Who is our God? Chapter 11

HE EMPTIED HIMSELF

All of us long to see a revival of God's work on earth. We should like to see the whole Divine truth pressed home vigorously on every side. In truth there is urgent need of this. The extraordinary powers of the Reformation of four hundred years ago have ebbed away.

A few years ago a Scottish minister wrote that "In Europe and America there is not a man who can preach." I suppose he meant no one had a Gospel worth preaching.

Almost forty yeals ago two widely publicized and prominent Evangelists from the United States came to Britain. One had charge of the singing and music. The other made continuous appeals to his audience to "Come to Jesus" to "believe," and to "accept Christ." Very little direct appeal to the Scriptures was made. It seemed to be assumed that the listeners were well acquainted with the Bible story, and all that was required was to make an appeal to them. Young people were herded into enquiry rooms, hardly aware why they found themselves there. For six weeks I gave assistance each evening as a steward, until utterly disillusioned by the entire absence of anything like a real Gospel. Here was an artificial endeavour to imitate the power of Moody. But what a travesty of the Good News of God!

While it is true that some Good News is being proclaimed in many places, and while it is undeniable that the Scriptures can breathe the truth into the seeking soul, no truly dynamic Gospel now appears to be anywhere proclaimed. Let us be quite clear that if God does have a Gospel for mankind, it cannot be less than dynamic. Indeed, the Gospel was very dynamic after the Resurrection of the Lord. Where now is the power that can make the hearts of men and women bleed? Where is the power that can cut them to the heart? Does it not appear that some vital power is missing? Sometimes in the human body a very small change in habits or diet or occupation will release a great fund of strength and new life. Far too many people render their bodies useless or weak or prematurely old through a diet which the Hebrew Sanitary Code would never allow.

So in the spiritual world. One very small fact can make a world of difference to our ideas and our life. Many can believe that the Lord came from (apo) God; that He came from-beside (para) God; but those who cannot believe in the "pre-existence" of the Lord ought honestly to face the truth of John 8:42, where the Lord makes it quite clear, "If God were your Father, in that case you loved Me, for I, OUT OF GOD (ek tou Theou) came forth, and have got here." The sons of Belial whom He was addressing had claimed they were not begotten out of (ek) prostitution. If Christ's origin lies within God, how can anyone argue honestly that He did not pre-exist just as long as God has existed?

We suggest that the roots of the Good News go back to Phil. 2:6-8. Already we have demonstrated that the Greek word used in verse 6 of the existence of Christ Jesus (huparchO) means, in the case of God, to exist all along, and in the case. of human beings, to exist for a long time. Paul states that Christ Jesus (note the name) existed all along in God's form, nevertheless, He empties HIMSELF, taking slave-form, coming to be in humanity's likeness. If anyone can supply a more concordant rendering of the Greek word than exist all along, or, exist for a long time, we are most eager to know what it is. That the frail Man—who was born as Jesus never existed in God's form does not require to be demonstrated. To aver that Jesus in some historic sense emptied HIMSELF while He was on earth would be childish. The word HIMSELF is very emphatic in the Greek. It seems to imply a complete emptying of something. Can we discover what it was of which He emptied Himself? No other passage mentions this self-emptying. The answer ought to be found in the context.

In the Greek language, the participles are more wieldy and versatile than in English. Suppose we rearrange John 1:9 and read it thus, "Coming into the world, the true Light is enlightening every man." A Greek would understand this to mean, "By coming into the world, the true Light is enlightening every man." You might say, "I got a splendid view, climbing a mountain." The two statements are closely related. By climbing a mountain, one gets a fine view.

Let us then read Phil. 2:7 over again. "Nevertheless, He empties Himself, by taking slave form, by coming to be in likeness of human beings." In the next verse, we shall note that the word Himself is not emphatic. "He humbles Himself, (by) becoming obedient unto death, yet a cross-death."

