The Incarnation

The Absurdity and Necessity of the Incarnation

I'm going to go ahead and get started. I have some stuff I want to get covered before we run out of time. I'm going to go ahead and start. We will be starting a new book next week. I technically could have started it today, but after I saw the way the Sundays were going to be falling for Sunday school and things like that, I thought, well, how many opportunities do you get to prepare a lesson for Christmas Sunday?

I decided I would postpone starting our next book for one more week and do something more topical for today, something a little bit more festive, if you will, if I could put it in those terms. What I'd like to cover today is obviously a part of the whole reason for celebrating.

The funny thing about this time of year, you can celebrate and discuss and celebrate the fact, the reality of the birth of Jesus without necessarily having Christmas as we know it. And that's kind of the key word or phrase there as we know it.

Obviously, when you understand the true meaning of Christmas, then that kind of changes things a little bit. But as the world does it, as the world celebrates it, you can give or take all of that and still have the miracle, the virgin birth and what that meant to all of us.

But what you can't have is you cannot have Christmas without the birth. You can't have Christmas without the incarnation. And that specifically is going to be what our topic is today. We're going to take a very abbreviated look at this wonderful reality and some of the implications that it carries, though we would need far more time to get into all of the details that it carries with it.

But the incarnation, that's what we're going to be talking about today and covering a few things related to it. We're going to start in a spot that makes sense, a pretty obvious place. And that is John chapter one, verse 14.

I'm just going to read this verse to kind of kick us off. And then we'll be going to a few other places as we move through this. So John chapter one, verse 14 says, of course, this is 14 verses into the most marvelous prologue I think probably ever written.

The first 17, 18 verses of John. Obviously, starting with one, one in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And it goes from there. It's just absolutely magnificent.

You get to verse 14, though, and we have the key, the key verse, the key passage for this idea, this reality that is and that was the incarnation. And it says in verse 14, and the word Jesus was made flesh and he dwelt among us and we beheld his glory.

And the glory is of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. And this right here is kind of where it's at as far as one of the foundational truths of our Christian faith. So what I want to do is this morning, take the opportunity to talk a little bit about this particular aspect.

Now, the funny thing about it is, and I was listening to some discussions recently on this topic, and it's funny because it's very true. But can you possibly think of just about anything absurd than that particular claim that we make as a part of our faith?

That being that the creator of the universe entered into his own creation. Now, when I say absurd, of course, I'm talking strictly from the viewpoint of the world. Let me see what you guys think about that as we talk through this and whether or not you agree.

If there's any other assertion that we could make kind of in being foundational truths that make up the Christian faith, are there any there that sound more absurd than the claim that, again, the creator of this vast universe.

You know, I think at the moment it's estimated that there's roughly 150 billion galaxies out there, and we're finding more every year, it seems. And within every one of those galaxies, you have approximately 150 billion stars within each of those.

Just innumerable vast numbers of celestial bodies out there, the vastness of the universe, totally incomprehensible to the human mind. And here we are, we sit here this time of year, and we claim that the one who created all of that, not only entered into it, but he entered into it living a life of kind of general obscurity in a place with little significance within the Roman Empire at that point in history.

He never wrote any books while he was alive on Earth. Again, I'm speaking from the viewpoint of the world looking in. We know, obviously, being the Word, he wrote the ultimate book. But literally taking pen to paper during his earthly ministry while he was alive and walking on the Earth, he didn't write any books, which according to just about anyone in academia these days, if you haven't done that, then who are you to talk or give your opinion on anything?

That is the way we claim that that is the way in which the creator of this universe entered in. That the actual the God, not a God, not a derivative of God, but God himself actually entered in human flesh.

Nothing could sound crazier to the naturalistic mind, to the materialist, to the secularist. The secularist may even bite to some degree when they are kind of surveying the historical aspect of the gospel narratives and what we find in the Bible.

They may bite to some degree. They may grant us that Jesus was, in fact, a very significant figure in history. They may even say that he changed the world for the better. They may even go as far as to say it could be plausible that he was such a significant figure, he may have even been sent by God himself, a great prophet.

