God’s Word for You

Philippians 2:7a He made himself nothing

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, March 11, 2026

7 but he made himself nothing,

In what way did God make himself nothing? The verb here means to make empty, to deprive (a thing) of its contents, or to deprive (a man) of his possessions. In Jeremiah, the city gates “languish” (from neglect, Jeremiah 14:2), and “the mother of seven grows faint” (from exhaustion, Jeremiah 15:9). He deprived himself of the divine honor that was due him, and the right to an existence that was equal to God. Instead, these things were kept back, in the background as it were. “He was equal to God but would not display his equality.”

But Christ was not deprived of anything from the outside as if forced to lay his power and majesty aside, and Christ did not draw his divinity out of himself like pulling a tooth. By “making himself nothing,” Paul means that Christ set aside his divine prerogatives. He performed miracles, not to lord himself over men, but to serve people, especially by healing them, feeding them, and by driving away demons. Some few things he did that were more unusual (the coin in the mouth of the fish, the withered fig tree) were for specific doctrinal lessons, and not showy displays of power. He came not to amaze, but to heal. He “made himself nothing.”

There is something more to be identified here, which we see when we identify the two states of Christ. We quickly think of true God and true man, but those are not the states of Christ but rather his two natures. The states are the two states we describe in the Second Article of the Apostles’ Creed: the states of humiliation and exaltation. These states only apply to Christ after he assumed human flesh, that is, not ‘asarkos’ (ἄσαρκος, without the flesh), but ‘ensarkos’ (ἔνσαρκος, in the flesh, incarnate). If Christ set something of his divinity aside in order to become human, then taking it back up again (after his resurrection) would mean that he is no longer human now.

Our Formula of Concord states: “For the ability to give life, to execute all judgment, and to possess all power in heaven and on earth, to have all things in his hand, to have everything subjected to him under his feet, or to cleanse people from their sins, etc., are not created gifts, but divine, infinite characteristics. According to the statements of Scripture those are given to and imparted to the human Christ.”

He had his divine power all along. He could have (as Satan suggested) made bread out of stones (Matthew 4:3), but he refused to do so, choosing painful hunger over idolatry. He allowed himself to be arrested rather than call down legions of angels (Matthew 26:53) in order to fulfill the Scriptures that said that it must happen that way (such as Zechariah 13:7 and perhaps Isaiah 42:22). He could not just call upon his Father to get him out of trouble. He came to suffer for our sins, not to go through the motions, but to suffer with true human, agonizing, bloody, suffering and death. As Pastor John Meyer said, “It wasn’t Jesus’ purpose while he was living here to use his divine powers to impress people—to put on a theatrical show for their entertainment. When he did use them, it was to help people and to show love for them. Jesus didn’t want people following him because of his miracles, but he wanted people following him because they were moved by his messages of love and salvation. To accomplish this Paul tells us that Jesus ‘made himself nothing.’”

So we see this difference in Christ: To forgive mankind he set aside his power and allowed himself to be tortured and killed. But to relieve the men and women around him of suffering, he used his power to feed and heal them.

For the sake of our human meditation and devotion, we use the term “humiliation” to show in a plain sense the state in which Jesus lived while among us, the Word when he became flesh. But the Bible teaches something more specific which we must pay close attention to. The state of humiliation in Christ is not identical with the incarnation of Christ. Rather, the state of humiliation is stated about Christ who was already incarnate. Indeed, the very act of the virgin birth is one of the Bible’s proofs of this point, because it would have been impossible apart from the incarnation of the Son of God, fully divine in every way. Mary had no husband and she was a virgin by every definition (Luke 1:34); her womb was not visited by any human seed. Yet Mary conceived in her womb a real, natural child of flesh and blood. A miracle: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father” (Nicene Creed, Article II). There, in the womb of the girl, was God, not the offscouring of God, or a remnant of God, or (as the Greeks would say) a demi-god, a thing partly God and partly not; but God. Truly and fully God; truly and fully human.

It was only after the incarnation that he humbled himself and “made himself nothing.” If the humiliation of Christ were identical with his incarnation, then the exaltation of Christ (after his resurrection) would have to consist in laying aside his humanity. But the Scriptures prove that this was not the case in the many resurrection appearances, when Christ showed the prints of the nails in his flesh (John 20:27), ate with his disciples (Luke 24:42-43), folded his own burial cloth (John 20:7), and so on.

The humiliation of Christ was a voluntary setting aside of divine power, a willful humiliation of not always asserting and using (while in the flesh) the divine majesty which was his. We even see an exception to prove this rule in his transfiguration, which was done only privately for the sakes of John, Peter and James who witnessed it happening.

It would be good to remember Paul’s point, for he is not only teaching us about Christ’s two natures and his states of humiliation and exaltation, but he is also using this truth to guide us in our own Christian living. Clement of Rome wisely said, “dearly beloved, see the pattern that is given to us? For if the Lord was so humble, what should we do, who through him have been brought under the yoke of his grace?” (1 Clement 16:17). And Peter writes: “Live in harmony with one another. Be sympathetic. Love as brothers do. Be compassionate, and be humble.” 1 Peter 3:8). This is our thankful response, our Amen, to Christ’s humiliation for our sakes.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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