As One of Us in Order to Be For Us

Ligonier’s State of Theology Survey in 2018

Statement no. 6: Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God.

In 2018, 78% of evangelical respondents agreed with this statement.

Taken as it is, this concept is exactly what Arianism affirmed, a heresy that was condemned at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.

Not here to bring a pitchfork but clarify what we must do as Christians in thinking theologically.

Our forgetfulness concerning the Christian tradition has led to a loss of an orthodox Christology.

Without the firm foundation of who the true church has always confessed Christ to be, we will not be able to understand why the Incarnation is so wondrous.

We must stop stampeding to the cross and the resurrection at the expense of thinking deeply and rightly about the Incarnation. Each aspect of Christ’s redemptive work must be considered for the respective infinite worth.

“The unassumed is the unhealed.” - Gregory of Nazianzus

The season of Advent is fittingly brought to a conclusion by contemplating Christ himself and the nature of his coming into the world in our likeness, and this is precisely what John calls our hearts and minds to remember in the introduction to his gospel. Who is it that the wise men came to behold other than the Incarnate Son of God?

As John has already told us, the Word is fully God and is the one through whom God the Father has made the World (vv. 1 - 3)

Yet in order for the Word to save humanity, he had to come into the midst of a broken world as a man himself (v. 14a)

: But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

It would not be enough for God to just wipe the slate clean after the fall of man, for that would truly be the greatest injustice possible since there would have been no satisfaction of God’s righteous demands of a sinful humanity. The only way for humanity to be saved would be for a perfectly obedient man, the Messiah, to die in their place under the wrath of God.

: And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

As Advent reminds us, Jesus was both fully God and fully man. It was God the Son who became flesh, not just looked like it.

The problem of a “Word-man” vs. “Word-flesh” distinction

He didn’t put on a suit of flesh; he became man.

It’s not Invasion of the Body Snatchers

: “[he] emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The Son of God became incarnate out of his willingness to save us, not out of a spirit of coercion.

The apparent disagreeableness of Christ to the will of God for him to suffer on the cross as recorded in the gospels displayed his true humanity.

Jesus can honestly say that his soul is sorrowful, for any man in his right mind would be.

The Son of God came in order to be Immanuel, God with us (v. 14b)

By making an abode with us first in his swaddling clothes, Christ shows that he has come to be in the midst of the broken creation so that he might fully redeem it.

Christ as the true temple

The eternal presence of God has now been established in the world through Christ’ coming into it, displayed in the hearts of believers who have union with him.

The eternal glory of God has come in the flesh (v. 14c)

No other religion has any categories for something such as the Incarnation in Christian theology.

The gods of the Greek pantheon viewed humanity as playthings and often appeared as them, but they never dared to become one of them.

Islam has nothing but abhorrence for the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. In their view, it compromises God’s existence as a pure and eternal spirit who perfectly dispenses his law to humanity.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks in the dialogue between Christians and Muslims to this day

The Son of God is the one who is coming to refashion humanity in his likeness by restoring them to the former state of glory they once possessed in the garden.

The Incarnation of the Son of God is the triumphal reentry of the Lord into creation through the inauguration of the new creation in Christ.

This renewal could only happen if God himself came into the world, meaning that the Son of God had to be of the Father.

The Incarnation of the Son of God in order to accomplish redemption was not a concession to Satan; it was what God himself demanded.

The problem of the ransom theory of the atonement is that it mist

The Son of God has brought balance to the demands for our justification in his Incarnation (v. 14d)

The light that Christ brings into the world clarifies the true state of humanity, showing their need for God as well as the one mediator who can bring them back into fellowship with him.

Christ embodies the fullness of God

Commentators point to God’s glory displayed to Moses in Exodus as the signpost for John’s reference

: The glory of God shown to Moses according to his covenant faithfulness

The Son of God fulfills all of the covenants of God with his people by becoming their promised redeemer

John was set apart in order to showcase to the world that the Incarnation of the Son of God brought with it the ultimacy of God’s plans for salvation (v. 15)

: “And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

The Son of God, who was before time began, did not come into the world just to be ranked as another prophet. He was and is our salvation as the Incarnate one.

The deity of Christ that dwells within him as he assumes his human nature secures our salvation (v. 16)

: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things”

The plenitude of God’s goodness is vouchsafed for us in Christ’s coming. Because the Son of God became incarnate, we as those in the flesh might receive all that is his.

Through the graciousness of his dwelling with us as one of us, we can now come to taste of an everlasting grace as he does.

: “‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!’”

Eternal life in Christ exists for us on account of the Incarnation.

Jesus contained within himself the totality of his deity at all times during his First Advent; not at any point was it compromised.