But there's no way that they're going to grant any wiggle room in regard to coming out and agreeing that the creator, that God himself, again, not just a great prophet, not just another deity, but God himself came to our tiny speck of a planet in one of the nondescript galaxies among 150 billion others with nothing more than just an average star within its system.

And yet in doing so, he impacted not only the earth, not only the solar system, but the entire universe that encompasses all of those billions of galaxies and innumerable stars within it. And as a baby, no less.

It would be one thing if he entered in some glorified kind of way, but as a baby in swaddling clothes, again, that is just taking it too far. It doesn't make any sense. It's, again, probably arguably the most absurd claim that a Christian could make as a foundational truth for their faith from the viewpoint of the secularists of the world, of the materialist mind.

And yet when we obey and we go out and we start proclaiming the incarnate son and the fact that he is the one God in the flesh that died, rose again. And when we do that, we do it the way that God tells us to do it.

We can see just how potent it really is. We can actually see lives being transformed and lives being saved from, as Brother Rocky put it, every lesser Lord. And so it may seem totally absurd from the viewpoint of the world, but the impact that proclaiming that message makes is unparalleled.

And we know that. We know that from not only our own personal experiences, but from history, from church history, as well as the biblical stories throughout the New Testament as well. Now, again, throughout church history, there may not be any other truth that's been more attacked to such a degree as the incarnation, at least as it's biblically defined.

There are a few other definitions of it that are heretical. In fact, Dad was kind of teasing a few of those just last week, talking about the protognostics that Paul was up against at the time he was writing Colossians.

But as it's biblically defined, there's most likely not any other truth that has been attacked more throughout church history than the incarnation. No other doctrine most likely has any more misinterpretations or, again, heresies attached to it than, well, the Trinity and by extension of that, the deity of Christ.

Of course, all of that hinges upon the incarnation, that being God with us. And so that is attacked and has been attacked for 2 ,000 years. And it makes total sense because, again, our very faith hinges upon it.

And it was one of the greatest revelations that God has ever provided his people. It was when he did this, it was when he took on flesh and entered into his own creation. Now, with the incarnation, what exactly did happen?

Because if it's been misinterpreted, if it's been misdefined, if there's all these heresies that surround it, you know, how do you start kind of looking at it? And how do you start biblically defining it?

Well, just to kind of get it started, again, not that we have nearly enough time to go all in, but essentially what we have is we have the second person of the Trinity, which was something that would have been very difficult for the Old Testament mind to understand if it was even possible.

Now, I realize that with the New Testament revelation that we have, we can look at the Old Testament and we can see countless references to what we now understand to be the Trinity. But, I mean, Dad and I have talked about this a couple of times as well.

You think about the creation story and the phraseology that Moses used in creating man in our image. How does that work? How could it be in the plural if in Deuteronomy Moses is saying the God of Israel is one God?

And so you had the very dedicated monotheism of the Old Testament. But then you get to the New Testament and we see that the reality of the Godhead is a single God. But, you know, as we put it, subsisting in three persons, three distinct persons that are operating in time with us in different ways, and that it's possible for them to operate in time with us in different ways because of the Trinity.

So the incarnation, it's the second person of that Trinity, the eternal Word of God in John 1 that we just looked at a couple of minutes ago, taking on human flesh, as it said in John 1 .14, and a human nature in such a way as to retain his divine nature simultaneously.

He takes on human nature. If you go look at some of the books back in Brother Rocky's library back there and in Dad's library at home, it's what theologians refer to as the hypostatic union, which means that there is a singular person.

It's Jesus of Nazareth. But within this one person, there are two complete natures, a complete human nature, a complete nature of deity. And you've got to be careful to some degree. You don't necessarily want to put it in terms of percentages.

It's not like he's 100 human, 100 God, because if you put it in those terms and you start giving percentages here and there and quantities then or you start trying to quantify in our terms, then, you know, there may be some misstepping, even if it's not intended.

