Today, I’ll be preaching on this portion of Philippians, but will not be addressing the kenosis controversy found in the passage. I just felt that it is too huge of a rabbit trail to deal with in the sermon itself with regards to the flow of the message. So I thought it would be best to discuss it here.  Kenosis is the Greek for “emptying” or “self-emptying.” The key question is: What did Jesus emptied himself of in verse 6? 

Philippians 2:5-7
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.

Why it is Puzzling:
A cursory reading of this passage gives the feeling that Jesus was not 100% God, especially when He came down and dwelled among us. Verse 6 speaks of Jesus being in the “form of God”, which sounds like He was not actually God, but merely having some semblance of God. To make matters worse, verse 7 goes on to say He “emptied” Himself. People may read this and have thoughts that maybe Jesus gave up His divinity to become fully human. We know this cannot be since the theologically correct stance to take is Jesus being 100% God and 100% human when He walked this earth.

Alternative Interpretation:
We can be confident that the pre-existent Christ before His incarnation was not just merely having a semblance of God but was always fully God because verse 6 itself spoke of Jesus having “equality with God.”  Furthermore, verse 7 spoke of Jesus “taking the form of a servant.” Jesus really became a servant and not just a semblance of a servant. In the same way Jesus was born in the likeness of men where He really became a man and not just a semblance of a man.

So back to the big question: In verse 7, what did Jesus emptied Himself of? For sure, Jesus did not empty Himself of His deity. He did not became any less than fully divine. In fact, it was also Paul who said of Jesus in Colossians 2:9, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.”

With regards to the kenosis, we should think of the emptying as a laying aside of the rights and privileges that were Jesus’ in heaven. The reference verse to head to is John 17:5 where Jesus prayed, “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” From here, we can see that there were aspects of Jesus’ glory which he had laid aside when He descended to earth. Therefore it is the restoration of these aspects of Jesus’ glory that He prayed for that forms the contents of the kenosis.   

Why it Matters:
We must take care not to go beyond what Scripture says. The passage did not say that Jesus emptied Himself of His divine attributes, nor did it say that Jesus ceased to be God, or became a lesser god. If we take the concept of kenosis too far, and say what the Scripture did not say, we cross the line into heresy territory.