The Incarnation I. Questions A. Why is the incarnation of Christ so compelling? B. How should the incarnation shape our understanding of the Christ? C. How should the incarnation shape our understanding of ourselves and the world? II. Introduction A. Matthew and Luke state it simply, without much fanfare 1. When Joseph awoke from sleep he did what the angel of the Lord told him. He took his wife, but did not have marital relations with her until she gave birth to a son, whom he named Jesus (Matthew 1:24-25) 2. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn (Luke 2:7) B. John would begin with a paean to the Logos in a way that many in Israel and among the Greeks would find acceptable...until he said, "Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father (John 1:14)! C. These verses speak of Jesus' incarnation: Jesus, the Word of God, becoming flesh, taking on the form of a human being D. C.S. Lewis aptly observed that the Incarnation of Jesus was the miracle of all His miracles, since it allowed everything else to take place 1. If Jesus never took on flesh, He could not have embodied the Law and the story of Israel 2. If Jesus never took on flesh, He could not have died for our sins 3. If Jesus had not died, then He could not have been raised again in power on the third day 4. Paul understood that the Christian faith relied upon the truth of the resurrection (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:9-20); likewise, John understood how the Christian faith likewise relied upon the incarnation of Jesus, for He could not have died and been raised unless He was human (cf. 1 John 4:1-5, 2 John 1:6-9) E. The Incarnation is presumed as fact throughout the Gospel accounts and the rest of the New Testament; it has taken Christians many generations to fully grapple with many of its implications 1. A natural tendency: the ripple effects prove quite profound 2. The implications of an event worked out over time can easily overshadow the initial experience! 3. Likewise, Jesus' humanity was not doubted at all by the Apostles; John made much of his ability to physically experience the Word of life (cf. 1 John 1:1-4) 4. As those upholding the Christian faith were compelled to work through their understanding of Jesus as fully God and fully man, the powerful implications of the Incarnation of Jesus became more evident F. There has been an ongoing temptation to minimize and reduce the impact of the Incarnation because of its awkwardness; we do well to consider the implications of the Incarnation and what it means for us in our faith III. The Awkward Stubbornness of the Incarnation A. The witness of early Christians regarding Jesus as fully God and fully man remained stubborn among early Christians despite its awkwardness B. Paul reckoned the proclamation of "Christ and Him crucified" as a "stumbling block" to Jewish people and "foolishness" to Greeks, and for good reason (1 Corinthians 1:18-31) C. Jewish people had developed a theology of their God as one and as fully Other: at least certainly not human 1. There had been times in the witness of the Hebrew Bible in which the patriarchs of old seemed to have been visited by God in some kind of human form: Abraham in Genesis 18:1-2ff; Jacob in Genesis 32:24-30 2. In later times there were very theologically motivated adaptations and changes made in the Jewish conception of things which even bled into Bible translations: attempts to de-anthropomorphize many portrayals of God 3. Such were not entirely unfounded; the Hebrews author went along with it in terms of angels giving the Law of Moses in Hebrews 2:2 4. Yet such can explain why the premise that God would take on flesh and dwell among us would be scandalous among many in Israel, a "literalization" of prophecies as in Isaiah 7:1-14, Malachi 2:17-3:5, etc. of YHWH coming to His people in ways Israel could not accept 5. And so Jewish people were quite willing to pick up stones to stone Jesus for blasphemy since He, being a man, made Himself out to be God (John 10:33)! D. The Greeks considered the Incarnation and the resurrection to be sheer folly: why would God do such a thing? 