Summer in the Systematics – Christology (Part 5): The Incarnation of Christ

Transcript

JRS 45
07/07/2024
Summer in the Systematics, Christology, Part 5, “The Incarnation of Christ”
Selected Scriptures
Jesse Randolph

Well, we are back in our Summer in the Systematics series. Our summer-long study of systematic theology. And specifically, the sub discipline of Christology. And so far in this year’s study we have looked at the topics of “The Preexistence of Christ,” “The Deity of Christ,” “The Humanity of Christ,” and “The Two Natures of Christ.” And these lessons, I believe I can speak collectively, have led us to that state of blessed despair. These lessons have given us those holy headaches. Because we have been searching what ultimately is unknowable as we seek to sound the bottoms of who Christ is in His Person. As mere creatures we’ve been attempting to give it the old college try as we search the Scriptures to comprehend concepts like eternity and preexistence and two natures existing in one Person and the like.

Tonight’s lesson is going to cause more headaches. But I can assure you they will be the good kind. Because I can assure you that along with the headaches, we are going to start this gradual shift in this summer-long study of Christology. As we start to move on from who Christ is in His person, to what Christ did, what Christ continues to do, and what Christ will do in the future. And it all starts with our topic for this evening, which is “The Incarnation of Christ.” Christmas in July it worked out. As with each and every category and sub-discipline of theology, definitions are important. Definitions are essential. So what do we mean when we speak of the incarnation of Christ? Well, here’s a solid definition from Rolland McCune. He says “In systematic theology, the incarnation refers to the enfleshment (that’s a fun word) of God the Son, the act whereby the second person of the triune God was embodied permanently in human flesh and nature.”

I think that’s really helpful. Because it picks up on the fact that Christ is eternally God. He is God the Son as McCune notes. This definition picks up on the fact that the incarnation describes an act or an event. Meaning, though Christ is eternally God, He was not always in eternity past incarnate. He was not always in flesh. Rather, as McCune notes, it was through an act. Namely, through His virginal conception in Mary’s womb that He became incarnate. I also appreciate this definition because it picks up on the fact that Christ even today is in human form. He’s in glorified human form to be sure, just check Revelation 1 on that. But He’s in human form. He is “embodied permanently in human flesh and nature.” So that’s a helpful definition to get us started.

Here’s another quote and this isn’t really a definition but rather an observation from John Walvoord. He notes that “The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ is the central fact of Christianity. Upon it the whole superstructure of Christian theology depends.” Then He goes on to write, and by the way, this is from his great work “Jesus Christ our Lord.” He says “In one sense, the remaining discussion of Christology as a whole is an amplification of the incarnation.” And that’s absolutely right. With the incarnation our subject of study for this evening, it leads to all these different tributaries of Christology that we’re going to study for the rest of the summer. Things like the life of Christ and the transfiguration of Christ and the crucifixion of Christ and the death of Christ. The resurrection of Christ. The ascension of Christ. And the return of Christ which we’ll try to squeeze into the rest of the summer. In other words, using Walvoord’s quote here, the fact that Jesus is God incarnate really sets the stage for the study of each of these other subtopics.

But for tonight. We’re going to zero in again on the incarnation of Christ. And the incarnation, by the way, really ties together a variety of different topics and sub topics. Like the annunciation account that we’ve been studying in our Sunday morning series in Luke. Or the necessity of a virgin birth, which we’ve also been looking at in Luke. Or the account of Christ’s birth which is laid out in Luke 2 and Matthew 1. Or some of the real deep theological statements that we see in places like John 1, or Philippians 2, or Hebrews. Really the whole book of Hebrews which is what we are going to touch on this evening.

And tonight we have a really simple outline. We have really just two points. You can see it on your worksheet there. When you cover the incarnation there’s so many directions you could go and you’re never going to reach the bottom of it. But I’m going to take us on two broad tracks of thought here. First, this is our first heading for those who are going to be taking copious notes tonight, point 1 will be “Christ Took on the Flesh of Man.” That’s our first blank. And if you want to turn it over and fill in blank 2 already, this is going to be the second point, “Christ Took on the Form of a Slave.” So “Christ Took on the Flesh of Man,” “Christ Took on the Form of a Slave.

We’ll start with the first one. “Christ Took on the Flesh of Man.” This first part of our lesson this evening is going to be a study of the incarnation proper. And that word “incarnation” comes from the Latin term “incarnatio.” Which means to embody in flesh. That’s what we mean by the word “incarnation.” We mean that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on not only a human nature, (hat’s what we studied last time when we looked at the two natures of Christ) but in doing so, He took on flesh. Real joints, real bones, real fingernails, real eyelids, all the rest. Here are a handful of pertinent Scriptures I’m going to lay out here briefly and quickly. Just to give us sort of a running start into the subject. These are sort of your go-to verses on the incarnation. If you get the keyring of verses dealing with incarnation you would want these on your keyring.

