| “THE INCARNATION: ONE PERFECT MAN” John 1:1-18; Hebrews 7:11-28 Olivet Covenant Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, PA © Rev. Linda Jaymes, 3/15/09 |
It was Shakespeare who wrote “Beware the Ides of March” in his play, Julius Caesar, back in 1599. Isn’t it interesting the
way a little phrase like that can catch on and survive for over 400 years! Well, today is the official “ides” of March but I trust it
will be a better day for us than it was for Julius Caesar! However, one thing that already may have caused you to “beware”
today was the opening of our worship service with “O Come, All Ye Faithful”! Well, not to worry—I really haven’t lost my
mind. But since today’s sermon is on the Reformed Doctrine of the Incarnation, I thought it would be fun to sing a Christmas
carol to get us thinking in that direction. It’s very strange, I think, to hear a sermon about the incarnation except during the
month of December, so I hope you won’t have trouble focusing on the subject in the middle of March!
You have certainly heard a fair share of sermons from this pulpit about the Incarnation already, focused mostly on the birth
of Jesus Christ and emphasizing scripture’s revelation that God humbled Himself and came to earth in the flesh, as a real, live
person, the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God—the second person of the Trinity, in fact—and
yet also fully man. Those of us who were raised in the Christian faith since childhood probably have never even questioned that
statement. For us, it is a statement of fact, based upon the truths about God revealed in scripture. We accept these truths
because we know that all things are possible with God.
However, some of the things that life-long Christians take for granted may be much harder to assimilate for those who
come to faith later in life. For that matter, as we focus on some of the implications of the Incarnation beyond the context of the
Christmas story, it may occur to all of us just how difficult or sometimes even preposterous our Christian doctrines and beliefs
may seem to the outside world. As we look at some of the thinking that went into the Reformed Doctrine of the Incarnation, I
suspect that we will conclude that this doctrine is a lot more complicated than the story of a baby in a manger. But that is one
of the reasons we must try to understand the doctrines that guide our faith. The more we explore and study these things, the
more we can understand why they are not preposterous but logical and reasonable.
We really have to go back to the first few centuries of the Church and realize that huge debates took place in regard to
what actually happened at the Incarnation. Scripture clearly tells us that Almighty God, who is Spirit, descended to earth,
impregnated a virgin, Mary, and was born just like all other humans since the time of Adam and Eve. But how? If God
Almighty was the Father of Jesus and a very human Mary was his mother, what did that make Jesus? What kind of being was
He? How was this fully human being also fully God at the same time? Knowing what we do today in the realm of science we
might ask the questions differently. We might even wonder what kind of DNA a Spirit has, and whether that “DNA” is
combined with the human DNA in Jesus Christ. We may wonder if Jesus is more human than divine, or more divine than
human. If Jesus is both fully man and fully God, how do these two different kinds of beings coexist?
Granted, the Church Fathers did not have the scientific knowledge we have at this point, but they had intellects at least as
apt as ours and they had many of the same questions. They wanted to define exactly how Christ was both human and divine,
and they wanted to be able to put it into words so it could be understand and taught in a uniform way. But as we might
imagine, the topic was so confusing and difficult to explain that many Christians fell into heresy in their attempts to do so.
For example, the Ebionites believed that Jesus was only a man—the holiest of all men, but that’s all. The Apollinarians
recognized that Jesus was divine but denied that He had a human soul. The Monothelites believed that Christ had no human
will, only the divine will. The Nestorians said that the Logos indwelt the person of Jesus, making Christ a God-bearing man
instead of the God-Man. In other words, the Nestorians believed that Jesus merely carried the Logos around in his body,
making the union of God and man mechanical rather than organic. The Eutychians and the Monophysites taught just the
opposite, that the human nature of Christ was absorbed by the Logos. Similar to the Ebionites, the Arians claimed He was not
God, but the highest of all created beings, a view held by today’s Jehovah's Witnesses. The Monarchists said that Jesus did not
become Christ until his baptism, and was adopted by God the Father after his death. And the Docetists and Manichists denied
that Christ was really human. They taught that Jesus' human body was only an illusion, as if God was merely wearing a human
body like a cloak. That one sounds like something out of Star Trek!! 1
The result of all this is that some of these groups actually tried to gain power and legitimacy in the Church, much the same
way certain factions of the church with unorthodox beliefs or interpretations of scripture still try to do today. For a few
hundred years there was an ebb and flow of these controversies, and various councils of the church were called to put these
heresies to rest. For example, a few weeks ago I mentioned that the Council of Nicaea had been called to refute heresies that
had arisen in regard to the Doctrine of the Trinity.
