We now will examine the historical background of the development of what has become the cornerstone of Christian orthodoxy, the doctrine of the “Incarnation.” We will see that this doctrine arose neither in a vacuum, nor strictly from the text of Scripture. It was the result of the influence of certain beliefs and attitudes that prevailed in and around the Christian church after the first century. Pagan mythology, Gnostic views of redemption and human pre-existence, and the misunderstanding of Johannine language all contributed to the teaching that God Himself became a man, which is the essence of “Incarnational theology.”
Although the “Incarnation” is assumed to be a basic tenet of Christianity, the term is used nowhere in Scripture. This is even admitted by Trinitarian scholars: “Incarnation, in its full and proper sense, is not something directly presented in Scripture.” The doctrine of the Incarnation was actually formulated during the next several centuries. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church verifies this fact:
The doctrine, which took classical shape under the influence of the controversies of the 4th–5th centuries, was formally defined at the Council of Chalcedon of 451. It was largely molded by the diversity of tradition in the schools of Antioch and Alexandria…further refinements were added in the later Patristic and Medieval periods.
The reason the councils and synods took hundreds of years to develop the doctrine of Incarnation is that it is not stated in Scripture, and the verses used to support it can be explained without resorting to a doctrine that bears more similarity to pagan mythology than biblical truth. Teaching the Jews that God came down in the form of a man would have completely offended those living at the time of Christ and the Apostles, and greatly contradicted their understanding of the Messianic Scriptures. This doctrine is derived most prominently from the gospel of John, and in particular from the phrase in John 1:14 (KJV): “And the Word was made flesh….” But was “the Word” synonymous with “the Messiah” in Jewish understanding? Hardly. The Jews would have understood it to mean “plan” or “purpose,” that which was clearly and specifically declared in Genesis 3:15—a “seed” of a woman who would destroy the works of the Devil. This plan of God for the salvation of man finally “became flesh” in Jesus Christ. This verse is not establishing a doctrine of Incarnation contrary to all prophetic expectations, nor a teaching of pre-existence. It is a teaching of God’s great love in bringing into existence His plan to save mankind from their sin.
Before proceeding, we must define what is traditionally understood by the “incarnation” of Christ. Keep in mind that we strongly affirm the reality and necessity of the virgin birth of Christ as the only way he could have been born without the inherent sin of mankind that would have disqualified him from becoming the Lamb of God. But the traditional “formula which enshrines the Incarnation …is that in some sense God, without ceasing to be God, was made man.”
We will quote the New Bible Dictionary, a Trinitarian source, for a working definition and explanation of this doctrine:
It appears to mean that the divine Maker became one of His own creatures, which is a prima facie contradiction in theological terms. When the Word “became flesh,” His deity was not abandoned or reduced or contracted, nor did He cease to exercise the divine functions which had been His before…The Incarnation of the Son of God, then, was not a diminishing of deity, but an acquiring of manhood.
One wonders how a pre-existent “God the Son” can become a man without any “diminishing of deity,” or that he could live a “fully human” life without ceasing to exercise the divine functions he had been exercising since eternity began. Trinitarians say this is part of the “mystery” of the Incarnation. The New Bible Dictionary admits that the concept is not developed or discussed in the New Testament:
The only sense in which the New Testament writers ever attempt to explain the incarnation is by showing how it fits into God’s overall plan for redeeming mankind…This evangelical interest throws light on the otherwise puzzling fact that the New Testament nowhere reflects on the virgin birth of Jesus as witnessing to the conjunction of deity and manhood in His person—a line of thought much canvassed by later theology.
If the deity of Jesus was not at first clearly stated in words (and Acts gives no hint that it was), it was nevertheless part of the faith by which the first Christians lived and prayed…The theological formulation of belief in the Incarnation came later, but the belief itself, however incoherently expressed, was there in the Church from the beginning.
We disagree with the assertion that the doctrine of the Incarnation was “in the Church from the beginning.” Since the doctrine is clearly not in Scripture, how can it possibly be considered a part of “the Apostles’ Doctrine”? Because scholars admit that this doctrine is biblically tenuous, we must examine why Christian theologians of the third century and later became so preoccupied with establishing it as the cornerstone of a Trinitarian Christian faith. In doing so, we will see some of the changing assumptions and beliefs that led to the development of this doctrine. We must first establish the fact that the very process of turning from historical truth to mythology was clearly prophesied by the apostle Paul at the end of his life. This is amazing but not surprising, in light of the many times in Scripture that God has warned His people about being influenced by pagan culture.
Creation, Not Incarnation
Jesus makes clear reference to two distinct categories in John 3:6 when he says that the “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” Jesus clearly declared God to be “spirit” (John 4:24). Note that he did not say, “I am spirit,” or “God is flesh” or even “The Father is spirit.” By thus placing “God” in the category of “spirit,” when he himself is clearly a man of flesh and blood, Jesus effectively excluded any possibility that he was God. If God, being spirit, can incarnate Himself as a man, then the clear scriptural distinction between flesh and spirit disintegrates. But God the Creator, who is spirit, can create flesh, as He did in Genesis 1. His spirit brooded upon the face of the water, speaking into being things that had not existed before. These things were in “the flesh,” but were not He. They were His creation, but He stood apart from them and judged them to be very good.
