Kenosis and divine attributes

Pay no attention to those who characterize the views of others without a supporting quote.

Now this view espoused by Aresman is not true. The idea is that if Jesus emptied Himself of any part of these divine attributes, then He was not !00% God. That view is bogus. Jesus did not know the time of His return, thus His omniscience was limited, yet all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Him. Ditto for the other two attributes. He had to wait until He returned to Heaven to send the Helper so His power was somewhat limited, and while in the flesh He was not everywhere at once. He was in a place, then traveled to other places. Doctrine must be consistent with all scripture.

 

Know 'zactly what you mean; I once had a boss who PRIDED himself on his HUMILITY!!

 

God is Person (in fact, three Persons in perfect unity), not a collection of attributes. The "attributes" are a description of abilities that God might normally have unless God has restricted Himself in some way.

In Jesus, the Christ, God has set aside certain abilities (aka attributes) in order to gain an ability* that was difficult any other way - specifically, the ability not to completely overwhelm humankind with His glory as He related to them as a human being. After His resurrection, He was glorified and received a resurrection body which has both similarities to our current human bodies with substantial differences.

*For those who are disturbed by my description of God gaining an ability based on their interpretation that God does not change based on on Hebrews 13:8, the Incarnation is a rebuke to that interpretation. What Hebrews is obviously addressing is character and Personhood, not Incarnation or all of the things that go with being human, such as birth, aging, injury and death.

 

No. Why should they be?

 

Personally I would prefer a certain selection out of the variances in meaning of the term kenosis as a reflexive voluntary of lowering Himself in rank where Jesus voluntarily lowered Himself from a General to a private.

His attributes and prerogatives as God were still available to Him however these attributes and prerogatives were then via the will and permission of the Father until returning to and sitting down at the "right hand" of the Father.

HankD.

 

I will bear that in mind in light of our other recent conversation where you often characterized my view without any supporting quotes

Now Van, I know you dismissed this on the previous thread by saying something along the lines of 'Jesus knew all about those people that he met' (I paraphrase) but John tells us that Jesus 'saw' Nathanael whilst be nowhere near him bodily - Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." (Joh 1:48 NKJ). he didn't just 'know' he 'saw'! As I said to you before - it is not as simple as you make out.

We have to accept that in the incarnation there is great mystery - we might not be able to understand how Jesus Christ as God possessed all those attribute essential to his divinity and yet how as a man he new limitation similar to ours but the bible does not allow us to subvert either - he is the God man (fully God and fully man) rather we have to accept the biblical tension just as we do in regards to the nature of God (both three and one).

 

He became a Human, amd assumed in His humanity the limitations that we all experience, so for the first time ever God became tired, hungry, exhausted etc! He was limited in His humnaity, but vhange NOTHING in regards to he is own deity!

 

Gave up the use of His divine attributes, but still had all of them fully intact!

 

he velid them, but still had them!

 

Those abilities can be self-restricted at any point, to any level.

That's one of the classic questions in Christian theology and we must be careful not to move beyond the very limited information we have in scripture.

Christ "emptied Himself" of those abilities to take up a true human nature. How did that work exactly, I'd love to know.

The attributes of His character and Personhood were not relinquished, but His divine abilities were relinquished. All of His "supernatural" actions were empowered by the Father and the Spirit working in unity with Him.