Is Jesus like God? Or is God like Jesus? … Yes.

In Philippians chapter 2, Paul exhorts his readers to imitate Christ in his humility, just as Christ imitates God. This is one Paul’s most beautiful, poetic descriptions of Christ and is known to the early church as the Kenosis Hymn (kenosis is the Greek word for “emptying”).

Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

Though he was in the form of God,
he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied himself
by taking the form of a slave
and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore, God highly honored him
and gave him a name above all names,
so that at the name of Jesus everyone
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow
and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11, CEB)

This hymn is a beautiful, poetic thesis showing that God is humble just like Jesus, not that Jesus is humble unlike God. If that surprises you, it should. It was a major revelation to the early church, as well, and is the reason this passage became one of the…