Kenosis
- This topic has 1 reply, 2 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 6 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
1 Jn 1:2 (LGV) refers to Christ as the age-enduring life. Is this a reference only to His preincarnate state?
Trinitarians sometimes say that because Christ was divine, His sacrificial death had infinite value, and thus could pay for the sins of everyone. If Christ gave up His deity and His age-enduring life to become human like us (per Ph. 2:8), was His death a sufficient ransom for all simply because He was the only begotten Son of God?
-
Sam,
Sorry for the delay. The sacrifice for sin had to be human not divine. The shedding of blood is not possible for a divine Being who is immortal and has no blood. On the other hand, a mere human (one of God’s billions of creatures) could not be the sacrifice for sin, because in that case God Himself could not take upon Himself any of the consequences of our sin.
“Kenosis” is the solution to this problem. God begat a Son, the “only-begotten of the Father,” who was His apprentice in creation, His Agent in communicating with man, the Son He has been grooming to become “King of kings and Lord of lords.” This is the “only-begotten Son” whom God gave to become flesh and die, because “God so loved the world.” The same “Son of God” was the Agent through whom God created all things (Col. 1:15-17) is the Son of God through whom He is reconciling all things to Himself (Col. 1:20).
In this model of redemption God takes upon Himself the anguish and responsibility of the atonement by doing what He asked Abraham to do — “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” (Gen. 22:2 NKJ). It is important to understand that Abraham’s sacrifice was to be at least as great as Isaac’s sacrifice. This is THE model of the redemption of man.
Unfortunately, Trinitarianism, Unitarianism, Modalism, and Arianism all greatly diminish God’s own sacrifice which demonstrates the extent of His love for humanity. Consequently, all of these diminish the Gospel which (in its unpolluted form) “is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes.”
In 1 John 1:2 the Son was called “the age-enduring Life” because He was the first “Life” apart from God (immortal), and He is the one through whom we will receive immortality. After becoming mortal man and after dying to make atonement for us, He was raised to immortality as the prototype for what God will do for us also in the resurrection.
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.