02.01. Introduction

1. INTRODUCTION The very heart of Christianity is the Person of Christ. Moreover, the Scriptures focus not only on the Person of Jesus Christ but also on His Work. However, we must ever keep in mind that Christ’s Person preceded His Work, for He is the eternal Son of God.

Salvation, the redemptive Work of Jesus Christ, is vitally connected with His Person. His Person and not His Work gives value to His Work. If Jesus Christ is not who the Bible represents Him to be, then His Work as Redeemer and Savior would be invalid. Thus, those who affirm His peccability invalidate His Work. There is such an inseparability between Christ’s Person and Work that any separation would cause one to go astray with respect to both. Thus, the slightest abstract notion of His Person would take from the real essence of His Work. Moreover, an isolated consideration of His Work is impossible because it can only be known in connection with His Person. His Person cannot be isolated from His Work, and His Work cannot be isolated from His Person.

The elect understand not only what Jesus Christ does but who He is-the One sent by the Father for their salvation. Without this knowledge, one can only be puzzled by His Work and ask “...Whence hath this man...these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son?...” (Matthew 13:54-57). Failure to know Jesus Christ is failure to understand His Work. Furthermore, failure to see His Work in its correct perspective is failure to understand His Person. The starting point of Christology must be the entire witness of Holy Scripture concerning both Christ’s Person and His Work. The confusion today is not objective but subjective. In other words, the real problem lies in the subjective condition of man’s heart: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked...” (Jeremiah 17:9). Our only safeguard is the objective revelation of Scripture, for there is nothing wrong with the objective revelation of Jesus Christ. Man-made concepts of Jesus Christ are easily turned into opposite concepts. For example, “Hail” and then “Crucify”.

The Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily humbled Himself (Php 2:5-8). To speak of Christ’s humiliation is permissible, but the better term in the light of the context is self-humbleness. This passage of Scripture does not actually teach humiliation, the act of humiliating, or the state of being humiliated or dishonored - all of which are true. It teaches Christ’s voluntary act of coming into the world. In this, His self-humbleness is displayed. The three different states of Jesus Christ revealed in Php 2:5-11 are glory, self-humbleness, and exaltation. If Christ’s natural-essential-state of glory were removed, there could be no self-humbleness. He was in a state of glory before He entered a state of self-humbleness. He was in the form of God before He was made into the likeness of man. He experienced a state of self-humbleness before He entered into a state of exaltation. Jesus Christ spoke of entering into the glory which He had with the Father before the world began after He had finished the work the Father sent Him to perform (John 17:4-5). He manifested His moral glory during His self-humbleness. But His essential glory was necessary to that moral glory, and His state of self-humbleness preceded His entering into the state of exaltation.

There are seven points in our Lord’s vast condescension when He left the glory He had with the Father and came into this world in self-humbleness:

1. He was in the form of God.
2. He emptied Himself.
3. He took the form of a servant or bond slave.
4. He was made in the likeness of men.
5. He humbled Himself.
6. He became obedient unto death.
7. He experienced the death of the Cross.

The glory of Jesus Christ is revealed in the fact that He is in the form of God. The form of God is to be understood as the nature and essence of God. This is the only way the Greek word for “form” can be understood in Php 2:6. It describes the Lord Jesus Christ as He was from all eternity. “The form of a servant” of verse 7 signifies that He was really a servant. “In fashion as a man” means that He was really the God-Man. Therefore, His being in the form of God reveals that He is really and truly God, that He shares the same nature with the Father and was possessed with the same glory. He possessed all the attributes of deity. The Holy Spirit revealed, through the apostle Paul, the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord in heaven and on earth in relation to the Father and in relation to man. “Who being in the form of God” or “subsisting in the form of God” reveals Christ’s essential deity, which once having had, can never be diminished. This glory or honor of Jesus Christ could never be given up, but it was veiled by being made into the likeness of men. The self-humbleness of the Lord Jesus Christ is seen in the fact that He emptied Himself. This is a fathomless statement. Eternity alone will suffice to plumb the depths of its meaning. He did not empty Himself of deity. That was essential to His being. He did not become less God by being made in the likeness of men. He veiled the essential glory of His deity, which was His from eternity, to accomplish His redemptive purpose in obedience to God the Father who sent Him into the world. He was not emptied of that fullness of grace which was in Him from everlasting. He appeared with this when He was made flesh and dwelt among men. He was not emptied of the perfections of His divine nature, which were not in the least diminished by the assumption of the human nature. All the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily (Colossians 2:9). Although the Lord Jesus, the second Person of the Godhead, took that which He did not have before, He lost nothing of what He had from eternity. The glory of His divine nature was covered; this is what took place when He emptied Himself. It was out of sight, but some rays and beams of it broke out through His works and miracles, which He performed during the thirty-three and one-half years that He walked among the sons of men. His glory as of the only begotten of the Father was beheld by only a few. The minds of the greater number were blinded and their hearts were hardened by not only the miracles they saw Him perform but the words they heard Him speak. They saw no form nor comeliness in Him to desire Him (Isaiah 53:2). The form of God in which He is eternally was hidden from them. They reputed Him as a mere man,
as the despised Man, even as a worm (Psalms 22:6).

