What Does “He Emptied Himself” Mean?

Introduction

Recently a very long-standing dear friend of mine asked my thoughts on Paul’s phrase “he emptied himself” in Phl 2:7. He said he had been considering the meaning of the phrase for some time. I confessed I hadn’t thought about it.

But, as it turns out, many hundreds of bible scholars and theologians have ever since the formation of the very early church.  Let’s see what we can find out.

Context

Paul’s letter to his church at Phillipi can be seen as largely a pastoral message (vs a theological one).  It is thought to have been written while he was in jail in Rome about 62 AD.  In it he encourages the church to persevere in patterns of thought and living characteristic of his Gospel message:

These are all practical encouragements.  It is clear that Paul is not trying to break any new theological ground for his church, but merely encouraging them to persevere in exercising the attitudes of the heart about which he had taught them when he was with them (about 50 and 55 AD).

In the second chapter of Philippians, Paul is reminding the church of who and what Christ was and did, emphasizing His supreme humility as a pattern for their own.

Which brings us to his statements (Phil 2:6-7) which prompted our question.

Exegesis

Phl 2:6

6ος εν μορφη θεου υπαρχων ουχ αρπαγμον ηγησατο το ειναι ισα θεω

6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Phl 2:7

7αλλ εαυτον εκενωσεν μορφην δουλου λαβων εν ομοιωματι ανθρωπων γενομενος

7but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

These verses seem to be Paul’s idea of how to present Jesus’ ultimate humility.  A couple of features to note here re: Phl 2:6.

  • The phrase το ειναι ισα θεω in v6 (“equality with God” — ESV) uses the neuter plural accusative form of the adjective ἴσος, (equal), but in an adverbial form, which modifies the verb “to be”. And, being plural, the implication is that there are many aspects or dimensions to the idea of being equal (with God).  So, a truer translation of the statement would be something like

“who, though he was in the form of God, did not count to be equal with God(‘s qualities) a thing to be grasped,”

  • The other term to unpack is αρπαγμον, here rendered “grasped”. The word actually has more the sense of “snatched” or “seized with force”, as in the action of a thief snatching a purse. (This is the only occurrence of this word in the Bible.)  My Greek dictionary has this to say about its usage here:

“His truly being in the form of God could not render His claim of equality with God as robbery. The Lord did not esteem being equal with God as identical with the coming forth or action of a robber (hárpax [727]).”

This dictionary seems to be trying to head-off the interpretation that in becoming incarnate of God, He “stole” or commandeered something of God’s.  This seems strained.  But perhaps there was some of this image in Paul’s mind?

The other term of interest in this phrase is ηγησατο, rendered “count” which in this usage means something like to view, regard, esteem: (“To think to be such and such, to esteem as something”).

Now, the traditional interpretation of this phrase is that God, in becoming incarnate in Jesus, did not think that He had to possess (i.e. “grasp” or “hold onto”) all of His divine characteristics in the form of Christ, and so gave those up to instantiate His incarnation.

However, to me the meanings of our terms change the meaning of the verse substantially.  Rather than reading it from Jesus’ point of view, we may be being led to change our viewpoint to God’s.  Something more like:

“who, though he was in the form of God, did not esteem/regard being equal with God as stealing (something from God).”

“What on earth does that mean?” you may ask.  I think Paul may be saying “Though Christ was in the form of God, in so being he did not consider (because it wasn’t true) that being in that form diminished or encumbered God in any way.  In other words, God was God, and Christ was God, as human.  God wasn’t diminished by Christ’s incarnation of His “form”.[i]  One could even make the case that Paul here is arguing for a modalist, rather than a trinitarian, view of Christ.  At least that’s one way to read it.

Another way to similarly interpret this phrase was proposed by Barth[ii] who overtly equated Jesus and God, saying Christ “is so much God’s equal that he does not by any means have to make of his equality with God a thing to be asserted tooth and nail”, no doubt drawing the ire of hardcore monotheists.

Now, verse 7 and our mystery “kenotic” phrase.

The term rendered “empty” is εκενωσεν (kenoo) and has the meaning:

“to divest oneself of rightful dignity by descending to an inferior condition, to abase oneself.”

The “inferior condition” in question is obviously God’s incarnation in the man Jesus.  Taking the traditional view of Jesus as divine, He obviously had to forego several characteristics of His divinity to adopt a human incarnation.  The incarnation, for example, was not omnipresent.  He, like all of us, occupied one and only one location at a time.  And, according to Mt 24:36, nor was He omniscient, as, according to Jesus, “the Father only” knew the time of the end, not Jesus.

The term itself seems to be explained by its verse quite well.  In what way did God “empty” Himself?  In:

  1. Taking the form of a servant (where the term “form” here speaks not of something with appearance but rather having the pattern/nature/role of servant. And,
  2. Being born in the likeness of men.

The next verse goes on to say that He “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death”.

To me, the term “emptied” in its usage here may not imply that the degree of emptying was total.  Perhaps a more accurate term would be something like “set aside His power”, or “gave up of Himself”, etc., so that the absolute nature of “empty” wasn’t in play.  That’s possible.

It is interesting to me that in this verse (7), Paul lists Christ taking on the servant form before Him becoming a human, which to my ears, at least, sounds a bit counter intuitive.  One wonders if that’s because the role of servant as a role of God was more important to Paul than the fact that God became human? Or, possibly, is Paul implying that Christ pre-existed, maybe as God’s “servant personality”, before the incarnation?  Lot’s of people think so.

Interpretations

Before surveying a couple of different interpretations of these verses, let’s first see what else Paul had to say about Christ’s incarnation.