But he was, in fact, fully man, fully God at the same time. It's not like God was putting on a man suit and you see a man on the outside and on the inside. It's fully both simultaneously. He's fully God.

He's fully man at the same time. Now, sometimes you'll hear arguments from Unitarians, Muslims, Muslim apologists and Mormons, perhaps. They're not really Unitarian, but Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, things of that sort.

They may make arguments such as, well, God, you know, couldn't have taken on the fullness of human nature because being anything that is not God is by definition imperfect, which is a really interesting argument, especially given a little bit of what, again, we're getting into in the history of Colossians with the beginning of the Gnostic movement.

The idea of kind of this dualistic viewpoint, worldview, spiritual is good, physical is evil. No exceptions. That kind of thing. All of these ideas, all these types of arguments will stem from those types of heretical ideas.

But if you think about it, you think about that argument. What are they doing? They are assuming, number one, that God is like us in order to make a claim such as, well, God could not have entered into the flesh completely.

He could not have taken on human flesh and human nature completely because anything that's not God is by definition imperfect. Well, that is built upon the assumption that God is like us, that he does things like us, which, of course, is very presumptuous, as we all know.

But it assumes that God couldn't create a perfect human nature, which would be a very bold claim to say that it is without, that God is outside of the bounds of being able to create a perfect human nature.

Of course, he could do that, and he did do that, because that is what he did in the person of Jesus Christ when the Incarnation took place. Now, what makes some people stumble on this whole idea is how we perceive the nature of being human.

And you can kind of, if you're thinking about it just from a purely philosophical viewpoint, you can see why all these heresies came to be in the first place, because we think of ourselves. We think of how bad we are, how we war with our flesh constantly, and we think, how could Jesus, how could God have taken on flesh the way that we know it?

And you start there, and you can go down a long line of perfect logic that gets you to a very dangerous place. One starting point is to understand that, well, number one, forget the assumption that God couldn't create a perfect human nature.

So reverse that and start on that assumption. God absolutely could create a perfect human nature. But another thing to consider is the idea that being a finite being, having finite properties as a human, finitude, is not necessarily equal to sin.

Sin, if you think about the fact that God created Adam sinless, that he had no sin in him at the moment of creation, yet Adam was still a finite being at that particular moment as well. Relative to God, to his Creator, the fact that Adam was finite in certain aspects wasn't the necessary ingredient for the sin that would later come into play.

The sin aspect is a moral issue. It's a moral problem. We often blame our sin on the fact that we are humans. Well, that sounds great at the surface level until you realize, at what point are we going to stop being humans?

Because Paul tells us in Philippians that when Jesus is coming back in the clouds, that the saints that are currently with him will be reunited with their bodies. They will be glorified, but they will still be human.

Humanity will continue into the Millennial Kingdom, and there's no reason to believe humanity won't continue well into age beyond that for who knows how long. And so, again, you can't necessarily attach the sin to the humanity because it's not the humanity that causes the sin per se.

It's, again, a moral issue that began in the Garden of Eden that goes a little bit beyond just nature in and of itself. It's not necessarily connected to our humanity as God designed it, as he created Adam in the Garden.

Now, we can start to understand that God, who obviously is an infinite being, made himself, the second person of the Trinity, made himself for a time, and that's kind of the key phrase there, for our sakes, in order to accomplish things that had to be accomplished in a human body.

Why? Well, it's because of the sin that did take place in the Garden, sin that had to be paid for. It had to be paid for by the human race because that is, from the human viewpoint, who initiated the fall and who brought sin into what otherwise was God's perfect creation and diluted the human race through that sin.

And so, when Jesus entered into flesh, for a particular time, for our sakes, he took on a finite human body in certain regards, which we'll dig into here in just a second. And, again, if you start with the assumption that he can, in fact, create a perfect human nature and a perfect human body, which he did, you can start to grasp that a little bit.

Now, I'm not going to come out and say that if something is truly unique, such as Jesus, such as the Trinity, the Godhead, if something is truly unique, which they are, I think we'd all agree they are, by definition, there's nothing that compares to those things.

