What is the kenosis?

Kenosis is indeed a word taken from Scripture: it is the "self-emptying" of the second chapter of Philippians, the real force of the word which in our common version is poorly rendered, "He made Himself of no reputation" (heauton ekenosen). It thus professes to be based upon Scripture — indeed to be the only adequate interpretation, as we have seen, of the passage referred to: a wonderful passage indeed, with which we cannot do better than refresh our memories and our hearts. Wonderful it is that it is an exhortation for us to the imitation of Christ in it: —

Blessed be God, He chose the latter. Verse 7 is the beginning of this wonderful story. Though originally in the form of God, He took upon Him another form, the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. This involved the making of Himself "of no reputation," or "emptying" Himself.

Years ago when the unbelieving critics of the Bible found themselves running into conflict with the words of our Lord, they invented the "kenosis theory" so as to be able to maintain their own denials of His words, while at the same time paying Him a certain measure of respect and homage instead of utterly rejecting Him as a fraud. Kenosis is a word coined from the Greek word used in this passage, with the literal meaning of "emptied," but translated, "made … of no reputation." The theory represents Christ as emptying Himself so fully of all that was divine that He became a Jew, just as ignorant as the majority of Jews living in His age. Hence the critic of the nineteenth or twentieth century, propounding this theory and fortified with modern learning, feels himself quite able to contradict or correct the Son of God.

We will look at some scriptures confirming this vital truth that He was Son in Deity before incarnation. But before doing so, it is well to look a moment at Phil. 2: 6, 7, "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." J. N. Darby's translation reads, "Who, subsisting in the form of God... but emptied Himself, taking a bondman's form, taking His place in the likeness of men." W. Kelly translates it, "Emptied Himself, taking a bondman's form, being come in men's likeness." The emptying of Himself has to do only with the form He had. Emptying Himself of the outward majesty and glory of the Creator, having authority and never under command, He takes a servant's form and takes His place in the likeness of men to serve God and man in His obedience unto death. In doing this He in nowise gave up His essential deity or any quality or attribute of it nor did He divest Himself of His eternal and unchanging relationship in the Godhead. This He could not do. He could not empty Himself of what He was essentially in His being, but only of — the outward form. So we read, "Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever." (Rom. 9: 5).

He Who Was Son in Deity Takes up Perfect Manhood into Union with His Person.

Dr. F. W. Adeney says of the Kenosis theory:

This is rather vague. But how the Lord Jesus as God the Son, equal with the Father, could shed divine qualities, and yet be God the Son, is impossible to understand. As a divine Person, “who is over all, God blessed for ever,” He ever was, and ever will be God. He emptied Himself, taking upon Himself “the form of a servant.” Such is the statement of Philippians 2:6-7. In taking upon Himself “the form of a servant” He never ceased to be what He ever was—God. To twist the passage into meaning that He emptied Himself of Deity and its attributes is simply a perversion of Scripture to support a “critical” lie. By His emptying Himself we understand the veiling of the visible glory of God, who dwells in unapproachable light, and the voluntarily taking upon Himself manhood, and becoming subject to the Father’s will, and living that life of perfect devotion to Him in this world. Yet constantly there was that shining out which revealed His Godhead glory, and that communion with His Father, so that the apostles could say:

If, however, the Deity of our blessed Lord is here introduced, it is but to magnify His grace and self-humiliation; for the assertion of it is followed immediately by words of transcendent importance. First, He "thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but," secondly, "made Himself of no reputation," or, more literally and exactly, "emptied Himself." The first clause will mean that although He subsisted in the form of God, He did not use it for self-exaltation, "did not," as one has translated it, "esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God." It is, doubtless, a contrast to Adam, who fell into Satan's snare of seeking to exalt himself, to be "as gods, knowing good and evil." Adam being a man sought to exalt himself; Christ being God humbled Himself. How blessed the contrast! This was the mind which was in Christ Jesus; and the next clause — "but emptied Himself" — contains the first expression of that mind. It must be with unshodden feet (for the place is holy) that such a statement must be approached. Of what, then, did He who subsisted in the form of God empty Himself? It has been lately written that He emptied Himself of "divine prerogatives"; others have taught that the "emptying" included His divine attributes. Far be the thought! To admit it is certainly to becloud the essential truth of His Deity, and to open the door to rationalism in its worst forms. For what are attributes? They are the characteristics of Deity, so that to empty Himself of the former is to lay aside the latter. No! a thousand times, no! As another has said, "The essential being of Godhead cannot change. His emptying Himself applied to the form."