John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Galatians 4:4, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” Romans 8:3. “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.” And then Hebrews 2:14, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” We’re going to work through each one of these a bit later. I just want to set up the topic, tee it up with some of these key Scriptures.

Alright, well, we’re going to start tonight under that first heading as we are going to look at first some of the “Biblical Reasons for the Incarnation.” Why did Christ, the eternal Son of God, come as a man? Why did He encase Himself in human flesh? Well, there are a number of different reasons which are laid out for us all over the pages of Scripture. We’re going to start with this one. God the Son became Christ incarnate to “Confirm God’s Promises.” Going all the way back to Genesis 3:15 and continuing on through the Old Testament, God at various times in redemptive history, in biblical history, promised to send His Son into the world. Isaiah 9:6, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us” Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.”

And then if you do a careful examination of the Old Testament, you’ll see that there are these two lines of prediction concerning the Christ. Number 1, He was to come as a Savior from sin and 2, He was going to come as a King. The saving purpose of this coming Son is prefigured in the Old Testament sacrifices. 1 Corinthians 5:7 alludes to it, “Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, also was sacrificed.” And it’s predicted back in places like Isaiah 53, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our peace fell upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”

So those just give you a sense, those passages of the salvific purposes of the coming Son. And the other purposes is kingship. The coming king, the coming Son, the incarnate one, would also be a king as foretold in some of the Old Testament passages. Like 2 Samuel 7, this is referring to the Davidic covenant, of course. It says, “I will raise up one of your seed after you, who will come forth from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” And it goes on and on and on deeper into this verse to lay out the Davidic promise. And then there’s Psalm 2, “But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of Yahweh: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance’.” So when He came, Christ came in this the double role of Savior and King. Gabriel told Mary, we’ve seen this in Luke, that God would give Him, this child in her womb, the throne of His father David. Now that speaks to His kingship. That’s Luke 1:32, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.” So there’s a kingship reference.

Jesus Himself spoke in salvific terms. Matthew 15. It says, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” However we know from John 1 that “His own…did not receive Him.” He came to what was His own and those who were His own did not receive Him. And though in this triumphful entry He entered as the Son of David when He rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, here’s that scene, the infamous Hosanna scene of Matthew 21 -- a few days later we know that these same individuals who were welcoming Him were asking that He’d be crucified. And He was in fact crucified. He suffered and died, becoming the world’s Savior and then the cornerstone of the church. Ephesians 2, “you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.” And then here's a nice summary statement of His salvific purposes. “For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy.” So one of the purposes of the incarnation was to confirm God’s promises.

Here’s another reason for the incarnation, “To Reveal the Father.” In the Old Testament we know God is revealed as Creator. God is revealed by His various attributes and characteristics. His holiness. His power. His patience, etc. But God isn’t explicitly revealed as Father in the Old Testament. It’s through the incarnation Jesus reveals God as Father. John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He,” that’s Jesus, “has explained Him,” that’s God the Father. Jesus taught that to see Him was to see the Father. “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Jesus taught that the Father Himself loves us. That’s John 16, “for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”

And you go over to Matthew’s gospel (these are all references from the gospel of John), you go to Matthew’s gospel, and you see that Jesus revealed that the Father knows what things we need before we even ask Him. Matthew 6:8, He says it just that way, “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” And then He says in the very next verse that we are to ask Him. “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” Again, it was only through Christ’s incarnation that God was revealed as Father. John 14:7, “If you have come to know Me, you will know My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”

Here’s another reason for Christ’s incarnation, it was to “Serve as a Faithful High Priest.” Christ came in His incarnation so that He could go through every human experience. Apart, of course, from sin. And in doing so, be qualified to serve as a faithful high priest. Remember that in the Old Testament, the high priests were taken from among men. That’s exactly what Hebrews 5:1 says, “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God, in order to offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.” That’s referring to earthly high priests. Look at the parallel now between those types of priests and the great high priest, Jesus our Lord. Hebrews 2 says, “He had to be made like His brothers in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to help those who are tempted.” And, as a result, Hebrews 4:15 notes, “for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things like we are, yet without sin.” What this means then, is that the very fact that our incarnate Lord suffered things like hunger pangs, and lack of sympathy and affection from others, and sleepless nights. The fact the He grew weary at times and experienced various types of temptation that come to man. The fact that He was misunderstood. The fact that He was forsaken. The fact that He was persecuted and then ultimately delivered up to death. It all rendered Him a perfectly sympathetic high priest.

Here’s another one, another reason for the incarnation. It was to “Deal With Sin.” This came up this morning in our study of the Gospel of Luke and the account of those circumstances leading up to our Lord’s birth, which we know ultimately, those circumstances ended up with and culminated with the death of our Lord. He came to die. And that’s a truth we see all over the New Testament. He was born to die. Hebrews 9:26, “but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Manifested how? Manifested in the flesh. Mark 10:45 says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” That’s an incarnational verse.

