Weekly Article

What is the Incarnation?

Weekly Article 12/23/05

by the Rev. Matt Kennedy

Church of the Good Shepherd

The word, “incarnation” might sound daunting, but it is really very simple. The root word is the same as that of the word “carnivore” or flesh eater. To become incarnate is to become “enfleshed” or to take on “flesh.”

Take a look at this familiar passage from the gospel of John:

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14)

The Word, in other words, became incarnate.

Before delving too deeply into the Incarnation of the Word we should pause here and identify the “Word”

Thankfully, John is one step ahead of us. Moving back up to John 1:1, we read:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (John 1:1-2)

Pay special attention to the words I've italicized.

First, the Word “was” or “existed” before the beginning. The Word was not created in the beginning, it already “ was” .

Second, this Word was “ with” God. The Word had some form of distinction or differentiation from God. It could be with him. Something, a person for example, cannot really be with himself. But he can be with another person.

Third, John tells us that though distinct or differentiated in some way like one person to another, this Word ” was” indeed God. That means the Word is not an “it” but a “who”.

It also means that somehow believers must come to terms with a very difficult concept: the Word both “is” God and is “with” God.

John's deep and wonderfully mysterious opening sentences tell us about a paradoxical relationship within the Godhead. The Church later described this relationship with the word “Trinity.” The various creeds describe the Trinity and help us come to grips with what God reveals about himself in John 1 and elsewhere, but they are descriptions not explanations. God is one in Being and yet he is also three distinct co-equal, co-eternal Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is what the bible teaches. That is what the church confesses. It is not a contradiction. But it is a mystery.

Out of that mystery flows another.

John goes on to explain that the “Word made flesh” is none other than Jesus of Nazareth (John1:18), born of Mary the virgin, whose birth we celebrate in only four days.

God, the Word, took on flesh.

He is God and he is Man at the same time.

We have to be careful here. Some in the past have mistakenly assumed that the incarnation was merely a sort of cloaking or covering. God the Son simply disguised himself with human flesh. The disciples, those who lived with him day in and day out, knew better. Jesus was not simply God in human garb.

He was and is fully human. He was born of a woman, grew to maturity, ate, drank, slept, felt pain, sorrow, anger, anxiety, and, ultimately (or “penultimately” I should say), he died.

So, when New Testament writers like John testify to Jesus' humanity, they're not just describing appearances.

They mean the real thing.

Jesus really was and is a man. When God the Son became incarnate, he not only took on the flesh of man, but the very nature of man. Here's how the writer of Hebrew's puts it:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity” (Hebrews 2:14)

Nevertheless, there is one difference between the human nature of Jesus and our human nature. A clue to that difference is also found in the book of Hebrews: Describing the sacrificial or priestly work of Jesus the writer says:

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

Jesus never sinned. He is the only person in the entire history of the human race who never once violated the law of God.

How is that possible?

The bible teaches that sin was not part of God's original creation. If you re-read the story of creation in Genesis 1 and 2 you'll see that Adam and Eve were created to live in perfect communion with God, with one another, and with the world itself, forever unmarred by sin or death.

But when they broke the one command God had given them, not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they also broke that communion and severed their connection to the sanctifying power of God.

Sin entered the human heart.

Every human being conceived since then has been conceived with a sin nature; an orientation away from God and toward the self. As David says, “I was a sinner from the time my mother conceived me.” (Psalm 51:5) This does not mean, of course, that David was actually doing bad things while in his mother's womb. Rather, it means that he was conceived with a will turned or oriented toward disobedience that was actualized as soon as he was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong and choose the wrong. So are we all, each and every one of us (Romans 3:10-18).

Everyone that is, except for Jesus.

Jesus' humanity is not fallen like ours. Jesus' humanity is of the same sort or type as that of Adam. It is not marred or twisted. It retains the original created connection and communion with God unmarred by sin. That's why Paul writes that Adam's nature was the pattern for Jesus' nature (Romans 5:12-20)

Why? So that Jesus, the second Adam, might succeed where the first Adam failed. Here's how Paul puts it:

“For just as through the disobedience of one man [Adam] the many were made sinners [sin nature], so also through the obedience of one man [Jesus, the second Adam] the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)

In other words just as Adam's sin introduced sin into the human heart, Jesus' obedience throughout his earthly life all the way to his death on the cross, provided the means to banish it.

God was not content to let his creatures or his creation end in destruction. His love is stronger than our sin.

Just because you were born Adam's son or daughter, doesn't mean you have to let sin ruin your life or your eternity.

You can, if you repent and surrender your life to Jesus, the Word, be adopted as a son or daughter of the Father. Through faith in God the Son you can have an eternal relationship with God the Father. Your sins can be forgiven, having been paid for on the cross, and your heart can be cleansed. You can begin a new life with a new hope and a new heart.

You see the purpose of the Incarnation, the point of Christmas, can be and has been summarized like this:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:16-17)

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