In 451 A.D. the war over these Christological heresies came to a head and the council of Chalcedon was called, which
issued a definitive statement about the Person of Christ that represents the orthodox view that still stands today. It resembles
the writings of Paul in that it is one very long and rather complicated sentence. I’m going to read it slowly and I challenge you
to do your best to understand it. Here goes:
“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ, perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; very God and very man, of a rational soul and body;
coessential [homousios--identical in nature] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial [homousios--
identical in nature] with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of
the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the
God-bearer [Theotokos], according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be
acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation; the distinction
of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and
concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only
begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have spoken of him, and the Lord Jesus
Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.” [Philip Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, 2:62-63]
I’m sure that makes everything clear. But just in case it doesn’t, don’t feel too bad. Maybe some year we’ll do a whole
semester of Sunday School on that one sentence. In the meantime, what I hope we might be able to understand and remember
is the phrase that attributes to Christ "two natures without confusion, without change, without division, and without
separation." This phrase tells us how the person of Christ is to be understood, as very, truly and fully God and man, with two
natures that cannot be either merged or disconnected. Every heresy that ever arose about this aspect of the Incarnation either
fused or separated the deity and the humanity of Christ, and the Council of Chalcedon put those heresies to rest once and for
all. No branch of Christianity has ever accepted as orthodoxy any other description or belief about Christ’s nature, which was
made manifest at the Incarnation. 2
But what does all that mean for us? How do we appropriate this doctrine for our Christian life and journey of faith? Why
does it matter so much that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man and perfect, at that?
Actually, I think you know a lot of the answers to these questions—at least, you do if you’ve been listening to my
preaching for the last decade! For example, one of the things that I know I have said over and over again is that the Incarnation
means that God understands everything we go through. Not only does God feel for us but He also feels with us. Every
emotion and every temptation known to humankind has been experienced by God in the person of Jesus Christ. Realizing this
can be a very real comfort and encouragement to us when we are struggling with the challenges and temptations of life. I think
we all agree that knowing that someone else has shared or endured the same trials and tribulations that we have is always an
encouragement. And finding common ground with others strengthens us and makes us feel less alone as we go through these
dark times. Now add to that the fact that God, in Jesus Christ, has done that for us means even more because this perfect
Man, Jesus Christ, is able to intercede with the Father on our behalf, actually helping us in very real ways as we struggle
through life’s difficulties and setbacks.
Something else that the Doctrine of the Incarnation does for us is to expand our understanding and view of God. Today
we read that passage from the opening of John’s Gospel that we always read here on Christmas Eve. The very first sentence
tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning.” I don’t know about you, but to me, this one sentence is really mind-expanding. Or to put it in the vernacular, “It
blows my mind.” When I consider the wonder and mystery in the statement that Christ was with God eternally and had a hand
in the Creation, it boggles my mind. For one thing, it tells me that this God of ours is beyond understanding. He is so far above
us that we can barely begin to wrap our minds around the Majesty and Sovereignty of God. This reminds me to “know my
place,” i.e. not to try to be God. It’s quite enough to try to be human! Yet at the same time, to put it in the words of today’s
affirmation of faith, in Christ, we are dealing with God Himself; a God who loves us beyond understanding!
