1. The nature of this humiliation

We may dismiss, as unworthy of serious notice, the views that it consisted essentially either in the union of the Logos with human nature,—for this union with human nature continues in the state of exaltation; or in the outward trials and privations of Christ’s human life,—for this view casts reproach upon poverty, and ignores the power of the soul to rise superior to its outward circumstances.

E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 224—“The error of supposing it too humiliating to obey law was derived from the Roman treasury of merit and works of supererogation. Better was Frederick the Great’s sentiment when his sturdy subject and neighbor, the miller, whose windmill he had attempted to remove, having beaten him in a lawsuit, the thwarted monarch exclaimed: ‘Thank God, there is law in Prussia!’ ” Palmer, Theological Definition, 79—“God reveals himself in the rock, vegetable, animal, man. Must not the process go on? Must there not appear in the fulness of time a man who will reveal God as perfectly as is possible in human conditions—a man who is God under the limitations of humanity? Such incarnation is humiliation only in the eyes of men. To Christ it is lifting up, exaltation, glory; John 12:32—‘And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.’ ” George Harris, Moral Evolution, 409—“The divinity of Christ is not obscured, but is more clearly seen, shining through his humanity.”

We may devote more attention to the

A. Theory of Thomasius, Delitzsch, and Crosby, that the humiliation consisted in the surrender of the relative divine attributes

This theory holds that the Logos, although retaining his divine self-consciousness and his immanent attributes of holiness, love, and truth, surrendered his relative attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, in order to take to himself veritable human nature. According to this view, there are, indeed, two natures in Christ, but neither of these natures is infinite. Thomasius and Delitzsch are the chief advocates of this theory in Germany. Dr. Howard Crosby has maintained a similar view in America.

The theory of Thomasius, Delitzsch, and Crosby has been, though improperly, called the theory of the Kenosis (from ἐκένωσεν—“emptied himself”—in Phil. 2:7), and its advocates are often called Kenotic theologians. There is a Kenosis of the Logos, but it is of a different sort from that which this theory supposes. For statements of this theory, see Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 2:233–255, 542–550; Delitzsch, Biblische Psychologie, 323–333; Howard Crosby, in Bap. Quar., 1870:350–363—a discourse subsequently published in a separate volume, with the title: The True Humanity of Christ, and reviewed by Shedd, in Presb. Rev., April, 1881:429–431. Crosby emphasizes the word “became,” in John 1:14—“and the Word became flesh”—and gives the word “flesh” the sense of “man,” or “human.” Crosby, then, should logically deny, though he does not deny, that Christ’s body was derived from the virgin.

We object to this view that:

(a) It contradicts the Scriptures already referred to, in which Christ asserts his divine knowledge and power. Divinity, it is said, can give up its world-functions, for it existed without these before creation. But to give up divine attributes is to give up the substance of Godhead. Nor is it a sufficient reply to say that only the relative attributes are given up, while the immanent attributes, which chiefly characterize the Godhead, are retained; for the immanent necessarily involve the relative, as the greater involve the less.

Liebner, Jahrbuch f.d. Theol., 3:349–356—“Is the Logos here? But wherein does he show his presence, that it may be known?” Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 11th ed., 217, note. John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:125–146, criticises the theory of the Kenosis, but grants that, with all its self-contradictions, as he regards them, it is an attempt to render conceivable the profound truth of a sympathizing, self-sacrificing God.

(b) Since the Logos, in uniting himself to a human soul, reduces himself to the condition and limitations of a human soul, the theory is virtually a theory of the coëxistence of two human souls in Christ. But the union of two finite souls is more difficult to explain than the union of a finite and an infinite,—since there can be in the former case no intelligent guidance and control of the human element by the divine.

Dorner, Jahrbuch f.d. Theol., 1:397–408—“The impossibility of making two finite souls into one finally drove Arianism to the denial of any human soul in Christ” (Apollinarianism). This statement of Dorner, which we have already quoted in our account of Apollinarianism, illustrates the similar impossibility, upon the theory of Thomasius, of constructing out of two finite souls the person of Christ. See also Hovey, God with Us, 68.

(c) This theory fails to secure its end, that of making comprehensible the human development of Jesus,—for even though divested of the relative attributes of Godhood, the Logos still retains his divine self-consciousness, together with his immanent attributes of holiness, love, and truth. This is as difficult to reconcile with a purely natural human development as the possession of the relative divine attributes would be. The theory logically leads to a further denial of the possession of any divine attributes, or of any divine consciousness at all, on the part of Christ, and merges itself in the view of Gess and Beeches, that the Godhead of the Logos is actually transformed into a human soul.

Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:343—“The old theology conceived of Christ as in full and unbroken use of the divine self-consciousness the divine attributes, and the divine world-functions, from the conception until death. Though Jesus, as fœtus, child, boy, was not almighty and omnipresent according to his human nature, yet he was so, as to his divine nature, which constituted one ego with his human. Thomasius, however, declared that the Logos gave up his relative attributes, during his sojourn in flesh. Dorner’s objection to this, on the ground of the divine unchangeablenes, overshoots the mark, because it makes any becoming impossible.