And He needed to be man in order to die for and atone for the sins of mankind. He needed to be human to die for humanity. As Isaiah said, prophetically, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” And then Christ the Lamb of God we later see in John 1:29 is referred to this way. As “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Going back to Isaiah 53 reference. And because God cannot die -- He’s the eternal God, the perfect God, the all powerful God -- He needed to take on flesh, humanity, to die. Which He did. Hebrews 2:9, “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels. Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” He was made a little lower than the angels. That’s an incarnational statement. So that He might taste death for everyone through His crucifixion. 1 John 3:5 in that same vain says, “And you know that He was manifested,” He appeared, “in order to take away sins.”

So while Christ certainly came to this earth to teach men, and He certainly came to set a holy example, (we’ll get into those in just a moment), above all, He came to die. He came to die for man’s sin. The sin which alienated man from God was dealt with forever by the sacrifice of our incarnate Lord. ` 1 Timothy 1:15, “It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” it’s a purpose statement, “among whom I am foremost.”

Here’s another reason for the incarnation. He came in the flesh to “Destroy the Works of the Devil.” Shortly after, John, the apostle John, says this in 1 John 3:5, “And you know that He was manifested,” that’s an incarnational statement, “in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.” Look what He says just a few verses down in verse 8, “The Son of God was manifested,” now again that’s incarnational, “for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” The Bible teaches it similarly in Hebrews 2, “He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” And this was so, as you see in the next verse, he “might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” So Christ coming - in especially His work on the cross - resulted in His victory over Satan so that Satan is now a vanquished foe. He’s a defeated devil. And someday, we know, Christ will finish the work when Satan is cast into the lake of fire. We see that in Revelation 20, “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” And lest we think that this is just some cold theological data that I’m downloading to you on a Sunday night, with no practical application for us today -- think of what John Stott writes on this topic. He says “If, then, the whole purpose of Christ’s first appearing was to remove sins and to undo the works of the devil, Christians must not compromise with either sin or the devil, or they will find themselves fighting against Christ.” That’s some good application.

Moving right along. Here’s another reason for Christ’s incarnation, “To Serve as Our Example.” Christ is the believer’s Savior. We know that. And we praise God for that. But He is also our example. And the example He set for us, He set for us in His incarnate life here on earth. 1 Peter 2:21, “For to this you have been called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in His steps.” Or 1 John 2:6, “the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” Here’s a helpful way to think about it from Henry Clarence Thiessen, this example idea. He says, “To the unsaved the Bible says, believe and live; to the saved, follow in His steps.”

Now, we’ve covered some of these already. But I’m going to highlight real briefly here a section of Hebrews 2, which is just jam-packed with incarnational truth. In this chapter alone, from Hebrews 2:9-18, there are something like six different statements related to Christ’s incarnation. Which answer the big question I’m getting at right now. Which is why? Why did the Son of God became incarnate? Why did He put on flesh? In Hebrews 2 in this section, He’s going to give us six more reasons. Some of which overlap with what we’ve already gone over. But here’s one, Hebrews 2:9. This would be that He became incarnate to taste death for everyone idea. “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels -- Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” So our Lord’s suffering in His incarnation was substitutionary. He died in our place so that we might live. “He might taste death for everyone.”

The second reason given in Hebrews is in the very next verse. Hebrews 2:10, which tells us that He would through His incarnation bring many sons to glory. “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.” Bruce Demarest gives an explanation there. He says, “Christ descended to earth to lead the redeemed to the heavenly home.”

The third one is this, from Hebrews. Another reason for the incarnation would be that He would sanctify, or set apart us as His brethren. Hebrews 2:11, “For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them,” that’s us, “brothers.” Christ’s coming to earth then in the flesh opened this door to this new relationship between God and man. Or those who were once enemies, can now be called His friends. And those who once were aliens, can now call themselves privileged members of God’s family.

Fourth is this, and we just worked through this one, but this is to destroy the power of the devil, Hebrews 2:14. I won’t repeat that one again.

Fifth would be to deliver us from the threat of eternal death, which we see in Hebrews 2:15. He came to “free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Because Christ came, and because He came in flesh, and because He died in that flesh -- as His followers, we no longer fear death. We no longer fear the grave. We instead say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, “O death, where is your sting?”

Number six is this, and we saw this one earlier, too. He became incarnate to become a perfect high priest for the propitiation of our sins, the sins of the people. “Therefore, He had to be made like His brothers in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

So those are some of the reasons for the incarnation. That answers the question or these answer the question why Jesus came to earth, why He put on flesh, why He took on humanity as revealed for us on the pages of Scripture.

