KENOSIS kĭ nō’ sĭs, kĕ (κενώσις, emptying, depletion). The term was used first in the Patristic lit. and was used in Christian theology from about the 1st cent., usually as a synonym for the Incarnation. It is concerned with an emphasis on Christ’s humiliation or condescension. Support for the doctrine rests primarily in Philippians 2:6-8, with parallels having to do with His humiliation (2 Cor 8:9) and for His exaltation (John 17:5). The verb which gives the name to the doctrine is in Philippians 2:7, εκένωσεν, tr. He “emptied himself.” Whereas the Philippian passage gives support to Christ’s humiliation, the problem of interpretation is raised by those passages that clearly portray His divine powers, esp. those in John (cf. John 1:14, 48; 5:19-24; 10:30; 11:41; 13:1-3). The basic question, therefore, is how and to what extent Jesus’ full humanity forced Him to “empty” Himself of the divine, and how and to what extent His divine powers remained. The theological issue is profoundly difficult, for it takes one into the nature of the Trinity, and when divine powers are allowed in the man Christ Jesus, what, if anything, has happened to the person of God Himself? Problems of interpretation are further aggravated by the fact that the other uses of the word ekenosen (Rom 4:14, 1 Cor 1:17, 9:15, 2 Cor 9:3) are uniformly fig. in their context and will not bear the weight of literal usage which the Kenoticists demand of the same word in Philippians 2:7.

Solutions to the problem have moved across the spectrum of five possible interpretations: (1) In the Incarnation, Christ gave up all divine attributes and thus ceased all cosmic functions and divine consciousness (Gess, Beecher, et al.). (2) A distinction is made between essential and relative attributes in God, and Christ in His Incarnation gave up not His essential attributes but only His relative attributes (Thomasius, Delitzsch, et al.). (3) In His obedience to His Father, Christ gave up no powers of the Deity but gave up their independent exercise. (4) His humanity was such that He did not exercise His divine powers at all (Martensen and Gore). (5) The divine nature united itself with His humanity only gradually, and His full deity was consummated finally at the resurrection. The Incarnation was process rather than act (Dorner).

Exegetes vary in their point of emphasis. The best interpretation of Philippians 2:6-8 seems to center not on μορφὴ̀ θεοῦ, “the form of God” but on εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ “being on an equality with God.” In other words, He did not give up His powers but gave up His position. He no longer acted as sovereign but as servant. Lightfoot on Philippians 2:8 states the position as follows: “Christ divested Himself, not of the divine nature, for that was impossible, but of the glories and prerogatives of deity. This He did by taking the form of a servant.”

Modern interpreters tend to evade the theological questions and even the exegetical questions in terms of the general thrust of the passage which is simply stating in vivid language Christ’s willingness to leave His glory for the cross. He suppressed Himself so utterly that only the vision of His rights in glory as against the shame of the cross can give mankind the “mind of Christ.”

Bibliography L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (1946), 327-330; A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology (1947), 701, 704, 705; E. F. Scott, “Philippians 2:5-11,” IB (1955), vol. II, 46-50; Commentaries by Beare, Dibelius, Lightfoot, Lohinger, and Vincent on Philippians 2:5-11; Vos, “The Self-Disclosure of Jesus,” ISBE; H. R. Mackintosh, The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ, 141-284; Sheldon, History of Christian Doctrine, vol. II, 134-137, 348-353; F. F. Bruce, The Humiliation of Christ, Lectures III, IV, V; E. Brunner, The Mediator, passim, esp. ch. XII; B. Warfield, Christology and Criticism, Lectures VI-VIII.