The verb behind kenosis can mean pouring oneself out in self-giving, or simply making something empty, void, and useless.
Kenosis, the noun, never actually appears in the New Testament. It is a term theologians built from the verb kenoō, 'to empty,' which shows up five times in Paul's letters, most famously in Philippians 2:7, where Christ 'emptied himself' by taking the form of a servant. That single use gave the noun its later career in Christian doctrine.
The verb itself has a wider, plainer range than the theology suggests. It can describe a container being drained, but more often in Paul it means making something void or ineffective. Faith is 'emptied' of meaning if the promise depends on law-keeping (Romans 4:14). A boast can be emptied out, made pointless (2 Corinthians 9:3). The word sits between two ideas English keeps separate: pouring out generously, and rendering something null.
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness.
The verse that gave the theological term kenosis its name and its whole later meaning.
For if those who live by the law are heirs, faith is useless and the promise is worthless,
Here the same verb means faith is made void, not poured out, showing the word's other pole.
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Paul worries the cross could be emptied of its power, a meaning close to 'nullified.'
But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you in this matter should not prove empty, but that you will be prepared, just as I said.
A boast being emptied out means made pointless, useful for seeing the negative sense at work.
Most English versions handle Philippians 2:7 with 'emptied himself,' which reads as deliberate self-giving and carries the theology well. Elsewhere the same verb becomes 'made void,' 'made of no effect,' or 'in vain' (Romans 4:14, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 2 Corinthians 9:3). A reader following an English concordance would never guess these are the same Greek word, since 'emptied' and 'made void' sound like unrelated ideas rather than one root used two ways.
The common mistake is treating kenosis as a major, recurring New Testament theme with a stable meaning, when it is really one verb, used once in the famous sense and elsewhere to mean 'nullify' or 'render useless.' A related error, sometimes called the 'kenotic' word study, argues Christ emptied himself of his divine attributes at the incarnation. Philippians 2 says he emptied himself by taking on a servant's form, not by shedding what he was.
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