On the Incarnation (Pt 2)

For part 1, click here.

This past weekend in our church service we confessed together the Apostles’ Creed. This occurred right after singing a few Christmas carols while the front of the auditorium was decorated with lights, greenery, and a few Christmas trees. While saying the creed, I thought to myself, “Is this really a ‘Christmas’ thing to do? Shouldn’t we sing Silent Night or something?”

And then we came to these important lines:

He was conceived of the Holy Spirit

Born of the virgin Mary

Suffered under Pontius Pilate

The Apostles’ Creed is most appropriate at Christmas time.

Conceived of the Holy Spirit

The Incarnation of Christ is surely a mystery. None of us will ever understand all of the mechanisms associated with the Son of God becoming a man. And yet, there are a few things that we are told about the Incarnation in Scripture. That is, the Incarnation is carried out in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 1:35 (ESV)

35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.

To make the link between the overshadowing of Mary in Luke 1, we must remember what is written in Genesis 1:

Genesis 1:2 (ESV)

2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

The conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary was not a natural thing. It was a supernatural event. It will never happen again. And yet, we are told that just as the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of Creation, preparing to bring beauty to the chaos of the waters, the Holy Spirit would hover over the womb of Mary to prepare her womb to bring forth the Son of God.

Christmas is not about a warm and fuzzy feeling. Christmas is about a divinely ordained miracle. The Holy Spirit caused the virgin Mary to conceive and bear a child, whose name is Jesus.

This is important. As Luke 1:35 tells us, this overpowering of the Holy Spirit is essential, because if the conception is not a supernatural event, then the child is just a natural child. Scripture tells us, however, that the child will be holy even from His birth.

What this means is that while Jesus has a human nature, his human nature is free from the stain of sin. The transgression of Adam comes through natural generation, namely a mother and a father. But because the Holy Spirit caused Mary to conceive, the curse of Adam has not been applied to the womb of Mary. This is not because of Mary’s sinlessness but because of the Holy Spirit’s divinity. Therefore, while Jesus has a human nature, he does not possess a human nature tainted by the stain of sin.

Great is the mystery of the Holy Child. Athanasius describes the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation in this way:

For he did not wish simply to be in a body, nor did he wish merely to appear, for if he had wished only to appear he could have made his divine manifestation through some other better means. But he takes that which is ours, and that not simply, but from a spotless and stianless virgin, ignorant of man, pure and unmixed from intercourse with men. Although being himsefl powerful and the creator of the universe, he prepared for himself in the Virgin the body as a temple and made it his own, as an intstrument, making himself known and dwelling in it.

- Athanasisus, On the Incarnation

This leads to the next line of the creed:

Born of the Virgin Mary

I think the best song about Bethlehem is Labor of Love by Andrew Peterson. If you haven’t heard the song, go listen to it. It is a wonderful way to envision the humanity of Jesus’s Incarnation.

While Jesus’s conception was immaculate, Jesus’s gestation was entirely human. My wife and I are expecting a baby girl this spring, so we are going through all the anticipated stages of a pregnancy. My wife has been unusually tired and is dealing with all of the unusual side effects of having a child. I think we like to imagine Mary swaddling the baby in Bethlehem but fail to think of Mary suffering from morning sickness somewhere in Nazareth.

The humanity of the birth of the Son of God is remarkable. Jesus does not descend on a cloud from the heavens but emerges from the womb of the virgin.

The Incarnation is an event that has its origins in the Trinity and yet meets its climax in the most human environment imaginable. The birth of the Son of God was the birth of a human being, a baby boy, born to save His people from their sins.

While Jesus was holy from birth, he was also human from birth. We understand Jesus to be one person possessing two natures, one which is divine and one which is human. So the author of Hebrews can say that Jesus was like us in every way yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). Nevertheless, there are not two saviors, but there is one, who is God and man. It is a mystery beyond words!

When we behold, by faith, the baby in the manger, we are beholding the inbreaking of the Creator into the Creation. Augustine says it well:

“Man’s Maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that the Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.”

- St. Augustine

This leads to the next line of the creed:

Suffered Under Pontius Pilate

The Apostle Peter is not enshrined in the Apostles’ Creed. Neither is Paul or James. Yet Pontius Pilate is. He was the one under whom Jesus suffered. So to consider the divinity and the humanity of Jesus, we must consider the suffering of Jesus.

In one sense, we must say that God does not suffer. Nay, he cannot suffer. Suffering is contrary to the divine essence because suffering involves deprivation in some sense and the Lord is all-sufficient in His very essence.

And yet, we see the suffering of the God-man, Jesus Christ. As Augustine so poignantly illustrated in the quote above, it is not simply that the Creator entered creation, but that He entered it in order to suffer and die.

Dear reader, do you see the lengths that the God of glory would go through to redeem you? He who was without sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God. The marvel of the crucifixion requires a doctrine of the Incarnation. We need a Jesus who would not only be God but who is also man. Therefore, we can call him Emmanuel, for He is God with us.

Some of our favorite Christmas Songs get it right:

2 God of God, Light of Light,
lo, He abhors not the virgin's womb;
very God, begotten not created;

Refrain:
O come, let us adore Him;
O come, let us adore Him;
O come, let us adore Him, Christ, the Lord!

- Oh Come, All Ye Faithful

Come, Christian, adore your Savior. He was made man for you, that you might come home to Your heavenly Father, to receive the Spirit of adoption as sons of God. I pray you know this blessing during this Advent season.