I want to take you to Philippians 2:7. Christ did more than simply lay aside the glory of heaven: He “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”
I love this verse because it means that what was thought out and decided in eternity, Christ acted on. So often, our thoughts, beliefs, and statements never get translated into actions.
But unless there is a corresponding action to my statement, then my statement is suspect. If I tell you I love you, but there follows nothing identifiable that makes my statement concrete, then it’s just mumbo jumbo. Christ could have stayed in heaven and said, “I love you down there!” But Christ didn’t stay in heaven.
What does the self-emptying of Christ mean? The theological doctrine is called the kenosis, from the Greek verb meaning “to empty.” Did He empty Himself of His deity and become merely a man? No, the focus of His self-emptying is not heaven, but earth; that is, what Christ emptied Himself into.
He didn’t empty out God and pour in man. Rather, He emptied all of God into man. In other words, He didn’t stop being God. He didn’t say, “Deity, I’m going to leave You in heaven and go down to become humanity.”
What Jesus did was take all of His deity and pour it into humanity so that He became much more than mere man. He became the God-man-God poured into man.
Let me tell you something important. When Jesus Christ did something about your sin and mine, He didn’t give us the leftovers. He poured all that made Him God into man so that man would have all of God. There is nothing that belonged to God that man didn’t have when Jesus emptied Himself into man.
So, when we look at the grace and blessings of God in our lives, we need to remember and I do mean remember who made it all possible.
