God entered into His own creation, in the flesh, coming to us because we could not come to Him. His perfect, sinless life on earth is what we call the incarnation.
Things look rather grim in the world today, do they not? War, violence, hatred, perversion. If you follow the news too closely, the sheer magnitude of evil is overwhelming, leaving many of us to reflect on the truth that, really, only God can fix this. (And He will. That’ll be covered in the last entry of this series.)
But right now we’re talking about how grim things looked where we left off last week. All of mankind, all of creation really, helpless and hopeless with no way to bridge the unending chasm between us and our Creator.
And yet, as mentioned previously, a relationship with our Creator is our raison d’être – the fancy French way of saying the reason for our existence. He literally created you to be in a relationship with Him.
This is because God loves His creation, of which we are the crowning part. After creating everything in the world except man, God pronounced it all good. Then He created us, and labeled it very good (see Genesis 1… don’t miss the last verse).
And as we also said previously, only one Person is capable of bridging the un-crossable gap, and that Person came and did so. God Himself entered His own creation in the flesh.
The Trinity
Let’s stop here for a moment to clarify a truth: The Trinity is the name we give to a biblical fact, which is that God, and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are one God.
God is the Lord God, the Almighty Father, mentioned in the first verse of the Bible and countless more throughout, including the last verse of the Bible… where He is identified as the Lord Jesus.
God is Jesus. Jesus is God. This article would be almost as long as the Bible if we quoted all the passages that address this truth, but Jesus Himself said it perhaps most clearly in John 10:30, and if you read a few more verses after that, you’ll see that the Jews clearly understood what He was saying.
Likewise, the Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, is also God. Both are referenced numerous times in the Old Testament. For example, clear back in Genesis 1, the Spirit is referenced in verse 2, and in verse 26 God references Himself using a plural form. And John 1:1-4 reaches back and beautifully explains more about Jesus’ role in Genesis 1.
The Bible is one complete (and complex) beautiful story, which is why all scripture is best studied in context. (I’ve linked a couple resources at the bottom of this article for more about the Trinity.)
Now back to the matter at hand, and a different important word.
The Incarnation
God-as-Jesus entered the physical world as all of us do – born of a woman. He didn’t need to come that way. He could have just zapped Himself into an adult male human body, if He wished.
But He chose to humble Himself and experience all of life as we do, because the purpose of His visit was ultimately to be our great substitute. Our stand-in who would substitute himself in our place, in the great holy court of law that demands perfection to enter God’s presence.
His arrival, on what we celebrate as Christmas, is the Incarnation – where God was “invested with human form” according to the dictionary.
His time on earth, His physical interaction with His creation, was a time of blessings and miracles and love demonstrated – perfectly. It was also the pivot point of history, but we’ll get to that.
For now, if you have never done so, I suggest you read the gospel of John. Or if you like things a bit faster-paced, Mark. Or Luke. Or Matthew. Or better yet, all four of them. They all offer detailed accounts of his 33 years here, during which the grace of God appeared in human form, bringing salvation to all men (Titus 2:11).
A very merry Christmas
And by the way, the Incarnation is why we celebrate the glory of Christmas. The glorious part is that our Creator stepped outside of heaven’s glories for a time, to come and live and talk and eat and laugh and cry with us, His creations.
God with us. Which is what “emmanuel” means, and why you hear it so much during the Christmas season.
His walk on earth was perfect; sinless, because He is sinless. He loved perfectly, taught truth, and along the way restored countless bodies and souls. All the way up to His last hours on earth, which were the hours that created that bridge we needed.
We’ll meet up at that exact spot next week, for part 5:
Jesus Christ, both God and man, died to pay for our sins. To make us holy. To repair the relationship between sinful man and his Holy God. This was the crucifixion.