This word means 'emptying,' and as a substantive it does not occur in the NT. But the corresponding verb 'he emptied himself is found in Php 2:7. This passage is very important as a definite statement that the Incarnation implies limitations, and at the same time that these limitations were undertaken as a voluntary act of love. 2Co 8:9 is a similar statement. The questions involved are not, however, to be solved by the interpretation of isolated texts, but, so far as they can be solved, by our knowledge of the Incarnate Life as a whole. The question which has been most discussed in recent years relates to the human consciousness and knowledge of Christ, and asks how it is possible for the limitations of human knowledge to coexist with Divine omniscience.

The word kenosis, and the ideas which it suggests, were not emphasized by early theologians, and the word was used as little more than a synonym for the Incarnation, regarded as a Divine act of voluntary condescension. The speculations which occupied the Church during the first five centuries were caused by questions as to the nature and Person of Christ, which arose inevitably when it had been realized that He was both human and Divine; but while they established the reality of His human consciousness, they did not deal, except incidentally, with the conditions under which it was exercised. The passages which speak of our Lord's human knowledge were discussed exegetically, and the general tendency of most early and almost all medi