Why have we been given in the Old Testament glimpses of the Theophanies? Just so that we may realize what it was that the Lord of Glory gave up when He emptied Himself. He gave up His glorious form and position, condescending to the limitations under which human beings live; quitting the divine mode of existence and assuming the human mode of existence. If anyone doubts this, let him turn to any page of the four Gospels, and he will find abundant proof. As opposed to an occasional and transitory Theophany, the permanent incarnation of the Word can only maintain its true character provided the Incarnate becomes a genuine and real human being. If He had not divested Himself of the divine glory, but continued as God, then Christ would have been essentially God, not a real Son of Mankind at all. The fact that He emptied Himself and incarnated Himself shews that He was no ordinary human like ourselves.

His voluntary Incarnation implies His voluntary self-emptying. The change from Godhead to Manhood in flesh must be by way of limitation or reduction or renunciation of some kind. It would be sheer presumption for us to argue that such a process of self-humiliation is impossible in the case of God. Did not the Lord, in John 17:5, pray the Father to restore to Him that glory which He had alongside the Father before the world (human society) was?

It was God, pre-existent, who emptied Himself the Incarnate was Man. We must not, dare not, reason that God's "immutability" is such that He cannot become the humblest and lowliest Person in His own universe. If we humans possess any true humility and modesty and meekness, we may be sure it is implanted by God. God therefore must possess these same qualities.

Often has real Love to change its modes and its methods to attain its aims. But does not this prove the essential unchangeableness of Love?

At the time when the Creeds were formulated in the early centuries the doctrine of the Divine immutability was maintained in a very extreme form. The early Church Fathers drew most of their scientific wisdom from heathen philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle. We ourselves are continually subject to change, while yet we remain ourselves all through life. God will always remain God, but would we dare to argue that while the angels of heaven are thrilled when a sinner becomes reconciled to God, such reconciliation leaves God utterly impassive and unmoved? Our reconciliation to God must bring Him real pleasure so that in some way He is changed.

It has been looked upon by some as derogating from the glory and dignity of God that Christ became flesh like mankind. But surely His paramount glory was that He exchanged equality with Goo. for equality with men. The Church Fathers imagined they heaped more honour upon Him by ascribing to Him while on earth a Divine life as real and actual as His human life. But in so doing, they obscured His grandest feature. His knowledge-surpassing love for mankind. Because His love for us shines with greatest lustre if for our sakes He exchanged the riches of Divine existence and all its glory for the meanness and poverty of human life. It was no exaggeration that the Son of Mankind had nowhere He might lay His head (Luke 9:58). He was not living on earth the life of God, but the life of a Man.

In his very informative book, "The Greek Language" (1931) Basil F. C. Atkinson states that the Greek word morphE ("form") has been used from the time of Homer in the sense of outward form or appearance. He continues, "Much discussion of the kenosis, or emptying-out of the attributes of Christ at incarnation, might have been spared, had the disputants realised rather more deeply the history of the word morphE or noticed the force of the reflexive heauton (Himself), the statement being that He emptied, not His attributes out of Himself, but Himself out of one morphE into another." In passing we ought to state that on the same page this writer shews that in Rev. 3:14 He who is the "beginning of the creation of God" is more truly the "first cause" or "first principle" of God's creative process, and a "first cause that partook of the essence of the object, being in some sense indissolubly bound up with it." This is altogether in line with what we have sought to show.

Many have been stumbled by the idea of the Divine one emptying Himself and becoming born as an infant. A son is the result of generation, but the product of creation is a creature, not a son. The Lord Jesus is called Son of God because His Father was Holy Spirit. The Word becomes flesh through the Divine act originating in the Virgin Mary the rudiments of a new human life. Such a generative act was as spiritual as any act of creation is.

