Project 119: Heaven and Nature Sing | Philippians 2:5-11
| Project 119 | Joel Burks
Reading for Thursday, December 17: Philippians 2:5-11
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Savior holy.
-"Once in Royal David's City"
Incarnation. This word is used very often this time of year as we talk about the birth of our Lord and Savior. It is a word, if I’m being honest, that I do not often give enough weight to—it is so easy during this season to be caught unaware of what was actually happening when the Son took on flesh in the form of Jesus.
What does incarnation really mean though? Was Jesus just a human body where God’s mind and Spirit dwelt? Or was He something more? The understanding of incarnation really comes when we begin to more fully understand the Trinity. In Trinitarian theory, God is one being with three distinct persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Matt Perman says that, “the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Holy Spirit or the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son. They are each a distinct center of consciousness, a distinct form of personal existence” (Matt Perman, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity). On the same token, the divinity is not divided amongst the three; rather, they are each fully God. Understanding how this relates to the incarnation, we must answer the question of who it was that became incarnate in the form of Jesus. John 1:14 answers this question by telling us that “the Word (God the Son) became flesh, and dwelt among us.”
This is what we celebrate at Christmas: God the Son taking on flesh and becoming fully God and fully man. What does it mean that God became fully man though? It certainly doesn’t mean that the person of Jesus stopped being God. When talking about the incarnation it might even benefit us to say 100% God and 100% man. J.I. Packer puts it like this: “Remaining what He was, He became what He was not … [Christ] was not now God minus some elements of His deity, but God plus all that He had made His own by taking manhood to Himself” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 53). God the Son did not become “like” man, He became totally human. This means that He was susceptible to all of the emotions and troubles that come along with being on this earth. We know from Scripture that Jesus experienced weariness (John 4:6), thirst (John 19:28), and hunger (Matthew 4:2). He also felt a full range of human emotions such as joy (Matthew 8:10) and sorrow (John 11:35).
I know that Christmas time can be a heavy season full of so many emotions for each of us. Whether this time brings you joy, or sorrow, I encourage you to praise God the Father for sending His only Son to this earth to take on flesh. This reality can give us fuel for worship, for He put on flesh, in the words of the Nicene Creed, “for us, and for our salvation.” Amen.