30. The Ekenosis

In The Open Scroll, I had already named these first four prison letters of Paul as the “Christ-Known” letters. With Ephesians so mighty, beyond what we have ever known, Philippians becomes a capstone or finale. This lesson covers Philippians Chapters 1 & 2. With Chapter 2, it contains the description of the Ekenosis, Paul’s invented word, used to describe Jesus calling an invisible God into visibility through His human form.

I am treating the verses of the Ekenosis the same as the Ruling Verses in the layout of Gospel Comments. I will do the same again with the Covenant verses in Hebrews 8. The Ekenosis is the essence and meaning of the Kingdom, and it is what God is teaching us to be in the present time.

The Flow of Word. In the Flow of Gospel Word through Paul, let us assume three things already established. First, that we are already symmorphosed with the image of God’s Son; second, that Jesus in our hearts is making us to be just like Himself through a relationship of intimate union; and third, that God fills us, personally and together, with all that He is.

As we bring these three absolutes into how we are to understand Philippians, and as we consider what Paul says through Philippians, I am thinking that the key thought in Paul’s mind now is 2:5 – “Let this same mind be inside of you that was also inside of Christ Jesus.” This is a mind that places God’s Desire, what the Father WANTS, as the first and entire reason for every step forward. And the Father wants acknowledgment first. – You are God!

The Good Work. (Chapter 1) • 6 I am persuaded with confidence in this, that the One who has already begun a good work inside of you, will complete and accomplish that work until the day of Christ Jesus.

There is only one good work that Jesus is doing inside of us and that is to make us to be just like Himself, (1) in knowing the Father, (2) in loving one another, and (3), in the Father being made known through us. The Father being made known is God’s Desire; it is the Ekenosis.

Kingdom: The good work that God is doing in us is to make us just like the Lord Jesus in knowing Him, in loving one another, and in making God known to all. The Kingdom is the completion of this work inside of us into the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Day of Christ. • 9 This I pray, that your love would abound yet more and more, would be over and above, and would overflow in acknowledgement and all perception, 10 in order for you to prove that which carries all the way through, • that you might be pure and without offense into the day of Christ, 11 being filled full with the fruit of just innocence and just approval that is through Jesus Christ into the glory and praise of God.

Paul has mentioned “the Day of Christ” twice now. The Day of Christ is the Unveiling, the opening of eyes to see what has been the only thing True. That happens for us at three levels or seasons. First, the Spirit opens our eyes to see Jesus as He is, in our hearts and in one another. Second, Jesus reveals Himself to us privately, and we see that our whole lives have been God with us. And third, all the world sees Jesus as He is.

The Unveiling. Now, verses 9 to 11 are, in fact, an incredible layout of how we think and walk, if this definition of “the day of Christ” is actually True.

Kingdom: “Proving that which carries all the way through” is Jesus proven faithful and True in our lives, the One who has carried us into God. This proving of Jesus is always the first purpose of Kingdom, of every next step we take with God.

Kingdom: The “Day of Christ” is the Unveiling, as God opens our eyes to see Jesus as He is, inside of us for Real, in our brethren to us, and as His Body, the Church, already here.

Ruling Verse 2 & 3: We are filled full with all the fulness of God; our fruit, then, is God made known. God made known is our love for one another abounding and overflowing out to all.

Expectation of Faith. • 20 According to my eager and focused expectation and hope that I would be dishonored or ashamed in nothing, but in all confident speaking, as always, so also now, that Christ will be magnified inside of my body, whether through life or through death. 21 For to me to live is Christ and to die is a profitable exchange.

Paul is speaking out from an utter giving of himself in all that he is to the Father, for God’s purposes alone, something I am only now beginning to know for real. The key lines here are our expectation of faith in confidence.

Ruling Verse 7: Our eager and focused expectation of faith is that Christ will be magnified in us, the very life of Jesus revealed in our dying bodies (see 2 Corinthians 4:11). He is magnified because we are convinced that He is.