Here we require to bear in mind that even when plants or animals are reproduced that which generates the vital principle of the new life or organism is not the sperm as a material element, but that spiritual, intangible, life-dynamic which is contained in or associated with the sperm-matter. Every time a seed germinates there is, as it were, a new act of creation, involving both mystery and miracle. One might dissect the sperm-matter and have it analyzed chemically, but the vital germinating force consists of such a spirit nature that it cannot be laid hold of or recognized. The new organism comes to life through the invisible, immaterial power inherent in the seed, not merely through the material elements of the seed.

No one, therefore, should be bewildered by the conception of the Child without a human father. The messenger said to Mary, "Holy Spirit will be coming over on to thee, and Power (dunamis) of Most High shall be overshadowing thee; wherefore also that generating Holy Thing shall be called Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Such a conception is no contradiction of the laws of nature, but is quite in harmony with the close relation between spirit and matter which has always existed.
The fact that the Lord had to grow up and learn through suffering, and that He was subject to the law of mental and physical development, is clear proof of HIS having relinquished His Divine mode of existence.

While the Lord knew that He was both the Son of God and the Son of Mankind, it is quite evident that He did not press His claim to being the Son of God; in fact, He seems to avoid this title, while continually referring to Himself as the Son of Mankind. We should keep in mind that with the self-emptying and the incarnation—timeless wonders, coming into history the pages of revelation begin to sparkle with two new grandeurs, Divine Fatherhood and Divine Sonship. God is now viewed as possessing these two relationships.

Some have therefore suggested that the Lord, while on earth, was not aware, or fully aware, that He was God. Of the fact that He was uniquely the Son of Mankind He was very keenly aware. He was fully alive to the fact that God was His Father. He came to know that He came out of God. But could He truly think of Himself as being God in His state of self-emptying? Could He think of Himself as being God while He felt Himself to be a "worm and no man?"

We do not require to press that certain knowledge was concealed or hid from the Lord until He acquired it. Many subtle little touches in the Gospels prove this. According to Matt. 9:4, Jesus was "perceiving" (eidOs) the sentiments of the scribes, when He forgave the paralytic. Yet at Mark 2:8 it is stated that Jesus was "recognizing" in His spirit what they were reasoning about. The word here is epignous, which means getting fuller knowledge. It does not refer to perfect knowledge. It is not a term we could apply to an all-wise Deity.

Might it not be the case that the Lord was truly God Incarnate in Human Form without actually being so consciously? We repeat this question, because the suggestion may, after all, be true. It was suggested over forty years ago by Prof. A. G. Hogg of the Madras Christian College, in his book "Christ's Message of the Kingdom," one of the deepest and most vivid and reverent thinkers of our age.

To state the matter in another form, could the Lord properly l1ave recognized that He was God when He admitted His ignorance concerning a certain future day and hour (Matt. 24:36)? Would not the fact that He was not aware make Him feel how human He was?

Some have maintained that all creation, past, present, and future, is one long process of Kenosis or self-emptying, an eonian process of impartation and self-communication by God. Because in creation God must limit Himself by giving up some of His freedom. Adam and Evewere doubtless created perfect specimens of the human race so far as they were flesh. But God did not create them perfect specimens morally or spiritually. Such perfection cannot be attained through an act of creation. Look at, the fruit on trees, or plants. They have to grow to reach maturity. So have we. As a human being, even the Lord had to be "perfected" or matured through sufferings (Heb. 2:10). We could not have obtained eonian salvation unless He had thus been perfected (Heb. 5:9).

That grand brief statement, "God is Love," proves among other things that God must have limited Himself and parted with some of His freedom. Is not real love a very binding thing? Does it not require utter humility? Does it not imply, in God, that He must communicate Himself to His creatures? To have fellowship with His creatures He must Come down to their level, and thus limit Himself.

Jehovah is the Becoming One, He who manifests God, God as immanent (remaining in or near), adapting Himself to the limitations of His creatures. At the same time God is the Transcendent One, so far above everything else, unchangeable. God could say, not only "I am," but "I become." But we humans can say the same in our own little sphere. There is something enduring or permanent about us and in us, even though in other ways all through life we go on changing. That which in us endures throughout life transcends those features and moods in us which shew change.

