FOUR BIG WORDS

INCARNATION

This series of talks is about what a friend of mine calls "BTWs" - Big Theological Words. We all use them quite happily in the liturgy and in hymns, and we may also say and read them without thinking about them very much - but we're probably stuck if anyone asks us to explain exactly what they mean. This could be a dangerous series too, at least for the speakers, because if we get it wrong we lay ourselves open to accusations of heresy. Over the centuries some very nasty things have happened to heretics.

Essentially, Incarnation is the presence on earth of the Son of God as a human being.

Gods on earth
For a god to appear on earth is not something unique to Christianity. It is a common feature of many religions that a god or gods appear on earth, often disguised and masquerading as humans. Their motives are varied - to play, to test someone's loyalties, to interfere with what people are doing, to cause problems, occasionally to do good. The visits are usually very much more for the benefit of the gods than of anyone else. The Hindu word "avatar" is used to describe a god on earth in human form - how interesting that the same word is now used to describe the personality that one can create for oneself in order to play certain computer games or take part in cyber-worlds. Greek and Roman mythology have many examples of gods turning up on earth, and other religions have similar stories. In each case the god looks and behaves like a man or woman, but is still actually a god. The Roman emperors were worshipped as gods, but they, of course, were still simply men.

Another BTW is "theophany", which describes the transitory appearance of a god in human form. There are some theophanies in the Old Testament, notably when God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and when giving him the commandments on Mount Sinai, and when Elijah was allowed to see the back of God. But in each of these incidents God was undoubtedly still God, not human. These were not incarnations.

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Christ is the Incarnate God
The word "incarnation" comes from the Latin "in" and "carne", which means flesh. Thus "in-carnation" means that God took human flesh - not a disguise. He took all of human nature that goes with this; thoughts and emotions, relationships, free will, family ties, duties and freedom; became a real man and lived that way for about thirty-three years.

Or one could say that God, in one of the modes of his triune being, and without in any way ceasing to be God, revealed himself to people for their salvation, by coming among them as a man.

(There are a couple more BTWs in that sentence. "Triune" means "three in one" and refers to God's Trinitarian nature. "Salvation" describes the entry of an individual into the Kingdom of God , from which the wicked have been excluded by God's judgement.)

So Jesus the man is the enfleshed Word (Logos) or Son of God. His conception was spirit-engendered, but his birth was a human birth to an ordinary woman. He lived as a human, suffered as a human and died a particularly cruel human death. He was taken into God's eternity at the resurrection (another BTW) and continued to be both man and God. He always remains the focus of the encounter between God and humanity As the incarnate God, he mediates God to people, and as the divine human, he represents humanity to God.

Thus Jesus is no longer physically present on earth (or he would not have been truly human.) But he does have a mystical body on earth, the Church, which unites Christians now living with the communion of saints in heaven, bringing together all those who have lived, are alive now or who are to come. Through the Church they all share, by adoption (by baptism), the filial relationship that Jesus has with his Father.

This is quite amazing, and it deserves some very careful thought.

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Big questions
Start to think about the Incarnation, and all sorts of questions bubble up. They have been exercising thinkers and theologians for as long as Christianity has existed.

How did the Incarnation happen?
We cannot possibly know. We do know that God chose a particular place, some identifiable people and a specific time. Every human being exists within a precise historical and geographical context; for Jesus to be human exactly the same considerations had to apply. For him to be human he also had to be of one specific gender. A choice had to be made. But that choice does not negate the fact that we are all equally created in God's likeness. Jesus treated the men and women with whom he came into contact with equal respect, and in a way which repeatedly broke the taboos of the society in which he lived.

The Incarnation came about by a series of interventions which started with the Annunciation - a favourite subject of painters through the centuries. The angel Gabriel speaks to Mary, and at the same time the Holy Spirit, usually represented as a dove, sends a ray of light straight from heaven to touch Mary's womb. Whatever the background to the painting - a rural landscape, a desert, a richly-furnished house - the essential triangle of angel, woman and spirit is always shown.

In the creeds, the words used to describe the incarnation vary, leaving us with the results of fierce debates. When the compilers were working on Common Worship, this line of the Nicene Creed (the one we use at the Eucharist) took longer to agree than any other part of the liturgy. The modern Roman Catholic version of the Nicene Creed says:
"By the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary".
The Apostles' Creed (in Morning and Evening Prayer) says:
"He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary".
The Nicene Creed in the Book of Common Prayer and the Alternative Service Book says:
"He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary".
In Common Worship the Nicene Creed says:
"He was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary".
Only the last version gives Mary anything like equal status; in the others she is simply a vessel, a carrier, a temporary receptacle.

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When and where did the Incarnation happen?
There are some answers here: It was initiated in approximately 4BC in Nazareth , in Israel and became fully visible at another small village, Bethlehem , in Biblical Judah (and present-day Palestine ). The geography is reasonably precise, but the chronology less so - after all, why should anyone realise at the time that they should record the precise date of an event which only turned out to have been significant with hindsight?

Why did the Incarnation happen?
From the very beginning of the history of the Children of Israel (the Jews), they had a covenant with God. A covenant is an agreement between two parties who are mutually committed and have mutual obligations. Each side agrees to do particular things within the overall spirit of the agreement. God kept his side of the bargain. Although there was something of a wobble at the time of the Flood, he went on taking care of his people, no matter what they did. But the people repeatedly reneged on the deal. Over and over again they would start off faithful to their promises, gradually lapse, and end up being hauled (often unwillingly) back into line by patriarchs, judges, kings or prophets. Eventually, after the Israelites had been exiled, had been brought back to the promised land, had reconstructed their religion and their temple, and then had indulged in yet another series of flagrant breaches of the covenant, God sent Jesus to them as his incarnate son.

