Advent #1 –2021; Incarnation & Trinity

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John takes up this theme in his epistle as well

4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess [a]that Jesus [b]Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.

These passages are where we get the term “Incarnation.” The English word Incarnation comes from the Latin word Incarnatio which is in turn a translation of the Greek which literally says;

“Kai ho Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο – And the Word flesh became

The word “sark” you heard there means “flesh,” and the Latin word “incarnatio” means taking or being flesh. So, even though like the word “trinity” we don’t find the word “incarnatio” in the Bible the word “Incarnation” certainly properly encapsulates the Greek idea of God becoming flesh.

This idea of the incarnation refers both to the act in which the eternal Son became flesh as well as the whole experience of human life into which He entered.

Of course, we have more than just John’s testimony concerning the incarnation. It is a doctrine testified to by Paul as well as other Holy Spirit inspired men. Here are just a few of the more obvious ones.

Hebrews 2:14 – Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,

Gal. 4:4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman

Romans 8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh …

I Tim. 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:  God was manifested in the flesh…

This is the universal testimony of Scripture. That the Word became flesh.

John’s testimony in vs. 1 is that this Word that became flesh was God. This testifies that the He who became flesh pre-existed before His incarnation. In short John is telling us that the Creator Himself enters into our world as a creature.

This is one of the realities that make Christianity sui generis … unique … one of a kind.

In Christianity God condescends to man. In the incarnation, God does all. Mary is merely a passive and willing vessel. If man is to be reclaimed by God then God must do all the reclaiming for man being fallen cannot rise to God and therefore God must condescend to man and in the incarnation, God stoops low, in the incarnation, in order to repair what man had destroyed, in order to bring in the recreation, in order to take the sting out of death.

Indeed, so central is the incarnation that we would say that it is the pivotal point of history. Before the incarnation, there was only anticipation of restoration. With the incarnation, the restoration has arrived.

Dutch Theologian Herman Bavinck agrees with us;

“If, however, Christ is the incarnate Word, then the incarnation is the central fact of the entire history of the world; then, too, it must have been prepared from before the ages and have its effects through history.”

Make no mistake, apart from the Word becoming flesh there is no Christianity and if there is no Christianity then Hobbes was correct in saying that life is solitary, poor, nasty and short and that with or without civil government. Because of this, we must always be vigilant to retain the incarnation for from the beginning through the centuries the incarnation has been denied in one clever way or another and cleverness still denies it today.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

When John wrote vs. 14 and testified that the pre-existent Logos became flesh he shocked his religious world at the time. The idea that God became flesh was considered blasphemy by the professional religious community as we see in John 10:33

³² Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? ³³ The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

So, the idea of the Word becoming flesh was not accepted among the professional religious class and this provides just one reason why Jesus the Christ was so hated by the professional religious class.

Now having made these introductory remarks on the incarnation let us spend just a little bit of time teasing out how the incarnation touches upon other key doctrines of our undoubted catholic Christian faith.

What we are doing here is looking at how the incarnation is involved in other central pillars of the Christian faith so that we see that Christianity can not exist as Christianity apart from the reality of the incarnation

For our purposes this morning we want to note that the incarnation, obviously enough has Trinitarian implications.

If all we had was the OT we could build a case for plurality in God but it would be a case based upon deduction. The OT gives us every reason to expect God with us but in the NT the legitimate anticipation becomes reality.

The NT, with the incarnation of Jesus Christ, screams that God is not only one but He is many. This idea of God being Trinitarian — being both one and many — makes Christianity Christianity. If we drop the incarnation we at that very moment drop the Trinitarian nature of God and so embrace an absurdity.

In this passage teaching us about the incarnation we can begin to limn out the reality of the doctrine of the Trinity. Which can be simply stated as

1.  ”There is but one God.”
2. “The Father and the Son and the Spirit is each God.”
3. “The Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person.”

1.) ”There is but one God.”

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word Was God”

Note the singularity in John  1:1. There is nothing here that denies the great Hebrew Shema … “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Though there is a plurality in the Godhead God is still referred to as singular. It is very God of very God who has taken upon Himself very man of very man.

2.) “The Father and the Son and the Spirit is each God.”

We see the inspired John write repeatedly that the incarnate Son was God incarnate. Indeed this idea that Jesus is God is one of John’s labors in His gospel. He says it explicitly. His accounts note it implicitly. He demonstrates it in his unfolding narrative over and over again. The Gospel of John, right from vs. 1 teaches that Jesus is God and keeps teaching it over and over again ad nauseaum…. “The Word was God.”

