Self-Emptying of Christ and the Christian

Three Essays on Kenosis

Lounibos

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781498273336
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This collection wrestles with a profusion of questions about kenosis. What is the original meaning and purpose of the self-emptying of Jesus? How can today's Christians emulate it, replacing our own selfish designs with the mind of Christ? How is the current interest in servant leadership, as a model in the modern church, related to the self-sacrificing servant of Philippians 2? Does this practice have any meaning in our present secular age? Does it imply deconstructing the content of Christian faith and morals in contemporary culture? Is it a possible bridge between Eastern and Western spiritual traditions?Using the key theme of Jesus' emptying of himself in the Philippians hymn, John Lounibos explores the mysteries of kenosis in three strikingly different essays. The first, using extensive exegesis of the text, opens up the poetic, theological, and spiritual depths of this Christian mystery. The second essay establishes a philosophical grounding for kenosis in the work of Paul Tillich on the estrangements of finite human freedom. The third enters into dialogue with the Buddhist tradition and its intriguing notions of nothingness and no-self. The attentive reader will be rewarded with a wealth of information and insights for further reflection and personal application.

Part I

A Theology of Philippians 2:5–11

Introduction

This paper does not attempt to pioneer a new position on the famed christological passage of Philippians 2:5–11. It aims rather to assess the evidence offered in an already large and varied literature on the topic, in order to make considered judgments about its genre, structure, language, authorship, exegesis, and theology. It is the writer’s hope that this detailed study will not discourage readers, but will rather enhance their receptivity to the Gospel. For these few lines contain the Gospel writ small; they condense and celebrate the central story of Christ.

Genre

An immediate question arises, how to define the literary type of Phil 2:6–11. First of all, is it prose or poetry? The distinction between the two is, in general, less sharp in biblical literature than in the later literature of the West. But the convergence of numerous characteristics of poetry, e.g., strophic structure, parallelisms, and meter, to be treated in more detail below, leads us to acknowledge that we are dealing here with poetry. The question is: what kind of poetry? A text from Colossians appears to offer some possibilities:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (3:16)

Do we have in the Philippians hymn one or the other of the three different categories of poetry, psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Greek, ōidē) mentioned in Colossians?

Other than in Col 3:16 and the parallel in Eph 5:19, the Greek word ōidē is mentioned only in Rev 5:9; 14:3; 15:3. Singing hymns is mentioned elsewhere, in the account of the departure from the last supper Mark 14:26 || Matt 26:30 and in Acts 16:25 as well as Heb 2:12. Psalm singing is mentioned more frequently, usually in reference to the quite general classification of the liturgical poetry of the OT.

In the parallel passage in Eph 5:16, conjunctions separate the three types. But is this enough evidence to support a strict distinction between the three? Probably not; and there is no further evidence to illuminate the question. We will refer to our text, then, as a “hymn,” but without meaning to distinguish it thereby from “psalm” or “ode.”

Is it a liturgical hymn? We know from the extra-biblical witness of Pliny in his reply to Trajan that the Christians assembled on special days in the early dawn and recited songs among themselves to Christ as to God.1 This description refers apparently to a liturgical assembly. The full account2 seems to include a morning baptismal liturgy and a reassembling for an evening Eucharist.3 The most notable item is the christological character of the songs.

When one raises the question whether a particular NT passage is connected with the liturgy, it is important to place this smaller inquiry within the broad context of all the New Testament. Except for some personally directed letters like 1 & 2 Timothy, 1 Titus, Philemon, and 3 John, it seems most likely that the major corpus of gospels and letters were written for Christian communities and intended to be proclaimed or recited in gatherings whose purpose was the worship of God. In this larger sense all of the NT is liturgical. As a letter written to, and to be read to, all the community, the whole of Philippians is liturgical.

With our limited evidence, to what extent can we identify particular NT hymns with an early liturgical setting? After all, when Paul and Silas sang and were overheard by their fellow prisoners, they were in a rather poor liturgical situation—prison (Acts 16:25). The Apocalypse (Revelation) and Hebrews, on the other hand, offer several indications of liturgical singing. The remarks about singing in 1 Cor 14:15, 26 and Jas 5:13 likewise suggest a liturgical context. Moreover, if the celebration of the Eucharist retained the structure of the Jewish paschal rite, the first half of the Hallel, Pss 113 and 114, would be sung before taking the second cup of blessing. Before going out to the garden, Jesus and the eleven probably sang the paschal Hallel, or the second half of it. Many consider the “praising” of Acts 2:46–47 also belongs in the context of an Eucharistic gathering. However it is not so much a question whether the liturgy is hymnic, which no one would question, but whether or not biblical hymns were originally liturgical.

Boismard has analyzed the structure of four hymns in 1 Peter. He concludes that St. Paul in Romans 6 uses the same liturgical and baptismal catechetical material as the author of 1 Pet 3. This same author has done considerable work on the parabolic hymnic structure of St. John’s prologue.4 With studies such as these, one is not surprised to find a distinctive hymn and perhaps a liturgical hymn in a particular NT writing.

Several other passages in the NT are generally identified as hymns. Some of these are more obvious than others. The ordinary reader will immediately recognize the ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• The Hymn—Philippians 2:5–11
• Part One: A Theology of Philippians 2:5–11
• Part Two: Paul Tillich’s Kenotic Tendency
• Part Three: Self-Emptying in Christian & Buddhist Spirituality
• Epilogue
• Bibliography