03.10. Christ Emptied Himself (Part III)

Chapter 10 - CHRIST EMPTIED HIMSELF (Part III)

Jesus Christ did not surrender His attributes in the incarnation. To make the incarnation in its actual historical form possible, some advocate the eternal Son reduced Himself to the rank and measures of humanity. To accomplish this, they say the personal Subject in the Logos remained the same when He passed from the Divine to the human state but completely surrendered all the Divine attributes. But the Son could not surrender His attributes without surrendering His Deity. The Bible warns us about persons who distort the Scripture: “...they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). The word for “wrest” is strebloo, which means to distort or pervert. Peter described perverters of truth as “unlearned and unstable.” Such persons draw statements from Scripture and distort them to justify their sins. They say David committed adultery, Jacob was deceitful, and Peter lied. Thus they attempt to suppress the truth by their unrighteousness (Romans 1:18).

Those who advocate Jesus Christ surrendered His attributes in the incarnation quote the following Scriptures:
(1) “I can of mine own self do nothing...” (John 5:30).
(2) “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there...” (John 11:15).
(3) “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son...” (Mark 13:32). They conclude these verses refute the view of Christ maintaining the attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience during the days of His flesh. I might add, since Jesus Christ is “a man approved of God” of Acts 2:22, why do they not go further and say Christ is not God and deny the great mystery of godliness (1 Timothy 3:16)? When Christ said, “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30), He was speaking as the incarnate Son who had come to earth to do the will of His Father. He is inseparable from the Father’s essence, will, power, and operation; therefore, He could act only subordinate to the will of God. This was not a denial of omnipotence, but it was a declaration that He would never exercise His power independently of the Father.

Christ did not deny His omnipresence when He said to Mary and Martha after Lazarus’ death, “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe...” (John 11:15). Christ was there in His Divine nature but not in His human nature. The principle of John 3:13 applies in this case. Untried faith is weak. Faith never prospers so much as when all things are against it. Tried faith makes experience real, exposes weakness, keeps us from making idols of our mercies, and drives us to God. Our Lord often takes away our earthly props that we might lean more firmly on Him. The Son of God bears witness to His natures in Mark 13:32 - “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Ignorance is attributed to His human nature. He was so unlimited in His Divine nature that He knew the Father perfectly (Matthew 11:27); therefore, ignorance does not belong to His Divine nature. God absolutely considered has no blood; yet Jesus Christ who is God had blood as the incarnate Son, because He had assumed a human nature. The Divine Logos, though present in the infant Christ, could not properly manifest knowledge in the infant as He could through the child or the man. This is the only recorded statement by the Lord Jesus before His public ministry: “How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49).
“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40). But the Divine Logos did not grow. “...Jesus increased in wisdom and stature [age]...” (Luke 2:52), but the Divine Son did not increase. The eternal Son was always filled with wisdom, but it developed in His experience as He grew in age. The manifestations of human and Divine consciousness stand side by side in the records of our Lord’s self-expression. He spoke alternately out of a Divine and a human consciousness. In Christ’s condescension, He resolved not to use-as man-the knowledge which His omniscience-as God-would afford. The wisdom He used was the illumination of the Spirit given without measure. Divine attributes could not be surrendered, but we must not confound nonexistence with nonexertion. We declared the human nature was not the residential subject of omniscience. The Son of God did not surrender His omnipotence in the incarnation. Jesus Christ is “...a man approved of God among you by miracles...” (Acts 2:22). The word for “miracles” is dunamis, which means power, miraculous power, or omnipotence. When one thinks about miracles, it is not the “how” but the “Who” that should capture his attention. Paul’s defense before King Agrippa included the question, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8). One cannot use the words “incredible” and “God” in the same sentence and remain logical. But, who can expect a depraved mind to be logical? The Greek word for “incredible” is apiston, the accusative singular of apistos, which means unbelieving or without confidence. Consider the miracles the incarnate Christ performed. He changed water into wine, healed the sick, restored sight to the blind, stilled the storm, and raised the dead. He had power to lay down His own life, and He had power to take it again
(John 10:17-18). The word for “power” is exousia, which means authority, right, or liberty; supernatural power, government. Therefore, the incarnate Son was not only omnipotent, but He had the authority, or right, to be omnipotent. He is God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16).