In nothing does our God so totally transcend all the gods of the nations as in the self-emptying of Christ Jesus. The same applies to all the great leaders of the nations, and all founders of religion. Nearly all the leaders in politics and religion seek human fame and greatness and wealth, along with popularity. How tardy and unwilling are men and women, even the best of them, to believe that in this age what among men is exalted is abomination in God's sight (Luke 16:15).

All the many so-called Gods and Lords of antiquity failed in one very important quality—they lacked genuine humility. Had they been truly humble, they would inevitably have gravitated towards Jehovah's holy revealed truth or His prophets. Some of these are mentioned before the Flood in Gen. 6:4, the Nephilim or "Marvels," and the Gibbors or outstanding ones, men of name or renown.

Men and women strive after position and power and importance and wealth and fame. But the possession of these is no sign of God's blessing in this age. He who came out of God flung all these things aside. He who all along existed in God's form made Himself of no reputation, impoverished Himself so that we might be enriched.

But let us not read 2. Cor. 8:9 as though it meant His impoverishment leads to our becoming in any way affluent. His long process of self-emptying and His humiliation ought to lead to our greatest spiritual enrichment. What more blessed state spiritually can we attain in this life than Paul describes in Phil. 2:1-8?

When we survey the wondrous Cross, it is not enough to see merely the death of the Prince of Glory. We must also view His almost incredible life in slave form, in unparalleled humiliation. We must perceive the origin within God Himself of the most humble being, the Son of God. Often one wonders, when we sing that verse,Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small.Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my heart, my life, my all.whether we really mean it? Yet the verse is wholly true. We aver that we follow Paul. Yet when we come to Phil. ch. 2 we read or sing, but stop there.

Loveable readers, until we are embued with that spirit, we shall accomplish little for God. If Christ Jesus did not preexist within God, then there was no self-emptying; and if there was no self-emptying, then there is no mighty dynamic in Christianity. We cannot adequately behold the vast love of GOD, unless we behold His part in the self-emptying. Perhaps we are unable to take in properly the love to us of Invisible Spirit. Yet we are told it is the love of Christ that passes knowledge.

Some of our readers are unable to comprehend God as being both infinite and invisible, and as God in human form. Yet it may be stated that King Solomon must have encountered the same problem. The Hebrew was essentially a seer, not a philosopher. In his sacred writings he could make out, more or less dimly perhaps, two lines of prophecy converging upon the Son of God and upon the Son of Mankind. In 2. Chron. 6:18 and 1. Kings 8:27 Solomon asks the question which the modern scientist ought to put, "Can be it true that God will in very deed dwell with man upon the earth that God whom the heavens do not contain and cannot contain?" It must be evident that King Solomon had come to know that Jehovah—God in manifestation—would in due time manifest Himself on earth in human form. Whatever may be the proper meaning of the Hebrew term here used (kool), it is found oftenest in the iterative or Pilpel forms, expressive of repetition. The meaning seems to be like sustain, endure, keep going, hold together. Jeremiah was "weary with forbearing" (ch. 20:9), or "weary with holding in" (ch. 6:11). The word is used of sustaining with food, carrying on with sustenance.

At any rate, Solomon saw that the very immensity of such a God was no reason why He should not dwell on earth as Immanuel (with us God).

Doubtless Solomon learned much on this matter from David. According to 2. Sam. 7:19 and 1. Chron. 17:17, Jehovah had regarded David according to the estate of a man of high degree, while David asked "is this the manner of man, Adonai Yehweh?" Here we must make corrections. Both estate and manner are in Hebrew thur, the meaning of which is "law." In Chron. Young reads "as a type of the man who is on high," while Rotherham has "according to the rank of manhood, and hast exalted me." In 2. Sam., Rotherham reads "This then is the law of manhood." It is suggested that for thur we substitute the much more intelligible thar, the meaning of which is "form." The Greek reads horasis, "vision," "appearance." "Thou hast looked upon me as the FORM, or VISION, of The Man." The man of "high degree" might possibly mean rather "the Man from above" (m-ole). It may be that David understood Jehovah to be according him a glimpse or adumbration of the Man who was to come. David was undoubtedly in various ways a remarkable type of Christ.