If Jesus is not God then there is no Trinity and no incarnation and if there is no Trinity and no incarnation there is no Christianity whatever what might be left might be called.

3.) “The Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person.”

In Matthew & Luke we see the role of the Spirit in the incarnation so that we are taught the three distinct persons in the one God.

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

So, the incarnation implies the Trinitarian nature of God and were we to explore this further we would see what is called the “personal properties” which distinguish the divine persons from one another, namely:

1. The Father’s eternal begetting of the Son (“paternity”).
2. The Son’s eternal generation from the Father (“filiation”).
3. The Spirit’s eternal procession from the Father and the Son (“spiration”).

   But that is a sermon series by itself. However, we did want to note that this morning.

   There is another dynamic on this point that we desire to bring out on this distinctly Christian doctrine of the incarnation. We have already noted that the incarnation is distinctly Christian as a doctrine because it is consistent with God condescending to man since man can not arise to God. We said this truth makes Christianity absolutely unique.

   Now we say that the incarnation is distinctly Christian as a doctrine because no other belief system can provide the possibility of an incarnation.

   There are really only three types of religions … and two of those three if one boils enough can be reduced to two. But for our purposes this morning lets us contemplate three types of religions.

   Those three are Deism, Pantheism, and Christianity. In Deism, one has the absent God. In Pantheism, one has the God is not distinct God.

   The incarnation sets Christianity apart because in Deism and Pantheism there is no room for the incarnation of God. In Deism, God has wandered off and is separate from humanity there can be no incarnation. In Pantheism God loses his distinctiveness in his creatures so that everything and nothing is an incarnation. Only with a Trinitarian God can we have an incarnation whereby God can be both God transcendent and at the same time God immanent — God with us.

   Citing Bavinck again,

   “The masters of these religions of Deism and Pantheism have scoffed at the Christian doctrine of the incarnation. In history, the Socinians, who were Deists called the incarnation a ‘human fantasy and a monstrous dogma and deemed it easier for a human to become a donkey than for God to become a man.’ On the other end, the pantheist Spinoza commented that the incarnation was as absurd as saying that “a circle assumes the nature of a square.”

   So, only Christianity, with its Trinitarian character can provide an incarnation … a “God with us.”

   Before we close however let us consider the incarnation as an act of the one Triune God. Here we lean on Dr. Mark Jones book “Knowing Christ.”

   The Scriptures teach that the Father was responsible as the Master Architect for designing and preparing the body of the Son. Hebrews 10:5 draws on the Psalm we read this morning (Ps. 40:6)

   ⁵ Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

   “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
       but a body you prepared for me;

   Here Christ is speaking to the Father and He says to the Father “a body you have prepared for me.” In this speech, we learn that the body that the Son offered up as a sacrifice for man’s sin was prepared by the Father. John 1:14 teaches that the Word became flesh — took on the whole human nature body and soul — and that flesh that the Word took on was prepared by the Father.

   Said simply, “The Father prepared the body which the Son would offer up.”

   The Puritan Thomas Brooks chimes in here,

   The Father “ordained, formed, and made fit and able Christ’s human nature to undergo suffer, and fulfill that for which He was sent into the world.”

   However we also see the work of the Person of the Spirit in the incarnation. If the Father was the architect of the incarnate body, the Spirit was the Master builder as the one who was responsible for the actual formation of the human nature of Christ.

   “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called^[a] the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)

   The Holy Spirit as the Master builder of the human nature of Christ bears the responsibility for the physical and spiritual life of Jesus.

    

   ^{Matthew 1:18} This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about^[d]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit 

   ²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

   The Puritan Ussher speaks at this point of Mary’s womb as the ‘bride chamber’ where the Spirit knit the indissoluble knot between our human nature and His deity.

   Then of course, the Trinitarian work of the incarnation is made complete in the second person of the Trinity gladly embracing adding to His divine nature human nature. The intense love of the Son for the Father and for His people worked in Him a glad willingness to take on Adam’s manhood sin excepted.

   All of this once again demonstrates the Christian doctrine of perichoresis which holds that you cannot have one person of the Trinity without having the other two, and you cannot have any person of the Trinity without having the fullness of God. The inter-communion of the persons is reciprocal, and their operations are inseparable. As Augustine put it: “Each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, and all are one.”

   God being one, the work of any one of the persons of God finds all of God working.