THE METHOD OF THE INCARNATION
By Frank Tunstall, D. Min.
“My lover is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand” (Song of Solomon 5:10).
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2 – He became what we are that He might make us what He is.—Saint Athanasia.
What people could not do for themselves in their efforts to reach up to God, Jehovah God did by extending His arm down. Jesus moved from eternity into time, taking into His loving hand the latch to man’s heart. He came into the world knowing what it would cost Him, willing from eternity to bear man’s sins in His own body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24).
Papa, Down!
Do you recall the joy of parents swapping stories about their children?
For example, little Brian would set out a toy or a puzzle on the floor and then he’d select one of us adults as his designated playmate. It sounds like this, “Dada (that’s me), pay!” That’s “play” for those requiring translation. And he pats the floor exactly where he wants you to sit and “pay.”
Maddy was issuing similar invitations to the adults in her world. Dad could be moving around the living room doing whatever, and she’d look up at him with big blue eyes and ask a simple question, “Papa down?” She really wanted her father to come to her level. And he did.
The Heavenly Father did just that. He sent Jesus down in an incarnation to become one of us.
The Holy Spirit inspired David to pen how God’s Son expressed Himself in the long-ago summit of the Godhead that framed the plan of salvation: “Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O God’” (Psalm 40:7–8; see also Hebrews 10:7-10).
The Trinity and the Incarnation
The Gospel writers present the incarnation in the Trinitarian terms of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about,” wrote Matthew. After Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they were married, “she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18, emphasis added). God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth to make the announcement to Mary that her Baby would be called “the Son of God” (Luke 1:26–28, 32, 35). The Virgin Mary miraculously conceived the child by the creative power of the Holy Spirit, without a sexual union. This Trinitarian focus foreshadows that the Father and the Holy Spirit would be Jesus’ primary support system while growing up and throughout His earthly ministry (Acts 10:38).
The Incarnation Announced by Angels
The angel Gabriel gave Mary the name for the Baby, “Jesus,” meaning “Savior” (Luke 1:26–33; 2:8–15). His assignment was [and still is] to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
“When the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law . . . that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4–5). Jesus of Nazareth is God become flesh. “He made His dwelling among us” as the promised Messiah (John 1:1,14, 41).
A Sinless Incarnation
The Birth of Jesus explains why the church has always taught He was born without a sin nature. The Babe of Bethlehem’s manger was fully human, like all other infants. He was also unlike any other in that Gabriel said He would be “the Holy One” and “the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The very fact of His sinless birth to the virgin laid the foundation for Jesus to be the last Adam, the perfect sacrifice for sin, and the author of the New Covenant (1 Corinthians 15:45; Hebrews 9:15; 10:12).
Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ virgin birth would be one of the clearest indicators the Baby really was the Messiah: “The Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child, and will give birth to a Son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23). The Hebrew term Immanuel means “God with us,” hence, Isaiah prophesied Jesus’ virgin birth and His Deity.
The Mystery of the Incarnation
While the story of God becoming truly human defies rational explanation, this divine miracle is without question the revelation of Holy Scripture. This redemptive achievement established Jesus as the first fruits of the New Covenant that redeems the sons of Adam and makes them “like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).
The Incarnation, a Revelation of God as Father
The portrait of God as Father is implied in the Old Testament and is made explicit in the New Testament. (Psalm 2:7; Luke 1:32, 35; John 3:16; 1 John 3:1). The Father’s love is deep so as to be unfathomable; in fact, He is the ultimate model for all fathers. The Heavenly Father yearns to pick up and hold in His strong arms each of His fallen children. The Father’s Son and our Savior came to the earth to become His Father’s arms extended to lost humanity. This is such a fact of the gospel that Jesus told Philip, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
As Heavenly Father, He is loving and benevolent, as well as tough and determined. He is neither arbitrary nor whimsical, however. Jesus taught that the Father loves everyone and maintains such a continuing knowledge about His own that He is aware of what they need before they ask Him (Matthew 6:8). All may become His children through Christ (John 3:3–5; Matthew 5:45; John 1:12). He delights to give good things to His offspring, including declaring them sons of God and co-heirs with Christ (Matthew 7:11; Romans 8:17; 1 John 3:2; Psalm 84:11). The incarnation of Jesus unveiled, therefore, a portrait that shows love is the essence of His Father and assures that all humanity can rely on His love (1 John 4:16).
The prophet Jeremiah foretold Jesus’ incarnation in these terms: “The time is coming,” says the Lord [Jehovah], “when I will choose a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. And this will be his name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness’” [Jehovah Tsidkenu; Jeremiah 23:5–6, nlt). In this statement, Jeremiah said the Messiah would be a descendant of David and would carry the name Jehovah. The passage is another of the strong prophecies in the Old Testament of the Deity of Jesus Christ.
Jesus was not half-God and half-man. He was fully divine and fully man. This means the person Jesus Christ possessed both a human and a divine nature. He was not merely a man who had God in Him. He is God, the second person of the Trinity (John 1:1,14): “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus’ two natures were not mixed together, yet they functioned in unity in the one person of Jesus, the God-Man who makes us “sons of God and joint heirs with Christ” (1 John 3:2).
Brian would set out a toy or a puzzle on the floor and then he’d select one of us adults as his designated playmate. It sounds like this, “Dada (that’s me), pay!” That’s “play” for those requiring translation. And he pats the floor exactly where he wants you to sit and “pay.” — Author unknown to me