One more thing this passage tells me in regard to the Incarnation is that God’s plan for our salvation wasn’t an
afterthought. It’s not as if God suddenly looked down on us and realized what a mess we had made of things and then decided
He better do something about it. No! From all eternity, God knew that because He had given us free will, we would sin and we
would need a Savior. God always knew that the commandments and the Law of Moses would not be enough to save us from
ourselves and the consequences of our sin. From all eternity, God knew that He would have to do it Himself, through the
second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ—the One Perfect Man.
I have always remembered the simple analogy my pastor used in our new member class thirty years ago, one which I think
Billy Graham also used and it is this: if we want to understand why God became a Man, just think about what it would take for
us to communicate with a worm. We might talk to that worm, we might feed it and protect it from harm, we might follow it
around to make sure it didn’t get into too much trouble, but the reality is that a worm doesn’t have any real understanding of
who we are, what we are like, how much we may love that worm and what our intentions are for it. The only way to get
through to that worm is to become a worm—and that’s what God has done for us in Jesus Christ—that One Perfect Man.
Because God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, He is able to communicate with us and do for us what we could never do
for ourselves. As the writer to the Hebrews tells us, Jesus and only Jesus was able to fulfill every requirement of the Law
because He was perfect—blameless, without sin. Because of his Incarnation, the perfect God-Man could be all things to all
people—prophet, priest and king—preaching and teaching us about God; interceding for us with God, and reigning eternally
alongside God, the firstborn of many brothers and sisters who, by faith, will one day reign with Him.
Next week we’ll look more specifically at what Christ has done for us through his atoning work on the Cross. But for
now, just remember that it all started with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, this One Perfect Man, and his atonement for our sins
is made possible only because of that Incarnation.
Let us pray.
1. Descriptions of these heresies are taken from two sources, 1) Chronological and Background Charts of Church History by Robert C. Walton, published by Academie Books,
div. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1986, chart 15 and 2) the online article, The Orthodox View of the Incarnation by Phillip R. Johnson, found at www.
geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/5068/faq/christol.htm.
2. Most of this discussion can be found at www.geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/5068/faq/christol.htm, in an article by Phillip R. Johnson, entitled The Orthodox View of the
Incarnation.
way a little phrase like that can catch on and survive for over 400 years! Well, today is the official “ides” of March but I trust it
will be a better day for us than it was for Julius Caesar! However, one thing that already may have caused you to “beware”
today was the opening of our worship service with “O Come, All Ye Faithful”! Well, not to worry—I really haven’t lost my
mind. But since today’s sermon is on the Reformed Doctrine of the Incarnation, I thought it would be fun to sing a Christmas
carol to get us thinking in that direction. It’s very strange, I think, to hear a sermon about the incarnation except during the
month of December, so I hope you won’t have trouble focusing on the subject in the middle of March!
You have certainly heard a fair share of sermons from this pulpit about the Incarnation already, focused mostly on the birth
of Jesus Christ and emphasizing scripture’s revelation that God humbled Himself and came to earth in the flesh, as a real, live
person, the person of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God—the second person of the Trinity, in fact—and
yet also fully man. Those of us who were raised in the Christian faith since childhood probably have never even questioned that
statement. For us, it is a statement of fact, based upon the truths about God revealed in scripture. We accept these truths
because we know that all things are possible with God.
However, some of the things that life-long Christians take for granted may be much harder to assimilate for those who
come to faith later in life. For that matter, as we focus on some of the implications of the Incarnation beyond the context of the
Christmas story, it may occur to all of us just how difficult or sometimes even preposterous our Christian doctrines and beliefs
may seem to the outside world. As we look at some of the thinking that went into the Reformed Doctrine of the Incarnation, I
suspect that we will conclude that this doctrine is a lot more complicated than the story of a baby in a manger. But that is one
of the reasons we must try to understand the doctrines that guide our faith. The more we explore and study these things, the
more we can understand why they are not preposterous but logical and reasonable.
