The Incarnation – a History

Philippians 2:6-8 (ESV)
⁶, [Jesus], though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus is both God and man.  We call this doctrine the Incarnation and it has been argued since the first century.  Early converts wanted to understand how all this works.  Back then, there were and still are lots of different ideas about it.

Gnosticism, a false belief rampant in the first few centuries of the church, held that God is Spirit, that spirit is good, but material things like humans are bad/evil.  So, if Jesus was God, He could not have a physical body or He would have been evil.  Jesus couldn’t die on the cross since He was not physical in the first place.  This belief can be traced back before Christ to the Greeks who’s religious views taught matter was evil but spirit was good.

Ebionism (Judaizers), another false belief, was also very familiar to the early church.  Paul describes the Judaizers in Galatians 2:4,12.  One of their beliefs was that Jesus was just a man who died a horrible death.  He was not God, just a great teacher.  Sound familiar?  We still hear this today.  The problem is one would need to reject the New Testament and much of the Old to justify this.  That makes it a little awkward in Christian circles to say the least.

Some believe Jesus was just a physical body and the spirit of the Son indwelled it as a driver indwells an automobile.  The body was nothing but a vehicle for God’s Spirit to use for 33 years then leave as it was about to be nailed to the cross.  These folks usually divide the Christ or Son from Jesus.  They believe Jesus died on the cross but the Christ, the Son, did not.  The consequence would be God did not pay the sacrifice, a senseless body did.

Still others believed Jesus was a great man and either at His baptism or at His crucifixion He received the divine Christ spirit and became God’s Son.  This is called Adoptionism.  The Man Jesus became divine as a reward for His good life.  He then died,rose, and was brought into heaven as God’s divine Son.

The Arians, heretics who arose in the third century, believed Jesus was not really God but God’s greatest creation, a sort of lieutenant god. Since God couldn’t be involved with matter, He used Jesus to create the material universe.  This solved the problem posed by the Greeks and their belief that God could not relate to anything physical.   

So, there are lots of odd ideas out there.  Most of these views appear fairly early in the history of the church.  The current evangelical/orthodox view was always understood but settled upon officially by the end of the fourth century when the church came together to denounce these false teachings and even cursed some who supported them.

The biblical view of the incarnation is that Jesus is wholly divine and wholly human.  Josh McDowell put it this way, “Jesus is divine as if He were never human and as human as if He were never divine.” Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, God the Son, second Person of the trinity, emptied Himself (of the use of His divine attributes) and took on human form.  He became obedient to the Father to the point of death on the cross.

Some would ask, “How could He be both human and God?  Isn’t that contradictory?”  We’re talking about natures here.  One can have more than one nature.  Just as a blue ball can have a round nature and a blue one at the same time, Jesus can be God and man at the same time.

Why is this important?  God the Son has a human nature.  He has been tempted just as we have:

Hebrews 2:18 (ESV)
¹⁸  For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

As a human, He was tempted and faced the trials and tribulations every man has and then some.  There are other benefits for us, though.  He now has been in both worlds, that of God and that of man, so he can mediate for us.

1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV)
⁵  For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

There is much more to the incarnation than just an interesting Christian doctrine.  It reaches right down to the foundation of our salvation and our relationship with God.

Hebrews 12:2 (ESV)
²  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We are that joy.