The Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. (Jn 1:1, 14)
Lord, I look at the Incarnation and marvel. Praise You!
The radical claim of the Christian faith is that God became a man. Christians call this the Incarnation, which means something like “in the flesh.” For a time on Earth, God had skin and bones as you and I do.
Some people say that’s crazy, and I suppose, in one sense, they are correct. Reality often is crazy. But if Jesus is God, as He claimed, then rejecting Him is crazier. The Incarnation raises the stakes in Jesus. He is not just a good teacher. He is not just a noble man. He is not one choice among many. He is not someone you can listen to only if you feel like it. He is God, and He has every right to demand your allegiance. But many people have problems with the idea that they must yield to Jesus. I understand. I’m as human as you are. I don’t like yielding any more than you do.
Sometimes people will say that the problem they have with the Incarnation is intellectual. They will say that the idea of God being a man is a logical impossibility, for God cannot be limited. It is interesting that they then put a limit on God by telling us something God cannot do. Why can’t God enter history? Isn’t He God? Why limit Him if He can’t be limited?
Of course, what they mean specifically is that the omnipresent, omnipotent God, cannot at the same time take on a human body and be finite, weak, and physical. When Jesus is physically in Capernaum, He cannot also physically be in Rome. If Jesus gets tired, He cannot then have all power. Other similar issues exist, but if you think along these lines, you’ll begin to understand the intellectual issue.
I do not pretend to have the final answer to every question. In fact, I think it OK that I do not fully understand God. But perhaps some pictures will help us travel toward an understanding. First, one must remember that the Biblical doctrine of the Trinity allows God to retain all of his attributes while still being human. You see, in one sense, the eternal God may have died, but in another sense, the eternal God never died at all. What happened to Jesus happened to God, and yet God was still above what happened.
Second, the doctrine of the Incarnation is that in Christ God voluntarily set aside certain prerogatives (Ph 2:5-8). Think of the story The Prince and the Pauper. In the story, the Prince of Wales, Edward Tudor, son of Henry VIII exchanges places with a pauper boy. In doing so, he never ceases to be prince. In fact, he often tries to convince the people that he is the real prince, but no one will believe him. He is fully prince and fully pauper at the same time. Now this story does not correspond exactly to what Jesus does in the Incarnation, but it does give a helpful picture. Jesus was a king who for a time became a peasant. Though He was God, He emptied himself and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men. (Ph 2:6-7)
When Jesus became a man, He did not cease to be God any more than Edward ceased to be Prince while he was a pauper. Jesus retained all of His rights and attributes as God, though we might say that He freely chose to hide some of them for a time in order to accomplish a special purpose. He may have been divine, but he did not appear such to the people. He was, thus, fully king but also fully peasant. This is not logical contradiction, but it is, nonetheless, beyond comprehension. And it is marvelous.
Now the The Prince and the Pauper is just a picture, not an explanation. The Scripture says, “The Word was with God and the Word was God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The Creed says that Jesus was fully God and fully man. God became a man. I cannot fully explain how that is the case any more than science can fully explain (at this writing) the workings of the atom. But I do not see that logic demands of us an either/or choice. Reality, wherever we look, is far more complex than we often imagine. This reality is no different. The scientist lives with tension on many issues. So must the people of God. The scientist must have faith that as more information is uncovered, the mystery will subside. God’s people must have faith that more information is coming. For Earth, real as it is, is but the laboratory for heaven, and while we can learn much in this laboratory, we can never quite reproduce the conditions of heaven. It is not until we get there and are able to see God in the field (so to speak) that we will be able to understand some of the depths of his nature, and how it is that he can become flesh and dwell among us. But then, I suppose, when we get there the question itself will be rather trivial. Who cares about philosophy when you are gazing at glory?