We really have to go back to the first few centuries of the Church and realize that huge debates took place in regard to
what actually happened at the Incarnation. Scripture clearly tells us that Almighty God, who is Spirit, descended to earth,
impregnated a virgin, Mary, and was born just like all other humans since the time of Adam and Eve. But how? If God
Almighty was the Father of Jesus and a very human Mary was his mother, what did that make Jesus? What kind of being was
He? How was this fully human being also fully God at the same time? Knowing what we do today in the realm of science we
might ask the questions differently. We might even wonder what kind of DNA a Spirit has, and whether that “DNA” is
combined with the human DNA in Jesus Christ. We may wonder if Jesus is more human than divine, or more divine than
human. If Jesus is both fully man and fully God, how do these two different kinds of beings coexist?
Granted, the Church Fathers did not have the scientific knowledge we have at this point, but they had intellects at least as
apt as ours and they had many of the same questions. They wanted to define exactly how Christ was both human and divine,
and they wanted to be able to put it into words so it could be understand and taught in a uniform way. But as we might
imagine, the topic was so confusing and difficult to explain that many Christians fell into heresy in their attempts to do so.
For example, the Ebionites believed that Jesus was only a man—the holiest of all men, but that’s all. The Apollinarians
recognized that Jesus was divine but denied that He had a human soul. The Monothelites believed that Christ had no human
will, only the divine will. The Nestorians said that the Logos indwelt the person of Jesus, making Christ a God-bearing man
instead of the God-Man. In other words, the Nestorians believed that Jesus merely carried the Logos around in his body,
making the union of God and man mechanical rather than organic. The Eutychians and the Monophysites taught just the
opposite, that the human nature of Christ was absorbed by the Logos. Similar to the Ebionites, the Arians claimed He was not
God, but the highest of all created beings, a view held by today’s Jehovah's Witnesses. The Monarchists said that Jesus did not
become Christ until his baptism, and was adopted by God the Father after his death. And the Docetists and Manichists denied
that Christ was really human. They taught that Jesus' human body was only an illusion, as if God was merely wearing a human
body like a cloak. That one sounds like something out of Star Trek!! 1
The result of all this is that some of these groups actually tried to gain power and legitimacy in the Church, much the same
way certain factions of the church with unorthodox beliefs or interpretations of scripture still try to do today. For a few
hundred years there was an ebb and flow of these controversies, and various councils of the church were called to put these
heresies to rest. For example, a few weeks ago I mentioned that the Council of Nicaea had been called to refute heresies that
had arisen in regard to the Doctrine of the Trinity.
In 451 A.D. the war over these Christological heresies came to a head and the council of Chalcedon was called, which
issued a definitive statement about the Person of Christ that represents the orthodox view that still stands today. It resembles
the writings of Paul in that it is one very long and rather complicated sentence. I’m going to read it slowly and I challenge you
to do your best to understand it. Here goes:
“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ, perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; very God and very man, of a rational soul and body;
coessential [homousios--identical in nature] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial [homousios--
identical in nature] with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of
the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the
God-bearer [Theotokos], according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be
acknowledged in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation; the distinction
of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and
concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only
begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have spoken of him, and the Lord Jesus
Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.” [Philip Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, 2:62-63]
I’m sure that makes everything clear. But just in case it doesn’t, don’t feel too bad. Maybe some year we’ll do a whole
semester of Sunday School on that one sentence. In the meantime, what I hope we might be able to understand and remember
is the phrase that attributes to Christ "two natures without confusion, without change, without division, and without
separation." This phrase tells us how the person of Christ is to be understood, as very, truly and fully God and man, with two
natures that cannot be either merged or disconnected. Every heresy that ever arose about this aspect of the Incarnation either
fused or separated the deity and the humanity of Christ, and the Council of Chalcedon put those heresies to rest once and for
all. No branch of Christianity has ever accepted as orthodoxy any other description or belief about Christ’s nature, which was
made manifest at the Incarnation. 2
But what does all that mean for us? How do we appropriate this doctrine for our Christian life and journey of faith? Why
does it matter so much that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man and perfect, at that?
