Incarnation

 
Advent… that season of the year in which we think of God taking on a human nature – God in human flesh?  For some two thousand years people have struggled to come to terms with that.

So, is the possibility of God becoming man a problem for you?  It certainly was for the earliest followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.  An example…?  A group of fishermen are out on the Lake of Galilee and a fierce storm breaks out.  Meanwhile Jesus is asleep in the boat on a pillow.  They wake Him up asking whether He doesn’t care that they are about to drown.  Jesus stands up and rebukes the wind and the waves and instantly the storm ceases.  The gospel writer records the question that then occupies those earliest followers of Messiah Jesus: Who is this man that even the wind and the waves obey Him?

Not so long ago I read of a present-day man who also had problems with God in human flesh.  He was a Muslim who had found some of the teachings of Jesus rather appealing but he balked at what we call ‘the incarnation’ –God taking on a human nature.  In His words, “I had trouble believing in a God who has to go to the toilet.”

Throughout the history of the Christian Church there have been numerous attempts to make the teaching of the incarnation more palatable to human sensitivities.  Some did that by playing down the divinity of Jesus Christ.  For them He wasn’t literally God, He was just filled with the Spirit and the presence of God to a far greater degree than anyone before Him or anyone since.  Others solved their dilemma by playing down the humanity of Christ.  His wasn’t a real human nature – He only had the appearance of a human being.

There have even been attempts to demonstrate that this is a teaching made up by the early church to validate their religious claims.  Some are quick to argue that this man Jesus never claimed to be God.  But we can only hold to that position if we believe that the Bible made things up – rather than reporting gospel truth.  There is the incident in John’s gospel where Jesus tells the religious leaders of His day that Abraham, “rejoiced that he would see my day.  He saw it and was glad.”  When those teachers of the law hear that they reply, “You are not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?”  And then we get that very telling reply of Jesus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, ‘I am!’”  So what is Jesus claiming for Himself at this point?  Nothing less than divinity..!  The reaction of the religious leaders bears that out because the apostle John tells us that the religious leaders then took up stones to kill Him.  Why did they do that?  Well, because the Mosaic Law prescribed death by stoning for those guilty of blasphemy.  The whole point of John’s gospel is to bring us to the same point as the apostle Thomas in chapter 20, that with Thomas we confess about this man Jesus, “My Lord and my God!”  Here is one who was truly and fully God but also truly and fully human.

So, does the season of advent and the story of the incarnation really make a difference in our daily life?  You bet it does.  Salvation is God’s work.  We are powerless to save ourselves.  But the One we worship as Saviour is God – so that He does indeed have the power to save us by His atoning death on Good Friday.  And it makes sense that He took on a fully human nature: man sinned… a man (the second Adam!) must pay the penalty for sin.

The book of Hebrews mentions another blessing of the incarnation as well.  Because Jesus was totally and completely human he can identify with us.  He lived our life and died our death.  Hebrews adds that He was tempted in every way you and I are tempted, yet He was without sin.  Wonderful comfort, that Jesus (in His humanity) knows all about our problems.  Without wanting to be disrespectful I would want to say to my searching Muslim friend, “Perhaps, in humbling Himself He even suffered constipation!”  What a great blessing for us to celebrate again this advent season, that Jesus totally humbled Himself in every way so that He could be our blessed Saviour and Redeemer.

John Westendorp 
2MaxFM 7/12/2025

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