If they're truly unique, you can't compare anything else to them. So it's really hard for us to put these realities, these truths in our language sometimes. But you can start to understand it to some degree, as much as we can, when you think about it in these terms and start to break it down a little bit.

If you assume that he can, in fact, create a perfect human nature and body, then you can gather that, yes, he, being an infinite being, can enter into that space and time, human body and human flesh, to accomplish certain things, which is what we're going to be looking at momentarily as well.

Now, another aspect, just to kind of tease the idea a little bit of the necessity of the Incarnation, why he had to take on a finite human being for a time for our sakes, is he had to. He had to be fully human.

He had to have a fully human body so that he could be tempted in all categories, which he was, so that he could live a perfect life, so that he was able to bleed and die and present the perfect sacrifice for our sins that was needed because of the sin.

The propitiation could not have happened had Jesus not entered into flesh and taken on this human body that was limited to some degree in space and time during his earthly ministry so that he could be that perfect sacrifice, totally fulfill the laws of Moses, and totally fulfill all of the prophecies that were put forth throughout the Old Testament so that we didn't have to because we couldn't.

Go to Philippians 2 for a second. This will be one of the main passages we look at, although we have a few that we need to cover, and I need to pick up the pace to some degree if we're going to get through this material.

Philippians 2, we'll go ahead and start in verse 5, and we're going to take a look at exactly what exactly did Jesus do to get to the point as we just described, to accomplish the things that we just described.

How could he do that? How could an infinite being do that exactly? The Apostle Paul clears it up for us in Philippians 2, starting in verse 5.

It says,.

Who being in the form of God, and this is very important, every detail here is extremely important. Who being in the form of God, there is a testament to Jesus' innate deity right there, not a derivative of God, but God himself being in the form of God, fought it not robbery to be equal with God.

If you want to use logic for a second, you can't be anything less than God, in other words, a derivative deity, and yet be equal with God simultaneously. And this is, of course, one of the biggest issues with Jehovah's Witnesses, with Mormons, with any Unitarian sect.

It always assumes Unitarianism that there can only be one God. There can only be one being of God, and yet when Paul here says it's not robbery for Jesus to be equal with God, that is only possible if you share the same essence, if you share the same divine nature and the same deity.

And Paul tells us clearly that that is exactly how Jesus viewed himself. He thought robbery to be equal with God. In verse 7, which is such a significant verse,. "...but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in likeness of men.".

Now notice the similarities in wording here that Paul uses. In verse 6 he says being in the form of God, and then in verse 7 he says he made himself of no reputation, took on the form of a servant. Again, we have a testament here both to his deity as well as to the fullness of his human nature, which was absolutely necessary in order to make the perfect sacrifice he would make at the end of his life.

But he made himself of no reputation. And then verse 8,. "...and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death on the cross.". Now, this particular passage is not only one of the most significant in the entire Bible, but it's also a very abused passage in the usage of, again, notable heresies that involve Jesus' incarnation.

Because the literal translation of that phrase, made himself of no reputation, the word, the Greek word used there, means to empty. To empty oneself. And so, you know, if you take a microscope and you zoom in on that singular word, and you look at that...

Even for people who did believe that Jesus at one point was the eternal Son, they'll look at this and they'll say,.

You see, he emptied himself.

He emptied himself of his divinity. That he emptied himself of his divine nature, and he did so in full. So you can see how if you're taking just singular words or singular verses totally out of context, there's a whole new set of heresies over here that now arise because people will use this as a proof text that Jesus was not fully God at the same time he was fully man.

And so on and so forth. It's an abused passage, which is devastating, but that's how the devil works, of course. We can understand this in a very plain biblical sense by simply acknowledging what exactly happened in verse 7.

What did happen in verse 7 was done of himself. This was something that was not some outside force. It was done to Jesus, but rather it was completely voluntary. It was a completely voluntary action. Something that Christ did himself to himself.

