One Friday, we ended the week talking about the physical origins of Jesus and how the miraculous

conception happened biologically.

Today we move to a question of what divine attributes were necessary for Christ to lay

down in order to take up his humanity.

The question comes from Matthew in Vienna, the capital of Austria.

Hello, Matthew.

And dear pastor John, thank you for all your work over the years of ministry, my small

group recently considered the subject of Jesus's divinity and humanity.

I look through desiring God's resources and found a sermon that you delivered way back

in 1981.

In that sermon on Luke 252, you say this, quote,

our text has important implications for understanding the divinity of Christ.

It helps us understand what Paul meant when he said, though he was in the form of God,

he did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking

the form of a bond servant as Philippians 2, verses 6 and 7.

One of the things Christ emptied himself of was omniscience, you said.

Later, regarding the attributes of God, you said this, quote,

they were his potentially and thus he was God, but he surrendered their use absolutely

and so he was man, quote, now my question is, how do you now understand Philippians 2,

verses 6 to 8 and loop 2, verse 52, do these texts really necessitate that some attributes

of the eternal divine nature of Jesus must have been given up or laid down at his incarnation?

Pastor John, what would you say to Matthew?

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