It is of the Son alone, however, and His individual action that Paul here speaks: 'He emptied Himself.' The plain force of these words is that the eternal Son of God, in order to assume humanity, put off the form and laid aside the proper honour and functions which belonged to Him originally and of native right. But His nature and relationship remain with His personal identity. Essentially God, He so remains, under what form soever He may hide Himself. But in undertaking to exchange dominion for subjection — the form of God for that of man, and the majesty of heaven for bond-service upon earth — He may be truly said to have vacated what was properly His own, and thus to have 'emptied Himself,' in order to assume a new and untried state of being. For in truth and in the highest sense this ever-blessed One looked not upon His own things, but the things of others.8

In Matthew 20:23, Jesus uttered the actual words, "Not mine to give." In Mark 13:32, He said in effect, "Not mine to know." Here He says in effect, "Not mine to do." All three statements are made in view of the lowly place of dependence which He took for the glory of the Godhead and our salvation, and they do not in the least militate against His supreme place in the unity of the Godhead. They show us something of what is meant by His making Himself "of no reputation," or, "emptying Himself," according to Philippians 2, and thus we get a glimpse of the true "kenosis" of which the Scripture speaks, and we find it far removed from the evil "kenosis theory" formulated by unbelieving theologians, which attributes fallibility and error to our Lord.

But what is it then that we are told is involved in this kenosis, this self-emptying of the Son of God? For with them it is not simply the giving up of position, privileges, and honour that constitutes this. Such renunciation of these as is involved in His becoming man, great as was the surrender by Him who, rich in glory, for our sakes became poor, the simple relinquishing of these does not appear to exhaust the meaning of His kenosis. It is carried back beyond all this, and made to apply to a sphere of things, to the ordinary Christian, savouring more or less of the abstruse or occult. Much intricacy of thought, and ingenuity of conjecture, which could obtrude upon or emanate from no mind but that of a metaphysician, has been expended upon the subject. In the effort to construe more intelligibly to such the truth as to His person incarnate, the expression "He emptied Himself" has been much dwelt upon. In this is to be found, it is imagined, much more than any mere general statement of. His descending from glory on high to the condition of humiliation implied in His being found in fashion as a man. This kenotic process, it is affirmed, extended much further than either position or physical conditions. It took in, it is said, the much deeper sacrifice of powers and faculties. A field this is, this to which we are invited, where conjecture can find much room for play. The point of emphasis is that it was not merely in external or extraneous features that Christ's self-emptying took place, but in what may be called intrinsic ones. That is to say that in the act of becoming incarnate the Son of God so shut oft or reduced in potency all that pertained to His divine nature, that in the realm of mind and intellect no less than in physical qualities, all was of the human order. Superlative in degree perhaps; but indistinguishable in kind from that of ordinary men. Thus it is sometimes said, "Of what was it that Christ divested Himself in becoming man? Of everything pertaining to His deity, essential attributes alone excepted."

God He was they confess. God He remained, but with everything proper to Godhead in abeyance, all divine prerogatives absolutely renounced, and all the conditions and limitations of real humanity assumed. A sort of temporary depotentiation of His divine nature in, by, or for its contact with the humanity He took to Himself. "Deity can," they say, "without real self-impairment lay aside what belongs to it except essential attributes, and omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, are not these, but only expressions of free relation to the world he has made." Still another way to put it is to say that "He retained the ethical attributes of God while abandoning the physical." Accordingly, within a carefully defined list of prerogatives capable of being surrendered there has been an absolute kenosis, and among the abdicated attributes are to be found such as the above-mentioned — omnipotence and omniscience, but a short step being needed also, which many, alas, do not hesitate to take, to include the holiness, or inherent sinlessness proper to God. And in such limitations, physical, mental, or moral as the case may be, it is thought there may be found not only relief from the distracting problem of the relation of the divine to the human in His person incarnate; but fresh evidence also of the genuineness of His sympathy and the reality of His humanity.

Of Kenoticism, in connection with our present theme, a very slight notice will suffice. Its main position is that the Son of God, in becoming man, contracted Himself really within human limitations so as either actually to become the human spirit of Christ, or else to take place along side of this in one human consciousness. Always the aim is, as with Apollinarianism, to escape the attribution to the Lord of dual personality, to make the Christ of the Gospels more simply intelligible, while conserving His actual Deity. Deity can, they say, without real self-impairment, lay aside what belongs to it except essential attributes; and omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence are not these, but only expressions of free relation to the world which He has made. "Incarnation is for the Son of God, necessarily self-limitation, self-emptying, not indeed of that which is essential in order to be God, but of the divine manner of existence and of the divine glory which He had from the beginning with the Father, and which He manifested or exercised in governing the world. Such is the view," says Thomasius as quoted by Bruce, "given by the apostle in the epistle to the Philippians, such the view demanded by the evangelic history; for on no other view is it possible to conceive how, for example, Christ could sleep in the storm on the sea of Galilee. What real sleep could there be for Him, who, as God, not only was awake, but, on the anti-Kenotic hypothesis, as Ruler of the world, brought on, as well as, stilled the storm?"

Deity is manifested by the exercise of its attributes and prerogatives. In His incarnation, these were suppressed by Christ, but were not abandoned, which could not be. Hence Christ appeared among men as One Who had (to use W.K.'s phrase) "emptied Himself of His deity." As it were, He had laid aside His garments (His seamless robe) and girded Himself with a towel for menial service at the disciples' feet. His dis-robing did not affect His personal relationship to them as the Lord and the Teacher (John 13:14). When Christ Jesus emptied Himself for obedience, He was still God, for it could not be otherwise. But, if we may so speak, He was pleased that in His incarnation His deity should remain quiescent, and His bond-service appear.