Actually, I think you know a lot of the answers to these questions—at least, you do if you’ve been listening to my
preaching for the last decade! For example, one of the things that I know I have said over and over again is that the Incarnation
means that God understands everything we go through. Not only does God feel for us but He also feels with us. Every
emotion and every temptation known to humankind has been experienced by God in the person of Jesus Christ. Realizing this
can be a very real comfort and encouragement to us when we are struggling with the challenges and temptations of life. I think
we all agree that knowing that someone else has shared or endured the same trials and tribulations that we have is always an
encouragement. And finding common ground with others strengthens us and makes us feel less alone as we go through these
dark times. Now add to that the fact that God, in Jesus Christ, has done that for us means even more because this perfect
Man, Jesus Christ, is able to intercede with the Father on our behalf, actually helping us in very real ways as we struggle
through life’s difficulties and setbacks.
Something else that the Doctrine of the Incarnation does for us is to expand our understanding and view of God. Today
we read that passage from the opening of John’s Gospel that we always read here on Christmas Eve. The very first sentence
tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the
beginning.” I don’t know about you, but to me, this one sentence is really mind-expanding. Or to put it in the vernacular, “It
blows my mind.” When I consider the wonder and mystery in the statement that Christ was with God eternally and had a hand
in the Creation, it boggles my mind. For one thing, it tells me that this God of ours is beyond understanding. He is so far above
us that we can barely begin to wrap our minds around the Majesty and Sovereignty of God. This reminds me to “know my
place,” i.e. not to try to be God. It’s quite enough to try to be human! Yet at the same time, to put it in the words of today’s
affirmation of faith, in Christ, we are dealing with God Himself; a God who loves us beyond understanding!
One more thing this passage tells me in regard to the Incarnation is that God’s plan for our salvation wasn’t an
afterthought. It’s not as if God suddenly looked down on us and realized what a mess we had made of things and then decided
He better do something about it. No! From all eternity, God knew that because He had given us free will, we would sin and we
would need a Savior. God always knew that the commandments and the Law of Moses would not be enough to save us from
ourselves and the consequences of our sin. From all eternity, God knew that He would have to do it Himself, through the
second person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ—the One Perfect Man.
I have always remembered the simple analogy my pastor used in our new member class thirty years ago, one which I think
Billy Graham also used and it is this: if we want to understand why God became a Man, just think about what it would take for
us to communicate with a worm. We might talk to that worm, we might feed it and protect it from harm, we might follow it
around to make sure it didn’t get into too much trouble, but the reality is that a worm doesn’t have any real understanding of
who we are, what we are like, how much we may love that worm and what our intentions are for it. The only way to get
through to that worm is to become a worm—and that’s what God has done for us in Jesus Christ—that One Perfect Man.
Because God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, He is able to communicate with us and do for us what we could never do
for ourselves. As the writer to the Hebrews tells us, Jesus and only Jesus was able to fulfill every requirement of the Law
because He was perfect—blameless, without sin. Because of his Incarnation, the perfect God-Man could be all things to all
people—prophet, priest and king—preaching and teaching us about God; interceding for us with God, and reigning eternally
alongside God, the firstborn of many brothers and sisters who, by faith, will one day reign with Him.
Next week we’ll look more specifically at what Christ has done for us through his atoning work on the Cross. But for
now, just remember that it all started with the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, this One Perfect Man, and his atonement for our sins
is made possible only because of that Incarnation.
Let us pray.
1. Descriptions of these heresies are taken from two sources, 1) Chronological and Background Charts of Church History by Robert C. Walton, published by Academie Books,
div. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1986, chart 15 and 2) the online article, The Orthodox View of the Incarnation by Phillip R. Johnson, found at www.
geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/5068/faq/christol.htm.
2. Most of this discussion can be found at www.geocities.com/Athens/Atlantis/5068/faq/christol.htm, in an article by Phillip R. Johnson, entitled The Orthodox View of the
Incarnation.
