On the Incarnation Complete Overview

CHAPTER 1

There are three major beliefs about how the world came to be: 1) the Epicurean idea that things just came into being on their own. This cannot be the case because if all things simultaneously appeared, it would be haphazard, and all things would be the same—there would be only a bunch of stars or only a bunch of hands, not different types of things and species with different body parts; 2) the Platonists claim that a Creator used pre-existing unformed substance to make everything. This cannot be because the Creator wouldn't really have created anything if all the substance was already made. If he were using pre-existent material, he would simply be reusing it, so he would be a limited Creator; 3) there is the idea of the Gnostics that someone other than God created things. This cannot be true because Jesus said that his father created the world and that he sustains it; 4) finally, there is the Orthodox idea: God created the world through his Word. God created humans in his image to have an incorruptible nature in the place that he made for them and in the way that he made for them—that is, in Paradise by following his commandment. However, they corrupted their nature when they decided to disobey the commandment and changed their nature to not only be mortal again, but also corrupted.

CHAPTER 2

So how did God respond to humanity's evil? If God had allowed them to just die and left them alone to their own corruptible nature, that would have been worse than him not creating them in the first place. If they had merely done wrong but not corrupted their nature, then repentance could have been enough. However, since repentance does not change their corrupt nature, it can only reconcile a wrong and not a wholly corrupted nature. Only the Word by which all people and things were made could restore all things—he not only took on human nature to make it more like God again (immortal), but by dying as an incorruptible human, he exhausted corruptibility.

CHAPTER 3

It would have been worse for God to have allowed humans to corrupt themselves and not know him than to have never made them again. And, since humans turned created things into gods themselves, he continued to reveal himself to them: first through creation, then through the law, then the prophets. The Law and Israelite prophets were sent to Israel, but they were not only for Israel. But when humans still rejected all those revelations, the very Word of God itself came to reveal the Father to humans by taking on their nature and living among them. In doing this, he could help corruptible humans to turn towards God and acknowledge him. After all, the only way for humanity to be remade in God's image was by God's actual image itself, the Word coming to be the perfect human. So Jesus became human so that humans might become like God.

Another reason for his incarnation is so that he could reveal God to people who had gone astray: for people who treated great humans as gods, He did great things that only a God could do; for people who followed evil spirits, he showed himself over evil spirits by casting them out; for people who worshiped the dead, he raised them to life.

Jesus did two things by becoming human: first, he destroyed death and remade humanity; second, he revealed himself to be the Word of the Father. This is also the reason why Jesus could not simply come down and die—he first had to show himself to be the very Son of God to humanity by miracles. These are the 2 reasons the Word became flesh: 1) to destroy death and 2) to reveal God. However, even as the Word, he was not limited to a human body. While in a human body, his human actions could also be attributed to the Divine because they were done by his body, but his divine actions showed that he was God. And in fact, even while in his body, he was still present everywhere in creation, sustaining it through his omnipresence.

CHAPTER 4

Though Jesus had to die to restore creation, why did he have to die a public and humiliating death instead of dying privately, say, from sickness? If he had died from sickness, that would have proved that he had died, not from his own will but from his human nature—something that could not have happened since he is the Word of God who himself healed the sickness of others whenever he touched them. Further, in other people killing him, they played a part in bringing about their own salvation by destroying the Author of Life. Further, God was glorified by his public and shameful death. Also, by humans killing him, he also made the benefits of his death for all people, rather than just for himself, as it would have seemed if he had died in private. Since both his miracles before his death and his resurrection after his death were public, the proof of his resurrection and the end that his miracles pointed towards, his death, also needed to be public. Further, his death had to be shameful, so that his resurrection could show that others could also resurrect from even the most shameful of deaths.

CHAPTER 5

Jesus rose from the dead in 3 days so that his resurrection would not be so soon that people doubted it was a real resurrection, but not so late as to come to people who did not see him die or at a time when he was forgotten. The very fact that all Christians lose their fear of death shows that Christ truly has destroyed death's power. And since dead people cannot do anything, the fact that Christ gives power to Christians not to fear death is proof that he is alive.

CHAPTER 6

Jews have no reason to disbelieve either Jesus’ incarnation or death and resurrection. As a matter of fact, these items are explicitly prophesied throughout their scriptures, the Hebrew Bible—even as much as the detail that he would die on a cross was prophesied. Furthermore, Jesus shows himself greater than any of the patriarchs or prophets in the Bible by being born of a virgin, having heaven to witness his birth, and being born and acknowledged as a king not only by Israel but by the whole world. None of the patriarchs either died for the sins of the whole world, nor changed human nature so that they would truly worship God instead of idols. Jesus even performed healings and miracles that no other prophet in the Hebrew scriptures had performed.

And if Jews want to say that they believe that the Hebrew scriptures do teach these things about the coming Messiah, but that the Messiah has not yet come, they ought to look to Daniel who repeats all these prophecies, saying that up until then Jerusalem will stay standing and after it prophets will be sent—only after Jesus were there no more prophets and was Jerusalem destroyed, however. Therefore, Jesus must be the Word of God who fulfilled the Scriptures.

CHAPTER 7

If The gentiles don't believe in the Word of God, then they disbelieve in something they don't understand. If they do believe in the Word and that it is revealed in the universe, then how can they disbelieve that it would take on a human body, since their own philosophers say that the universe is one big body? If it makes sense for him to reveal himself in the whole universe, why not in one part of the universe—and if in one part, why not in humanity, which is a part of the world? And if he can't reveal himself in one part of the universe, then how could he reveal himself in the whole universe? And if they say that it is wrong that he revealed himself as a human because humans are created by him, then why do they have no problem with saying that he is revealed in the universe, which is no less created by him? While the Word of God is revealed in his human self, part of creation, he is simultaneously revealed through all of creation.

As to why he didn't become a more noble part of creation—say a sun or star—it’s because he came to heal and teach humans and not to show himself as dazzling and noble. It’s also because only humanity had corrupted itself and needed to be saved—not the stars. As for why the Word of God became a human to reveal himself to humanity instead of by directly revealing his will as he did in creation, it is because nothing existed then, and there was no other way to bring about that existence than by direct and explicit creation. However, with things already having been created, it made the most sense for him to use what he had already created and come to live among the corrupted to uncorrupt them. Further, because corruption was in the body, the Word had to take on a body to defeat the corruption of everyone embodied. Had he simply commanded corruption to end from outside of a body, it would end, but the corruption inherent in human bodies would continue.

CHAPTER 8

The end of idolatry worldwide is evidence of the Power of Christ. He put an end to the foolishness of the philosophers, the oracles, magicians, and demons. Jesus can't be a magician or demon, since he defeated them all.