ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

Philippians 2.7

Philippians 2:7, Phil 2:7, kenosis, emptied himself

but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:7, NASB95)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV (ASV)

5. Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6. who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7. but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;

  1. and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. 9. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; (Philippians 2:5-9, ASV)
WEB (WEB)

5. Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6. who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,

7. but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.

  1. And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, yes, the death of the cross. 9. Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name; (Philippians 2:5-9, WEB)
KJV (KJV)

5. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6. Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7. But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

  1. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. fashion: or habit 9. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: (Philippians 2:5-9, KJV)
YLT (YLT)

5. For, let this mind be in you that [is] also in Christ Jesus, 6. who, being in the form of God, thought [it] not robbery to be equal to God,

7. but did empty himself, the form of a servant having taken, in the likeness of men having been made,

  1. and in fashion having been found as a man, he humbled himself, having become obedient unto death, death even of a cross, 9. wherefore, also, God did highly exalt him, and gave to him a name that [is] above every name, (Philippians 2:5-9, YLT)

Philippians 2:7 is the load-bearing verse of the Christ Hymn (Philippians 2.5-11) and the verse that names the puzzle around which all subsequent Christology gathers: the eternal Son who existed en morphē theou did not cling to that status but "emptied Himself" (ekenōsen heauton) by taking the morphē of a bond-servant. Paul frames the move ethically (have this mind among yourselves) rather than as detached metaphysics, but the metaphysical claim is dense: the act of becoming human is the same act as a self-emptying. The verb kenoō gives Christology its name for this move (kenōsis) and its hardest scholarly fault line, between modern kenotic theories (the Son actually surrendered divine attributes) and classical / incarnational-paradox readings (the Son added a human nature without subtracting from the divine). The verse stands behind the doctrines of Hypostatic Union, Necessity of the Incarnation, and the Pauline pattern of cruciform humility.

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Setting

  • Speaker: Paul the Apostle (Paul the Apostle), writing from imprisonment
  • Audience: the Christian congregation at Philippi (the first European church Paul planted, Acts 16)
  • Location: composed during Roman imprisonment (Rome, c. AD 60-62; Caesarea or Ephesus on minority views)
  • Time period: composed c. AD 60-62; the embedded hymn (vv. 6-11) is likely earlier liturgical material Paul is quoting

Theological reading

The hymn moves through three descending acts and a final reversal: pre-existence in the morphē of God (v. 6), self-emptying into the morphē of a slave (v. 7), obedience to death on a cross (v. 8), and exaltation with the divine Name (vv. 9-11). Verse 7 is the inflection point. Ekenōsen is grammatically reflexive: He emptied Himself, not "He was emptied." The hymn does not say what He emptied Himself of; that gap is the scholarly opening that has produced two centuries of debate.

The classical / incarnational-paradox reading (Athanasius, Cyril, Aquinas, the Chalcedonian tradition) takes ekenōsen as a self-veiling and addition: the Son took on a true human nature with its limits (genuine hunger, fatigue, growth in wisdom, ignorance of the day and hour, Mark 13:32) without ceasing to be fully divine. The "emptying" is the assumption of the form of a slave, not the discarding of divine attributes. On this reading, the participles "taking" (labōn) and "being made" (genomenos) are epexegetical: they explain how He emptied Himself, by adding, not subtracting. This view preserves classical theism's commitment to immutability and the Chalcedonian "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation" of the two natures in one Person.

Kenotic Christology (Thomasius, Gore, modern figures including Stephen T. Davis and Ronald Feenstra) reads ekenōsen as a real surrender of some divine prerogatives, typically the so-called relational omnis (omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence), during the incarnation, while the essential moral attributes (love, holiness, faithfulness) remain. Strong versions risk an Arianizing collapse; moderate versions ("ontological kenoticism" of C. Stephen Evans) propose that the Son's divinity always included a contingent capacity for self-limitation, so the kenosis is a divine act, not a subtraction from divinity. The exegetical pressure for some form of kenosis comes from texts where Jesus appears genuinely limited in knowledge (Mark 13:32), strength (Luke 22:43), and spatial location.

The apologetic significance is twofold. First, the verse is the clearest New Testament statement that Jesus was both pre-existent with God and became truly human, refuting Ebionite (Jesus as mere man) and Docetic (Jesus only appeared human) Christologies at the same stroke. Second, the ethical frame Paul places around it (vv. 1-5) means the Incarnation is not just metaphysics: it is the pattern of Christian self-giving. Christ's downward trajectory is the template for how believers treat one another. The verse is also the anchor for ris3n's Jesus didn't know the day defender, where the kenotic / incarnational-paradox distinction does the work of reconciling Mark 13:32 with the deity of Christ.

Key words

  • G2758 - kenoo, kenoō, "to empty, make void." The verb that gives kenosis its name; here uniquely reflexive (He emptied Himself).
  • G3444 - morphe, morphē, "form, outward expression of inward reality." Critical that the same word governs both "form of God" (v. 6) and "form of a slave" (v. 7), what He was in His being-toward-God, He took toward humanity in being-toward-servant.
  • G1401 - doulos, doulos, "bond-servant, slave." Not merely "servant" (diakonos), the lowest social rung in the Roman world.
  • G3667 - homoioma, homoiōma, "likeness." Carefully chosen: He was truly human, but not merely human, He is in the likeness of men but more besides.
  • G1096 - ginomai, ginomai, "to become, come into being." Marks the entry into a new mode of existence, contrasted with the hyparchōn (existing) of v. 6.

Theological themes

  • Self-emptying as paradigm of love. The downward arc (v. 6 → v. 7 → v. 8) is the shape of agapē, the inverse of grasping (harpagmos).
  • The two natures in one Person. The hymn presupposes a pre-existent divine Son who genuinely enters human history without becoming a third thing or splitting into two persons; the Chalcedonian Definition formalizes what is already here.
  • Kenosis vs incarnational paradox. The exegetical fork that defines modern Christology: did He surrender divine attributes, or veil and add?
  • Cruciform humility as Christian ethic. Paul cites the hymn to settle a congregational quarrel (vv. 1-4); doctrine and pastoral instruction are inseparable in the passage.
  • The Name above every name. The exaltation (v. 9) reverses the self-emptying and grants the Tetragrammaton-class title Kyrios to Jesus, a high Christology already mature in the earliest Pauline strata.

Cross-references

  • Philippians 2.5-11, the full Christ Hymn, verse 7 belongs to a tight five-verse poetic unit and is best read inside it.
  • Philippians 2.6, the morphē theou clause, the pre-existence the verse 7 emptying is from.
  • John 1.1-14, the Johannine incarnation parallel, the Word who was God became flesh.
  • Hebrews 2.14-17, the priestly logic of the Incarnation, He took flesh and blood to share the human condition.
  • Mark 13.32, the day-and-hour saying, the apologetic test case where kenotic vs incarnational-paradox readings diverge most visibly.

See also

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Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.