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InChristian theology, theincarnation is the belief that thepre-existentdivine person ofJesus Christ,God the Son, the second person of theTrinity, and theLogos (Koine Greek for 'word'), was "made flesh"[1] by being conceived through the power of theHoly Spirit in the womb of a woman, theVirgin Mary,[2] who is also known as theTheotokos (Greek for "God-bearer" or "Mother of God"). The doctrine of the incarnation then entails that Jesus was at the same time both fully God and fully human.[3]
In the incarnation, as traditionally defined by those Churches that adhere to theCouncil of Chalcedon, thedivine nature of the Son wasunited but not mixed withhuman nature[4] in one divineperson, Jesus, or according to those adhering to theCouncil of Ephesus, the divine and human natures of Christ are fully united into one composite nature "without mixing, confusion, or separation".[5] This is central to the traditional faith held by most Christians. Alternative views on the subject (seeEbionites and theGospel of the Hebrews) have been proposed throughout the centuries, but all were rejected byNicene Christianity.
The incarnation is commemorated and celebrated each year atChristmas, and reference can also be made to theFeast of the Annunciation; "different aspects of the mystery of the incarnation" are celebrated at Christmas and the Annunciation.[6]
The nounincarnation derives from the ecclesiasticalLatin verbincarno, itself derived from the prefixin- andcaro, "flesh", meaning "to make into flesh" or, in thepassive, "to be made flesh". The verbincarno does not occur in the Latin Bible but the term is drawn from theGospel of John 1:14"et Verbum caro factum est" (Vulgate),King James Version:"and the Word was made flesh".
Incarnation refers to the act of apre-existent divine person, the Son of God, in becoming a human being. While all Christians believed that Jesus was indeed theSon of God,[7] "the divinity of Christ was a theologically charged topic for the Early Church."[8]Debate on this subject occurred during the first four centuries of Christianity, involvingJewish Christians,Gnostics, followers ofArius of Alexandria, and adherents ofPope Alexander of Alexandria, among others.
Ignatius of Antioch taught that "We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin."[9]Justin Martyr argued that the incarnate Word was prefigured in Old Testament prophecies.
TheCatechism of the Catholic Church discusses the Incarnation in paragraphs 461–463 and cites several Bible passages to assert its centrality (Philippians 2:5–8,Hebrews 10:5–7,1 John 4:2,1 Timothy 3:16).[10]
The Nicene Creed is astatement of belief originating in two ecumenical councils, theFirst Council of Nicaea in 325, and theFirst Council of Constantinople in 381. As such, is it still relevant to most Christian churches today.[11] The Incarnation is always professed, though different Rites use differenttranslations. The Roman Catholic Church's current translation is: "For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was born of the Virgin Mary and became man."[12]
The Apostles' Creed includes the article of faith "He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary."[2] According toPope John Paul II, by his incarnation Jesus is a figure of and has united himself to every human being, including theunborn at the moment of their life atconception.[13]
Eventually, the teachings of Alexander,Athanasius, and the otherNicene Fathers that the Son was consubstantial and coeternal with the Father, were defined as orthodox dogma. All divergent beliefs were defined asheresies. This includedDocetism,Arianism,Nestorianism,Monophysitism,Adoptionism, andSabellianism.[14]
The most widely accepted definitions of the Incarnation and the nature of Jesus Christ were established by theCouncil of Nicaea in 325. This council declared that Jesus is both fully God (begotten of the Father, but not created) and fully man, having taken his flesh and human nature from theVirgin Mary. At theCouncil of Chalcedon in 451, these two natures, human and divine, were defined as hypostatically united in the one personhood of Jesus Christ,[note 1] while theOriental Orthodox Churches, which rejected Chalcedon, affirm that the two natures are fully united into one composite nature that is both fully divine and fully human; in addition, theChurch of the East, which rejected Ephesus, defines a prosopic union of the two natures as a mere "connexion" or "conjugation".[15] In all cases, Jesus Christ is fully divine and fully human after the incarnation. According to theCatholic Church, an ecumenical council's declarations areinfallible, making the incarnation adogma in the Catholic Church.[16]
The incarnation implies three facts: (1) The divine person of Jesus Christ; (2) The human nature of Jesus Christ; (3) Thehypostatic union of the human with the divine nature in the divine person of Jesus Christ. Without diminishing his divinity, he added to it all that is involved in being human.[17] In Christian belief it is understood that Jesus was at the same time both fully God and fully human, of two natures.[3] The body of Christ was therefore subject to all the bodily weaknesses to which human nature is universally subject; such are hunger (Matthew.4:2), thirst (John 19:28), fatigue (John 4:6), pain, and death. They were the natural results of the human nature he assumed.[18] Approaches such asNestorianism, Ebonism,Arianism, Appoliniarianism, andEutychianism have attempted understanding of the two natures of Christ; some of them have been condemned traditionally as heretical.[19] InA Kryptic Model of the Incarnation,Andrew Loke evaluates many of these attempts and suggests a possible Divine Preconscious Model (DPM) that postulates that at the Incarnation, Christ's mind included the divine conscious and the divine preconscious along with a human preconscious.[20]
The incarnation of Jesus is also one of the key factors which, alongside humans made in the image and likeness of God, forms Christian Anthropology. Specifically, incarnation is vital for understanding the concept ofDivinisation of the Man, most well and elaborately developed in Orthodox Christianity and most well expressed by Church Fathers, such asSt. Athanasius of Alexandria ("Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us"[21]),St Cyril of Alexandria ("For we too are sons and gods by grace, and we have surely been brought to this wonderful and supernatural dignity since we have the Only Begotten Word of God dwelling within us."[22])and numerous others.
