Now we reach the question, 'Is Jesus Christ God incarnate? Is he God made man?'

The Jews were familiar with the idea, from their Scriptures, that the power of God could inspire a man to speak and act for God. The record of the Old Testament prophets was all about that. Jesus himself was described as a prophet (Mark 6: 15, Luke 7: 16, Luke 24: 19) in exactly the sense that someone like Amos, Elijah or Jeremiah had been. But what we are now asking is whether in Jesus something absolutely unique happened, much more than the description of 'prophet' could explain. Was the self-revelation of God in Jesus?

In Colossians I: 15, 19-20, Paul affirms this. He says: 'Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the first-born Son, superior to all created things.... For it was by God's decision that the Son has in himself the full nature of God. Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son's death on the cross and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.'

 

When a prophet spoke or acted for God, God used the human character of that prophet as a channel through which to communicate aspect of his own character to his people. For example, Hosea's loving and forgiving character was used by God to teach Israel something about his own love and willingness to forgive his people if they would turn back to him. A great insight of the Old Testament is that no human being can fully understand or define God and this is one of the reasons why the Old Testament absolutely rejects any attempt to make an image to represent God. The name of God revealed to Moses was 'I AM'. Through the experiences of their history and through the teachings of the prophets, aspects of God's character had been revealed to the people Israel, but no prophet could claim to have been given a full self-revelation by God of his character.

It is the Christian belief that the full self-revelation of God, to the limit that human understanding can comprehend, is given in Jesus Christ. It was many years after New Testament times that the great Councils of" the Church agreed on the very carefully worded Creeds, express this belief, but even when we have memorized, say, the Nicene Creed and thought very carefully about what it means, we are still faced with a great mystery. And how else could it be if we accept that God has come right into the human situation? We may speak of the divine nature and the human nature of Jesus Christ. In his divine nature Jesus Christ is the perfect expression of his Father's being. In his human nature, God's love for mankind is made visible. 'To have seen me is to have seen the Father' (John 14:0). Jesus is the perfect human expression of what God is like.

It is not irreverent to ask what the Incarnation means for us today because many people have no understanding of what it means. It means that God knows our human situation from the inside; there is no part of human life and experience which is outside the knowledge and concern of God. This teaches us that God is not only the great Creator, the transcendent and mighty Sustainer of the universe, but that he has infinite, loving concern for every human being. In the teaching of Jesus we read this: 'Not one sparrow is forgotten by God. Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth much more than many sparrows!' (Luke 12:6-7).

Nearly all religions have taught about a Supreme Being or a Creator God, but it is possible to believe this without seeing any significance in this belief for individual human lives. It is possible to think of a remote, unconcerned Supreme Being who leaves the human race to its own fate. The character of God as revealed to us in the Bible is the opposite of this idea. God is so concerned about human beings and their lives that, in the Person of the Son, he entered into human life and experience, to transform it. This is the meaning of the Incarnation. In the life of Jesus Christ we see the defeat of the fearful powers of evil, sin and death which every human being has to face. The New Testament teaches that these powers can be broken in every individual human life by the greater power of God's love revealed in Jesus Christ. What Paul discovered is as true for us today as it was for him nearly two thousand years ago. A new relationship with God is possible for each person so that we become the 'sons' and 'daughters' of God. Our human life has a new meaning as we discover the meaning of eternal life.