“But some things in Thomasius’ doctrine are still difficult: 1st, divinity can certainly give up its world-functions, for it has existed without these before the world was. In the nature of an absolute personality, however, lies an absolute knowing, willing, feeling, which it cannot give up. Hence Phil. 2:6–11 speaks of a giving-up of divine glory, but not of a giving-up of divine attributes or nature. 2d, little is gained by such an assumption of the giving-up of relative attributes, since the Logos, even while divested of a part of his attributes; still has full possession of his divine self-consciousness, which must make a purely human development no less difficult. 3d, the expressions of divine self-consciousness, the works of divine power, the words of divine wisdom, prove that Jesus was in possession of his divine self-consciousness and attributes.

“The essential thing which the Kenotics aim at, however, stands fast; namely, that the divine personality of the Logos divested itself of its glory (John 17:5), riches (2 Cor. 8:6), divine form (Phil 2:6). This divesting is the becoming man. The humiliation, then, was a giving up of the use, not of the possession, of the divine nature and attributes. That man can thus give up self-consciousness and powers, we see every day in sleep. But man does not, thereby, cease to be man. So we maintain that the Logos, when he became man, did not divest himself of his divine person and nature, which was impossible; but only divested himself of the use and exercise of these—these being latent to him—in order to unfold themselves to use in the measure to which his human nature developed itself—a use which found its completion in the condition of exaltation.” This statement of Kahnis, although approaching correctness, is still neither quite correct nor quite complete.

B. Theory that the humilitation consisted in the surrender of the independent exercise of the divine attributes

This theory, which we regard as the most satisfactory of all, may be more fully set forth as follows. The humiliation, as the Scriptures seem to show, consisted:

(a) In that act of the preëxistent Logos by which he gave up his divine glory with the Father, in order to take a servant-form. In this act, he resigned not the possession, nor yet entirely the use, but rather the independent exercise, of the divine attributes.

John 17:5—“glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was”; Phil. 2:6, 7—“who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men”; 2 Cor. 8:9—“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might become rich.” Pompilia, in Robert Browning’s The Ring and the Book: “Now I see how God is likest God in being born.”

Omniscience gives up all knowledge but that of the child, the infant, the embryo, the infinitesimal germ of humanity. Omnipotence gives up all power but that of the impregnated ovum in the womb of the Virgin. The Godhead narrows itself down to a point that is next to absolute extinction. Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, in John 13:1–20, is the symbol of his coming down from his throne of glory and taking the form of a servant, in order that he may purify us, by regeneration and sanctification, for the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

(b) In the submission of the Logos to the control of the Holy Spirit and the limitations of his Messianic mission, in his communication of the divine fulness of the human nature which he had taken into union with himself.

Acts 1:2—Jesus, “after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen”; 10:38—“Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power”; Heb. 9:14—“the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God.” A minor may have a great estate left to him, yet may have only such use of it as his guardian permits. In Homer’s Iliad, when Andromache brings her infant son to part with Hector, the boy is terrified by the warlike plumes of his father’s helmet, and Hector puts them off to embrace him. So God lays aside “That glorious form, that light unsuferable And that far-beaming blaze of majesty.” Arthur H. Hallam, in John Brown’s Rab and his Friends, 282, 283—“Revelation is the voluntary approximation of the infinite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity.”

(c) In the continuous surrender, on the part of the God-man, so far as his human nature was concerned, of the exercise of those divine powers with which it was endowed by virtue of its union with the divine, and in the voluntary acceptance, which followed upon this, of temptation, suffering, and death.

Mat. 26:53—“thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels?” John 10:17, 18—“Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again”; Phil. 2:8—“and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself; becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” Cf. Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice: “Such music is there in immortal souls, That while this muddy vesture of decay Doth close it in, we cannot see it.”

Each of these elements of the doctrine has its own Scriptural support. We must therefore regard the humiliation of Christ, not as consisting in a single act, but as involving a continuous self-renunciation, which began with the Kenosis of the Logos in becoming man, and which culminated in the self-subjection of the God-man to the death of the cross.

Our doctrine of Christ’s humiliation will be better understood if we put it midway between two pairs of erroneous views, making it the third of five. The list would be as follows: (1) Gess: The Logos gave up all divine attributes; (2) Thomasius: The Logos gave up relative attributes only; (3) True View: The Logos gave up the independent exercise of divine attributes; (4) Old Orthodoxy: Christ gave up the use of divine attributes; (5) Anselm: Christ acted as if he did not possess divine attributes. The full exposition of the classical passage with reference to the humiliation, namely, Phil. 2:5–8, we give below, under the next paragraph, pages 705, 706. Brentius illustrated Christ’s humiliation by the king who travels incognito. But Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 158, says well that “to part in appearance with only the fruition of the divine attributes would be to impose upon us with a pretence of self-sacrifice; but to part with it in reality was to manifest most perfectly the true nature of God.”

This same objection lies against the explanation given in the Church Quarterly Review, Oct. 1891:1–30, on Our Lord’s Knowledge as Man: “If divine knowledge exists in a different form from human, and a translation into a different form is necessary before it can be available in the human sphere, our Lord might know the day of judgment as God, and yet be ignorant of it as man. This must have been the case if he did not choose to translate it into the human form. But it might also have been incapable of translation. The processes of divine knowledge may be far above our finite comprehension.” This seems to us to be a virtual denial of the unity of Christ’s person, and to make our Lord play fast and loose with the truth. He either knew, or he did not know; and his denial that he knew makes it impossible that he should have known in any sense.