Now we’re going to go in a bit of a different direction as we consider “Biblical Proofs for the Incarnation.” So we’ve just looked at the biblical reasons for the incarnation. Now we are going to look at the biblical proofs. We’ve just looked at the why. Now we’re going to look at the what. And of course at the heart of those Bible passages which address the incarnation is the prologue to John’s Gospel. That would be John 1:1-18. I’m not going to do a detailed verse-by-verse exposition of John 1:1-18 tonight. But instead, for the sake of our systematic overview this evening, I’m just going to give us a few ideas here.

First, the first 18 verses of John’s Gospel. They give us four essential truths about the incarnation. First would be the focus of the incarnation. Namely, that the eternally-divine Word of God, the eternal Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was with God. That He is God. The focus of the incarnation is Jesus. He is God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Second, John’s prologue highlights the material of the incarnation. So we see the focus of the incarnation, Jesus Himself. Now we get to the material of the incarnation. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” That term “flesh” there in Scripture is used in two different ways primarily. One would be to refer to the seat of sin in man. The flesh is like it says in John 3:6 here, “That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit.” This is referring to sin being flesh, being the seat of sin in man. But in other cases, like here, there’s not really a moral association associated with that word “flesh.” John 1, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Or here, there’s clearly no moral implication. “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish.” By saying though in John 1:14 that the Word became “flesh.” John is teaching there that the eternal Son of God assumed complete humanity, albeit without sin.

Third, John in his prologue identifies the location of the incarnation. He says the eternal Christ “dwelt among us,” in John 1:14. And that word “dwelt” means to pitch a tent, to tabernacle. It has the picture of the tabernacle, like God dwelt among the Israelites in the wilderness wanderings in the tabernacle. In His incarnation the Son tabernacled in His flesh with His people.

And then the fourth one is in John’s prologue, here he records the witness to the incarnation. “We beheld His glory. Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Meaning God’s visitation to earth in Christ was no secret operation. It wasn’t done behind closed doors. No. Christ’s incarnation, Him in His humanity, it was all out there for all to see, “we beheld His glory.”

Now, outside of this really central incarnational passage, John 1:1-18, with John 1:14 being at the hub -- as we read through the rest of the New Testament, what we find, it’s really interesting, is that the New Testament authors like us, though they were spirit directed and though they were spirit moved, they were still bound by human language. To describe the otherwise indescribable and miraculous event of the eternal Son of God entering into human existence. Right? We have the Gospel accounts. Like we’re in Luke right now [morning service message] which are going to give us an account of the Lord’s birth. But as it relates to this idea of God putting on flesh. and the divine entering His creation, you can just read the New Testament authors and see the ways they’re grasping and struggling to come up with just the right language to explain how this is all so.

Like here’s Paul to Timothy, “great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh.” Here’s Paul to the Corinthians, “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a lifegiving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven,” He’s from heaven. Here’s several more examples. I’m going to rattle these off fairly quickly. “It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” And just to preface this, these are all going to be incarnational passages. But there’s never the direct word incarnation ever used. It’s providing the concept in different words. 1 John 3:5, “And you know that He was manifested in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.” Philippians 2:6 and 7, we’ll be here a little bit later, He “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men.” 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though being rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.” That’s incarnational. Hebrews 2, “But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angel Jesus.” Hebrews 10:5 speaks of “a body You prepared for Me.” Galatians 4:4, “when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.” John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh.” Hebrews 2:14, “since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same.” It’s incarnational. Romans 1:3, He “was born of the seed of David according to the flesh.” Romans 8:3, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Note it doesn’t say sinful flesh, but likeness of sinful flesh. Hebrews 2:17, “He had to be made like His brothers in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”

See, words fail us to express the realities of the glories and the wonder of the incarnation. But God has given us His Word and the statements like these from these Spirit-directed authors to come to a clearer understanding of what the incarnation was and what the incarnation entailed.

So that’s a bit about the basics of the incarnation, the biblical reasons for it and the biblical proofs for it. Next, we’re going to look at one specific aspect of the incarnation, which is the humiliation of Christ. Humiliation, not like embarrassment, like when we get humiliated when we embarrass ourselves through a series of foolish choices or decisions. But humiliated as in humbling, Christ humbled Himself. So we’ve seen already that, (this is our first heading) that “Christ Took on the Flesh of Man.” Next, we’re going to see (this is the other side of your worksheet there), “Christ Took on the Form of a Slave.” That’s our second point for this evening. “Christ Took on the Form of a Slave.”

