Jesus Christ: Kenosis in its Perfection

“Though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped at, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness” (Phil 2:6-7). The hymn St. Paul refers to so early in his letter to the Philippians is a classic expression of the self-emptying nature of God in Christ. The fact that this was most likely already being used as a kind of formula of faith for believing communities, suggests that the faithful, at some deep level, were able to appropriate very early on this reality of the saving action of God in Christ. Even if it would take centuries to hone the meaning of the Incarnation in terms of the effects of it on Jesus’ humanity and divinity, it seems that almost immediately, there was some substantial degree of assent of faith to the core reality very early on in the history of Christian faith.