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The word
KENOSIS
is from the Greek word "KENOO" (kenów).
It means "to empty, to make empty, to nullify". It is used 5
times in the Greek New Testament. The word is used only once with a positive
connotation and this is in Philippians (cf. Php
2:7. Other usages are: Rom
4:14; 1Cor 1:17, 9:15; and 2Cor 9:3). This is possibly the most
important usage of the word in the entire New Testament. It is a
theologically pregnant usage.
It does not refer to Jesus emptying Himself of His deity, but presents a graphic
depiction of His complete self-renunciation and His refusal to use what He had
for His own personal advantage. We have both, self-giving and self-emptying
in this passage. His self-giving was accomplished by "taking
on" and His self-emptying was achieved by "becoming what He was not
before".
The emphasis of the passage is not so much what He emptied Himself of, as much
as what He took on. He remained Himself, but changed His mode of being
(cf. 2Cor
8:9). In the Incarnation, God became man and more than that; He became a
servant (a slave).
The form of the verb in Php 2:7, indicates that Jesus did the self-emptying
actively and voluntarily. It was a deliberate choice on His part.
There are many speculations of what He emptied Himself of. The text gives no
indication of what was laid aside. This is scarcely its import or where
the impact lies. It is in what He took on and why that is important.
The KENOSIS of Christ was not subtracting from, but adding to. In the
Incarnation Christ became more than God, not less than God.
To interpret this verse to make Jesus anything other than fully God and fully
man is to do injustice to the text and destroy the intent of the author.
Here we have both mystery and paradox. In our interpretation we have to
maintain that Jesus Christ was both full divinity and full humanity. These are affirmed, not
explained in our text. We need to remember that Php
2:5-11 is poetry (possibly an Early Christian Hymn) and not narrative. We can
over-analyze it. The meaning must be found in the whole and not the parts.
M. R. Vincent summarizes
it well, when he said:
"The general sense is that He divested Himself of that peculiar
mode of existence which was proper and peculiar to Him as one with God. He
laid aside the form of God. In doing so, He did not divest Himself of His
divine nature. The change was a change of state: the form of a servant
from the form of God. His personality continued the same. His
self-emptying was not self-extinction, nor was the divine Being changed into a
mere man. In His humanity He retained the consciousness of deity, and in
His incarnate state carried out the mind which animated Him before His
incarnation. He was not unable to assert equality with God.
He was able [and choose] not to assert it."
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS and APPLICATION:
There is no room for selfish ambition or self-promotion in the Family of
God and the Kingdom of God (cf. Php
2:3-4). Instead there must be:
· Self-surrender
· Self-renunciation
· Self-sacrifice
In the economy of the Kingdom of God, it is . . .
· By
giving, we receive
· By
being humble, we are exalted
· By
dying, we live
· By
becoming poor, we become rich and enrich others
· By
serving, we are served.
KENOSIS is a philosophy of living. For me, it is clearly the demands of
discipleship and the Lordship of Christ over who we are, what we have and what
we do.
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