He Emptied Himself

It was on a Monday morning at 9, when Dan and I met at a local coffee shop to do our weekly devotional. The main topic was to read scripture related to the love of God. As we were approaching our one hour time limit for the day, Dan raised an interesting question. Sometime before our meeting he was reading the book of Philippians and he came across this verse in chapter 2. It reads:

⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  

 Dan’s question was how could Jesus empty himself and maintain His identity as both God and Man? On one hand. we understand that Jesus was both man and God. On the other hand, Paul says Jesus emptied himself. To what extent did Jesus empty himself? Some will infer from this that Jesus gave up his deity when He became a man, no longer possessing His attributes of omnipotence and omniscience. How are we to understand what Paul meant when he chose, just this one time, to claim that Jesus emptied Himself? We agreed that this question needed to be address so we decided to meet the following week to continue the discussion. With a week to work on it, we would meet again the following Monday and share insights with each other. Here is the result of our investigation into the word of God.

Evidence:

The original text translated as “emptied”.

ἐκένωσεν (ekenōsen) — 1 Occurrence

Philippians 2:7 V-AIA-3S
GRK: ἀλλὰ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου
NAS: but emptied Himself, taking
KJV: himself of no reputation, and took upon him
INT: but himself emptied form of a servant

Mounce Reverse Interlinear

κενόω (kenoō)

Strong: G2758

GK: G3033

1. to empty, evacuate; ἑαυτόν, to divest one’s self of one’s prerogatives, abase one’s self, Phil. 2:7;
2. to deprive a thing of its proper functions, Rom. 4:14; 1 Cor. 1:17;
3. to show to be without foundation, falsify, 1 Cor. 9:15; 2 Cor. 9:3

Scripture reading

Matthew 17:1-2 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; ² and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.

Application: In these two verses we see Jesus giving three disciples a very small view of His deity. Only His face shown like the sun and His clothes became white. In contrast to this, Moses also was given the opportunity to have a glimpse at the glory of God. In Exodus 33:19–23 it says:

¹⁹ Then He said, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” ²⁰ But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” ²¹ And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. ²² So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. ²³ Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”

Matthew 8:23-27 Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. ²⁴ And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. ²⁵ Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”

²⁶ But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. ²⁷ So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

Application: Exactly! Only the God/man, Jesus Christ! Some may say that when Jesus emptied Himself that He set aside His deity, including His omnipotence. In this passage Jesus demonstrates His total control over His creation. There are only a few places in scripture where Jesus unveiled Himself. One of the other times worth mentioning is where He turned water into wine. In the natural, water will never become wine no mater how much time you allow. Jesus shows His deity with His authority over time and space.

Matthew 14:25 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea.

Application: Jesus has power over creation. Even gravity will bend to His will.

John 6:19-21  So when they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near the boat; and they were afraid. ²⁰ But He said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” ²¹ Then they willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going.

Application: First, He is seen defying gravity and next He defies our place within the framework of time and space and proves that God can operate outside of both time and space.

John 4:4-30 Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ ¹⁸ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

Application: A demonstration of His omniscience by knowing the woman’s past life and present situation.

Luke 4:28-30 So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, ²⁹ and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff. ³⁰ Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.

Application: Even while in the grip of His adversary, Jesus is able to disappear not only from their grip but also from their vision and walk through the crowd to safety, further evidence of His omnipotence.

John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

Application: We must never forget that we have the promise of the Holy Spirit. He is our helper in every situation we find ourselves. Whenever we struggle to read and understand the word of God, remember what Jesus told us. “Ask, Seek, Knock”. The Holy Spirit will provide.

Many other verses can be included in this study, but these will be sufficient to draw a conclusion and answer the initial question.

The Conclusion

Throughout Jesus’ three-and-a-half-year ministry we see His ability to perform miracles of healing and casting out devils. His disciples, too, were given authority to perform these same miracles. However, we also see that Jesus demonstrated powers that only He possessed. These unique powers were limited to only isolated circumstances and only in the presence of His inner circle. In other words. Jesus demonstrated one of the gifts of the spirit that is key to understanding Paul’s meaning of the word “emptied”. After all, it was Paul who taught the gifts of the spirit to the Galatians previously in his missionary journey. This gift is the gift of “self-control”, which fits with the words Paul uses in verse 7, “but emptied himself“. He chose to empty Himself. Throughout His life, Jesus represented Himself as an ordinary man. All the while, He was able to exercise self-control and only provide brief glimpses at his God nature. But when He did, what an impact He made on those around Him. One writer describes this as “veiling Himself” from those around Him. Through the power of self-control, Jesus restrained, held back and even hid his deity from those around Him and wisely chose the right opportunity to reveal His full nature, that being the one and only God/man to walk the face of the earth.

Bottom line: Jesus truly was both God and man. He possessed all the prerogatives of the Son of God yet He restrained His use of those in order to fulfill the will of the Father knowing that one day He would be restored to the right hand of the Father.