In doing this, God himself took the initiative to cross the gap between himself and his people. He replaced the old covenant, based on observance of a detailed law and with elements of vengeance, with a new covenant based entirely on love. His son was the sign of that new covenant, and a perfect example of what a human life should be. At the same time he extended the promise of the covenant to the whole of humanity - it was no longer for the children of Israel alone.

I have a problem with language here, because it would be quite wrong to say that God "wants" something in the way that we want things. God is supremely indifferent to "wanting" in our sense of the word. But in his way God does want a close and constructive relationship with his people (i.e. with us); he wants to be accessible to them and for them to give him their individual trust, love, respect and worship. He has made it very clear that he does not just want corporate representative worship carried out by a few particular people on behalf of everyone else.

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Understanding the Incarnation
The recognition of Jesus as simultaneously both divine and human occurs only occasionally in the writings of the New Testament. It is not surprising that John's writings contain most examples - he is the most "theological" of the evangelists and his gospel was written last. John 1, 1-14 is a consummate description of Jesus as the incarnate Logos. In this gospel Jesus declares to some Pharisees with whom he is having an argument: "Before Abraham was, I am." When Thomas sees the risen Christ he immediately declares "My Lord and my God!" In the book of Revelation (also written by John), both God and Jesus are equally describes as Alpha and Omega.

Paul also recognises the divinity and humanity of Jesus in his many "in Christ" sayings, in his Trinitarian statements and the equivalence he makes between the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God. The birth narratives in the three synoptic gospels are also very clear that the birth of Jesus is a true incarnation. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews also has no doubts: the first four verses of this Epistle say:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

This understanding developed gradually as the church grew, spread, and needed to explain its doctrine. Whatever the arguments, there was always a strong sense of the living presence of the risen Christ, and the early Christians were always ready to pray to and to worship Christ in the same way as the Father.

The debate about the nature of Christ (Christology) was passionate and fierce. Bishops were imposed or deposed according to the stance they took, accusations of heresy were rife and a charge of heresy that stuck could lead to excommunication and even death. In the first five centuries a series of ecumenical Councils were convened to discuss the matter, and different factions considered the outcomes to be so important that on a number of occasions a bishop of a different opinion would be kidnapped with his retinue to prevent him attending and influencing the Council. The Council of Nicaea, which took place in 325 AD, was extremely important because it confirmed that the Logos, the Son, was of one nature with the Father. Its statement of what it held to be orthodox belief is the Nicene Creed which we still use today. A hundred and twenty five years later the Council of Chalcedon agreed that Jesus was both perfect God and perfect man, and that these two natures (divine and human) existed in the one person.

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Many of the writings of the early Church Fathers were aimed at countering one or another false understanding of the nature of Christ. To understand them it is helpful to know which particular heresy they were opposing - they can read like one side of a phone conversation, difficult to follow unless you have a good idea of what the whole discussion is about. There were many heresies; some of the most important were:

•  Arianism: the belief that the Son was not eternally divine

•  Apollinarianism: the belief that Christ did not have a human spirit

•  Nestorianism: the belief that the divine and human Christ was not a single person

•  Eutychianism: the belief that Christ did not have both a human and a divine nature

•  Monotheletism: the belief that Christ did not have both human and divine wills

Not all these heresies are completely extinct. One branch of Christianity, the Assyrian church, still has some Nestorian elements of belief.

The study of Christology has become more and more detailed and complex down to the present day. The western church, of which the Church of England is a part, has tended to focus on Christ's bringing of salvation, and on the nature of the gift of the divine presence in the Eucharist. It is impossible to summarise all the lines of thought, but some important themes which have emerged are:

•  To look for evidence of Jesus' divinity in the unique quality of his life on earth

•  Jesus is the herald of the end of the world (eschatology); God will bring in his kingdom and human moral effort will have no effect

•  Jesus Christ is a unity - a single world of revelation. So it is impossible to move from the historical Jesus to the Christ of faith, or from the man Jesus to the divine Christ (Karl Barth)

•  "Either in Jesus we have to do with God, or a creature, and if with God we have to affirm what Nicaea affirmed (Karl Barth)

Tens of thousands of books on Christology have been written even in the last hundred years. One of the distinguishing features of modern British Christology is that it continues an active engagement with the early Fathers, seeking to tie our understanding into the roots of Christianity.

Perhaps the most significant new development in Christology is the advent of Liberation Theology, in which the incarnation is related to salvation in the most direct way possible. Leonardo Boff, one of its major exponents, holds that we should not be concerned with a heavenly Christ belonging to and living in another world, but with the Jesus of history, present in and engaged with all continuing conflicts against oppression. God's humanity in Christ is of supreme importance.

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The relevance of the Incarnation
In the end we can get so absorbed in the fine detail of all the different aspects of Christology that we lose hold of its wonder, its mystery and the privilege of being part of that human race to which God sent his son. We can forget to experience it for ourselves, forget to worship and give thanks.

Because of the Incarnation, I can have a direct and personal relationship with God.
Because of the Incarnation, I know that I can experience salvation and that I need not be afraid of death.
Because of the Incarnation, I have an ever-present example to live up to, and an assurance of forgiveness when I fail to measure up.
Because of the Incarnation I can (as the Quakers put it) "see that of God in every man", and I can understand that everything I do, however ordinary, is part of my service to God and is therefore holy.
Because of the Incarnation I can envisage, and try to live out, a calling to priesthood which goes beyond the conventional "church and congregation" setting and extends into every aspect of my life.

© Margaret Joachim

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