God, With, Us: Incarnation in Three Soundbites

I. Incarnation summed up: "Jesus is Lord."
God engaged the lost more and more radically (Matt 21:33-37).
People can find the doctrine of incarnation intimidating and perplexing.

But I sense that's related to the traditional habit of separating 'mission' from 'theology'
and making 'mission' a subordinate task of passing on a body of 'theology';
the two are inextricable partners, and illuminate one another (so **Coleman).

Jesus' availability to the ones who remained with him enabled a collective discovery process that yielded the conviction that Jesus is Lord (Phil 2:11), and still does.
The claim implies that

1. Jesus is fully human: son of Mary (Mark 6:3), son of David (Mark 12:35-37, Rom 1:3).
2. The same Jesus is fully divine: Son of Man (Dan 7:13-14) and only begotten Son of the Father (John 1:14, Rom 1:4).

'Heresies' are inferences that the early church has broadly rejected for compromising one or more of these affirmations, or other key features of the good news. More on that elsewhere.

II. Jesus' Human Nature
**Jesus' humanity is taken for granted in the New Testament.
Yet the NT draws theological conclusions from Jesus' humanity:

Romans *5:12-21: Jesus is a righteous 'last Adam' redeeming sinners.
*1 Corinthians 15: Jesus' resurrection is **paradigmatic for humanity's eternity.
(**Point to caterpillars, butterflies, and our present chrysalis elsewhere.)
Hebrews *2:14-18, *4:15-16, etc.: Jesus can intercede for fellow humans.

III. Jesus' Divine Nature
**(Why are the signs so subtle in the New Testament?)

Surface indicators: One-line 'prooftexts' assert it:

Raymond E. Brown lists John 20:28, Rom 9:5, Heb 1:8, 1 John 5:20, Titus 2:13 + 2 Peter 1:1, John 1:1, John 1:18, John 8:58.
Why so few?

Deeper indicators: Narrative roles and acts of Jesus include

... a role in creation: 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:16, Heb 1:2, John 1:2-3.
... sovereignty over creation: calming the storm (cf. Ps 107:23-31), lordship over the sabbath, walking on water, feeding miracles.
... forgiving and judging: Healing the paralytic, sheep and goats, 2 Cor 5:10.
... the primary role in salvation: Luke 19:10, "savior" title, healings/exorcisms.
... special relationships with the One who sent him and with the Holy Spirit (so Trinity).
... character: manifesting and revealing the Father's glorious qualities (Heb 1:3).

Deepest indicators: Pervasive worship practices reflect the church's widespread relationship with Jesus (Rev 1:12-18).
**His title 'Lord' (Hebrew adonai, and later Greek kurios) stands in for 'YHWH'

in, e.g., *Phil 2:5-11 (after *Isa 45:22-23) and *1 Cor 16:22 (marana tha).

The Councils of Nicea, 325 and Constantinople, 381 respect these convictions by affirming both humanity and divinity (homoousios).

IV. Unity Envisioned

How are they one? Ancient orthodox schools of thought saw 'hypostatic union':

(develop)

Chalcedon clarified it in 451 (after Ephesus basically did too in 431):

Christ is "one person in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation."

Result: Communication of attributes (communicatio idiomata).

Each nature influences (without compromising) the other.

Chalcedonian orthodoxy implies divine humanity (Athanasius) and human divinity (Luther, Barth).

My alternative interpretation sees a "concurrence of relations":

The relationships constituting divine personhood and human personhood concur in this one person.

Either way, incarnation grounds doctrines of salvation (e.g., Anselm's satisfaction theory).

Two cultural styles of appreciating this developed in the early church:

**Antiochian 'Word-man' Christology focused on Jesus' particularity as a human being, like Mark,

doing "christology from below."
Strength: appreciating his humanity is common ground for engaging Jesus across faiths (DBS, **The Chosen, etc.)
Vulnerability: prior assumptions about compatibility can compromise Jesus' unity or divinity. (More elsewhere.)

Alexandrian 'Word-flesh' Christology focused on Jesus' deity, like John.

Strength: follows the trail backwards to gain a "christology from above" perspective.

In discussing creation I mention the 'preludes' in John 1, Heb 1, and Col 1 that locate Jesus in God's whole work of creation, redemption, and transforming glorification.
Those preludes were pointing here, in a way Alexandrian theology follows up on,
to the fact of incarnation and beyond to its impacts.

'I am' became Creator, who made and then became creature, not by necessity but so we could have fellowship.

**'Kingdom invades' slide
At its best, this supports 'kenotic' life and dialogue (cf. Newbigin on mission elsewhere).
That fellowship energizes us:
(**John of Damascus' analogy: red-hot iron. Move PiP.)
Vulnerability: prior assumptions about deity can compromise Jesus' true humanity.

V. He Himself Is Our Peace (Eph 2:14): Engaging the Lost 'Incarnationally'

Both approaches can be faithful and complementary 'anthropological theology':

Jesus is the true expression of both natures—
the unsurpassed teaching of God and people for us to discover and share,
dis-illusioning whoever receives him with grace and truth (John 1:16-18, Luke 11:33-36).

Incarnation means new relationships between Creator and creation

that leave the old relationships intact, but no longer boundaries.
**All in all slide
Further boundaries fall as a result (*Gal 3:28, *Eph 2:14-16).

(Aychi B.R.: God sends 'hot coals' across those boundaries.)

There's "room" in Jesus' person for God and humanity to be at perfect peace.

Jesus' work of costly grace makes room for sinners in his peace and fruitfulness (Matt 21:38-46).
(**John 1:9-14 links Jesus coming/being sent and becoming flesh/being born to our relational knowledge of God through him. So do Phil 2:5-7, Gal 4:4-6, 1 Tim 3:16, and Heb 2:14-3:6.)
Athanasius: "For he was made man that we might be made God; and he showed himself in the body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and he endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality."
This comes to be called theosis or deification. Protestants call it sanctification or glorification.

The Son's ‘incarnational’ work ‘engaging the lost’ and ours follow:

gathering and building disciples into his body or vine or temple,
receiving and sharing his Holy Spirit,
playing Christ's and our anointed roles,
reconciling through atonement (**Two Kingdoms deck, emphasizing the down and up arrows),
**kenotic dialogue (emphasize down arrow, point to Newbigin),
**salvation's phases and creation's transformation, and
practices mentioned under the topic of humanity: **relationality, abiding/aligning, duckling discipleship, **MAWLing, prayer walking, households and persons of peace, etc.

Jesus is the unique indispensable foundation and pioneering archetype of all:

he took his place among humans far from God so we can too;
he aligned and remained with his Father so we can too;
the Spirit anointed him at his baptism and he ordered us to baptize and teach, begging for the Holy Spirit to share with fresh disciples;
he took office and appointed us too; he reconciled us and made us ambassadors of his reconciliation;
he gave us his mind of self-emptying his way to supremacy;
he was the 'mama duck' blazing and showing our way;
he takes us prayerfully into new fields to MAWL us to MAWL others;
he entered our oikoi so we could enter his Kingdom and invite all;
he was humanity's person of peace, hungry to share his news and his access so we could too, receiving and passing on the DNA of disciple-making.

All this makes true disciples' lives as 'incarnational' as his Father's heart.