Inside of One Spirit. • 27 Only, conduct yourselves worthily of the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and see you, or remain absent, I might hear the things concerning you, that you are standing firm inside of one Spirit, with one soul striving together for the faith of the gospel, 28 and not being frightened in anything by those opposing you, which is to them a proof of their loss and ruin; but to you of salvation, and this from God.

Paul is driving towards the Ekenosis, not as an individual experience or action, but as the gathering together, that is, as being built together in One Spirit as the dwelling place of God.

The Form for God through Jesus: We are being built together as a dwelling place of God inside of Spirit. Always, this is why we stand firm together in one Spirit, with one soul striving together, that God might show His Salvation in our midst.

From Highest to Lowest. The Flow of Gospel Word demands that we now see Philippians at the very peak of God’s INTENSE determination to be known, the Pleasure of His Desire.

First, 2 Corinthians Chapters 3 & 5 and then Romans 8:18-30 catapulted us into “outer space” we might say. Then, there, inside of God, Ephesians showed us the city foursquare, Jerusalem, what God means by our local gathering together. Third, Philippians Chapter 2 must be known out from Ephesians 1, the Pro-Thesis of God, His determined purpose, which is the Church as the fulness of Christ, now become the revelation of the Father as God-Love among us. Finally, Paul is taking us with Jesus down to the bottom of the Jordan, the lowest place on earth, where God is found, God as He is, Father-made-known.

Sharing the Same Soul. (Chapter 2) 1 Therefore, if there is any encouragement inside of Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of Spirit, if any affections and compassions, • 2 fulfill my joy by being of the same gut-level heart thinking, having the same love, being united in soul, sharing the same soul in the same heart thinking. • 3 Do nothing according to rivalry or according to empty conceit, but in lowliness of mind esteem one another as better than yourself in full reciprocity, 4 each considering not just your own things, but also the things of each other.

This is God pleading with us, WANTING above all things to be known inside of creation as He truly is. Look at these things – the same heart thinking, repeated twice, the same love, being united in soul and sharing the same soul. You HAVE TO share the same clear vision first.

Where God Makes His Home. To share the same soul means that our stories of self become intertwined together through knowing one another in pure fellowship inside of daily life together. Only a shared Jesus inside of one Spirit drunk together can accomplish such a thing, yet it is this shared soul, each considering the things of each other, where God makes His Home.

The Form for God through Jesus: God makes His Home inside our shared stories of self. We think alike because we share the same Jesus, the same vision, and the same Spirit.

Definition: God is the one who is meek and lowly of Heart. God thinks of others rather than Himself. God walks beneath, lifting others up. God places Himself in the lowest place that all might enter into Joy. This quality is what God calls great, the opposite of what humans imagine to be “great.”

The Ekenosis: God Made Visible. • 5 Let this exact same gut-level manner of thinking be inside of you that was inside of Christ Jesus, • 6 who existing continuously and actively inside of the form of God [that is, all here now and Personal in us], did not hold tightly to the gut assumption of being equal with God. • 7 Rather, having already willingly taken hold of the form of a slave, Himself ekenosen, that is, He Himself called an invisible God into visibility, becoming the same as humans. • 8 And having been found in outward appearance as a human, He humbled Himself, actively becoming hearing-under all the way to death, even the death of the cross.

Writing Gospel Comments in all the categories will give us a full view of the Glory found inside these lines, but first, we must set out what, exactly, that we find here.

Defining Ekenosen. First, “Let this same mind be in you” places here the same meaning of 1 John 3:16 – By this we know Love, and we also. Thus we can say that the RULE of how we are to interpret this passage is the Covenant AND Ruling Verse 8.

Definition: According to Little Kittle, the Greek word “ekenosen” was invented by Paul, in combining two words together, “ek,” which means “out from” and “kenosis,” which means “empty; foolish,” or, in reference to God, “unknown.” – No one has seen God at any time (1 John 4:12). – He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 4:9). Jesus made an invisible, unknowable God visible to humans that we might know Him. Ek – kenosis, means that Jesus calls God out from invisibility into being seen and known by all, yet now through His Church. Ek-kenosis is God manifest in the flesh.

