Glory of Incarnation

Throughout church history and the development of biblical theology, the doctrine of the Incarnation has been one of the most difficult to explain. One contemporary pastor and theologian calls the Incarnation of the Son of God as “the greatest miracle to happen in history as described in the Scriptures”. Throughout church history, many have tried to explain how Christ could simultaneously be God—omnipotent (all-powerful), omnipresent (present everywhere at all times), and omniscient (all-knowing) —and yet also be a man who is limited in knowledge, power, and space. As a result, several theological views have been developed.

One view is that Christ could not possess all the divine attributes and be a real man, because if He did, then the sufferings would not be genuine. Since there is nothing hard for God, redemption would not have been hard and therefore, He must have left some of His attributes in heaven. A second view understood that this is why and how Christ endured everything—because He was an all-powerful God. However, both views contradict many Scriptural texts.

In one case, the Bible very clearly says that God, in His divine nature does not change and cannot be divided in Himself. In the second case, Scripture states that He is able to have compassion towards us because His hardships and sufferings were just like ours when He experienced hunger, sickness, cold, pain, and so on.

So how can we explain the two natures of Christ—true humanity, and undiminished deity? This is my favorite topic in Christology.  

Those who propose the theological view that Jesus must have left some of His attributes in heaven prior to the Incarnation, they often use Philippians 2:7 (emptied himself). However, this verse doesn’t say that He subtracted something from Himself, but rather that He emptied himself by adding to Himself (human nature).
 
Luke 4:1-13 describes the temptation of Jesus, and one of the temptations was to create bread. Why was it sinful to create bread and eat? Because in John 5:30, Jesus says that He can do nothing on His own initiative but only does the will of His Father. Satan was tempting Jesus to use His divine nature to create bread on His own initiative. If He would’ve done that, He wouldn’t have been like us.

As a result, a question that many people ask is, “Could Jesus have sinned?” After all, if He couldn't sin, then He wasn't a real human being like us. This is a very important question in regard to the real humanity of Jesus, and biblical theology.

Let me use this illustration to explain this challenging question. Diana Nyad in 2013 hit a world record in swimming—she swam 110 miles for 53 hours from Cuba to Key West, Florida. She made multiple attempts before, failed, and then finally succeeded in 2013. She was accompanied by her team in multiple boats, with many professional swimmers, a rescue team, and some TV reporters. Could she have drowned in the ocean? Could she have lost her strength and started drowning? Yes, for sure! Would her team allow this to happen? Of course not. They would rescue her immediately. But she did not drown and swam on her own.

Why am I am using this story? Could Jesus have sinned in his body? Yes. Would His divine nature allow this to happen? Never!

But look at this carefully. This is the glory of incarnation— He did it without using His divine nature! He did on His own, in His human nature only! That’s why His hunger, thirst, tiredness, pain, and sufferings were completely real like ours.

But see something more glorious! With us, in most cases, we will not endure cold, heat, thirst, hunger, pain, and suffering when they can be avoided! Most of the time we endure them because we have no other choice! But when Jesus endured all of those things, He always had a choice to resolve everything in His divine omnipotence and all-powerful nature. When Jesus was crucified by the Roman solders, He was fully God, who was upholding the universe by His power, and sustaining the life of all people; He was sustaining the life of those soldiers who were nailing Him to the cross.

Jesus was hanging on the cross between two criminals. Those criminals had no choice but to die as their lungs and heart collapsed due to the loss of blood. But Jesus could’ve sustained the life in His body even without any blood, but He didn’t use that power that was available to Him. That’s why God received the most glory in the death of Jesus on the cross, because He is the only person in all of human history who died completely willingly! This is the glory of Incarnation!

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Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
Isaiah 7:14