True Faith
Member
I am not removing the Son (you don't mind if I use "Son" rather than "Jesus" here, do you? "Jesus" is the human name given to Him upon becoming incarnate) from being God equally with the Father and Holy Spirit -- except insofar as he "emptied himself" in the manner noted by Paul's letter to the Philippians. The sense in which he was still God while here in the flesh is thus limited. There is no other reasonable way to construe Paul's words.
Look at it this way. Let's think of the continuum of eternity in linear fashion, and call time t(I) the moment of the Incarnation and time t(A) the moment of the Ascension. A moment before t(I) the Son and the Father, equally God since the beginning of time, were united in will that the Incarnation occur and that Jesus' earthly ministry begin. At that fraction of a millisecond before t(I), the triune God's will was in unison -- and in that moment the triune God, through the Son who is God with the Father and Holy Spirit, was about to come down from heaven to do God's own will. Between t(I) and t(A), the "emptied," incarnate God-become-man was capable of a will of his own separate from God's will. (For example, he could say "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass me by; still, your will, not mine, be done.")
So when, as you aptly put it, "God Himself became Flesh... the Word dwelt among us, God Himself dwelt among us" at t(I), there were two possibly conflicting wills, the Father's and the incarnate, emptied Son's. Not before t(I). And not after t(A).
So God -- the triune God -- did come down in the flesh to do what you call "his own" will (I'll go along and use the singular "his" rather than "their" here, to note the triune God as a single God in three persons, in accordance with conventional Trinitarian notions).
So God lied when he said that he did not come down from heaven to do his own will... Understood...
Your words not mine...