“The Son who assumes the human nature in its integrity remains one and the same person after the assumption.
According to John 1:14, the glory of the Word that is made visible to others in the incarnation is still the glory “as of the only Son from the Father,” the particle “as” (ὡς) indicating not a comparison of a lesser thing to a greater thing but rather a specification that the glory of the Word made flesh is precisely that of the eternal μονογενής from the Father.
The visibility of the glory does not mean that the disciples fully comprehend the divine essence; nevertheless, the glory seen by finite creatures in a finite way is still that of the Word’s eternal deity.
As Cyril notes, the Word became human “not according to change or alteration but by the power of ineffable union.” Later in John’s narrative, then, while Jesus is “not yet fifty years old,” he announces that He remains the eternal, unchanging God who calls himself “I am” (8:57–58).
The sameness of the Son across the time preceding the assumption of His humanity and the time after the assumption is necessary for the efficacy of His revealing and reconciling work.
Only if He remains what He was as the divine Son who is “in the bosom of the Father” can He decisively reveal God to those who have never seen Him (John 1:18).
Only if He remains the one in whom all the fullness of God dwells can it be said that in beholding Him believers have full assurance of spiritual knowledge (Col. 2:2–3, 9).
Likewise, only if all fullness dwells in Him can Christ atone for the world’s sin and reconcile the world to Himself (Col. 1:19–20, 22; 2:14–15; Heb. 1:3–4; 9:11–14; cf. 1 Pet. 1:18–20).
Though the Son’s κένωσις in Philippians 2:7 has sometimes been taken to mean that the Son undergoes some change in the incarnation, the description of it in Philippians 2:7 actually corroborates the Son’s sameness in His incarnate ministry.
To be sure, a number of interpreters hold that the statement “He emptied himself” in this text signifies that Christ gave up the forma Dei or exchanged the forma Dei for the forma servi.
However, if Christ being in the forma Dei is a matter of Christ being equal with God the Father, and if God the Father cannot cease to be the true God, then Paul would not envision Christ divesting Himself of the forma Dei.
Positively, Paul actually explains the κένωσις not by subtraction but by addition, by the assumption of the forma servi. Various exegetes still attempt to find something of which Christ emptied himself: for example, the exercise of certain divine attributes; lordship over the world; certain rights, privileges, or prerogatives that he once had; a position of equality with God that He once had.
However, the passage simply states that Christ emptied Himself and then follows this with two participial phrases: “He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of human beings.”
The participles have an adverbial and instrumental or modal function, explaining how or in what way Christ emptied Himself: by taking the form of a servant, by being made in the likeness of human beings.
Philippians 2 therefore gives no basis for positing a change in the Son’s exercise of certain divine perfections or in His divine lordship. After all, divine omniscience, divine omnipotence, divine providence, and so forth do not have an on-off switch.
At the same time, one can add that Christ’s divine glory was generally hidden under the veil of the flesh in His humble human sojourn. Indeed, this seems to be implied by the fact that, after the Son’s obedience to death, the Father outwardly exhibits the divine glory of the Son (Phil. 2:9–11).
Yet the transition from temporary economic veiling to economic display does not involve a change in the Son’s divinity.
In fact, it would be fitting for the Father to grant an outward manifestation of the Son’s divine glory only if the Son always was and remained the true God. For this glory is that of YHWH Himself, the only God and the unchanging God, before whom every knee must bow (Isa. 45:22–23).”
–Steven J. Duby, Jesus and the God of Classical Theism: Biblical Christology in Light of the Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2022), 149-150.
Leave a Reply