So that's the first key when you get to 7 there is, okay, he emptied himself. That's the literal language that the apostle Paul used. What could he have meant by that? Well, the first key is to note that this was a completely voluntary action.

In addition to that, though,.

It's very important to note Paul's usage of this particular Greek term. It's the Greek word keneo. Again, it literally means to empty. Anytime Paul uses this particular Greek phrase, Greek word, it's always used in a metaphorical sense, which, of course, is exactly what's happening here as well.

I'll explain in more detail in a second. Let me turn to a quick passage. I think it's 1 Corinthians 1 .17. I wanted to give you one other example of Paul using this word.

He says,.

That's the exact same Greek word. And you have to ask, okay, is Paul saying that the cross of Christ is literally being emptied? versus the gospel that I preach? Well, obviously, that's not the case. He's using the term metaphorically to explain, look, if you do not accept and hear my gospel, the cross of Christ means nothing to you.

And that is true to them as an individual person. But does that mean that the effects wholesale of the cross were empty because of their lack of faith? And there's other examples as well. Romans 4 .14, he uses keneo there in a metaphorical sense.

Now, I love what the KJV translators did in this particular passage. They did an unbelievable job because, you know, what Paul is not saying clearly is that Jesus at any point ceased to be God. He did not cease to be or stopped being equal with God in any way either.

But rather, what he did was he voluntarily laid aside some of his unique privileges as the second person of the Trinity that were his from eternity past all the way to this point. The way the KJV translated it is beautiful.

He made himself of no reputation. They didn't choose the literal translation, but it's because they were using the context to determine the translation. He made himself of no reputation. He laid aside some of his very unique privileges that he had.

For example... With the sole exception of the Mount of Transfiguration, which, of course, was witnessed by a very small group of people. What was it, Peter and John? Was James there too, I think?

Three of his disciples.

With the sole exception of the Mount of Transfiguration, the rest of the world only saw the form that he took in obedience and service that Paul is talking about in Philippians here, that being the form of a humble servant.

That's all that the world saw.

They didn't get to witness the glory that those three apostles did at the Mount of Transfiguration. Why? Because Jesus veiled his glory during his earthly ministry. That same unattractive person that Isaiah described centuries earlier in Isaiah 53, that was the person that the world saw.

And so, that in and of itself, as you can imagine, was Jesus laying aside quite a few of his privileges because he had to endure that in his humanity. He had to endure the humble aspect of his humanity that he took on voluntarily throughout his entire life.

And so, that's what Paul is talking about in Philippians 2 -7. He made himself of no reputation. But notice one last thing in our Philippians passage here before we move on. Just as Jesus first had the form of God and eternity passed again, and we already kind of looked at this, he later took the form of a slave in the Incarnation.

And he did that just for us. He did that so that he could accomplish what needed to be accomplished on our behalf.

He humbled himself.

He voluntarily made himself of no reputation so that he could then make possible what we're about to read next. So, that was kind of the introduction that took more than half our time. But let's turn to Isaiah 9 for a second and start looking at some of these passages that, of course, are so beautiful and applicable not only to this topic, but at this time of year as well.

And we're going to start in Isaiah 9, although we still have a couple of places to go. I'm going to be really pushing the time here.

It says,.

Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan and Galilee, and of the nations.

And the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy.

They joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. For thou hast spoken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, is in the day of Midian.

For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be the burning and the fuel of fire. This is the context leading up to what we're about to read, which you see on every Christmas card in every home throughout the year.

For unto us a child is born. Now, I'm going to stop there for just a minute. The context leading up to that verse is very, very interesting. I'm going to stop early at this verse for a reason. I want us to first kind of hone in on, let's just say, the humanness of Jesus for a second, because remember, he has two complete natures.

I believe I can say this biblically, in that one does not supersede the other.

Again, it was by necessity.

In other words, he was God completely, but he was man completely as well. So let's hone in on that for just a second, because I believe that this verse in the Old Testament,.

This prophecy, speaks to it.

The fact that he was, well, in fact, born into this world, physically born, as was ordained, I'm sorry, as was the ordained mode of the Incarnation. We see this here in the first phrase of Isaiah 9 -6.