Now when we refer to the humiliation of Christ and His taking the form of a slave, what we are referring to is what theologians call the kenosis. Which comes from a Greek verb “kenoo,” which comes from Philippians 2:7 where “He emptied,” ekenosen, “Himself.” And that then leads to this natural question. Well, of what? He emptied Himself of what? Or of what did Christ empty Himself”? And to get to the bottom of that question, of what Christ emptied Himself, we’re going to do a brief, and I mean brief, exegetical survey of the pertinent passage that you are all thinking of right now. As we quickly look through a text that answers some of these questions for us, Philippians 2:5-8. It starts this way, “Have this way of thinking in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.” That’s the start up. And giving us some more context here, we have Philippians 1:27 where Paul exhorts the Philippians to act with humility and sacrifice. He says in that passage, that they are “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind contending for the faith of the gospel.” And you go down a couple more verses to Philippians 2:3-4, and He exhorts the Philippians to show concern and esteem for others and He says that they are to be “doing nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves, not merely looking out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

It’s possible that those exhortations came from the contention that was happening there in the church in Philippi. Specifically, between two women named Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4:2. And so what Paul does here in Philippians 2:5 is he uses Christ’s self-emptying as the model for the right type of behavior and the right attitudes that are to be demonstrated in the church. So then we get there to verse 6 and now he’s referring to Christ and he says he was “existing in the form of God.” That word “form” there is “morphe,” think of the word morph. And it refers to the real, essential characteristics of a thing; the real, essential characteristics of a person. In the context here, the words “the form of God” are rightly interpreted to mean the very nature of God. Christ, in other words, is of the very nature of God. He is God.

Not only that though, but that verb there “existing” is in the present tense meaning this is referring to a continuous or a continual condition. So what Paul is saying here is that Jesus Christ was, is, and continues to be God. He is eternally God. Next in verse 6, Paul, speaking of Christ, says that He “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” And we’re going to break that in two. First He says, “did not regard equality with God.” Let’s just handle that one first. Equality here refers to the relationship of Jesus to God the Father. And what this is highlighting is that, that relationship between God the Son and God the Father is one of equivalence. So that Christ has not only existed eternally in the form of God, but there has been this eternal equality of essence between God the Father and between God the Son. And, though He existed eternally as God and equally with God the Father, the rest of verse 6 tells us that He, meaning Christ, did not regard equality as a “a thing to be grasped.” And that word there “grasped” is referring to something that Christ already possessed. It’s not something He was trying to grab or get, it’s referring to something He already had, His existence eternally and equally to God specifically.

So what this is saying here in verse 6 then is that as part of God the Father’s plan of salvation and redemption, God the Son didn’t clutch or cling to His eternal equality with God as a reason to not go on the mission. Instead, as a posture of His humility, we see here in verse 7, He “emptied Himself,” “ekenosen.” That’s our word, our concept, His self-emptying. And then right after this where he says He emptied Himself, Paul explains what he means. “By taking on the form of a slave, by being made in the likeness of men.” Those two clauses, “taking the form of a slave” and “being made in the likeness of men,” are the Holy Spirit-inspired commentary on what it means to say that He emptied Himself.

Let’s look at those both starting with the fact that He took “the form of a slave.” That word form there next to the word “slave” is again that same word “morphe.” So just as He, Christ, was eternally in the form of God, as we saw back in verse 6, in His incarnation Christ took on the characteristics of a slave. In His humanity He took on the form of a slave. Now, to take the form of a slave does not mean that Christ was no longer in the form of God. It’s not like He substituted one out for the other. He didn’t exchange the form of God in order to become in the form of a slave. If that were the case, if He traded one out for the other, He would no longer be in the form of God, and if that were the case, He would cease to be God. Rather, to say that He took the form of a slave means that this form of slavery was in addition to the form of God that He already had. The form of God He’s eternally possessed. Here’s a helpful quote on this passage. It says, “a divine paradox is stated here: He emptied Himself by taking something to Himself, namely the manner of being, the nature or form of a servant or slave. At His incarnation He remained ‘in the form of God’ and as such He is Lord and Ruler over all, but He also accepted the nature of a servant as part of His humanity.” In short, Christ was and is the God-Man. As we saw last time.

Now, as for His “being made in the likeness of men,” the other part of verse 7, that doesn’t mean that He was created. It doesn’t mean that He was or is less than God. Rather, the word “likeness” in verse 7 means resemblance, likeness, similarity. And the whole phrase there in verse 7 and 6 testifies to Christ’s genuine humanity. He truly was not only fully God, but also fully man. The one who is by nature God became man. Which brings us right back to the key passage here, John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh.” He assumed a human body as we saw already, “a body you have prepared for Me,” so that Paul could say in Colossians, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily.”

