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Jehovah's Witnesses, a question regarding the Watchtower perspective on Philippians 2:7?
When the pre-existent Word
"emptied himself" (NWT),
was this a LITERAL occurrence,
and, if so,
was the "emptying" TOTAL,
or
PARTIAL?
Thanks in advance for all polite, concise, responses.
CAPS are for EMPHASIS only.
angelmusic -
Thanks for your response.
So, according to your OWN theology,
would the "emptying" mean that
there was no part of Michael left, either?
Poto -
Thanks for your response.
So, does the "emptying" mean that - according to Witness theology - there was nothing of the pre-existent Jesus left?
"that 'emptying' of himself was in a COMPLETE sense" (caps for emphasis)
Please clarify what "complete" means, Poto.
Thanks.
bar_enosh -
Your answer seems somewhat evasive, sir.
Do you mean to tell me that the WT doesn't have a perspective on this?
Surely not.
It compares the "form of God" with the "form of a slave".
Now if he was not literally a "slave", then he was not literally "God".
We must look at what each of these REPRESENT.
Other answers given here from Witnesses explain what these "representations" are.
If you look at the verse without the expectation or assumption of Jesus being God or part of a trinity, the scripture is as plain as day.
And "empty". To me it means nothing left.
So even if a person believed in the trinity, it would mean that when Jesus came to the earth, there was NO PART of him that Could Have been thought of as God, part of God, etc.
He was strictly a human, albeit a perfect human.
EDIT -
This is not my "OWN" theology. Bu I will do the best I can to answer based on the Bible.
Genesis 2:7 gives a two step process for a person to be alive. First there is a body, and then we might refer to the activating of the body with a "spark of life". Just as you can have a body in a casket, but it does not have that separate "spark of life" that allows that person to be a "living, breathing, soul".
So when Jesus "emptied himself", he gave up the "body", the "spiritual body" he had in the heavens, and his "spark of life" was what remained of him as a "heavenly entity", to be transferred by Jehovah God to earth into an "earthly body."
So there was an "essence" of the same person, but only what would allow him to breathe and exist as a human.
We normally get our spark of life transferred to us at conception. And this activates the cells (the body) to grow.
And how does all this work? The transference, whether from heaven to earth, or from parent to child?
It is called a miracle - beyond what I can explain in either instance.
But there is no doubt that it can, did, and does take place.
Just because I cannot explain in no way mitigates that it ididn't or does not happen.
"Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities, THOUGH NOT BEHELD."
As a demonstration of my faith, I believe what the Bible teaches.
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