Form’ is an inadequate rendering of μορφή, but our language affords no better word.”37 Rather than a single, one-to-one word equivalent, we have to explain what the term means. In the next verse, it describes the genuine humanity that Christ assumed to Himself in the incarnation. Christ took the μορφή δούλου, the form of a slave. He did not merely appear human or merely have the external features of humanity; that is the very docetic heresy the rejection of which the apostle John makes the test of orthodoxy (
1 John 4:2–3). Instead, the μορφή δούλου refers to the fact that Christ was fully and truly human—that He possesses a genuine human nature. In the same way, then, the μορφή θεοῦ refers to the fact that Christ was fully and truly God—that He possesses the genuine divine nature. Yet μορφή is not just a synonym for οὐσία or φύσις, the other words that refer to one’s substance, essence, or nature. μορφή is used nowhere else in the New Testament (except in the long ending of Mark, the authenticity of which is disputed), but in the Septuagint it speaks clearly of one’s appearance.38 Besides this, a cognate form of μορφή is used to describe Jesus’ transfiguration: He was μετεμορφώθη—changed in μορφή (
Matt. 17:2).
But Christ’s immutable divine essence was not changed at the transfiguration. Rather, the outward expression of the glory of Christ’s divine nature had been veiled, and for a moment He was removing the veil and once again letting His glory shine forth. Taking that all together, we ought to conclude that μορφή refers to the outward manifestation that corresponds to the inward essence—to the external form that represents what is intrinsic and essential.39 It is “a form which truly and fully expresses the being which underlies it.”40 In other words, μορφή is not the essence, but no one can appear or exist in view of others in the form of God, manifesting all the perfections of God, unless that person is in fact God.41 Christ was existing in the μορφή of God precisely because in His very essence and His being He is God from all eternity. The context of Philippians 2 makes that clear. In verse 6, Paul says that Christ did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. “Equality” is rendered from the Greek word ἴσος, from which we get the word isomers, which describe chemical compounds that have the same number of the same elements but have different structural formulas. They are distinct compounds, but on a chemical level, they are equal to each other. To switch from chemistry to geometry, an isoscelestriangle is a triangle that has two equal sides. Jesus is ἴσα θεῷ, equal to God. When one considers such statements as
Isaiah 46:9, in which God says, “For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me,”
the conclusion is inescapable. If Veiled in Flesh the Godhead See can be equal to God but God Himself, and (b) Christ is equal to God, then (c) Christ Himself must be fully God. “The form of God” refers to the dignity of the Son’s essence, while “equality with God” refers to the dignity of the Son’s station, or position. If μορφή refers to the outward manifestation of the inner essence and nature, what is the outward manifestation of the inner essence and nature of God? Answer: glory. Throughout the Old Testament, when God’s presence is represented as dwelling with His people, there is always a manifestation of that shekinah glory—the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, the bright light that filled the Tabernacle and the Temple. But the Son is the very radiance of the glory of God (
Heb. 1:3), the image of God in whose face the glory of God shines in fullness (
2 Cor. 4:4,
6). He is the exalted Lord seated on the throne of heaven, the train of whose robe fills the heavenly temple, of whom the angels declare, “The whole earth is full of His glory” (
Isa. 6:1–8; cf.
John 12:37–41). Before the world was, the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us was eternally existing in the very nature, essence, and glory of God.
But of what did Christ empty Himself? The kenoticists have answered, “He emptied Himself of His deity,” or “of His ‘relative’ divine attributes,” or “of His divine consciousness,” or “of His divine prerogatives.” Yet we have observed why those answers fall short of biblical fidelity and theological soundness. Of what, then, did the divine Son empty Himself? Even asking the question demonstrates a misunderstanding of the language. Though κενόω literally means “to empty,” everywhere it is used in Scripture it is used in a figurative sense.43 According to New Testament usage, κενόω doesn’t mean “to pour out,” as if Jesus was pouring His deity, attributes, or prerogatives out of Himself. If that were Paul’s intent he would have used ἐκχέω, which he employs elsewhere to speak of pouring something out of something else.
But everywhere κενόω appears in Scripture, it means “to make void,” “to nullify,” “to make of no effect.” Paul uses it that way in
Romans 4:14, where he says, “For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith is made void (κεκένωται) and the promise is nullified.” Yet no one thinks to ask, “Of what has faith been made empty?” The idea is that faith would be nullified—it would come to naught—if righteousness could come by the Law.45 The text teaches, then, not that Christ emptied Himself of something, but that He emptied Himself. He nullified Himself; He made Himself of no effect. The Son Himself is the object of this emptying. He did not empty the form of God, nor the divine attributes, nor His divine prerogatives, but Himself.
The King James Version captures this well by translating verse 7 thus: “[He] made himself of no reputation.” The NIV’s rendering is also helpful: “[He] made himself nothing.” Then, the very next phrase explains the manner in which the Son made Himself nothing: “[He] emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, and being made in the likeness of men.” Christ made Himself of no effect by taking on human nature in His incarnation. He nullified Himself not by subtracting from His deity, but by adding His humanity. This is an emptying by addition!