The coming of the Spirit upon him at his baptism () was to show how God had anointed him for such a task, not because he lacked anything within himself. If he did, we would have no salvific certainty when it came to the Incarnation.

The Incarnate Son of God is the embodiment of our salvation (v. 17)

The law was never meant to save; it only serves to more glaringly reveal the fallenness of man and his need for salvation which cannot come of his own accord.

Augustine: “Men love the truth when it bathes them in its light: they hate it when it proves them wrong.”

The glory that Moses himself longed for has now come through the Son of God.

Beholding his eternal presence is what guides all of the eschaton, and it is ushered in through the Incarnation.

The Incarnation brings the fullness of God into the world through the coming of the Son of God, as he possesses it in its entirety to display for the eyes of men to behold.

: “My eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and a glory to your people Israel.”

In the Incarnate Son of God himself, we have hope, for we are able to see and touch the peace which has been promised to us all.

: “The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.”

God cannot make himself known according to his actual presence; he has to disclose himself through means that are appropriate for us to comprehend.

His glory in the temple was not something that could be seen and known by man ()

The Incarnation makes the knowledge of God possible for us.

: “He [Christ} is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature”

As one who is fully man, we are able to understand the nature of God as the Incarnate Son of God displays it for all to behold.

Because he is like us, we can see how we are to be like him. Imitation of the holy has to be grounded in the reality of those in the flesh by one who is also of the Spirit.

Christ, as God, is the one who reveals God (v. 18b)

Nothing is lacking in his deity. The only way for us to have authentic knowledge of God is for God himself to disclose it by assuming our nature alongside his divinity.

Knowing God truly is what is sufficient, and this is exactly what the Incarnation accomplishes, since he has given us a way to reach out and hear his voice in the likeness of his Son.

The final revelation has been made known in the Incarnation (v. 18c)

No confusion remains about what the love of God is to be in light of the Incarnation of the Son of God. No greater evidence is found for his commitment to save his image-bearers in the event of his condescension into his creation

After 400 years of prophetic silence, the eternal Word of God himself has come into the world. With the cries of a child in Bethlehem came the chorus of heaven on behalf of humanity.

The Incarnation encourages us to think theologically.

The doctrine of God is paramount to our understanding of the gospel.

Theological abstractions give us the truths we need to deal with the problems that barrage us every day as we seek to believe in and live according to such truths every day.

Just because the foundation isn’t immediately visible doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s absolutely necessary.

The Incarnation enlivens our worship and witness.

We should be encouraged to appreciate the human body as an instrument of praise and a means of displaying God’s glory as the Son of God himself did.

In light of the Incarnation, we are reminded of the infinite worth of investing in creation.

St. John of Damascus: “I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my sake, and in matter made his abode, and through matter worked my salvation.”

The glorification of the saints is consummated in the exaltation of their bodies. Our union with Christ makes it possible for the flesh to be made whole.

The Incarnation reminds us of who we are as the church today.

The church becomes irrevocably divided when it forgets what brought it together in the first place.

We gather every Sunday in order to celebrate the sacrifice of Christ according to his broken body on our behalf.

What was not of this world came into it so that its strife would be no more. In the Incarnation, the battle between flesh against flesh was silenced when the celestial peace of heaven was brought down to us.

The church should be the last place where infighting about its identification in the world should be found. We exist as a body through the exalted body of Christ our Lord.

“O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is” by Paul Gerhardt (1607 - 1676)

O Jesus Christ, Thy manger is My paradise at which my soul reclineth. For there, O Lord, Doth lie the Word Made flesh for us; here-in Thy grace forth shineth.

He whom the sea And wind obey Doth come to serve the sinner in great meekness. Thou God’s own Son, With us are one, Dost join us and sour children in our weakness.

Thy light and grace Our guilt efface, Thy heavenly riches all our loss retrieving. Immanuel, Thy birth doth quell The power of hell and Satan’s bold deceiving.

Thou Christian heart, Who ever thou art, Be of good cheer and let no sorrow move thee! For God’s own Child, In mercy mild, Joins thee to Him; how greatly God must love thee!

Remember thou What glory now The Lord prepared thee for all earthly sadness. The angel host Can never boast Of greater glory, greater bliss or gladness.

The world may hold Her wealth and gold; But thou, my heart, keep Christ as thy true treasure. To Him hold fast Unitl at last A crown be thine and honor in full measure.

As One of Us in Order to Be For Us

Introduction

1. The Unique Glory of the Son Through the Father Comes to Us in the Incarnation (vv. 14 - 15)

2. The Disclosing of Salvation in the Flesh is Through the Incarnation (vv. 16 - 17)

3. The Knowledge of God Has Been Declaratively Made Known to Us in the Incarnation (v. 18)

Conclusion