The Flow of Life. The form of God and the substance of God are two different concepts. The form of God is all here now and personal; whereas the substance of God is Word-Spirit and Love-Light. Jesus cannot dwell in each of our hearts except He be now in the form of God, all here now and personal, as is His normal condition. Yet in substance, Jesus differs somewhat from the Father, that is, Jesus is the Son, the Seed, out from God.

God is Word – Jesus is Word spoken. God is Spirit; He has given us the Spirit of His Son. God is Love – Jesus shows us Love. God is Light, but unapproachable; Jesus is Light that becomes us. Jesus is the Flow, the movement, from God to us, and also from us to God in return. In short, Jesus is LIFE, our only Life.

Defining the Cross. My definition of the Cross has changed almost completely. The Cross is NOT first the end of sin. Yes, sin ends for us in the cross, that we might KNOW that it is gone.

But the picture of the meaning of the Cross is the crossing of the Jordan. Think of every part of that picture, for every part of it is inside God’s meaning. Jesus is the Way across, He is the Mercy Seat at the lowest point. He is the first to enter Life and the last, coming behind that last little one. An entire nation crosses through Him; He carries every single one inside His Heart all the way into God. But most of all, He joins each one of us with the Father inside the agony of His very human soul.

When I think of the Cross, of Jesus humbling Himself, this is what I see first, and second, I see – And we also.

Life and Covenant. Life: God is Word – Jesus is Word spoken. God is Spirit; He has given us the Spirit of His Son. God is Love – Jesus shows us Love. God is Light, but unapproachable; Jesus is Light that becomes us. Jesus is the Flow, the movement, from God to us, and from us to God in return. Jesus is LIFE, our only Life.

Covenant: The Blood Covenant makes God and us equal in heart and purpose. God has given us the mind of Christ that we might think, in our deepest center, just as Jesus thinks.

Speak Christ: Through Jesus, we come out from God and return to God – in every step we take. Inside of Him, we speak full equality with God, giving ourselves away, that we might be part of a meek and lowly God carrying all. Through our confidence of faith, we call God into our lives and into our world. Those who see our love are seeing the Father.

Symmorphosed and Filled! Ruling Verse 1: God WANTS to be made known inside His creation THROUGH many brethren, just like Jesus, knowing Him, loving one another, and revealing God to all. God WANTS many sons, birthed out from God by the One Seed-Kind that is Jesus, who synergeo with Him to bring all things into goodness. This is the RULE over all understanding of the Bible, and it is True and fulfilled right from the start.

Ruling Verse 2: God sent Jesus into us that Jesus might build us together as a dwelling place for God, rooted and grounded inside of Love. God fills our togetherness with all of His fulness. God did not create us to love, for He made our form weak. God designed us as earthen vessels, as humans of heaven-earth, rather, that we might be filled full with a God who alone is Love. Humbling ourselves to reveal such a God as love for one another is the normal Christian life; it is the Ekenosis of Jesus.

From Rivers to Intimacy. Ruling Verse 3: Rivers of Life and Love flow out from a God who humbles Himself as He appears and is made known inside His creation. As we drink of Jesus and are poured out for others with Him, so Life and Love flow into all. This is the Spirit God shares with us, coming out from our bellies, out from our humanity in this world.

Ruling Verses 4 & 5: Those who overcome give themselves to the Father in all that they are, their very souls – for the sake of His Church. This giving of ourselves is the True meaning of the Cross. It is the purpose for which Jesus enters into union with us every moment, that we might walk as He walked, through the Way that carries others into all the knowledge and Life of God. We can share the same gut-level thinking of Jesus as He humbles Himself for Father’s sake, only by the intimacy with which He shares His own Soul with us.

From Boldness to Love. Ruling Verse 6: We approach everything we find inside of God with all boldness and with full assurance of faith, knowing that we share with God His greatest Treasure, His Heart – Jesus.

Ruling Verse 7: We go forth in every next step in the full confidence that God appears inside our world through our human forms. – God manifest in the flesh; a God who thinks more highly of others as He gives Himself to them through us.

