At Christmas, Christians celebrate the coming of God in human flesh. This act of assuming a human body and nature is called the “Incarnation.” When Jesus was conceived and born, it was not the beginning of His life, but simply a change of location. The pre-existent, eternal Son of God became the temporal Son of Man (John 1:14).
The Incarnation was foretold in Isaiah 9:6, where its says, “Unto us a child is born,” whose name shall be “the Mighty God.” Here the humanity and deity of the Messiah are predicted. In Isaiah 7:14, we find that “the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” “Immanuel” means “God with us.”
Jesus was born as a baby to a human mother–without human father–and went through the normal human growth process of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood (Luke 2:52). He experienced the full range of human experiences, such as compassion (Matthew 9:36), surprise (Matthew 8:10), prayer (Matthew 14:23), agony (Luke 22:44), thirst (John 19:28), sleep (Matthew 8:24), and death (John 19:30).
Jesus also claimed the attributes of God. He declared His ability to forgive sins, His unity with the Father in Heaven (John 10:30), and His eternality (John 8:58), and His authority (Matthew 28:19). Further, He raised the dead and imparts life.
Completely God and perfectly human, Jesus joined two distinct natures in one person forever.
God sent His Son as a man to reveal God to us (John 14:7-11). He was an example for our lives (1 Peter 2:21). Being human, Jesus was able to be an effective sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 10:1-11). He, as a human descendant of David, laid claim to the throne of David forever (Luke 1:31-33). The works of Satan would fall to Jesus’ conquering power (1 John 3:8). Jesus became flesh to be our sympathetic high priest (Hebrews 4:14-16), and to be able to rightly judge human beings (John 5:22).
No mere man or even a good teacher could possibly do the things that the New Testament says that Jesus did and will do. No mere man could take away our sin and make us presentable to God in righteousness. No mere man could rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven. It will be no mere man that will come again to receive His people unto Himself and judge the living and the dead. Do you worship only the Babe in the manger, or do you also honor Him who was crucified and raised from the dead?
November/December 2000