John Murray writes,
“It is sometimes thought that, when the Son of God became man and humbled himself, he thereby ceased to be what he was and, in some way, divested himself of the attributes and prerogatives of deity, that he changed the form of God for the form of man. He became poor, it is said, by emptying himself of divine properties, became poor by subtraction, by divestiture, by depotentiation. The Scripture does not support any such notion. . . . Even in his incarnate state, in him dwelt all the fullness of Godhood (
Col 2:9). When the Son of man became poor, it was not by giving up his Godhood nor any of the attributes and prerogatives inseparable from Godhood. When he became man, he did not cease to be rich in his divine being, relations, and possession. He did not become poor by ceasing to be what he was, but he became poor by becoming what he was not. He became poor by addition, not by subtraction.”
Christ remained what He was, even when He became what He was not. He did not exchange His deity for His humanity. Nor did He become a human person. Veiled in Flesh the Godhead See divine person, He assumed a human nature. The divine, second Person of the Trinity, who was eternally existing in the form of God, nullified Himself by taking the form of a slave and being born in the likeness of man. In the majesty of Heaven, to look on Him would have been to look on the epitome of all beauty. But being found in appearance as a man (
Phil. 2:8), He had “no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men . . . and like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him” (
Isa. 53:2–3). The rich became poor (cf.
2 Cor. 8:9). The worshiped became the despised. The blessed One became the man of sorrows. The Master became the slave. As John Calvin wrote: “Christ, indeed, could not divest himself of godhead, but he kept it concealed for a time, that it might not be seen, under the weakness of the flesh. Hence he laid aside his glory in the view of men, not by lessening it, but by concealing it.”
Bavinck adds, “He laid aside the divine majesty and glory . . . in which he existed before the incarnation, or rather concealed it behind the form of a servant in which he went about on earth.”49 We ought then to understand that a significant aspect of the kenosis was a krypsis—that is, a concealment or a veiling of the glory that is the external manifestation of His nature.50 Christ fully possessed His divine nature, attributes, and prerogatives, but for the sake of becoming truly human, He did not always fully express the glories of His majesty. When He is tempted by Satan in the wilderness to exercise His divine omnipotence to turn the stones into bread or to throw Himself from the top of the temple and manifest His divine glory by being rescued by angels, He refuses (
Matt. 4:1–11). When Jesus is betrayed in Gethsemane, He is the divine Son who has twelve legions of angels at His disposal (
Matt. 26:53), but He refuses to dispatch them to His service. Whenever any exercise of His divine power or any manifestation of His divine glory would have functioned to benefit only Himself, or to ease the limitations of a truly human existence, and would not be for the benefit of those He came to serve in accordance with His messianic mission, He refused to exercise those prerogatives.
The Humility of the Incarnate Christ (v. 8)
And yet the Son’s humility did not stop at taking on a human nature. We go on to observe the humility of the incarnate Christ: “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (
Phil. 2:8). The divine Son became not just a man, but an obedient man. From all eternity, the Son was equal to the Father in glory, majesty, and authority. In His incarnation, however, He began to relate to the Father in terms of authority and submission (e.g.,
John 5:30;
6:38). The Master had become the slave. The Lord who rightfully issues commands subjected Himself to obeying commands. And that is not all. He was not only obedient, but obedient to the point of death. The Author of Life humbly submitted to death. The One without sin humbly submitted to sin’s curse. The One who has life within Himself (
John 1:4;
5:26)—who gives life to whomever He wishes (
John 5:21)—humbly released His grip on His own human life in submission to the Father and in love for those whom His Father has given Him. Here is humility shining like the sun in its full strength.
We rightly sing, “Amazing love! How can it be, that Thou, My God, shouldst die for me?” And yet there are greater depths to plumb before the humiliation of the Son of God reaches rock bottom. He was not just man, not just obedient, and not just obedient unto death. The holy Son of God, the Lord of glory, “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” The horrors of the cross scarcely need describing. One commentator said, “The cross displayed the lowest depths of human depravity and cruelty. It exhibited the most brutal form of sadistic torture and execution ever invented by malicious human minds.”51 In crucifixion, metal spikes were driven through the victim’s wrists and feet, and he was left to hang naked and exposed, sometimes for days. Because the body would be pulled down by gravity, the weight of a victim’s own body would press against his lungs, and the hyperextension of the lungs and chest muscles made it difficult to breathe. Victims would gasp for air by pulling themselves up, but when they would do that the wounds in their wrists and feet would tear at the stakes that pierced them, and the flesh of their backs—usually torn open from flogging—would grate against the jagged wood.
This was the purpose for the kenosis. Man had sinned against God, and so man was required to make atonement for sin, but he was absolutely powerless to do so. Only God can atone for sin, and yet only man’s sacrifice would be accepted on behalf of man. So, in the marvelous wisdom of God, God became man to reconcile man to God: “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. . . . Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining.
hope this helps !!!
