I have had this blog on my desktop for some time now. In a sense, I felt the content was too obvious to publish. On the other hand, the actions of Christ are always profound, no matter how many times we hear it. There are various angles that give us certain advantages that other angles do not afford. So, I offer this point of view concerning the Incarnation:
“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!” –John 16:33
Christ promises His disciples peace. In a world that He admits Christians will be persecuted and will suffer, He also suggests that we will have peace. How can this be so? The two seem mutually exclusive. Nonetheless, Christ suggests that He has conquered the world, and this conquering is to be comforting. All this sounds promising; however, how can we take courage when Christ is telling us we will still suffer? How can we, who are subject to temptation and sin, overcome the evils of the world? What exactly does Christ mean when He suggests that He has conquered the world?
It was purely for our sakes that the Christ suffered. Having all the rights, privileges, and abilities of God. Being God Himself, as one distinct person of the Trinity and of One essence with the Godhead, Christ understood that we, as humans, could not abstractly grasp His power, and He, since He came for our sakes, did not assert His power that He has all the rights to assert. (Philippians 2:6). Thus, He denied Himself His high privilege of His Lordship in order to lower Himself unto the form of man. In this, we might know and relate with Him.
Many biblical exegetes have suggested that the Incarnation was necessary so that Christ might relate to us, to understand what it is to be human and to truly suffer. To an extent, it is absolutely obvious that this is the case. It is obvious that for God to have experiential knowledge of humanness, especially suffering to the extent that we do, He must lower Himself, since God Himself is not subject to the same sort of sufferings of which humanity suffers. Certainly, it would be impossible for God to be tempted as He is without humbling Himself (Luke 4:1-13; Matthew 4:1-11).
While it is obvious that Christ came to experience our suffering, one should not lose focus of the fact that His Incarnation was not an event merely so that His knowledge might be expanded or so that He could save us, as if He had no other option. This is not to deny that His action was not the best action to perform, just that He was not limited. The omnipotent God has limitless means to accomplish His tasks. We should not deny God’s power. While experiential knowledge might never be known without the Incarnation, I suspect God could have sufficient objective knowledge of what it is to suffer. If not, He might have never sympathized with us in the first place.
Therefore, we should not imagine the purpose of the Incarnation being merely a tactic of the Almighty to gain access to our mentality and an understanding of our plight so that He might figure out how He could help us out of our situation. Instead of the Incarnation merely being an act of God so that He might relate to us, it was an act that allows us to relate Him. Just as the Word of God was given in a written form so that humanity might have proper access, so Christ comes in a form to which we can relate, our form.
The bottom line is that the Incarnation was strictly for the benefit of man. Surely it glorifies God, but He is glorious even without the Incarnation. It benefits God only in that He wishes to benefit us. Thus, this is not to deny that it might please Him to do so. The arrival of Christ in human flesh was a coming to bless us. Imagine the Most High deciding to come to this earth to suffer, to take on our sin, when He does not have to take it on, and He does this for me. He does this for you. So, how does this Incarnation bring us the peace Christ has promised us?
Returning to John 16:33, we might understand that hope in Christ can help us overcome the suffering of the tribulations of everyday life. Looking forward to the joy we will experience when there will be no more violence, war, malice and the like, when we will all be together in the presence of God, we might agree with Paul that the trials of this life will be washed away from our minds as they will not compare with the glory we will have obtained (Romans 8:18). However, what of the peace that is to be brought in this life? When we suffer temptations, we have difficulty imagining how we might overcome. We know we do not wish to sin, but sin seems, due to the temptation within, inevitable, even willful disobedience. Furthermore, we might imagine that this temptation and the subsequent sin (which we wrongfully imagine is an inevitable result of temptation) might not go away until we are dead and glorified. We unwittingly hold a low view of God’s power when we affirm this. We somehow suggest that, although Christ lives within me, the power of sin within is greater.
However, true reflection upon the Incarnation reveals quite a different reality. Once we realize Christ too was subject to temptation, yet overcame, we might begin to understand our capacity to overcome, not a capacity naturally within ourselves, but of Him, since He is within the believer through the power of the Holy Spirit. If it is true that we can live by His power, and that we find our being in Him, then we might realize that, since He has, in human form, overcome sin, then He can do the same in us. When we are tempted, we should not imagine sin’s power being too great, for His power that resides within is unimaginably greater than the power of sin. He has even shown that it is powerful enough to overcome sin even in human flesh.
In the end, we are to find our peace in Christ Himself. While external realities pose threats of temporary physical and emotional sufferings, we need not worry about that which once pulled us toward death. Christ has conquered sin. We need not suffer its reign in our lives. In His grace, all else seems to fade. For the Christian, to deny a lack of ability to overcome temptation and sin is to unwittingly degrade the power of Christ that is supposed to be within. This is not to say we cannot willfully sin, but that we do not have to do so. Therefore, the Incarnation is a blessed revelation of the power of God to overcome human temptation and sin, as demonstrated in the mighty works of Christ as He walked the earth and was subjected to many trials, just as each of us are.
If He lives within and is truly the power by which Christians live, He can do what He has proven He can do: overcome sin. Praise His holy name!
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