Next, we learn, in the next part of this Philippians passage in verse 8 that He was “found in appearance as a man.” Now that word “appearance,” “schema,” it’s spelled like scheme but with an ‘a’ at the end in Greek, It stresses Christ’s external, outward appearance, meaning how he appeared to other people, those who encountered Him in His earthly ministry. Among other things, appearance here would refer to His physical features, His dress, His customs, His mannerisms and the like. In other words, being found in the appearance as a man means that people weren’t confused as to whether or not this was truly a man. That He truly was a man was evident to all. And then these words, still in Philippians 2:8, “He humbled Himself.” The self-emptying One, the God-Man, the Servant, went further and humbled Himself. And we see how He did so in the remainder of verse, “by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

By the way, that link between Christ’s obedience and His suffering and death is also picked up in Hebrews 5:8, which says, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” And those words by the way, which are not limited to the cross, certainly include the cross. Before the incarnation, as Donald Macleod notes, Christ “possessed all the majesty of deity, performed all its functions and enjoyed all its prerogatives. He was adored by His Father and worshipped by the angels. He was invulnerable to pain, frustration and embarrassment. He existed in unclouded serenity. His supremacy was total, his satisfaction complete, his blessedness perfect.” But then as a result of the incarnation, Christ was bruised and He was beaten. He was bloodied and He was tortured. He was murdered on a Roman cross so that our sins would be laid on His shoulders and thereby forgiven.

And that’s a good reminder for us this evening, that Christ’s incarnation, what we’re studying this evening, is not just some abstract theological truth. No. Let’s not forget that His incarnation, His humiliation, His (big word) kenosis, ultimately led him to His death, which then led to our ransom. Here’s Macleod again. It says, “Every moment in that journey from Bethlehem to Calvary was chosen; and every moment on the cross, from the third to the ninth hour, was chosen. Every day of the Lord’s life he re-enacted the kenosis,” the emptying, “renewing the decision which had made him nothing and choosing to move further and further into the shame and pain it involved. He loved his own, and when eventually it became clear what that love would cost he went forward, trembling, to be what his people’s sin deserved.” That’s right. And because of its link to our new lives in Christ, knowing what we know about the incarnation really ought to transform the way that we live and think and function. Again Macleod gives a good word when he says “Christology is certainly beset by the danger of arid intellectualism. A man may be an expert on the incarnation and yet be totally lacking in faith and love.” That is really, really convicting. And I know we are here in the summer of systematics and Sunday night -- we’re not enjoying the nice, warm weather outside -- we’re here instead studying these deep things of God but… and that’s great… but let’s not be these arid intellectuals that he speaks of, “lacking totally in faith and love.”

We’ve just done this brief walk-through of Philippians 2 and what it teaches on its face about the incarnation of Christ. The mystery is great. The truth is clear. Unfortunately the clarity of those biblical truths has not prevented some from engaging in all sorts of wild speculation about what they think happened in the incarnation. And it hasn’t prevented some from suggesting that Christ emptied Himself of more than what the Scriptures actually testified to.

Let’s take a few moments now to go into some of the dark history surrounding this whole doctrine of the kenosis, the self emptying, the Philippians 2:7 idea. We’ll start in Germany. A lot of bad theological ideas start in Germany. Just so you know. We’ll start with a German theologian named Gottfried Thomasius who argued that in becoming incarnate, Christ abandoned some of His inherent attributes of deity. Like His omnipotence, like His omniscience, His ability to know all things, His ability to be all powerful. But this man argued that Christ still retained other attributes like His holiness and His love. Now by drawing that distinction, what Thomasius did is he took the position that Christ’s life on earth was lived entirely within the conditions of manhood, just like you and I live. Which would make him really no different than you and I. So that’s one idea out there.

There’s another German named Wolfgang Friedrich Gess who went even further than Thomasius. And he argued that Christ’s kenosis, His self-emptying was absolute. Meaning, He emptied Himself of all of His attributes. Not just attributes like omnipotence and omniscience, His ability to know all things and be all powerful, but attributes like His holiness and His love. Which when you really think about it, would not only make Him less than God, but less than human.

Well, that form of thinking eventually moved over from Germany to Great Britain. Where men like Charles Gore, an Anglican priest, spoke about Christ abandoning certain prerogatives or attributes of divinity or deity. He said that Christ laid aside whatever was “incompatible with a truly human experience.” You see the humanistic way of thinking there. And because humans, for instance, aren’t omniscient, we don’t know everything, he maintained that Christ must have laid aside His omniscience in incarnation to be more like us. In fact, here’s a quote of Gore. This is a British theologian. He says, that “He willed so to restrain the beams of Deity as to observe the limits of the science of His age.” Truly humanistic thinking. Another one. He says, “He never exhibits the omniscience of bare Godhead in the realm of natural knowledge; such as would be required to anticipate the results of modern science or criticism.” That’s a bunch of words salad. But what it’s effectively saying, he’s saying Christ wasn’t like… He couldn’t have been fully omniscient because he wouldn’t be like us. It’s flipping the idea around. We should ascribe to be like Christ. He’s saying Christ needs to be more like us. Here’s P.T. Forsyth. He was a Scottish theologian. He spoke of Christ “renouncing the conditions of infinity” in His incarnation.