Jesus Christ did not surrender His omnipresence when He took upon Himself the form of a servant. When one understands who Jesus Christ is, he will have no problem with His attributes. The omnipresence of Christ is taught in John 3:13 - “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which [who] is in heaven.” The Lord from heaven came to earth to do the will of the Father. He obeyed the law, wrought miracles, and suffered death for His people. Christ did not bring with Him His human nature. He, being the omnipresent God, assumed a human nature into union with His Divine Person. Thus the Son of Man was in heaven by virtue of His Divine Person, while at the same time He was on earth in His human nature. His human nature was not in heaven, because it was not in its glorified state. The Son of God took upon Himself the form of a servant into a personal union never to be laid aside. Hence, it became proper for the human nature to carry a Divine title. There are three good examples of Divine attributes in evidence with human titles and human attributes in evidence with Divine titles:
(1) In John 3:13, a human title is in evidence with a Divine attribute. Christ, in speaking to Nicodemus, spoke of Himself as the Son of Man who is in heaven. (2) In Acts 20:28, a Divine title is given to a human attribute. Paul called the blood of Christ’s human nature the “blood of God.”
(3) In 1 Corinthians 2:8, a Divine title is given to a human attribute -
“...they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” The eternal Son did not cease to be God by His incarnation. He continued to be the omnipresent God filling heaven and earth. The Lord Jesus Christ did not surrender His omniscience in the incarnation. Strike out the thought of omniscience and you extinguish Deity by a single stroke. Paul desired that the Colossian saints have full assurance of understanding which would result in a true knowledge of the mystery of God, namely Christ: “In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). There is no greater passage to illustrate the omniscience of the incarnate Christ than John 1:43-51. Why did Nathanael worship Christ the moment they first met? Were not the Jews taught to worship none but God and to bow to Him only? When Jesus Christ said to Nathanael, “Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee” (John 1:48), Nathanael recognized the omniscience of the One who spoke. There was nothing unusual about Nathanael being under a fig tree. The remarkable thing was they were separated by a space of several miles. Therefore, when this Jew, who knew the attributes of God, met a Person whose presence was not only separated by distance but who knew where he was, he concluded that this is the omnipresent and omniscient God. Hence, he confessed, “...thou art the Son of God...” (John 1:49). According to John 1:51, he must have been reading about Jacob at Bethel. Jacob dreamed of a ladder that was set up on the earth, the top of which reached heaven. The angels of God were seen ascending and descending on it (Genesis 28:12). The “Word became flesh” is the meeting place of heaven and earth, and every person spiritually enlightened says, “God is with me.” “Thou God seest me” of Genesis 16:13 should constantly ring in our ears. The infinite mind of God is able to grasp billions of objects at once, and yet focus His attention as much upon one object as if there were no others.

One must clearly understand this truth in the hypostatic union-the Divine nature never has a human attribute and the human nature never has a Divine attribute. Christ’s Deity was never mixed with His human nature. Hence, we are not to assume that Christ’s human nature is omnipotent because His Divine nature is all powerful, that His human nature is omnipresent because by His Divine nature He is everywhere present, or that His human nature is omniscient because His Divine nature has infinite understanding. As man possesses soul and body, Jesus Christ possesses the Divine and human natures. As man’s soul is invisible and his body is visible, the Divine nature of Christ is invisible and the human nature is visible. As the two substances of man retain their individual qualities, the two natures of Christ retain their distinctive attributes. The Divine continues omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; and the human nature is limited in strength, presence, and knowledge. Furthermore, when we speak of man as immortal and mortal, we assign each of these attributes to that part of man to which it corresponds. Hence, the soul of man is not subject to death, but the body is subject to physical death. Likewise, the Divine nature cannot die, but the assumed human nature of Christ did die and was raised again the third day.

We must understand that Christ’s Divine Nature is the base of Christ’s Person. Before the incarnation there was no God-Man, but there was the second Person of the Godhead-the eternal Son of God. The personality of the Son, therefore, was not dependent on the incarnation. Moreover, the death of Christ on the cross did not separate the union between the two natures, although they were temporarily dissolved for three days and three nights. The undissolved union kept the body of Christ from seeing corruption. The God-Man existed between His death and resurrection, notwithstanding the separation between His human soul and body.

