The Incarnation

Words, in the usage of Holy Scripture, are more than many vocal noises. They belong to and become part of the person who utters them. When the “word of the Lord” came to the Old Testament prophets, it meant that divine authority including God’s vital energy reposed in it. Remember our Lord’s admonition about words, “every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.”

St. John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . and the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The first 14 verses of St. John’s Gospel is also called “the last Gospel” and it tells the story of the Incarnation. It says Jesus Christ has been God since the beginning of all things and at a certain point in human history; He assumed human nature and for a brief time lived as Man among men. He was not a man endued with divine properties. This class is about why this distinction is important to Christianity.

Mankind has always desired personal contact with God, but the gulf between the two seems impassible. The Incarnation provides that personal contact between mankind and God and is central to Christian practice. If the early Christians had been willing to place Jesus Christ among all the pagan gods, they could have avoided persecution and martyrdom. The doctrine of the Incarnation shows that Christ is God and no other could be called divine.

In the first four councils, the Church addressed four denials of the doctrine of the Incarnation. The first denied that Christ was truly God. The second denied that He was truly human. The third attempted to divide His single personality. The fourth confused His human and divine natures. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD summarized the doctrine.

1. Christ is truly God

2. Christ is perfectly Man

3. Christ is one Person

4. Christ has two natures

In theological language Christ is one divine Person possessed of both divine and human natures, “truly, perfectly, indissolubly, and without confusion.”

To many people, these fine distinctions seem irrelevant if we live wholesome Christian lives. The point is that faith and practice go together and a wholesome Christian life is the fruit of a sound Christian faith. Without a Christian faith, were do you get Christian ideals? They can only be borrowed from the Church. Borrowed ideals are missing the history and authenticity of the full doctrine. When faced with new circumstances, there is no basis for applying the ideals in keeping with the God’s order. Without the authenticity of Christ’s teaching, the Gospels dissolve and moral principles are thinned into sentimental vapors. Why do we seek to live a Christian life? We could do so because we like the flavor or because we consider it the best working policy or because it is conventionally correct. None of these are substantial enough to guide our entire lives. However if we seek to live like a Christian because Christ said so with divine authority; we can stand on that eternally.

There are four practical approaches to determining the Divinity of Christ. The first concerns His human life. When we examine Christ’s life, his very character forbids His possible classification with men. His sinlessness, His loyalty, His compassion, His assurance, His insight into human nature, and His grasp of eternal values are beyond natural imagination. His life is unique and calls for an explanation different from any other life.

The second approach concerns what He thought of himself. He set aside requirements of the Law which to the Jews were of Divine origin and supplanted them with His own commandments. He accepted worship and adoration from His followers. At the time of His trial the High Priest demanded, “Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Our Saviour replied, “I am.” The intent was clear and He was charged with blasphemy for “making Himself equal with God.” There are three possible explanations for his actions. Either He was a fraud, or He was deluded, or He spoke the truth. A quick look at His life precludes the possibility that He was a fraud. The soundness of judgment and sanity of His teaching deflates the possibility that He was deluded. The last alternative is that He was speaking the truth.

The third approach concerns what others thought of him. St. Paul writes “in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” St. Peter speaks repeatedly of “the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” St. John says, “Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” Consider how difficult it must have been for Jews to attribute divine properties to any other than the God of their Fathers. One would have to think they were imbeciles or emotionally unreliable. But, they were solid, practical men, fishermen, businessmen and physicians. They all staked their life on their faith.

The fourth approach concerns the writings of the early Church Fathers which have been preserved since the days almost immediately following the Apostles. These writings are unanimous. Both Jews and Gentiles worshipped Christ as God from the very beginning. No other influence has so deeply affected society the whole world over at various stages of civilization. If all these folks are guilty of a colossal blunder, the best and finest minds in the last twenty centuries must have focused entirely on a fiction. That is a little too much for a reasonable mind to accept.

“The Virgin Birth” is not the same as the “Immaculate Conception.” They are often confused but remain two distinct doctrines. The Virgin Birth means that our Lord was born of a human mother by an act of God without the agency of a human father. The Immaculate Conception means that our Lord’s mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, was conceived and born without any taint of original sin. This doctrine was not known among the early Christians. It developed during the Middle Ages and was declared to be an article of faith in the Roman Catholic Church in 1854 AD.

The Virgin Birth has been an integral part of the Christian tradition from the beginning. Two accounts of it appear in the recorded Gospels. St. Luke tells Mary’s story and St. Matthew tells St. Joseph’s story. If our Lord was completely human, we would expect his birth to follow the pattern of humans. When God becomes incarnate, we should expect something different. We do not believe the Incarnation because of the Virgin Birth. We believe the Incarnation on the other grounds we mention and then find the Virgin Birth is a fitting method for accomplishing it. Once we recognize our Lord’s divine character, his human birth is a miracle by any standard.

Theology teaches that the Incarnation is an act of God. If God took a single human life, naturally produced and raised it to a unique dignity, then that one life was benefited and the human race received a beautiful example to follow. But if God, an eternally existing Person, took human nature upon Himself, He would project His divine presence into the whole stream of human life. In the Incarnation, God’s redeeming power becomes available to all of us.

The doctrine of the Incarnation has practical consequences as well. It brings the Christian Gospel out of the world of theology and into the realm of persons. We talk about ideas and ideals, but our dealings are with one another, person to person. We can try to be objective and impersonal, but we are built to be personal. Christianity is not the religion of a book or a philosophy, but of a person. We don’t believe in a system – we believe in Christ. The simplest human being can be loyal to a Person where not everyone is equipped to follow subtle theories. We are building theology but it is Christ who gives substance to all of it.

The Incarnation brings God and man to a point of sympathetic understanding. God has become one of us. His love and mercy are no longer academic qualities. He has lived our life, faced our troubles, and met our temptations. When we approach God in need of help, we know He understands.

Because of the Incarnation, Christianity is always progressive. It looks not to the past but to the future. We don’t reverence a dead Hero. We worship a Living Lord. Because of the Incarnation, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.