Now, the fundamental flaw of every one of these arguments, whether German or British or Scottish, is that if Christ were to have fully divested Himself of any of His attributes at any time, He would have ceased to be God. And that’s because the attributes of God (going back to two summers ago) are the essence of God. God is what His attributes are. So to subtract from or to diminish Christ’s attributes in any way, like here with Forsyth saying he renounced the conditions of infinity, that would be to change His essence and then He would no longer be God.
So, back to Philippians 2 when Paul says in Philippians 2:7 that Christ “emptied Himself,” he could not have been speaking of Christ emptying Himself, divesting Himself of His divine attributes, like the German and British theologians I mentioned said He did.

Well, those groups of theologians had their critics. And rightfully so. And here’s an example. And by the way, when I say German, British theologians, I’m talking about like in the 1850s and onward. That’s really the heart of this form of what‘s called kenotic theology. But here’s a critic of those theologians, William Temple who wrote in that same timeframe. He’s writing against the guys I’ve just quoted. He says, “What was happening to the rest of the universe during the period of our Lord’s earthly life?” So he’s saying if we take your presumptions that He really wasn’t omniscient and He really wasn’t Omnipotent, what was happening to the rest of the universe during that period? “To say that the Creative Word was so self-emptied as to have no being except in the Infant Jesus, is to assert that for a certain period the history of the world was let loose from the control of the Creative Word, and ‘apart from Him’ very nearly everything that happened that happened at all during thirty odd years, both on this planet and throughout the immensities of space.” Guys like this wrote in far more words than they needed to back then. The point He’s making is the world would have fallen apart if Christ wasn’t upholding everything by the word of His power. In fact, that’s what we see from Scripture. Hebrews 1:3, Christ “is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” He didn’t take a break for 30 years during His incarnation to do so. Or Colossians 1:17, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Again there’s no hiatus clause here to say that, oh, except for when He was walking the earth.

Well, as an alternative view to the one I just articulated, another view that’s been offered to explain the Philippians 2:7 passage is one that says that Christ didn’t give up any of His attributes. All He did was give up the use of His attributes. That view recognizes that to say that Christ actually gave up His attributes would make Him cease to be God as we’ve just seen. So they try to strike this middle way by saying, He only gave up their use of those attributes. Difficulty with that view though is that to suggest that He retained attributes but did not use those attributes is really the theological equivalent of not having them at all.

Not only that and more importantly, there is clear biblical evidence that Christ did exercise His attributes, use His attributes at various points of the incarnation. I mean, starting with His omniscience, what He knew. As a blanket statement, did Christ give up His omniscience during the incarnation? Absolutely not. John 2:24, “He knew all men.” 2:25, He Himself “knew what was in man.” John 18:, “He knew all the things that were coming upon Him.” Luke 9:47, “Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their heart.” John 6:64, “He knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe.” John 16:30, “Now we know that You know all things.” John 21:17, that scene by the lakeside with Peter, He said to him “‘Lord, You know all things.” Then we think of his omnipotence, His power which He still exercised regularly and fully during His incarnation. He rebuked the wind. He miraculously fed the hungry. He healed the sick. He cast out demons. He raised the dead. Those are all evidences of His omnipotence on display. What about His omnipresence? He said this in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three have gathered in My name, I am there in their midst.” And then here are a couple of other examples of His expression of deity during His incarnation. He demanded worship, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” He’s acting as God there. John 10:28, He granted eternal life during His incarnation. That’s about as God-like as you can get. “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”

Here's another theory I’m going to mention, an alternate theory about what happened in Philippians 2:7 and what the kenosis is all about. This other view I’m going to mention, I don’t have any slides for this one. But it says that Christ emptied Himself by acting as though He didn’t possess fully all of the divine attributes. So He was playing along. Two objections come immediately to mind on that one. One is that, that it would involve Christ in pretense, deception, which would be totally inconsistent with His perfect character and holiness. Second, when we think about the kenosis, that passage in Philippians 2:7 and the context of it, it totally undercuts that view that Christ was play acting in His incarnation. Because Paul’s whole point there in Philippians 2:5-11, when He wrote what He wrote, was to encourage genuine selflessness on the part of the Philippian believers there in that church. A genuine selflessness that was backed by the genuine self-emptying of Christ. They were to follow, the Philippians were, the example of Christ in His incarnation which was actual.

