He made himself of no reputation.

“He thought it not robbery to be equal with God.”  He regarded the insignia of His Godhead not as a prize to be held on to, to be clutched.  He deliberately decided that He would for the time being lay them aside.  Not lay the Godhead aside — He could not do that — He did not lay the Godhead aside, but He did lay the signs of the Godhead aside.

Then after that first initial decision the second followed, and of necessity. “He made himself of no reputation.”  How superior the Authorized Version is here to the Revised Version and others, which say here “He emptied himself”!  No, He did not empty Himself, He did not empty himself at all.  He “made himself” — still remaining what He was — “of no reputation.”  There is no “kenosis” in the sense of evacuating Himself of His Godhead, for that is impossible.  It is something much more wonderful than that.  It is that He decided to “make himself of no reputation.”  Though still the eternal Son of God, He came down to earth, and He was born as a babe and He lived as a man.  He was still the same but He made Himself of no reputation.  We read stories of great kings putting on ragged clothing and going to work with their hands; nobody knew them, nobody recognised them.  What had happened?  They king had made himself of no reputation, he pretended to be an ordinary man, he did not take with him the trappings and the insignia of his regal position; in other words, he made himself of no reputation.  Or you can think of it in terms of a king traveling incognito.  That is the very thing that happened in the incarnation.  That is what happened when the Son of God came down on earth to dwell amongst men.  Though He remained exactly what He always was, He came as a Man and took upon Him the form of a servant.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God’s Way of Reconciliation: An Exposition of Ephesians 2, p.123