The Incarnation

 

 

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What is the Incarnation?

Incarnation means "Taking on flesh". In Christian terms the Incarnation means that God became human by the power of the Holy Spirit . He was born as a human. He took on a human body and a full human nature and lived among mankind as one of them. In doing this he did not stop being God but, in some way incomprehensible to man, he had dual nature. He was not part God and part man but wholly God and wholly man.

Why the Need for the Incarnation?

As a result of the fall , mankind has broken relationship with God and sin has become the natural state of man. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". The result of our fallen state is, as God warned Adam that it would be, spiritual as well as physical death. "The wages of sin is death". In order that this penalty might be paid by one final sacrifice God came, in the person of his Son Jesus in order that a sinless man might die for the sins of mankind.

The Purpose of the Incarnation

The purpose of the incarnation is redemption. Satan has enslaved mankind through sin. For God to take man back from Satan involves a price, the price of emancipation and that price is the blood of Jesus Christ.

Only a sinless man can pay the price of man's sin. Only by God becoming a "second Adam" (1) in the person of Jesus Christ could there be one who could pay that price. In the words of the old hymn,

"There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin
He, only, could unlock the gates
Of heaven and let us in."

There is, therefore, no salvation, no atonement without the incarnation.

Some clarification

It has to be made quite clear that

  • Jesus was not a man who became God.
  • Jesus was not part man and part God
  • Jesus was not God disguised as a man (See note 2 below)
  • When God became man in the incarnation he did not leave heaven unoccupied
  • Jesus was fully man and fully God
  • God reveals himself to man through his incarnation.


Notes:

  1. The expression "second Adam" is not strictly a biblical term. The Bible refers to the "Last Adam".
  2. The Gnostic sects, and in particular the Docetists, claimed that the Christ only appeared to take on flesh.