2Co 8:9

9For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Here also, Paul is alluding to the incarnation.  Before it “he was rich”.  As a result of it, “he became poor” – for your sake – so that you might become rich.

And, in commenting on the weakness/poorness of the incarnation vis-à-vis the Spirit that is God, he says 2Co 13:4

4For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.

Trinitarian, God the Son

This verse presents Paul’s insight that the same power that animated Jesus in His ministry is the one that animates the disciples in serving their churches.  So, this insight would tend to clarify that Jesus, in performing his “signs and wonders”, wasn’t doing so out of His fractional share of God’s power that He retained (that, oh, by the way, didn’t diminish God in any way; see above), but rather was simply channeling God’s (the Father) wisdom and power, much as Paul envisions himself doing, but on a more limited scale.

Let’s call this understanding the “Trinitarian, God the Son” understanding.  In it, the Son is pre-existent.  Before His incarnation, He is literally emptied of all of His divinity except His unyielding faith and allegiance to God, the Father, and through His faith in the Trinitarian Father, appropriates wisdom and power as needed to fulfill His mission (not unlike Paul’s characterization of our intended “life in Christ”).  Interestingly, the author of John (1:1) seems to share this same view.

One of the proponents of this view is Richard Britton, who articulates it in his paper.[iii]  At the end of his piece he summarizes his analysis this way:

“…I have opened some questions over the possibility that Phl 2:7 7αλλ εαυτον εκενωσεν” (but himself emptied) “might have had two crucial consequences of meaning to Paul’s first century Philippian audience: Firstly, that Christ had a pre-existence within God and was placed into a new identity within the vessel of the person of Christ Jesus. Secondly, that the emptying process is more of a giving and accommodating process than one of loss and depletion.”

His last observation is interesting.  He’s postulating here that not only does “God – the incarnation” not result in God being less than God, but that the substance that was “emptied” from the pre-incarnate Christ was to be recovered in Jesus as Christ and His “body” (Paul’s euphemism for Christ’s followers – His church – 1 Cor 12:27) through a kind of distribution.  The net result of the process, Britton postulates, is a distribution (but not a diminution) of God to humankind – His Creation.

Michael Koplitz (a Jew turned PhD/DMin Christian minister) has a different take on our kenosis phrase[iv].  He says that the proper interpretation of the phrase rendered “emptied himself” is rather a corollary meaning “to be of no reputation”.  Now, the interesting thing about this interpretation is that it ties in perfectly with Paul’s exhortation to the Philippians to humility in their interactions with one another.  Phl 2:3

3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Here, Paul encourages his Philippians in so many words “to be of no reputation” (i.e. to kill their egos) in their dealings with their brothers.  So, this meaning serves to pose Jesus (the Christ figure) as a kind of exemplar[v] for them in their interactions with one another, saying nothing theologically other than the obvious about the event of God wrapping himself within a human body.

Conclusions

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to sit down with Paul and “pick his brain”?  There are all kinds of hypothetical meanings for these verses (and likely dozens more) that we can try to build scholarly cases to support.  But Paul, assumedly, had one primary image in his mind as to Christ’s identity (divine/not divine; pre-existent/not pre-existent; God Himself vs God’s “agent”/Son), and therefore what the action of his incarnation meant to his 1st century listeners/readers in Philippi, and, more especially, its value as an example of the humble obedience they were to demonstrate in living their lives with one another. (Remember, Paul’s the guy that had a direct encounter with the risen Christ in which he received information that could not be “spoken of” — 2 Cor 12:4.)

Sadly, we can’t know his precise intention in this “Christ Hymn”.  Nor can we, from just these verses, understand his “Christology” – his understanding of who, exactly, Jesus was as the Christ.  Consequently, we can’t do other than speculate on what the adverbial use of “emptied” (εκενωσεν) was intended to convey.  However, rest assured, just wrestling with the thought is a hymn to God.

[i] We need to be mindful of the intense monotheism of 1st century Jews.  In view of this, Paul likely felt the need to uphold that concept and explain that just because Jesus was in the “form of God”, God was not, as a consequence diminished.  The One God was still God of All.

[ii] Barth, Carl, “Church Dogmatics, Volume IV, Part 1”, Nov 30, 1956

[iii] Britton, Richard, “For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup􀍟: Intertextual “igns and the Meaning of ekenwsen in Philippians 2:7a”, 18 Jan, 2010.  NOTE to reader: This scholarly paper is extremely dense and jargon-filled.  His goal in writing was to survey the possible meanings, based on other Biblical and non-biblical Greek texts of the day, how Paul’s Philippian readers/hearers (each of his letters was sent with a letter carrier who, in addition to delivering the scroll, would provide some level of interpretation during his/her reading of it) would interpret the term εκενωσεν in their hearing (most of which I find preposterous.  After all, we’re talking about common Greek speakers in the 1st century some of whom could read, and perhaps write.  But these were not literary scholars of their day, which is what the author implicitly portrays them as.  As helpful as it may be for other scholars to be led through a series of possibly related texts and meanings, in order to try to completely explicate a term, this is not the process Philippians went through in hearing this letter read to them.  And, Paul knew his audience.

[iv] Koplitz, Dr. Michael, “Hebraic Analysis for Philippians 2:1-13”

[v] Many may remember the 1990’s fad of asking and wearing the question: “What would Jesus Do?”  Not many then, nor today, understood that the concept has its origin in these scriptures, and the Catholic Church’s tradition of Imitatio Christi. (See Bahmer, Linda Sue, “Pauline Hermenutics: Isaiah in Philippians 2:1-11”, Oct 10, 2021)