Charles A. Clough
The Biblical Doctrine of Kenosis
and its Implications in our Culture
( From Lesson 178 of the Framework Series )
“Kenosis,” is the Greek word to humble, to be humble. It comes from Phil. 2:5-8 and the meaning of “kenosis” is that the Lord Jesus Christ gave up the voluntary use of His divine attributes. In other words, before He would exercise any of His divine attributes while on earth, He would have to ask the Father’s permission to do that. So there’s a subordination within the Trinity, from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And it was revealed during the earthly ministry of Jesus through kenosis—through the doctrine of kenosis.
You want to remember that the word “kenosis” has had in some chapters of church history a bad connotation. Sometimes I hesitate to use the word because liberals have argued that kenosis means something else. They have argued that kenosis means Jesus Christ wasn’t fully God, and that’s not what we’re saying.
We’re saying He’s like a lamp with a lampshade on, and before He would take the lampshade off so you could see the glory of the bulb, He would have to have the Father’s permission to do that. He also could not do that in His trials with Satan. Jesus Christ had to meet the trials of Satan as a man, with only the assets of His humanity—as that humanity was empowered by the Holy Spirit. So in effect, Jesus becomes the “tester” of the Christian way of life. He, as it were, put the Christian modus operandi, filling of the Holy Spirit, under severe combat conditions; He put it under pressure far exceeding any pressure that we would ever encounter. So in that sense you can look upon Jesus as a test pilot or a tester—an engineer who tests the endurance of products. The kenosis doctrine spells out the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the role of Adam perfectly.
We said there were four applications of kenosis. Number one, it shows the basic virtue in Christianity, which is not love, it is not power, it is not courage. Those may be there, but those aren’t the basic; the basic virtue in Christianity is humility before God—a respect for Him.
The second application is that the subordination of the Son to the Father proves that subordination of roles does not imply inferiority of essence. Let me run that by again: subordination of roles does not imply inferiority of essence. When you look at that statement carefully, you realize that the only way you can counter it is to deny the Trinity. Subordination of roles does not imply inferiority of essence; if it did, then Jesus wasn’t God.
This has important ramifications because the Trinity now becomes the archetype, the source, the origin, the pattern, of all authority, whether it’s authority of roles in the home, whether it’s authority of roles in the state. Just because, with all due respect to the feminists, just because God has invested the man as the head of the home, and not the woman, does not mean that the woman is inferior in value, scope, or any way else to the man, because if she is, then the Trinity is upset again. In the civil environment we obey leaders. Does that mean that the President is worth more in his humanity than any of you are? No, it means that under God you have a role and he has a role, and that’s the way it is, and we live out the implications of that. That’s the second application of the doctrine of kenosis.
The third one is that kenosis is the basis of Christ’s Melchizedekian priesthood. That’s Heb. 4:15, “We have not a high priest who cannot be affected with the feelings of our infirmities, touched in that way. [KJV, ‘For we have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities’], but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Jesus Christ qualifies as our priest, as our representative before God to plead our case with the Father because He has personally walked the path we are walking. If you think in terms of Christianity’s contrast with Islam, Allah never walked our path. He is so utterly transcendent, so utterly “other” that an incarnation of Allah would be inconceivable. This is why, therefore, Allah can’t really be personal to human beings.
The fourth application is that kenosis is the basis of Christ’s judge-ship. John 5:22, [“For not even the Father judges any one, but He has given all judgment to the Son.”] all judgment has been committed to the hands of the Son. Why? For the same reason we have trial in courtrooms by peers, jury of peers, lawyers try to get the jury arranged (or it used to be that way) so that the jury is of peers—equal in rank, stature, experience to the person being accused. These are important implications. We will be judged by a peer, in that sense.