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Pastor's Blog November 28, 2019

• "Harmony of the Incarnate God"

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During the last month of 2019, I want us to spend some time looking at questions about the incarnation of Jesus Christ that will build our faith. 

The first question people sometimes ask me is, "Wasn't it out of harmony with who God is for God to become a human being?"  The logic goes that, since God is Spirit and humans are sinful (or at least flesh, made of matter), it would be inappropriate for God to become a human.  But Romans 8:3 says something very insightful in answer to this question: " For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh " (NKJV). 

Paul is talking about several theological issues in this verse, among them the incarnation.  This passage matter-of-factly states that God (referring to the Father) sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to condemn sin in his own (that is, Jesus') flesh. 

There is nothing in Romans 8:3 to indicate that God found the incarnation repugnant or weird or strange, as if God becoming a man was the exact opposite of God still being God.  According to Romans 8:3, the incarnation was something entirely appropriate for God to do in order to save sinful humans.  In fact, the very way in which Romans 8:3 describes God sending his Son strongly suggests that God acts more like God when he becomes incarnate as a human being, than if he were to stay far away from his fallen, sinful creatures! 

Philippians 2:6-7 makes the same point when it stresses that Jesus existed in the form of God and was always equal with God, and did not stop being any of those things when he also emptied himself, took the form of a slave, and gave himself a human existence as a man in the incarnation. 

There is nothing in Philippians 2 that makes it sound like Paul and other early Christians believed it was inappropriate or even idiotic for God to become incarnate as the God-man Jesus Christ. 

We have a God who does not despise our humanity, but took it upon himself so he could save us and bring us to himself.  Let us praise God for who he has shown himself to be: merciful, loving, and entirely appropriate as God incarnate!