Of what did Christ empty Himself?

To cut to the chase, the answer is, “Nothing.”

To read Philippians 2:7 (which says Christ “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men”) as indicating God the Son, in becoming human, emptied Himself of something is to misread it.

While it has become fashionable to read Philippians 2:7 as indicating the divine Son “gave up” at least some of His distinctively divine attributes, such a reading flies in the face of orthodox Christianity. For as the early church understood, Christ gave up nothing of His divinity when He became one of us; rather, in the Incarnation, the Son remains fully divine (and thus omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, eternal, and so on). Here the ancient church leaves no room for doubt, insisting (in the Definition of Chalcedon) Jesus Christ possesses “two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person. . . .”

Whatever St. Paul means in Philippians 2:7, then, he doesn’t mean Jesus is less than fully divine. Sometimes people say Jesus “emptied Himself” by giving up certain divine prerogatives (not attributes but rather privileges of a sort); so, it is said, He veiled His glory in taking on flesh and that is what Paul means in saying Christ emptied Himself. While this is certainly a better understanding of Philippians 2:7 than thinking of Christ as giving up divine attributes, it nonetheless misses the point of the apostle’s language. Rather than conceiving of Christ as a container out of whom something—whether divine attributes (which flies in the face of the faith once for all delivered to the saints) or divine prerogatives (which doesn’t fly in the face of that faith)—was poured, Paul conceives of Christ Himself as having been poured out.

In other words, Christ offers Himself as a sacrifice on our behalf. In short, the apostle uses the language of a drink offering: Christ offers Himself as a sacrifice poured out as a drink offering (thus being emptied not in the sense of being divested of something within Himself but rather in the sense of being poured out in full as a sacrifice for us). That is Paul’s point.

Three considerations undergird this reading of Philippians 2:7.

First, it coheres with the early church’s reading of the New Testament and its consequent understanding of Christ’s Incarnation. In so doing, it also agrees with orthodox Christianity.

Second, Paul uses the language of a drink offering only 10 verses later, saying of himself in Philippians 2:17, “Even if I am to be poured out like a drink offering. . . .” Although the apostle, as he writes to Philippian believers, is still in the process of being poured out—not yet having been poured out in full (i.e., emptied)—he nonetheless serves as a lesser example of the self-sacrificial humility to which he calls his readers and of which Jesus Christ is the supreme example.

Third, Paul uses precisely the same pattern of thought when he writes to Ephesian believers. In both Ephesians 4:1 and Philippians 1:27, Paul calls his readers to live lives worthy of their calling in Christ. He then describes such a life. His descriptions of lives worthy of Christ’s calling then culminate in a call to imitate Christ (Eph 5:1-2; Phil 2:5) who, in humility and love, offered Himself as a sacrifice. In Ephesians 5:2, the apostle uses imagery of a burnt offering; in Philippians 2:7, he uses imagery of a drink offering. But the point is the same.

So the point Paul makes in Philippians 2:7 is that Christ, though He is Himself God the Son and fully divine, offered Himself as a sacrifice for us and our salvation; and we who follow Him ought in humility and love offer ourselves as sacrifices for Christ and His kingdom.