ABSTRACT
In Hans Urs von Balthasar’s writing, the concept of Christian kenosis strongly connects to self-surrender, and self-emptying to its physical form: fasting. In his L’Exinanition du Christ , Xavier Tilliette identifies the mystery of Christ’s kenosis, his self-emptying, with the mystery of the Incarnation. He writes that the epistle to the Philippians announces this identity in the words of the Christ-hymn. One of the sixteenth century’s great Lutheran disputes referred to the connection between exinanitio, exaltatio, and kenosis: the Brentz-Chemnitz debate, which Balthasar also discusses in his Theology of the Three Days. In Balthasar’s writing, the concept of Christian kenosis strongly connects to self-surrender, and self-emptying to its physical form: fasting. Calvin unambiguously refers to the fact that following Christ is tightly bound to the abasement of kenosis.