1. Among the ancients, the Greco-Roman gods were notably anthropomorphic; they were envisioned essentially as super-humans behaving badly 2. Greek mythology was replete with stories of gods taking on the guises of humans or animals to accomplish their purposes 3. Yet for many, especially among those with any kind of education, the gods were more objects of terror than any model of emulation; better wisdom and knowledge was found in philosophy 4. And Greek philosophy had been powerfully affected by Plato's thinking: the conception of the forms, and thus a profound disappointment with the material creation as corrupt 5. The goal of not a few Greek philosophical systems was to overcome the limitations of the flesh and to become as pure spirit; thus, the idea that God as Spirit would take on flesh, die, and then be raised again was completely bonkers to them (cf. Acts 17:32) 6. A much more acceptable version of the story would come from the Gnostic sects and their Yaldabaoth myth: Wisdom made an error, leading to Yaldabaoth, who presumed in ignorance that He was the only divine being, and who made a physical creation that was confining and corrupt; Christ, a higher aeon/divine being, came and taught the secret wisdom of such things and how to escape from the corruption of the creation and become as pure spirit in reason: a complete "spiritualization" of the matter 7. That so much of the "Yaldabaoth" story would seem to make sense to a lot of Christians speaks to how powerfully the Greek/Gnostic tendency remains in Western Christendom! E. Thus, pressure existed from all sides that would make it easy to not make much of the Incarnation of Jesus, and yet early Christians stubbornly insisted that Jesus was fully God and fully human! IV. Implications of the Incarnation A. The Incarnation of Jesus, therefore, sat uncomfortably in the viewpoints of people in the first century CE; Christians thus sought to grapple with what it meant and its implications for the Christian life and faith B. Romans 8:3: Jesus and "the flesh" 1. From many passages one could easily conclude that Paul found absolutely nothing intrinsically good in the flesh, and all that was good was in the Spirit (Romans 8:1-17, Galatians 5:17-24, etc.) 2. And many interpreters, especially Augustine, thus read and understood him 3. Yet Paul confessed that Jesus came "in the likeness" of "sinful flesh" (Greek sarx), yet He did not know sin (Romans 8:3, 2 Corinthians 5:21) 4. If "the flesh" were intrinsically unredeemable and utterly vile, how could Jesus have taken on such flesh and dwelt among us? 5. Thus Jesus' incarnation ought to represent a continual antidote to body hatred and anti-materialism which is a continual temptation in Western thought 6. Jesus' incarnation thus represents the major challenge to the premise of "original sin" a. As developed by Augustine and prevalent in Western Christendom, original sin as the idea that all mankind has inherited sin through Adam; Augustine reckoned the transmission of such sin in terms of the conceptive act by the parents b. But if every human inherits sin through Adam, that would mean Jesus also inherited sin, and thus could not have been sinless c. Attempted end-around: the "Immaculate Conception," thus declaring that Jesus was born sinless d. Later reinforcement of end-around: the "Immaculate Conception of Mary," thus declaring that Mary was also born without sin, to make really sure Jesus had no taint of sin e. None of these thus elaborated in the New Testament, and that should have been a major alarm regarding the integrity of the doctrine of original sin! C. John 1:1, 14, Colossians 2:8-9: Jesus, fully God, fully human 1. Christians have long grappled with the wonderment of the very fact of the Incarnation: God taking on flesh, dwelling among us 2. How can the fullness of deity dwell in bodily form? 3. How Jesus was fully human became a contentious matter in the fifth century: Nestorians vs. Monophysites about the nature of Jesus 4. The Christological controversy that led to the Chalcedonian definition is one of the most arcane, esoteric disputations in religious history; it is almost impossible to separate from the church power politics between Antioch and Alexandria, represented a lot of "arguing in agreement" by emphasizing the unity of His nature or emphasizing the two aspects of His nature, and has in modern times proven to be the "easiest" of the historic divisions to overcome 5. Regardless, there is value in understanding the resolution of the dispute in terms of "what was not assumed was not redeemed," based on Hebrews 4:15, 5:7-8, etc. 6. If Apollinaris was right, and Jesus was bodily human but spiritually God, not having a human soul/spirit, then Jesus could not have redeemed the human soul/spirit in His death and resurrection 7. If Eutyches and his ultra-monophysite ilk were right, and Jesus' humanity was entirely subsumed by His divinity, then how could Jesus have redeemed our humanity? 