The link between the incarnation and theatonement withinsystematic theology is complex. Within traditional models of the atonement, such asSubstitution,Satisfaction orChristus Victor, Christ must be human in order for the sacrifice of the cross to be efficacious, for human sins to be "removed" and/or "conquered". In his workThe Trinity and the Kingdom of God,[23]Jürgen Moltmann differentiated between what he called a "fortuitous" and a "necessary" incarnation.[24] The latter gives a soteriological emphasis to the incarnation: the Son of God became a man so that he could save us from our sins. The former, on the other hand, speaks of the incarnation as a fulfilment of thelove of God, of his desire to be present and living amidst humanity, to "walk in the garden" with us. Moltmann favours "fortuitous" incarnation primarily because he feels that to speak of an incarnation of "necessity" is to do an injustice to thelife of Christ.
The significance of the incarnation has been extensively discussed throughoutChristian history, and is the subject of countlesshymns andprayers. For instance, theDivine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (c. 400), as used byEastern Orthodox Christians andByzantine Catholics, includes this "Hymn to the Only Begotten Son":
O only begotten Son and Word of God,
Who, being immortal,
Deigned for oursalvation
To become incarnate
Of the holyTheotokos andever-virgin Mary,
And became man without change;
You were also crucified,
O Christ our God,
And by death have trampled Death,
Being one of the Holy Trinity,
Glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit—
Save us!
Additionally, theDivine Liturgy of Saint James includes this chant of "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" in itsoffertory:
Let all mortal flesh be silent,
and stand with fear and trembling,
and meditate nothing earthly within itself:—
For the King of kings and Lord of lords,
Christ ourGod, comes forward to besacrificed,
and to be given forfood to the faithful;
and the bands ofangels go before Him
with every power and dominion,
the many-eyedcherubim,
and the six-wingedseraphim,
covering their faces,
and crying aloud the hymn,
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.[25]
The West Syriac Churches – Syriac Orthodox, Malankara Orthodox, Syro-Malankara Catholic, Syriac Catholic and Maronite Catholic – principally celebrating theHoly Qurbono ofSt. James (c. AD 60) have a similarma‛neetho,[note 2] a poetic hymn, traditionally attributed to St. Severus, the Patriarch of Antioch (c. 465–538):
I exalt Thee, Lord and King,
Only-begotten Son and Word
of the heavenly Father,
immortal by nature, Thou came down by grace
for salvation
and life for all human race; was incarnate
of the holy
glorious, pure Virgin
Mary, Mother of God
and became man without any change;
was crucified for us.