Ruling Verse 8: By this we have known Love, that is, God Himself, in that Jesus set forth His human soul for us, for our sakes, that He might join the Father and us together inside the agony of His Heart upon the cross. And we also are committed to setting forth our souls for one another in the same way. This Love we share together is God called into our world, coming in the appearance of brethren walking together as one.

The Rock and the Fire. Ruling Verse 9: God-Love is the Rock upon which Jesus has built us together, inside Himself, as the dwelling place of God. Together, we look out from this solidity of Love to see all creation weeping to know a God who loves them. We are that Love; we are the revelation of the Father. We ekenosen, we call a God who is Love into our world as the Church.

Ruling Verse 10: To put the Lord Jesus Christ upon ourselves, that we might put Him upon the entire Church in all glory, is to enclothe with consuming Fire. It is to see God manifest in the flesh. It is a Church who knows God as Love and as Life, all through her fellowship together, who brings forth the knowledge of God into the knowledge of all. It is for this purpose that God sent Jesus into us, that we might live inside of Him and He inside of us. – For such a Church!

The Kingdom as Father Made Known. Kingdom: The Ekenosis is sharing Hheart with God; sharing Hheart with God is the Ekenosis. We call God into our world through His Church so that God’s own Heart, the Lord Jesus, might be made known to all. This is the fabric of the Kingdom, that every next step we take is shared with a God who reveals Himself through the simple exercise of valuing one another above our own selves, just like God.

The Form for God through Jesus: God WANTS to be known by all created things. To accomplish His Desire, He must have a created form through which He can be Himself in an outward appearance. That outward appearance, the Form in which God is made visible, is the Church, many brethren walking together as one, sharing the same Love. The Ekenosis of Jesus becomes the Ekenosis of the Church, God manifest in the flesh.

The Ekenosis. What we need now is a concise summary of the Ekenosis, it’s meaning and fulfillment in our lives.

The Ekenosis: No one has seen God at any time (1 John 4:12). – He who sees Me has seen the Father (John 14:9). The Ekenosis is how an invisible God becomes seen and known inside of creation. God becomes visible through symmorphy, sharing the same form with that which is created, first Jesus’ human form as the Seed, and then, through Jesus, the Church. Ek – kenosen is to call God out of invisibility, a God who humbles Himself, a God who sees others as better. God-made-visible, God manifest in the flesh, is Love, believers in Jesus loving one another with pure hearts fervently. There is nothing more important to God than you and me having the same love, sharing the same soul in the same heart-thinking.

From Lowest to Highest. • 9 Therefore, also, God highly exalted Him and favored Him with the name above every name, • 10 that inside of the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, every heavenly knee, every earthly knee, and every under-earthly knee, 11 and that every tongue should speak the same thing, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ penetrating into the glory of God the Father.

This line is a key companion to Ruling Verse 9. Yet it must derive its full meaning from the Ekenosis – “Therefore.” You see, just as Jesus wins our hearts through life laid down and love poured out, so we also are the same towards all creation. Every knee bows to Love, and God-Love is made visible through our lives shared together. Yet we must have two critical definitions first. We must know what God means by “high above” and by “the name of Jesus.”

My New Name. Definition: The way of the wicked He turneth upside down (Psalm 146:9). What God calls “high above,” humans call despicable and low. What humans call “high above,” God calls iniquity. The name, “Jesus,” means Salvation. Salvation means the One who reveals God in giving Himself for the sake of others. It is this quality of Jesus, giving Himself as Grace, that God places above all. Then this same Jesus says to us, “I will write upon you My new name” (Revelation 3:12).

Ruling Verse 9: Just as Jesus won our hearts to the Father for us, for our sakes, so we win the hearts of all created things in the same way. This giving of ourselves is the highest thing there is to our Father. Every single created thing WILL give thanks for every moment of their lives, and every single created thing WILL speak the Words of Jesus speaking them.

Back to the Pro-thesis. • 12 Therefore, my beloved reader, even as you have always submitted to what you have heard, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, accomplish your salvation to full completion in fear and trembling, • 13 for God is the present and active energeoing inside of you, both to desire and to energeo for the sake of good pleasure and satisfaction.