“Being found in fashion as a man” indicates a permanent union of the two natures. Thus, we have the hypostatic union. This hypostatic union is not to be confused with the theophanies, the preincarnate manifestations of the Lord Jesus in the Old Testament. The theophanies were temporary; whereas, this hypostatic union is permanent. The key to the whole subject of the kenosis (Christ emptied Himself) is in the word “likeness.” It is a window through which floods the light of His redemptive purpose in the incarnation. God was sending His only begotten Son “...in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3 NASB). “In the likeness of men” of Php 2:7 conveys the full reality of Christ’s human nature. He who had said “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26) is now made in man’s likeness. What condescension for sinful man to hold in contemplation. The extent of His self-humbleness is manifested in His death. He was obedient unto death. The obedience of the first man, Adam, would have been unto life, but he disobeyed. The obedience of the God-Man was unto death. Adam’s disobedience brought his posterity, and that includes all mankind, a harvest of death. Jesus Christ’s obedience brought His posterity, His sheep, out of death into life. He voluntarily subjected Himself to this self-humbleness. He was not thrust down into it by force. He voluntarily came to do the will of His Father. The exaltation of Jesus Christ far out-distanced His self-humbleness. His exaltation consists of three stages:

1. In the past, God has highly exalted Him (Php 2:9; Ephesians 1:20-23).
2. In the present, He has been given a name which is above every name
(Php 2:9).
3. In the future, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Php 2:10-11).

We must never permit ourselves to conceive of Him in the kenosis as any Person other than God who changes not (Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8). In His self-humbleness, He was God manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16). In what sense did Jesus Christ empty Himself?

1. He took upon Himself the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.
2. He humbled Himself and became obedient. This is the sense in which He emptied Himself. However, there was no change in His essential being. He did two things He had never done before, and this helps us to better understand the meaning of “He emptied Himself”:

1. He became dependent. The Son can do nothing of Himself (John 5:19; John 5:30; John 8:28; John 12:49; John 14:10). The very essence of a man and a servant is that He is dependent. This, then, was the grace of the Son in that He willingly submitted Himself in all things to depend on the Father. Therefore, He said,
“...I live by the Father...” (John 6:57).

2. He became obedient. He whom all principalities and powers obeyed learned in a new experience the grace of obedience (Hebrews 5:8). His was the open ear. He was the instructed One of Isaiah 50:4. This, however, does not mean He divested Himself of the powers He possessed as God.

Liberals conclude the following statements:

1. Because Jesus Christ said “I can of mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30),
He was not omnipotent.
2. Because He said “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there” (John 11:15), He was not omnipresent.
3. Because He knew not the hour (Mark 13:32), He was not omniscient.
4. Because the Bible says He “was in all points tempted like as we are” (Hebrews 4:15), He had the capacity to sin. The liberal might as well go all the way and say that because Jesus Christ was man He was not God, and deny the great mystery of godliness - “...Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh...” (1 Timothy 3:16).

