The initial creative utterance resulting in the world-text is characterized
by or operates upon the basis of kenotic ontology: “To be a sign which
refers is a form of self-emptying as the existent is evacuated into the pres-
ence of another entity” ( CG , 138). Signs, as self-evacuating, point to the
kenotic structure obtaining in address and response. To address another,
one has to condense oneself in words for the sake of the other: the dialogi-
cal speaking with others “is the site of a potential dispossession of the self
for the sake of the other as kenosis” ( TC , 254). Words, then, are “creative
performance of the self in relation to others” ( TC , 255). The kenotic qual-
ity of language implies a personal and volitional involvement as covenant
and desire. “The emergence of word and world is not accidental but is the
fertile consequence of a motion of the divine person and will; and is rev-
elation.” 49 One who speaks, who condenses oneself for another, desires to
relate to that other in worded fellowship, in a discursive union happening
within and sustained by language.
The kenotic quality of language, speech, address, and reply stems from
the Trinitarian creative utterance that made all things. Signs are refl ec-
tive of divine character: “signs only refer because they are part of a world
which is itself constituted as the issue or outfl ow of an act of communica-
tion between God and God” ( CG , 140). It matters not whether signs refer
to ostensive content, or to other signs. The “deeper insight” is that they
participate in the dialogue “as God speaks with God” ( CG , 142).
CONCLUSION
The world is the remains of the divine Conversation we call the Trinity.
How might this ontology affect the task 50 of biblical interpretation? The
following brief application applies to all Christians—Pentecostal and oth-
erwise, for all are made in the image and as the echo of God. When one
interprets scripture, one wants to understand what is said. And “the pri-
mary phenomenon in the realm of understanding is not understanding
of language, but understanding through language.” 51 The word is not a
puzzle to be solved but that which opens times and spaces for under-
standing to happen, it makes available a clearing where the matter at
hand presents itself in/through language. This means “the content and
object of hermeneutics is the word-event as such.” 52 A word-event is not
a moment in time sequestered from the to and fro of human life—rather
it is an active, ongoing, dialogical happening in which one participates as
an interlocutor. One should not, then, isolate the content of speech/text
42 C.C. EMERICK