There are those who believe the verb “emptied” refers to Christ’s being on an equality with God rather than His existing in the form of God. Those who hold this view do not deny Christ’s Deity. They believe when the Son of God assumed the form of a servant He did not lay aside His form of God. The passage is interpreted to mean that Christ who preexisted in the form of God did not regard equality with God as a prize to be retained, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant. The emptying involved a state of subjection in which Christ rendered obedience during His humiliation. This view is widely acclaimed among Christians. Not that I desire to be different, but it seems to me that the Greek construction and internal evidence is against this view. I shall list my objections and give the reasons for so doing. (1) There is nothing in the word harpazo or its derivatives to justify the idea of retaining something. Hence, the idea of retaining equality at the expense of robbing mankind of redemption is not the idea expressed in Php 2:6 b. (2) Equality with God is not something that could be relinquished by the Son. During the days of Christ’s flesh, equality with the Father was maintained by the Son (John 5:17-47). Equality with God and the form of God are inseparable.

There is another theory of the Kenosis that is popular. Some advocate the verb “empty” is a dramatic way of expressing the change in the outward appearance of Christ which took place in the incarnation. They do not believe Christ emptied Himself of Deity, but only its outward manifestation and use for His own benefit. The illustration used is a king who temporarily wears the garments of a peasant while remaining king. Hence, they say the Son of God did not hold the outer manifestation of His Deity as a treasure to be grasped and retained. This view does not properly interpret ekenosen - emptied. To say Christ’s essential glory was concealed during the incarnation is not the same as “He emptied Himself.” The words “concealed” and “emptied” cannot be equated.

Another interpretation of “He emptied Himself” is that Jesus Christ surrendered independent exercise of His attributes in the incarnation. Here are some arguments for this theory:
(1) Christ did not empty out of Himself the form of God.
(2) The verb ekenosen denotes a crisis act by Christ.
(3) The verb “emptied” is guarded by two clauses - “taking the form of a servant” and “made in the likeness of men.”
(4) Christ alone could give up the independent exercise of His attributes.
(5) The testimony of the whole passage precludes that in emptying Himself Christ only acted as though He did not possess the Divine attributes. The main point of this theory is Christ’s surrender of independent exercise of His attributes in the incarnation; but this view, like all the aforementioned theories, falls short of interpreting the verb ekenosen.

One of the more recent theories of the Kenosis is called self-limitation. This view begins with creation. Those who embrace it say creation means the existence of something that is not God, and God’s relation to creation implies limitation. Hence, limitation upon God, brought about by creation, is a free limitation and is therefore a Kenosis. God has fully accepted this limitation in the fulfillment of His will for fellowship with another. They believe the freedom of God means God is free to transform His mode of existence from the infinite to the finite. This freedom means God and man do not stand in radical opposition to each other; therefore, the Creator is free to share fully the life of His creature. They contend such a life is not foreign to God because there is a humanity about God. His being has its manward side. They believe the New Testament shows that Christ was already a man sharing the realm of God in His preexistent state. He was a man dwelling “in the form of God” who came to share the “form of a servant.” The Kenosis is God expressing His Lordship over creation by entering it. Christ as a man is different from other men
(1) by virtue of being God’s unique agent for redemption of mankind and
(2) by His divinity lying in His power to save.

Several things in the self-limitation view need to be exposed:
(1) “There is a humanity about God.” This is like saying there is a finiteness about the infinite.
(2) “Christ was a man in His preexistent state.” No distinction is made between Christ’s manhood in purpose and in actuality. Manhood could not be an actuality before the incarnation. It was only in purpose.
(3) “The Kenosis is God expressing His Lordship over creation and entering it.” The Kenosis is not what the eternal Son left. He did not empty Himself of Deity or equality with God. Kenosis refers to the life of the incarnate Son of Man that was spent and expended.
(4) “Christ is different from other men by virtue of being God’s unique agent in His power to save.” Jesus Christ is different from men because He is the God-Man, Son of both. The union of the Divine and human natures makes Christ unique. When we speak of the God-Man, we are talking about one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith. In the God-Man, there is the union of the greatest possible opposites-Godhead and manhood. The fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in the Son of Man. When we know who Jesus Christ is, there is no problem with His power to save.