The coming of Christ into the world is captured by the word incarnation. The root of this word is “carne,” which refers to physical flesh. Before I ever knew the term had theological significance, I had heard of “chili con carne” (chili with meat). In a simple and basic declaration, our Christian faith holds that the Son of God (fully divine) became the Son of man (fully human) that sons and daughters of men (sinners all) might become sons and daughters of God (fully forgiven and accepted).
The Gospel of John opens by referring to Christ as the Word of God (John 1:1–2). In those exalted opening verses, witness is given to the eternity of the Word (“In the beginning”) and the divinity of the Word (“was God”), before declaring the incarnation, “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 1:14).
Living Word
The idea of the Living Word (Jesus) becoming “enfleshed” is clearly affirmed in additional biblical passages. For example, Romans 8:3 declares, “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 on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.” The coming of Christ in the flesh is attested both in 1 John 4:2, “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,” and in 2 John 7, “Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.” A real incarnation made His suffering and death possible. Thus 1 Peter 4:1 can say, “Christ suffered for us in the flesh,” after having explained that He was “put to death in the flesh” (1 Pet. 3:18).
With Christ’s coming we have God’s incarnate Word — a personal, living, loving, truth-imparting, forgiving and restoring Word. As the Word incarnate, Jesus also spoke for God. God revealed truth in the words that Jesus spoke. Such were His words that He could confess to the Father, “For I have given to them the words which You have given Me” (John 17:8).
Becoming one of us
A helpful way of thinking about the incarnation is to imagine crossing a field in the midst of a severe draught. You see an anthill, but the ants appear to be about to perish because of lack of moisture. They are scurrying around but not finding water. With your superior height and vantage point you see a stream of water on the other side of the field. In your concern for the ants you determine to tell them about the water. How do you communicate your good news to them? You think first simply to call down to them your good news, but then you remember that ants cannot understand human speech. Then you think to write out directions and place it down where they are crawling, but realize they cannot read human writing. Finally it dawns on you. The only way you can communicate your good news would be to become an ant in order to show them the way in whatever ways ants communicate with one another.
But what we cannot do for ants, God did for us. He became one of us. That’s incarnation. As it is written, “God … has in these last days spoken to us by His Son” (Heb. 1:1–2).
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