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bryan mccarthy
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2005
Total Posts : 179
| Posted 8/11/2005 9:32 PM (GMT -6) |   | | Okay, I'm wanting to know some more about kenosis. I was in a Sunday school class the other day where they were studying philippians and they started bashing the kenotic messiahship view. i've never really made up my mind about the whole thing seein' how it's only based on a couple verses and doesn't (at least to me) seem to make a whole lot a difference anyway, but i was a tad put off by the fact that they were treating it so seriously, as though it were some false teaching we all need to watch out for. I pointed out that lots of evangelical scholars subscribe to a kenotic messiahship (including greg, i believe, though i think there are many less-controversial scholars in this camp as well) and that it wasn't like a heresey or anything and that people in the class should feel free to choose either side of the debate.
here are some things i need addressed, if you could:
1) the teacher said that "in paul's day" there were some who held a kenotic view that entailed jesus not being god, but only man (what i would call pre-gnosticism on the order of the so-called collossian heresy). but as far as i'm aware, paul was not combating any heresy in phillipi when he wrote this letter.
2) also, i don't see that the kenotic view necessarily entails this kind of arianism anyway.
3) the actual word (or a form thereof rather) used in php 2.7 IS kenosis. if paul were trying to combat some kenotic heresy why would he use the word without addressing the issue directly? that doesn't sound like paul to me.
4) since they asked us to look into the topic some more for this week, i also need some more fleshing out of the theology in general. some articles by some bang-up evangelical scholars whom these really strictly conservative sunday schoolers would trust would be helpful as well.
***before sunday if possible?***
thanks guys,
bryan
"Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt." -- Paul Tillich | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/12/2005 4:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Bryan, as I understand the scriptural texts on the matter, Christ is God in the sense that ALL things are THROUGH him and FOR him. This is true of him during the incarnation and after. The kenosis, being an emptying of what equality he had with God prior to the incarnation, did not change the fact that he was still one THROUGH whom and FOR whom the creation exists.
But ALL things are OUT OF the Father. That's why 1 cor. 8:6 says there is ONE God and ONE Lord. For the Father is even called Christ's God. I never remember reading that Christ is the Father's God, though. To go beyond what the texts say just creates problems for my simple mind.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 8/12/2005 4:31:05 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/13/2005 3:18 PM (GMT -6) | | |
jeff: The kenosis, being an emptying of what equality he had with God prior to the incarnation, did not change the fact that he was still one THROUGH whom and FOR whom the creation exists.
bryan: i think you're right here, but kenotic theology does not hold this, does it?
Jeff: I don't know, Bryan. I just know that whenever I start reading about theories of the trinity and it's implications for the incarnation, my head starts hurting. But when I take ONLY what scripture says, everything meshes pretty easily.
jeff: But ALL things are OUT OF the Father. That's why 1 cor. 8:6 says there is ONE God and ONE Lord. For the Father is even called Christ's God. I never remember reading that Christ is the Father's God, though. To go beyond what the texts say just creates problems for my simple mind.
bryan: that's very interesting. it goes one way, but not the other. do you have a verse for the latter (i.e., that the father is called christ's god)?
Jeff: "My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me." I suppose you could say Christ was just quoting the Psalm like an actor speaking his "lines" just to fulfill the prophecy. But I doubt that. So if that one is legitimate, it may also be true that those verses that say "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" really are saying that the Father is ALSO the God of Christ. 1 Cor. 8 is consistent with this. As is the fact that it "pleased" the Father that the "fulness of the Godhead" dwell in Christ. As is the fact that, when Christ delivers up the kingdom to God, Christ will be subjected to the Father that the Father might be "all in all." In other words, I think the Father is THE ONE GOD OUT of whom are all things, while Christ, the ONE LORD, is GOD (deity) THROUGH whom are all things, and the Father was pleased for the FULNESS of the godhead (deity) to dwell IN him until the consummation, at which time the Father becomes "ALL IN ALL." Clear as mud? Anyway, taken this way, the kenosis need not be mystical at all.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 8/13/2005 5:54:23 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Dragon Chaser
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2004
Total Posts : 70
| Posted 8/13/2005 5:20 PM (GMT -6) | | What about in Genesis where it says something on the mater where the ‘sons’ of God found females on Earth pleasing to the eye and mated with them. I can only assume that the ‘sons’ are angles that take on human form. Another example is the two angles that escorted Lot to Sodom and the perverts wanted to defile them. My point being, it sounds like heavenly bodies can take a ‘human form.’ Evidently, it doesn’t say how they accomplished this human form.
When it comes to the Gospels it implies that Jesus lived his life as an average Joe. He hungered, labored, learned, and grew to be a man. In his growing days, he never made claims to be God or perform miraculous miracles. But it did say he was a miraculous student of the law. At the age of 33 he was an expert of the law and was ready to be a teacher.
"I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Some manuscripts do not have the Son of God.)
8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
The Baptism and Temptation of Jesus
9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, 13and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. "
These verses seem very self-explanatory to me. Jesus was thus filled with the Holy Spirit of God and became transformed. It doesn’t seem to imply that he was sent out to the desert to be specifically tempted by Satan, but more on the order of Jesus adapting to his miraculous transformation free from the chaos of civilization.
John R. Heys | | Back to Top | | |
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RL
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 12
| Posted 8/16/2005 9:54 AM (GMT -6) | | I think its simpler than at least some of that. God in Christ humbled himself, condesended to take as his own our limitations, and going further even our suffering. Not cosmetically, or in an act. That's the incarnation. And the whole point of all of creation was that God intended to be part of it too. That's the kenosis. But what is added to what he did is that the hurts of sin also were addressed, and that was by Christ voluntarily taking upon himself the consequences of our sins without himself sinning. Kenosis, then, is part of the description of a two-way action: of God descending to raise us up. The verses do not describe the Son as cesing to be God. In fact only God descended can raise up fallen humanity. Graphically, hell swallowed God and got a rude awakening!
Sometimes people go to far with the description of Christ's humbling, by making the Son somehow shed his divinity. Not only is that not what the verse says, its a distraction from the most wonderful part of the Kenosis: that it began and continued to be VOLUNTARY. At any point Christ could have called the angels, could have decided to not go through with it. His prayer in the garden tells the story of the two natures of one Person. And what is so remarkable is that the Human nature of Christ BOTH wanted to live and wanted uncompromisingly to do the will of the Father too.
Along in history Christ got portrayed as a "victom," rather than "Christus Victor." And whether beat-upon by God or beat-on by the devil, both ideas fail to tell the truth of "Christus Victor." Christ was born voluntarily. He lived and suffered daily, voluntarily for us. And he took up the Cross voluntarily. BEING God he also voluntarily suffered FOR us. And to do that he had to become ONE OF US! And that is the incarnation, the kenosis.
Hope this is OK.
(tx)
be not conformed, but be transformed... | | Back to Top | | |
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klock
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 30
| Posted 8/24/2005 9:56 PM (GMT -6) | | | RL said...
In fact only God descended can raise up fallen humanity.
RL,
I have asked others who have not been able to answer this question and I would like to hear yours, according to your quote above, Jesus has to be God (the one true God) in order to die for our sins. Where is it directly taught in scripture that Jesus MUST BE GOD in order to do this?
Klock | | Back to Top | | |
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