Again, we talk about the Incarnation. That's one thing. Another aspect of it is the way in which it was ordained, and that being that he would be born as a child. Not, I mean, you could whip up some crazy idea of the Incarnation being, you know, what you would think of a God taking on flesh would be just an epic, cataclysmic event of deity entering into the atmosphere and this resplendent light of everyone just like, what is happening?

That's how the human mind would work up some idea of the Incarnation.

But rather, prophesied some 700 years.

Before it actually happened, we are told the mode, the ordained mode in which the Incarnation will take place was, unto us, a child is born. What's fascinating about that opening phrase is that it seems to be highlighting a very specific thing.

The Hebrew words that are being used here, when it said, the Hebrew words behind our text that says, unto us, a child is born, they are the exact words that you would expect to see in any other Old Testament passage that's dealing with natural, physical birth of any other human baby.

In other words, it's the Hebrew language that would be used to describe the natural process of birth anywhere else in the Old Testament, anywhere else where the Hebrew is being used. So that's interesting to note.

So remember what we discussed a few minutes ago kind of in our introduction regarding Jesus' two natures. He was fully God and fully man. The first phrase of Isaiah 9 -6 here, I believe, is a direct reference to the fullness of his human nature.

The reality that he was, in fact, fully human as a result of his Incarnation. The reality of his natural birth into this world is a great testament to that fullness of his humanity. Of course, Isaiah 9 -6 is just one of the quintessential, quote-unquote, Christmas verses.

And we are going to return back to Isaiah 9 -6.

Here in just a minute.

Because we haven't finished the verse yet. But first, I want you guys to go back a couple of chapters to Isaiah chapter 7. And let's look at one other descriptive passage describing the beginning of the Incarnation.

Of course, that being the birth of Jesus. Isaiah chapter 7, let's start at verse 10. And here we will see one of the names of Jesus that is so wonderful and, of course, applicable to this study being used here.

It says, Isaiah 7 -10, And moreover, the Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God. Ask it either in the depth or in the height above.

But Ahaz said, I will not ask,.

Neither will I tempt the Lord. And he said, Hear you now, O house of David. Is it a small thing for you to wear in men? But will you weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land that thou have forest shall be forsaken of both her kings.

Again, the context around this verse that we see on just about any Christmas card is completely different than what our minds may think of when we consider the use of the name Immanuel for the first time.

If you were ever given the opportunity as a person to kind of plan out the incarnation of the creator of the universe, yourself, never in the wildest dreams of any person, any mere mortal, would they plan it this way.

What does he say? He says, I'm going to give you a sign. And the sign is going to be the incarnation. But then he goes on to describe the incarnation as a baby being born of a virgin, which of course that is miraculous.

We'll get back to that in a second. But, a baby, nonetheless, and like I said a second ago, it's not how we would plan it, but that's exactly how he would plan it. Or how he did plan it, sorry. Now unfortunately, we normally only quote one little bitty section of that amazing passage, leaving out the context that we just read regarding King Ahas.

Interestingly, and this is very important, I want you guys to pay attention to this because the liberal scholars out there will attack this particular passage and say that it's actually not messianic at all.

And you say, how on earth do they get that? Well, again, interestingly, a lot of people will argue against this being messianic by saying something along the lines of, well this has nothing to do with Jesus because it's talking about a boy that will be born roughly nine months into the future of King Ahas by a young girl, not necessarily a true virgin.

And that the kings that Ahas dreads will no longer be a threat to him. If you read a little bit longer, maybe like verse 18 or something, it starts to describe a little bit more about King Ahas' concerns.

And that's the argument they'll use. And the whole thing about it not necessarily being a true virgin, but just a reference to a young girl, is because the Hebrew term, as we know, Hebrew can be a little bit more ambiguous sometimes.

And in many cases it's used just to describe more of the age of a girl, not necessarily her true virginity. And so, what do you do with that? What do you do with that argument? Well, obviously this is about King Ahas.