What is the meaning of Jesus Christ emptying Himself? Did He divest Himself of His essential glory, or did He veil His essential glory by being made in the likeness of sinful men? He did not become less God because of the incarnation. God manifest in the flesh is the foundation of Christianity. That one should be the God-Man is the great mystery of our faith. When Christianity expresses what she knows of the Lord Jesus Christ, she calls Him the God-Man. Christ’s inner nature and His eternal, historical reality in His appearance before men were not contradictory. The Lord Jesus was born of a virgin, walked among the sons of men, shed His precious blood on Calvary, and arose from the dead. The contrast between what appeared to be and what the Lord Jesus Christ was essentially became sharper and sharper even to the point of His death at Calvary. The Lord Jesus, who is eternal life, sank in death in order to give life to the elect of God (John 10:11; John 10:15). The apostle Peter rebuked the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 16:22-23 because the disciples were unable to understand His death. The disciples were ignorant of many truths concerning Christ’s Person. The contrasts in Christ’s life were not reconciled in His death but in His resurrection (Romans 1:3-4). After His resurrection, the disciples saw what Jesus Christ is eternally in nature. He was then proved to be the Son of God with power by His resurrection out from among the dead (Romans 1:4). The Lord Jesus declared, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him” (John 10:31). The Jews told Him they did not stone Him for a good work but for blasphemy. Anyone who does not believe Jesus Christ is the God-Man, one Person possessing two natures, has no mediator. To be mistaken about the Person of Jesus Christ is indeed tragic. One would do better not to touch the study of the Person of Jesus Christ than go outside the circle of Biblical revelation. The Person of Jesus Christ is absolutely beyond our comprehension. The distinctive characteristic of the incarnation is the hypostatic union, the union of two natures in one person. He was not two persons but one Person with two natures. Proper distinction must be made between a trinitarian Person (whether it be the Father, Son or Holy Spirit), a human person, and a theanthropic Person. A trinitarian Person possesses only one nature. Three Persons are in the Godhead. They are one essence, one substance. They have one nature, which is divine. Before the incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ possessed only one nature, the divine nature. The human person possesses two natures-material and immaterial. His material nature alone is visible. The material body came into existence when God made man from the dust of the earth. The immaterial part of man came into existence when God breathed into that body, and man became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). Man’s immaterial nature is of utmost importance. His material nature will return to the dust of the earth, but his immaterial nature will go to be with the Lord. A theanthropic Person has three natures. Jesus Christ alone is the Theanthropic Person. He has the divine essence, a human body, and a human soul. His human body was assumed, never to be laid aside. He sits today at the right hand of the Father in the same body in which He was glorified.

“Nature” denotes the sum total of all essential qualities of a thing-that which makes it what it really is. The nature of the Godhead pertains to all the essential qualities of the Godhead. “Person” denotes a complete substance endowed with reason. Therefore, it is a nature with something added; that added thing is individuality. Nature is invisible and natures are indistinguishable, but persons are distinguishable. Nature is visible only as it is reflected in one’s person. Each Person of the Godhead is God, having the same nature. Nevertheless, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. Jesus Christ assumed a nature that was not personalized. It did not exist by itself. The distinction between human nature and person is illustrated in Romans 9:21. The potter’s power over the clay denotes the absolute sovereignty of God. A lump of clay consists in one nature. So He took part of that one lump and made a vessel of honor, and He took another part and made a vessel of dishonor. Both vessels came from the same lump. However, when the Creator fashions the lump into vessels, they become personalized in particular vessels. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Theanthropic Person, the God-Man. He existed in the form of God before He came into the world. He did not cease from that form when He took upon Himself the form of a servant. The form of God was veiled with the form of a servant. Therefore, He was in the likeness of sinful flesh with emphasis on the word “likeness.” Many looked upon Him during His life when He walked among the sons of men; and they said, “Behold the man” (John 19:5). One must have grace to penetrate the human nature of Jesus Christ and see the divine nature; and grace enables him to see in Him the Theanthropic Person, the God-Man. The conception of Jesus Christ was unlike that of men. His birth was no different from any other. The virgin Mary signified that He was miraculously conceived in her womb. His entire life differed from the lives of mere men. Therefore, the expressions “Son of Man,” “Son of God,” “Man approved of God,” and “Behold the man” denote One who is not just a mere man. They indicate the Theanthropic Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared in the form of a servant. The theanthropic personality of Jesus Christ began with the incarnation. He did not exist eternally as the God-Man. There was no modification nor alteration of the Holy Trinity when Jesus Christ came into the world and assumed a human nature. A fourth person was not added to the divine Triunity. There is still just a holy Triunity. The one God condescended to reveal Himself. While there is only one God, there are in the one divine essence three distinct Persons-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.