8. On the other hand, contrasting the two natures too much, as in ultra-Nestorianism, would turn Jesus into a duality, not a singular whole 9. And so the Chalcedonian definition, while clunky, works, and is best understood in terms of perichoresis: Jesus is fully God and fully man, both in relational unity, so unified we speak of Jesus as a singularity, yet maintaining the fullness of each nature (as with John of Damascus) 10. The lodestar of this whole dispute remains "what is not assumed is not redeemed," and something on which we do well to meditate D. Philippians 2:5-8, Hebrews 4:15, 5:7-8: Kenosis and Humiliation 1. Jesus' incarnation has been a continual source of meditation on reality and how Christians ought to live ever since He ascended 2. Paul and the Hebrews author spoke powerfully regarding Jesus' human experience: He became flesh, experienced the life of flesh, suffered temptation, learned obedience from what He suffered (Philippians 2:5-8, Hebrews 4:15, 5:7-8) 3. The two main themes here are kenosis, or self-emptying, and humiliation 4. We today tend to be very comfortable with Jesus, Son of God and God the Son; we prove far less comfortable with Jesus, Son of Man, fully human 5. How could God take on flesh, and not only as flesh, but as a baby, growing up, living as poor, without much education or standing, doing good, and suffering for it: the ultimate example of self-emptying and humiliation 6. Becoming human was humiliating enough; Jesus' lifestyle, even more so! 7. God is so often seen as the Other, and for good reason (Isaiah 55:8-9) 8. Yet Jesus is Immanuel, God with us: God in a form we can see and experience (1 John 1:1-4) 9. We can make no image of God; yet God made His express image and character in Jesus (Colossians 1:15-18, Hebrews 1:3) 10. God can sympathize with us in Christ; God understands our experience in Christ; God has gotten dirt under His fingernails and lived and loved and hurt in Christ 11. To this end the Incarnation is always a profitable fountain of consideration for who God is, who we are and ought to be, and what it means to be human V. Jesus' Continuing Humanity A. How many have heard this kind of story being told: "Jesus, having lived, died, and been raised again, ascended to heaven, and then finally was able to divest Himself of His body and return to being fully God"? B. Such is a popular story among many in Evangelicalism and even among the Lord's people; and yet it is not found in Scripture, and runs contrary to Scripture! C. The Apostles continually and consistently confess that Jesus remains fully God and fully human in the resurrection and in His ascension! 1. Acts 1:11: Jesus would return to the earth the way He left it; no statement in Scripture saying or even suggesting Jesus would have divested Himself of His body after ascending 2. Acts 7:55-56: Stephen declared that he saw Jesus in heaven as the Son of Man; yes, Jesus as "Son of Man" has messianic overtones and means more than "human," but certainly not less; a fulfillment of the promise of Matthew 26:64-65, which Jesus sees as the fulfillment of Daniel 7:13-14, thus explaining why it is in fact necessary for Jesus to remain fully human, so that He can be the one like a Son of Man who has received an eternal dominion! 3. Acts 9:1-6; cf. 1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:3-9: Saul/Paul sees Jesus on the road to Damascus; he considered himself as having seen Jesus in the resurrection, just like the other Apostles did, but not at the right time; such is an impossible witness if Jesus is disembodied at that point 4. 1 Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God and one intermediary between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, himself human": Paul, in the present tense in ca. 63 CE, said Jesus is human (Greek anthropos) 5. Romans 6:1-11: by common confession, Jesus' divinity did not die, nor did Jesus' soul/spirit; what died was Jesus' flesh, and Paul says that He was raised to never die again; if He were not still embodied, what sense would Paul's statement make? D. This truth seems uncomfortable and awkward, right? Why? E. For many years, many preachers would ceaselessly chant 1 Corinthians 15:50a: "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom!" 1. Resistance to dispensational premillennialism and its excess 2. Resistance to the Jehovah's Witnesses 3. The appeal of "spirituality" over "physicality" G. Unfortunately, in all the chanting of 1 Corinthians 15:50a, they would not let Paul finish his thought in 1 Corinthians 15:50b-58 1. "...nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Now when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will happen, 'Death has been swallowed up in victory.' 'Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! So