O Christ, our God,
Who by Thy death trampled and slaughtered our death,
Who are One of the Holy Trinity,
worshipped and honored with
the Father and the Holy Spirit,
have mercy on us all.[26]
During the Reformation,Michael Servetus taught a theology of the incarnation thatdenied trinitarianism, insisting that classical trinitarians were essentiallytritheists who had rejected Biblicalmonotheism in favor ofGreek philosophy. The Son of God, Servetus asserted, is not an eternally existing being, but rather the more abstractLogos (a manifestation of the One True God, not a separate person) incarnate. For this reason, Servetus refused to call Christ the "eternal Son of God" preferring "the Son of the eternal God" instead.[27]
In describing Servetus' theology of theLogos, Andrew Dibb (2005) comments: "In Genesis God reveals Himself as the Creator. In John He reveals that He created by means of the Word, orLogos. Finally, also in John, He shows that thisLogos became flesh and 'dwelt among us'. Creation took place by the spoken word, for God said 'Let there be...' The spoken word of Genesis, theLogos of John, and the Christ, are all one and the same."[28]
Condemned by both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches on account of his heterodoxChristology, Servetus was burnt at the stake forheresy in 1553, by theReformed Protestants inGeneva, Switzerland. The French reformerJohn Calvin, who asserted he would ensure the death of Servetus if he set foot in Geneva because of his non-Reformed views on the Trinity and the sacrament of baptism, requested he be beheaded as a traitor rather than burned as a heretic, but the authorities insisted on executing Servetus by fire.[29]
Post-Reformation Arians such asWilliam Whiston often held a view of the incarnation in keeping with the personalpre-existence of Christ. Whiston considered the incarnation to be of the Logos Who had pre-existed as "a Metaphysick existence, in potentia or in the like higher and sublimer Manner in the Father as His Wisdom or Word before His real Creation or Generation."[30]
Jacob Bauthumley rejected that God was "onely manifest in the flesh of Christ, or the man called Christ". Instead, he held that God "substantially dwells in the flesh of other men and creatures" rather than solely Christ.[31]
Servetus rejectedArianism because it denied Jesus' divinity[32] so it is certain that he would have also rejectedSocinianism as a form of Arianism which both rejects that Jesus is God, and, also that Jesus consciously existed before his birth, which most Arian groups accept.Fausto Sozzini and writers of thePolish Brethren such asSamuel Przypkowski,Marcin Czechowic andJohann Ludwig von Wolzogen saw the incarnation as being primarily a function offatherhood. Namely that Christ was literally both 'Son of Man' from his maternal side, and also literally 'Son of God' on his paternal side. The concept of the incarnation —"the Word became flesh and dwelt among us"— was understood as the literalword orlogos ofPs. 33:6 having been made human by a virgin birth. Sozzini, Przypkowski and other Socinian writers were distinct from Servetus in stating that Jesus having "come down from heaven" was primarily in terms of Mary's miraculous conception and not in Jesus having in any literal sense been in heaven.[33][34] Today the number of churches with Socinian Christology is very small, the main group known for this are theChristadelphians, other groups includeCoGGC andCGAF. ModernSocinian or "Biblical Unitarian" writers generally place emphasis on "made flesh" not just meaning "made a body", but incarnation (a term these groups would avoid) requiring Jesus having the temptable and mortal nature of His mother.[35]
In contrast to the traditional view of the incarnation cited above, adherents ofOneness Pentecostalism believe in the doctrine of Oneness. Although both Oneness and traditional Christianity teach that God is asingular Spirit, Oneness adherents reject the idea that God is a Trinity of persons. Oneness doctrine teaches there is one God who manifests Himself in different ways, as opposed to a Trinity, where God is seen as one being consisting of three distinct persons.[36]
To a Oneness Pentecostal, Jesus is seen as both fully divine and fully human. The term Father refers to God Himself, who caused the conception of the Son in Mary, thus becoming the father of the child she bore. The term Son refers to the fully human person, Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost refers to the manifestation of God's Spirit inside of and around His people. Thus the Father isnot the Son – and this distinction is crucial – but isin the Son as the fullness of His divine nature.[37] Traditional Trinitarians believe that the Son always existed as the eternal second person of the Trinity; Oneness adherents believe that the Son did not come into being until the incarnation, when the one and only true God took on human form for the first, last and only time in history.[38]
TheJehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus to be the only direct creation of God through whom God created everything else.[39][14] His incarnation is considered to be temporary, after which Christ, accordingly, resumed his spiritual and angelic form. Christ is not seen as divine or co-equal with God the Father.[39] After resurrection, Jesus is seen as assuming temporary human forms, though resuming his spirit form eventually.[40]
According toLatter-day Saint theology, two of the threedivine beings of theGodhead have perfected, glorified, physical bodies, namelyGod the Father (Elohim) andGod the Son (Jehovah). Instead of considering the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost as one insubstance oressence with one another, Latter-day Saints understand the oneness of the Godhead as symbolic of Their perfectly united characteristics and purpose, while yet acknowledging that they are three separate and distinct beings.[41] To explain this divergence from Trinitarian oneness as literal rather than symbolic, Latter-day Saints commonly cite[42][43] Christ's Intercessory Prayer in John 17:20-23, which reads:
This conception of the Godhead differs from theTrinitarian view of the Incarnation in which onlyGod the Son, temporarily possessed an incarnated, physical body while God the Father is and has always remained unembodied. Despite these differences, Latter-day Saint doctrine accepts a similar version of so-calledethical monotheism (which developed out of theJewish tradition), in that Latter-day Saints believe that the Light of Christ (alternatively referred to as the Spirit of Christ) emanates from God the Son throughout the world, thereby influencing all people everywhere to do good and eschew evil. This teaching is best exemplified in the Book of Mormon in Moroni 7:13-19, which states:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "The Incarnation".Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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