No Reputation

Jesus is supposed to be our example … our goal is to be like Him. I don't know if goal is really the right word. A goal is a plan intended to achieve something and when it is achieved you can then terminate your behavior used to achieve it. So if you do, you are then no longer acting like Him.

Of course I don't need to worry about achieving it … I personally believe this goal is out of reach. Why do I say that? Let me explain.

I have always said … the reason Jesus could become a man and be tempted in all points yet without sin … was because He didn't have a father with a fallen sin nature that was handed down from Adam.

Because none of us have or can reach the goal of becoming like Jesus … I started looking around for the reason or really an excuse as to why we can't or maybe don't.

John 3:34 states "… for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him."

Ephesians 4:7 … "But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ."

I felt like the reason Jesus could live as a man without sin was because He had all the gifts of the Holy Spirit operating in His life. God did not limit Him as He has with us, with just a small portion, a measure of the Spirit and grace … He had it all. That gave me that excuse I was looking for.

Jesus was all man … at least He looked like man … Mary gave birth to a child who grew as a man. His earthly body came from Mary; that made Him human … but His Spiritual nature came from God … that's why He was able to fulfill all the Law, yet without sin.

My wife Peggy kept speaking to me over the years about how Jesus … emptied Himself … when He became man. She said … "By doing so He stripped Himself and laid aside all that was God … He left it behind in Heaven" … or did He?

Paul speaking about Jesus writes in Philippians 2:6-8 … "Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

Paul is explaining just how much Jesus gave up to become flesh. Jesus being one with God and in the form of God … became like men and was born as a human.

"But made himself of no reputation …" This translation by no means conveys the sense of the original meaning. Accordingly the words … no reputation … would make it seem that Jesus consented to be just an average man without any distinction or special honor among men; even that He was willing to be despised and rejected.

The Greek word that was translated into "no reputation" in the K.J.V. is "keno" which literally means … "to make empty, to make void, and to abase." This Greek word "keno" is translated "no reputation" only here in this verse; everywhere else in Scripture it is translated properly as "empty, void or to abase."

These three verses in the Amplified read … "Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God, God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be … retained,
But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant, in that He became like men and was born a human being.
And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!"

I can understand why the translators used "no reputation" instead of "emptiness."

The idea is to show Jesus is now "nothing" in respect to His former rank in Heaven; so they now apply to Him this … "no reputation" … phrase as He lays aside "His equality with God" and becomes … "as nothing" … as He assumes a more humble rank in respect to becoming man.

Since the translators didn't use the words … "to make empty" … that leads me to wonder if they believed Jesus really emptied Himself of all that was God.

Notice the words used …

K.J.V. … "the form of a servant, the likeness of men, found in fashion as a man."
Amplified uses … "to assume, became like men."

Whether we agree or not on how much Jesus emptied Himself … we have to admit something was different about Jesus. He wasn't normal. How could He be?

Think about this …

If He was God in Heaven as the Word, how could He divest Himself of His divine nature … that would be IMPOSSIBLE. He could not … CEASE TO BE GOD … just as God could not cease to be Holy.

It could be conceivable that He might have laid aside for a time, the GLORY of who He was in Heaven, so that the outward signs of His position in Heaven as the Word of God might have been withdrawn for a time.

It is also conceivable that Jesus temporarily ceased exercising the power and authority He held in Heaven while on earth as a man. But the many recorded miracles are proof He could and did operate in that power from time to time while on earth.

Yet all this supposes no change in the divine nature. When the sun is blocked by a cloud or when it sets, there is no real change to its glory or light; the sun itself isn't changed. So it might have been … with the Son of God.

There is much to us which is obscure about Jesus; the Scriptures are nearly silent in regard to the actual change, but the language used does not imply as much that He laid aside His being God, but rather He laid aside all the glory which is involved in the phrase … "being in the form of God" … when He took upon Himself another form … "the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men."

How was it that He emptied Himself of all the grace He had in Heaven? Did He not have that grace with Him when He walked in the dust of the earth as a man? Did He not walk showing mercy and love? God is love. Did He not fulfill all the Law? How did He do that if He emptied Himself of all His divine nature? We can't.

John Gill in his commentary states … "His divine nature was not in the least diminished by His human nature, for all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily. Although He took that which He had not before, (flesh) He lost nothing of what He had. The glory of His divine nature was covered and out of sight; and though some rays and beams of it broke out through His works and miracles, yet His glory, as the only begotten of the Father, was beheld only by a few.

The form of God in which He was, was hid from them; He voluntarily subjected himself, He was not thrust down into this low estate by force; but this was Christ's own act and deed. He willingly assented to it, to lay aside as it were His glory for a while, to have it veiled and hid, and be reckoned anything, yea a mere man, and not be God."

Colossians 1:19 & 2:9 … "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell …" and … "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily."

Paul states that Jesus possessed the "fullness" … whatever it is that makes God, God. Jesus, as man, was not merely God-like, but in the fullest sense, God.

He remained part of the Godhead; there was never a time when He wasn't a part of the Godhead. Yet He conducted Himself … AS IF … He were empty.

With the study of God's Word, God reveals who He is and how He always operates within His love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, faithfulness and patience. Did not Jesus have all these attributes of God while on earth as a man?

We are made in "God's image" … but we aren't God. Jesus was made in … "the likeness of man" … but was He only man?