So where should we land on this matter of the kenosis? Philippians 2:7. On Christ’s self-emptying? Of what did He empty Himself? How are we to think about the incarnation? His humiliation? What could He do in His incarnate state? What could He not do? I’ve intentionally left myself four minutes to dodge that final question. We’ll get to it eventually. The best way to say it I think would be this. He did not surrender His divine attributes. And He didn’t even surrender the use of His divine attributes. But what He did do was give up the independent use of certain of His attributes. The word I’m stressing there is independent. Meaning during His incarnation. This is the witness of Scripture, not just me riffing and giving you some opinions up here. The witness of Scripture is that He willingly submitted Himself to the will of God the Father. And He willingly subjected Himself to the controlling influence of God the Spirit. And He did so in His humanity, so that He could more perfectly and fully identify with man. Think of it this way: in eternity past, before His incarnation, Christ existed in the glorious presence of both God the Father and God the Spirit. Right? That’s picked up in John 17:5 right here, He speaks of “the glory which I had with You,” He’s speaking of the Father there, “before the world was.” But in His incarnate state, during His earthly life and ministry, what do we see? We see deference to the Father. And we see dependence upon the Spirit.


Let’s start with His deference to the Father to show you what I mean. Our Lord spoke of the things that God the Father had shown Him. “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.” “I speak to things which I have seen with My Father,” Jesus spoke of the things that the Father taught Him. John 8:28, “I do nothing from Myself, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” “My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me.” “For I do not speak from Myself, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment, what to say and what to speak.” He also referred to the things that the Father had given Him to do, “the works which the Father has given Me to finish, the very works that I do bear witness about Me, that the Father has sent Me.” He referred to the fact that the Father had given Him certain authority, “I have authority to lay it down,” speaking of His life, “and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” And the Father had “anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power.” And ultimately, we know that Christ was subservient to the Father’s will, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.”

So the testimony of Scripture is Him deferring in His incarnation to the Father. He also showed dependence upon the Spirit. This is a trinitarian matter. We’re told that He cast out demons by the power of the Spirit, “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” And we’re told that He by the Spirit gave commandments to the apostles. Taking it up midway there, “He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen.” And He offered Himself to God through the Spirit, “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” We also know (and I’ll just blaze through these) that He “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” Matthew 4, Luke 4, and Mark 1 describes this leaning or this leading by the Spirit very strongly, “The Spirit drove Him.” The Greek verb is “ekballo.” It means to throw. He threw Him out, the Spirit threw Christ out into the wilderness. And then, after that period of testing, Jesus is said to have “returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.”

So what are we to make of all of this? What conclusions are we to draw? What did Christ empty Himself of? Here are a few quotes from some reputable theologians who I would find myself in agreement on this. And we’ll close soon after that. Marshall says, “To become like a man he had to empty himself, a verb which is best taken to refer to the abandonment of the glorious and lordly prerogatives which go along with equality with God in order to take on the humble form of a servant and die. The point is, not that Christ gave up any divine attributes, but simply that he did not behave as one who was equal with God might have been expected to behave, but as a humble servant.” Here’s John Walvoord, he says, “The act of kenosis,” that’s our word from Philippians 2:7 says, “may be properly understood to mean that Christ surrendered no attribute of Deity, but that He did voluntarily restrict,” there’s our word, “their independent use in keeping with His purpose of living among men and their limitations.”

And that’s the key, it was voluntary. Meaning what Christ gave up, whatever He gave up, was in keeping with His own power and His own divine prerogatives. Which is highlighted neatly here by McCune. He says, “This emptying did not involve the Son’s laying aside His attribute of sovereignty. Rather, it proved His sovereignty. That is, He sovereignly limited the use of His sovereignty, showing He has sovereignty over His sovereignty or power over His power.” That’s right. So he deferred to the Father, He depended on the Spirit, so that He could identify with man. And in doing so, He wasn’t giving up power in any way. But rather was, as McCune notes here, demonstrating His power.

That is enough for one evening, enough for one day. I’m going to close with my favorite stanza from my favorite Christmas carol. (There’s my family photo. I don’t… I thought I had the slide here. Okay, we’re just going to look at a couple of faces here.) The hymn is “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” It is my favorite Christmas carol, Christmas hymn, and my favorite stanza reads like this. I’m not going to sing it. “Christ, by highest heav’n adored, Christ, the everlasting Lord: Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail th’ incarnate Deity! Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel.” Hail the incarnate Deity.

Let’s pray. Lord, thank You for a chance this evening to go through another one of these deeper studies, through a topic and a doctrine that can tie us in knots and can confuse us. But I pray that we would all just go back to the Word and what it says. And trust that You have given us exactly what You would have us have, in terms of what You’ve revealed to us for this time and this generation. I pray this study, though a lot, has been encouraging. I pray it reminds us of Your great plans, Your great wisdom. And if we were able to figure it all out, that would actually be a little concerning. I thank You that there’s mystery behind what we’ve studied. I thank You that You have revealed what You’ve chosen to reveal. I thank You that we have the Spirit to guide us as we study what we’ve studied. And I pray that these promises are true and sure, not only about Christ and His purpose, and Christ and His person, but what Christ will do in the future as He comes for us. God thank You for a wonderful day of worship. May You be glorified in our lives this week. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.