INCARNATION AND CHRISTOLOGY

Stephen J. Wellum

T he word incarnation derives from a Latin word developed from in + caro [flesh], which literally means “in the flesh.” In Christian theology the term refers to the supernatural act of God, effected by the Holy Spirit, whereby the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead, took into union with himself a complete human nature apart from sin. As a result of that action, the Son of God became the God-man forever, the Word made flesh (Jn 1:1,14; Rm 1:3-4; 8:3; Gl 4:4; Php 2:6-11; 1Tm 3:16; Heb 2:5-18; 1Jn 4:2).

The means whereby the incarnation came about is the virgin conception, commonly known as the virgin birth—the miraculous action of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary—so that what was conceived was fully God and fully man in one person forever (Mt 1:18-25; Lk 1:26-38). He did this in order to become the Redeemer of the church, our Prophet, Priest, and King, and thus to save his people from their sins (Mt 1:21). By becoming one with us, the Lord of Glory not only shares our sorrows and burdens, he is also able to secure our redemption by bearing our sin on the cross as our substitute and being raised for our justification (see Rm 4:25; Heb 2:17-18; 4:14-16; 1Pt 3:18).

THE HUMANITY AND DEITY OF JESUS IN SCRIPTURE

Biblical evidence for the full deity and humanity of Christ is abundant. In regard to his humanity, Jesus is presented as a Jewish man who was born, underwent the normal process of growth and development (Lk 2:52), experienced a full range of human experiences (e.g., Mt 8:10,24; 9:36; Lk 22:44; Jn 19:28), including growth in knowledge (Mk 13:32), and the experience of death (Jn 19:30). Apart from his sinlessness, which Scripture unequivocally affirms (Jn 8:46; 2Co 5:21; Heb 4:15; 1Pt 1:19), he is one with us in every way.

Scripture also affirms that the man Christ Jesus is also the eternal Son of God and thus God equal with the Father and Spirit. From the opening pages of the NT, Jesus is identified as the Lord: the One who establishes the divine rule and inaugurates the new covenant era in fulfillment of OT expectation—something only God can do (e.g., Is 9:6-7; 11:1-10; Jr 31:31-34; Ezk 34). That is why Jesus’s miracles are not merely human acts empowered by the Spirit of God; rather they are demonstrations of Jesus’s own divine authority over nature (e.g., Mt 8:23-27; 14:22-23), Satan and his hosts (Mt 12:27-28), and all things (Eph 1:9-10,19-23). Because he is God the Son, Jesus has the authority to forgive sin (Mk 2:3-12), call himself the fulfillment of Scripture (Mt 5:17-19; 11:13), view his relationship with the Father as one of equality and reciprocity (Mt 11:25-27; Jn 5:16-30; 10:14-30), and do the very works of God in creation, providence, and redemption (Jn 1:1-18; Php 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; Heb 1:1-3).

THEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION OF JESUS’S NATURES

Later church reflection, especially at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451), affirmed that we cannot do justice to Scripture without confessing that Jesus of Nazareth was fully God and fully man. God the Son, who gave personal identity to the human nature he had assumed and did so without putting aside or compromising his divine nature, must be confessed as one person who now exists in two natures. Additionally, Chalcedon affirmed that we must not think that the incarnation involved a change in the properties of each nature so that some kind of blending resulted which was neither divine nor human, as the Eutychians wrongly affirmed. Rather, we must affirm that the properties of each nature (human and divine) were preserved so that Jesus is all that God is in all of his perfections and all that we humans are except in terms of sin.

This affirmation entails at least two important points. First, the man Jesus from the moment of conception was personal by virtue of the union of the human nature in the person of the divine Son. At no point were there two persons or two centers of self-consciousness, as the Nestorians wrongly affirmed. That is why in our Lord Jesus Christ we come face-to-face with God. We meet him, not subsumed under human flesh, not merely associated with it, but in undiminished moral splendor. The deity and humanity coincide, not because the human has grown into the divine, but because the divine Son has taken to himself a human nature for our salvation. He is the divine Son who subsists in two natures, who has lived his life for us as our representative head, died our death as our substitute, and been raised for our eternal salvation. This is why the Lord Jesus is utterly unique and without parallel and thus the only Lord and Savior. Second, since in the incarnation the eternal Son took to himself a human nature, he can now live a fully human life. Yet he was not totally confined to that human nature as if for a period of time the divine nature was divested of its attributes or function. That is why Scripture affirms that even as the incarnate One, the divine Son continued to uphold and sustain the universe (Col 1:15-17; Heb 1:1-3) even while he lived out his life on earth as a man dependent upon the Father and empowered by the Spirit (Jn 5:19-27; Ac 10:38).

Our affirmation of the biblical Jesus is beyond our full comprehension, but it is only in such a Jesus that we have One who can meet our every need. Apart from him as God the Son incarnate, we do not have a Redeemer who can stand on our behalf as a man, let alone satisfy God’s own righteous demand upon us due to our sin. After all, it is only God who can save us. By becoming one with us, our Lord not only becomes our sympathetic Savior, he also accomplishes a work that saves us fully, completely, and finally.