merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve.
-C.S. Lewis (from the Screwtape Letters)
Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.
-Revelation 21:3
Although we have focused on kenosis in creation, and specifically on the consonance between kenosis and Genesis 1-2, it is important to locate this idea within a broader understanding of kenosis. Just as kenosis can be understood to typify God�s activity of creation, we can also understand kenosis, or more specifically its opposite, refilling, to be indicative of the eschaton. God emptied Himself in the creation of the world, taking on a new role, and at the fullness of time, God shall refill the world with His presence in an unmediated way, in essence, undoing the kenosis. This is not to assert that God will destroy the �other� and assimilate all back into Himself, but that God shall restore His glory on earth, and remove the veil between God and the world. Thus, there is some sense in which God�s kenotic relationship to the world will be refilled, but there will also remain an element of kenosis, as God pulls the other to Himself without thereby eliminating the otherness that God has created. Revelation points to this coming reality, when a loud voice proclaims from the throne, �Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God�, for the old order of things has passed away� (Revelation 21:3, 4). A new, closer relationship to God will be given to those who are saved by grace. This is not to assert that people become gods, or become assimilated in some way into God, but instead, humans enter a relationship with God in which God is un-emptied, and His fullness is revealed. C.S. Lewis, in The Great Divorce, pens his view of heaven and hell. One believer in heaven proclaims, �I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely.� When God ceases to empty Himself, God will no longer be in this same type of kenotic, veiled relationship to the world, but instead, will be in a full, close relationship with the redeemed.
The understanding that God has chosen to limit Himself with relation to creation has an impact on how we understand God to be and act. First, kenosis points to a God who is mutable, who changes. God undertakes a dynamic relationship to the world, and to us as human beings. This is not to assert that God is fickle or flighty, but to acknowledge that even as God is unswervingly faithful, God is personal and changeable. A kenotic understanding of God�s relation to the world also incorporates true freedom into our understanding of reality. This is not to assert that God is absent, and has left the world to develop on its own, nor to assert that God is merely one influence among many, but instead, that even in God�s almighty power, God respects the integrity of relationship.
Finally, kenosis is a model for divine activity that fits with our understanding of the world. There is a fundamental tension that exists between those who acknowledge God�s presence and activity within the world, and those who cannot and will not believe in God, or even acknowledge the possibility that God exists. Kenosis can help us begin to formulate an answer to the question of how a supremely powerful creator, who we claim to be intimately involved in this realm which He has created, can be invisible to so many. In relating to the world in a kenotic manner, God has chosen to work within the world in a manner that is accessible to faith, but is not undeniably accessible to science or reason. In short, God can and will be found, but only in faith. There will come a day when �every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father� (Phil. 2:10-11), but that day has not yet come. Instead, we now know in part, and see only a dim reflection of God (1 Cor. 13:12), but then, when God has refilled creation, we shall see face to face. Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!