The same contrast between God as very distant and God as very close may be seen at Jer. 23:23-24, "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord." The statements are undoubtedly in the form of questions, as shown by the question mark (Hebrew, ha) at the beginning of the statements, not at the end. But the word for God is in the construct form, so that Leeser may be correct in suggesting, "Am I a God for those near at hand. . . . and not a God for those who are afar off?" More literally, "Am I God of him who is near. . . and not God of him far off?"

The statement that Jehovah fills the heavens and the earth is indisputable. Yet when He came and talked with men, "in Son," there was very little room on earth for Him. He who died on a Cross was assuredly not filling heaven and earth.

This leads us to a brief study of the terms "empty" and "fill." Herein lies a most fruitful field for study. Extraordinary it is that so many fine publications, which have carried on for many years, seem to have totally neglected to expatiate upon the grandest event in all time and history—the self-emptying of Christ Jesus.

The word kenos is quite well rendered "empty," and we can suggest no improvement. We have the term in our word cenotaph (empty tomb), which is a monument to one who is buried elsewhere. Slaves were lashed and sent away, empty (Luke 20:10, 11). If Christ has not been roused, our proclamation and even our faith are "empty." We are not to receive the grace of God "for an empty thing" (2. Cor. 6:1). We are not the ones who should be seduced with empty words or statements (Eph. 5:6). In the old Testament the word is used oftener of physical emptiness. The Israelites were not to appear before Jehovah "empty," that is empty-handed (Ex. 23:15). It is used of empty pitchers (Judges 7:16). The Ark was not to be sent away empty (1. Sam. 6:3). The bow of Jonathan returned not empty (2. Sam. 1:22). Job found his days empty (7:16), and there are few who have not had the same experience. In the Egyptian Papyri, "empty" camels were unladen ones.

Christ Jesus emptied Himself, divested Himself of the form of God. As one has said, He "sequestered His greatness." This was purely a voluntary act. We are not told that the Father emptied Him. But it was God who highly exalted Him (Phil. 2:9), giving Him the highest name in the universe.

The Lord got back the glory which He had beside the Father ere the world was (John 17:5), yet it was a glory unspeakably enhanced. It is true now that in Christ is dwelling the whole fulness or completeness of the Deity bodily. But for anyone to argue that this was true while the Lord lived on earth, is to aver that Deity's fulness permitted ignorance suffered continual privation, and underwent death. Just here we must rightly divide the word of truth.

The perception of these very simple yet most important facts would have prevented Philip Schaff (Encyclopaedia, 1883) from taking objection to certain forms of the "Kenotic" doctrine, such as those of Gess and Godet. Schaff would seek to limit the self-emptying of the Lord, on the grounds that "it, contradicts the essential unchangeableness of God!" This is like arguing in a circle, for surely if Christ Jesus is Divine, His self-emptying, of whatever nature it was, must have affected Deity profoundly. The Kenosis was, even if only temporary, a most profound change within God.

Dr. C. Ryder Smith, in "The Bible Doctrine of Salvation," says that if we put the fulness of the Deity alongside the emptying of Phil. 2, "we have the antinomy of the Incarnation." Upon Col. 1:19, 20 he says, "Here there are two universal postulates of Scriptures: that there is something wrong with the universe as we know it, and that man and the universe go together. Paul claims that it ensues that, when man is altogether reconciled to God, so will the universe be. Their perfecting is ultimately one perfecting (cf. Rom. 8:19 ff.), for Christ, being Head of a new mankind, is thereby Head of a new universe."

