The Incarnation

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 47
• Hymn — O Clap Your Hands (Psalm 47A)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Catechism Reading — Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 12–14
• Hymn — I Believe in God the Father (#560)
• Scripture Reading — Luke 1:26–36
• Sermon
• Pastoral Prayer
• Hymn — Thou Art the Way (#266)
• Benediction — 2 Corinthians 13:14

Sermon Title: The Incarnation

Scripture: Luke 1:26–36

I. The Full Divinity of Christ

• A. Only an eternal being can pay an eternal debt.

  1. Matthew 25:46 equates eternal punishment with eternal life, showing the equivalence of the two and ruling out annihilationism.
  2. Romans 6:23 — the death owed for sin must be understood as eternal, just as the life in Christ is eternal.
  3. The parable of the unforgiving servant illustrates the absolute impossibility of man repaying his debt to an eternal God.
  4. Hebrews 9:12 — Christ secures an eternal redemption by means of his own blood because he is an eternal person.

• B. A cosmic redemption requires a cosmic redeemer.

  1. Christ's sacrifice does not atone for only a few but extends to his people from all of humanity — John 3:16.
  2. No mere mortal can offer a sacrifice of infinite and universal, cosmic proportions; only eternal God can.

• C. Only eternal God can come before the face of God in wrath and rise victorious.

  1. Exodus 33:20 — no mere mortal (Hebrew: adam) can see God's face and live.
  2. The pillar of cloud and the incense in the tabernacle both served to shield the high priest from the full presence of God on the Day of Atonement.
  3. Hebrews 9 — Christ does not enter the earthly tabernacle but the heavenly one, coming before the very face of God unclouded.
  4. Isaiah 53:10 — God is pleased to crush Christ; he is ground to fine dust under the full, unshielded wrath of the Father.
  5. Only the one eternally at the Father's side — John 1:18 — can face God's wrath and not be eternally consumed; death cannot hold eternal God.

• D. Christ does not become eternal life at the resurrection; he is eternal life incarnate.

  1. John 14:6 — "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
  2. John 1:4 — "In him was life."
  3. John 11:25 — "I am the resurrection and the life."
  4. He rises from the dead because he is eternal life; he becomes eternal life for us as our God-man representative.

II. The Full Humanity of Christ

• A. The principle of lex talionis (the law of retaliation in kind) establishes that only a man can atone for man's sin.

  1. Genesis 9:4–6 — beast for beast, man for man; whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, because man bears God's image.
  2. The logic: beast for beast, bird for bird, man for man — no substitute of a different kind satisfies divine justice.

• B. Sin is a murderer; therefore sin itself must be put to death — Romans 6:23.

  1. 2 Corinthians 5:21 — God made Christ to be sin so that divine justice could be satisfied: sin's blood must be shed.
  2. Christ is not merely a moral example of self-sacrificing love; he is the satisfaction of divine justice as sin-bearer.

• C. Christ is fully human but without a sin nature or imputed guilt — conceived by the Holy Spirit.

  1. He cannot say with David in Psalm 51:5, "In sin did my mother conceive me."
  2. Original sin involves two elements: corruption (a nature inclined to sin) and status (the guilt of Adam imputed). Christ has neither.
  3. He has no corruption of nature, but our sin is imputed to his status — just as in the Old Testament the high priest symbolically transferred sin onto the unblemished sacrificial animal, changing its status before God without changing its nature.

• D. The additional phrase in Genesis 9:6 — "for God made man in his own image" — reveals a deeper purpose of the incarnation.

  1. Man is the crown of God's creation, the apple of his eye; sin destroys what is most beautiful to God.
  2. Only God fully knows the beauty of his own image in man; by becoming man he comes to restore that which is most lovely in his sight.
  3. Christ restores man to his proper place as image-bearer of God, with righteousness and life reigning in place of sin and death.

III. The Full Humanity and Divinity of Christ in One Person — The Hypostatic Union

• A. The term hypostatic union comes from the Greek word hypostasis, used in Hebrews 1:3 — Christ is the exact imprint of God's nature, meaning he is fully God.

  1. Hebrews 2:14 — "since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same things."
  2. Hebrews 2:17 — "he had to be made like his brothers in every respect."
  3. Hebrews 1 and 2 together present full divinity and full humanity in the same person.

• B. Two early heresies were rejected by the church in defining the hypostatic union.

  1. Nestorianism — so separated the two natures that Christ became essentially two persons.
  2. Eutychianism — so mixed the two natures together that a third, hybrid entity was created (the humanity absorbed into the divinity like a raindrop into the ocean).
  3. Orthodoxy affirms: the two natures are distinct — not mixed, not separated — yet constitute one person.

• C. The Council of Ephesus (AD 431) declared Mary Theotokos (Mother of God) to safeguard the hypostatic union, not to elevate Mary.

  1. Nestorius wanted to call Mary only Christotokos (mother of Christ according to his humanity), implicitly dividing the person of Christ.
  2. A mother does not give birth to a nature; she gives birth to a person — and that person is the God-man.
  3. Theotokos was a defense of Christology, not Mariology; later medieval abuses do not negate the original, orthodox intent.

• D. The hypostatic union is essential to Christ's office as the one mediator.

  1. John 1:18 — the Son, who is eternally at the Father's side as fully God, alone can perfectly reveal and mediate the Father to mankind.
  2. 1 Timothy 2:5 — "there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus."
  3. As fully God he perfectly reveals the Father; as fully man he sympathizes with our weakness and brings our prayers and sufferings before the Father as our great High Priest.
  4. In the one person of the God-man, God and man meet; the reconciliation between God and humanity finds its complete fulfillment.