We know the meaning of the Ekenosis out from 1 Corinthians through Ephesians, and we know the meaning of this line out from the Ekenosis. Verse 12 – accomplish full Salvation – is the Completion, and Verse 13 – for the sake of good pleasure – is the Pro-thesis. God is the present energeoing between the two.

Salvation Is. The Completion comes out from the Pro-thesis; when God speaks, His Word is already fulfilled. Yet it is the Spirit that then effects the knowing of that Salvation inside creation. Philippians 2:12-13 ties the Ekenosis completely together with the Ruling Verse of the Bible and then gives the meaning for Philippians Chapter 3.

Ruling Verse 1: Salvation is God made known through our love for one another, that is, our becoming the Salvation of God towards others. This is the Father’s good pleasure, His set-forth purpose. We are already symmorphosed with Jesus as the image and revelation of the Father, and it is God who energeoes all His Desire and purpose inside of us. Our job is to synergeo with God in confidence of faith, that God Himself might prove His Salvation through us.

Holding Forth the Word. • 14 Do all without grumblings and disputings, 15 that you might be without fault or impurity, but pure, as children birthed out from God, blameless in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine forth as lights inside the world-cosmos, 16 holding forth the word of life. • 17 But if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all, 18 and likewise you also are glad and rejoice with me.

Grumbling and disputing are not typically known in Sunday church; they are the norm in new Christian Communities. Yet look at the extraordinary purpose of our being pure and blameless in our thoughts towards one another – we set creation free. The key – holding forth this Flow of Gospel Word, is the very meaning of LIFE!

Poured Out. “Poured out as a drink offering” is a concept from the Old Testament. It is what happens on the Great Day of the Feast of Tabernacles, just before Rivers of Spirit flow out, the wine and the water poured together upon the altar (see Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah). “Poured out as a drink offering” is the very nature and being of God.

Ruling Verse 9: We are the light of the Cosmos. We give to all this wondrous Flow of Gospel Word.

Definition: What is God? God is a Being who gives Himself away for the sake of others. God, by His very nature, pours Himself out, even as wine and as water swirling together upon the altar, that Rivers of Life might flow into all creation. This God does this wondrous thing through our own lives, the Father just being Himself.

Returning to Symmorphy. I feel like crying. For the first time in our lives, we are taking God seriously. Truly, Philippians Chapters 2 & 3 are the culmination, the capstone, the shining glory of Paul’s gospel. Yet we could not see it as such, apart from God having caught us in this River, this glorious Flow of Gospel Word.

Paul is not finished with the Ekenosis in Chapter 2, in his being poured out as a drink offering for the Father’s sake and for the sake of those whom he loved. In Philippians 3, Paul brings back the most important word ever coined into human language – symmorphos. And he does so to show HOW the Ekenosis of Jesus becomes the Ekenosis that is the Church. He shows us HOW we ourselves are part of such a wondrous thing.

Let’s Pray Together. “Oh God, our Father, You are such a wondrous Person, so different from anything we once knew. Your greatest Treasure is found as we share soul with one another in the same heart-thinking! When we share heart with one another, Oh God, we share Hheart with You. When we place one another’s delights as our joy; Your own Heart sings.

“God, our Father, we place ourselves inside of Your intense and overwhelming DETERMINATION to be known as You are inside of our world. We place ourselves into the Fire that is Jesus for the sake of Your Church. Let us be Your drink offering poured out into a thirsty creation, the wine and the water, Your Word and Your Spirit.

“God, our Father, we see Your Church, our Christian brethren all across the earth, our Jerusalem, our Joy. We see her through this Flow of Gospel Word in which You have seized us into Yourself. Father, even as You offer us as Your sons for her sake, let this same wondrous River of Gospel Word flow into her, into every one who longs to know Jesus, into every gathering together where Your name is glorified.

“Let not one be left out; let not one be missing. Let all run into the fulness of Christ, into Christ Community. Let this same sharing of soul together in the same heart thinking become the experience of multitudes. God, our Father, we call You into visibility as Your Church. Father, it is time; be Yourself now inside of our world.”