We ought to expect antinomies and paradoxes within God and in the Scriptures, as we ourselves contain many of them.

Some have enquired why it is the fulness or complement in Christ that appears to reconcile the universe (Col. 1:19, 20).

It was when we were still sinners that we found that Christ had died for our sakes. Much rather then, being now declared righteous in His blood, we shall be saved through Him from the indignation (Rom. 5:8-9). It was through the death of His Son that we were conciliated to God, and much more, shall be saved in His life (v. 10). It is through His blood that we have deliverance, the forgiveness of our falling-asides (Eph. 1:7). It is in the blood of Christ that we were made near (Eph. 2:13). We were reconciled in His body of flesh, through His death (Col. 1:22).

All these statements refer to the Lord's achievements while He was on earth, in His self-emptied state, in slave form. Though He then possessed the fulness or completeness of grace and truth, it is now that all the fulness or completeness of the Deity is dwelling in Him, bodily. It is now that He is highly exalted, and given the Name that is so mighty that in the Name of Jesus (the name of His self-emptied state) every universal knee shall bow, and every universal tongue shall acclaim that LORD is Jesus Christ, "unto glory of God-Father" as the Greek puts it (Phil. 2:9-10).

Some of the versions read in Col. 1:19 that "it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." No doubt the statement is quite true, but had Paul meant to say so, he could have written the necessary words. As it is, he says nothing here about the Father. We go back to Wycliffe (1380) with his quaint Old English, "for in hym it plesid alle plentee to enhabite." Tyndale (1534), however, brings in the same reading as we find in the 1611 version. The Rheims (1582) as usual, is very like Wycliffe, "because in him it hath well pleased, al fulnes to inhabite."

Quite a few of the more modern versions provide us with the rather surprising statement that it is the fulness which accomplishes the reconciliation of the universe. Thus, Charles Thomson (1808), "Because all the plenitude was pleased to dwell in him, and by him to reconcile all to himself." Rotherham (1872), "because in him was well-pleased all the fulness to reside, and through him to reconcile fully the all things unto him." Moffatt, "For it was in him that the divine Fulness willed to settle without limit, and by him it willed to reconcile in his own person all on earth and in heaven alike." A similar construction is found in Hayman, Goodspeed, and Cunnington. The Concordant Version reads "seeing that the entire complement delights to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile the universe to Him. . .." Perhaps the word "complement" may not seem clear enough to some. The Greek word (plErOma) seems to indicate completeness or completion.

But let us observe that all this fulness or completeness delights (1) in Him to dwell, and (2) through Him to accomplish a vast work of reconciliation.

This is a task which the risen, ascended, all-glorious Christ can easily accomplish, in the irresistible fulness of His might. Peace has been made by the blood of His cross, while He was in weakness and humiliation. But what can His mighty power, as One no longer self-emptied, but possessing the entire fulness or completeness of the Deity, not accomplish? If it is the majestic fulness or completeness of Christ Jesus which will reconcile, and not merely reconcile, but literally, "change-throughout-backwards" (apo-kat-allassO) all everywhere who need reconciling, does not this imply that all will become filled with the fulness of God? That the event refers to a vast reconciliation in the future seems proven by the mention (1) of those in the heavens, and (2) of the saints whom He reconciles now (yet in His body of flesh, through His death).

A similar thought is present in I. Cor. 15:28. Schaff's Commentary says "God, in the most absolute sense—Father, Son and Holy Ghost—will be all in the entire new creation." Christ gives up the kingdom or kingship to Him who is God and Father (v. 24). "A last enemy is becoming idle (katargeitai; Middle)—Death." Then the Son Himself who has been reigning as MAN—becomes subject, steps down, so that GOD—God in contrast with MAN—becomes all in everyone. When His fulness fills all His beings, the goal will be reached, final and complete fulfilment of the meaning of the wonderful name Jehovah. He has become everything to all His creatures.

End Chapter 11 (Alexander Thomson)