then, dear brothers and sisters, be firm. Do not be moved! Always be outstanding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:50b-58) 2. Paul does say that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom," but then also goes on to say that "the perishable [cannot] inherit the imperishable" 3. He would then go on to speak of the promise of transformation: enhancement, not elimination; a putting on of something more, not the removal of what was there 4. So what does Paul mean when he says "flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom"? He means that humanity, in its present constitution, cannot endure forever 5. He is right; this body subject to corruption, decay, and death is not going to endure forever! 6. So what is the conclusion of the matter? Not that bodies are bad and we must get rid of them; the goal is for the body to be raised and transformed for incorruption and imperishability! 7. Flesh and blood are not the problem; corruption and decay is the problem! H. Thus a big part of the Christian hope is the confidence in the resurrection of the dead because Jesus is Risen and is still risen; He remains in the resurrection body (thus Philippians 3:21: "[the Lord Jesus Christ], who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself") I. Thus Jesus' incarnation, and His transformation in the resurrection body and continuing existence in the resurrection body, affirms God's purposes for humanity as embodied 1. Our problem is not that we are human; God made us human, and it was very good 2. The problem is sin and death! 3. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; He overcame sin in His death and overcame death in His resurrection, and thus we have the hope and confidence to overcome sin in His death in baptism and will overcome death in our own resurrection, and thus we can share in life for all eternity...in the resurrection body! J. Jesus was born and is Risen; thus we can have hope and confidence in Him; may we live in Him and seek His purposes to glorify Him and obtain resurrection of life in Him! K. Invitation Scripture, Meditation, and Application 1: Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory - the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father (John 1:14). Matthew, Luke, and John spoke very simply regarding the Incarnation of Jesus the Christ. And yet what they said was powerfully profound. God took on flesh and dwelt among mankind. The promise of the Immanuel found its ultimate fulfillment. The Incarnation is the miracle of all of Jesus' miracles: if the Word had not taken on flesh, He could not have lived, He could not have died, and He could not have been raised from the dead, and our faith would be in vain. Why is the Incarnation so foundational to the Christian faith? 2: But we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23). The Incarnation of the Christ was not an intuitive idea to those who lived in the first century CE. Jewish people could not imagine that God would take on flesh; Greek people could not imagine why God would want to take on flesh. Christians had every cultural reason to jettison the idea of the Incarnation; and yet they stubbornly insisted God became flesh and dwelt among them. Why is Jesus' incarnation important for us to understand how Christianity is distinct from other faiths? 3: For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh (Romans 8:3). The implications of Jesus' incarnation have helped to ground the Christian faith from the excesses of doctrinal disputations. We cannot entirely condemn the flesh as irretrievably corrupt since Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us. What Jesus did not assume, He could not redeem. Jesus deeply humbled Himself and can identify with us. How can the incarnation of Jesus keep us from going too far in doctrinal disputes? 4: [The Lord Jesus Christ], who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself (Philippians 3:21). Jesus remains human in the resurrection body to this day. Many find this truth awkward and difficult; they have been taught to think since flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom, Jesus must have reverted to spiritual form. But Paul made it clear that it is the present form of flesh and blood which cannot inherit the Kingdom; the goal is for us to receive the same transformation in the resurrection which Jesus received when He arose. It is not for us to hope to escape our humanity; we must hope that God will redeem us in our humanity so that we can again be very good. Why is it important for us to affirm Jesus' continuing bodily existence in the resurrection?