[a] Of these five times, Philippians 2:7 is generally considered the most significant for the Christian idea of kenosis: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself (ekenōsen heauton), taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
Kenotic Christology essentially states that in order to truly live a human experience, Jesus, despite being a preexisting divine being, voluntarily humbled himself.
Thus, Jesus needed to sleep and eat; was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness; could become frustrated at fig trees not being in season; stated that no one knows the day or hour of the end of the world;[6] and so on.
Other theologians associated with kenotic Christology include P. T. Forsyth, H. R. Mackintosh, Charles Gore, Fisher Humphreys, Donald G. Dawe, and Roger E.
Kenosis is not only a Christological issue in Orthodox theology, but also relates to Pneumatology, matters of the Holy Spirit.
Kenosis therefore is a paradox and a mystery since "emptying oneself" in fact fills the person with divine grace and results in union with God.
Kenosis in Orthodox theology is the transcending or detaching of oneself from the world or the passions, it is a component of dispassionation.
[9] Pope Pius XII, in his 1951 Sempiternus Rex Christus, condemned a particular interpretation of Philippians in regards to the kenosis:
This is an opinion for which a rashly and falsely understood sentence of St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (ii, 7), supplies a basis and a shape.
Mystical theologian John of the Cross' work "Dark Night of the Soul" is a particularly lucid explanation of God's process of transforming the believer into the icon or "likeness of Christ".
[15] The equivalent to kenosis in Gnostic literature is Christ's withdrawal of his own luminosity into himself, so as to cease dazzling his own disciples.