Creation is the means by which God has brought things to pass outside of that which would occur naturally. He caused a human life to begin in the womb of Mary by an act of supernatural creation, not mystical incarnation (Matt. 1:18; Luke 1:35). He waited for a willing woman to bear this child, a woman whose confession and testimony were befitting the honor bestowed upon her. In this way He brought into the world a human being who fulfilled the necessary conditions for becoming the Messiah. That was only the first hurdle. Then He had to work with the growing child to help him maintain his sinless condition until the time he could be anointed with holy spirit and thus be empowered to do the work to which he was called (Acts 10:38). Yes, God had to provide (by creation) the body that could be sacrificed, but Jesus had to obey Him flawlessly for his body to finally be the perfect sacrifice that it needed to be. Thus, God and Jesus each had a responsibility that the other could not perform, and upon which our redemption depended.
The assertion that Jesus was God in human flesh nullifies the absolute necessity of Christ’s obedience, because, as God, no temptation he faced would have been genuine. God cannot be tempted, because God cannot sin (James 1:13). It is also axiomatic that God can neither “obey” nor “disobey” Himself. Nor does He need to command Himself to do anything, for as God, the perfect moral being, He always acts in a timely and perfectly righteous manner. Another unsolvable problem caused by the “incarnation” is that it destroys the plan that God established of a First Adam and a Last Adam. Romans 5:12–19 clearly defines a critical, logical parallel between Adam and Jesus Christ in the context of the redemption of mankind. A major consequence of the doctrine that God became man is that it destroys this key parallel, for Adam is hardly comparable to an eternally pre-existent being. Rather, he was a created being made in the image of the One who created him, God. Adam was not “fully man and fully God,” “100 percent man and 100 percent God,” “co-equal with God the Father,” or “of the same substance as the Father.” Adam was a created, empowered being who chose to disobey a direct command of God, with dire consequences to himself and all mankind as a result.
Jesus Christ was also a created being, made a man in the same way that Adam was originally made, that is, a masterpiece of God’s creation, given dominion over Paradise and every creature He had made. Jesus could have no intrinsic advantage over Adam, or his qualification as Redeemer would be legally nullified. He was the Last Adam, not the first God–man. The differences between Adam and Jesus were circumstantial, not essential: Adam started tall with no navel; Jesus started short with a navel. Adam was created fully formed and fully able to comprehend the voice of God. Jesus had to learn from his parents. Adam did not have to suffer the indignity of a humble birth and be considered illegitimate, the son of common folk. Adam had only to dress and keep the garden and care for his wife. He had to keep from eating the fruit, or die and bring death to all his descendants. Jesus had to drink the cup of suffering and die so he could be raised to conquer death and make it possible for others to eat of the “fruit” of eternal life.
In a head-to-“Head” comparison, Adam had every advantage, yet Jesus overcame where Adam fell. He chose to obey God’s will, which was that he present himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin. For the legal requirements of redemption to be satisfied, whatever Adam was, Jesus Christ had to be. Scripture declares very clearly that Jesus was a created human being like Adam was. In fact, they were both the result of God’s direct creative activity.
As we have stated, the whole Bible is simply the story of two Adams. Except for the initial genetic perfection that they shared in common, the contrast between them is stark. Here is perhaps another way to summarize Romans 5:12–21:
Two Adams
- Two created beings
- Two Sons of God
- Two men
- Two gardens
- Two temptations
- Two choices
- Two attitudes
- Two decisions
- Two results
- Two races
Aside from its mythological character, what are other problems with the idea of God becoming a man? First of all, it is illogical and self-contradictory when we are true to the accurate biblical usages of words. The Bible explicitly states that “God is not a man…,” (Num. 23:19), which defines two distinct categories, God and man. In terms of logic, it could be stated in this way: If God is not a man, then if someone is a “man,” he cannot be “God.”
God’s holiness precludes Him from becoming anything other than what He is. Rubenstein points out the illogic of the assertion that “God can do anything.”
Athanasius [a bishop of Alexandria who spearheaded what became the orthodox Trinitarian position] says that God can do anything He chooses to do, and that He chose to turn Himself into a man for the sake of our salvation. Jesus Christ is not one of God’s creatures, he insists, but God Himself, incarnated in human form. These sound like clear statements, but, actually, they are hopelessly confused.
Can God do anything He chooses to do? Of course—except those things that are inconsistent with being God. Can He choose to be evil or ignorant? Could He be the Devil—or nothing at all?
Perfection cannot be improved upon or changed. He is not a pantheistic “god” who dwells in everything. He is holy, meaning that He stands apart from and above His creation, yet is intimately involved with it. Therefore, God cannot alter His essential nature, which by definition is perfect, and perfection cannot be improved upon. But even if He could, in doing so He would, by definition, no longer be “God.”
If Jesus Christ is “God in human flesh,” there are other scriptural casualties. First, it renders the pathos of Gethsemane virtually meaningless, when Jesus prayed three times for this cup to be removed from me (Luke 22:42). If he is “of the same substance” as the Father, and an eternally integral part of a “Godhead,” then his will is of necessity the same as “God’s.” If he struggled only in his “human side,” as Trinitarians argue, while accepting the assignment in his “divine side,” we are certainly left unimpressed by the difficulty he faced, compared to the way we face temptation without the benefit of a “divine” side that is sure to dominate.
If it were “God’s” will that Jesus should die, and Jesus is “God” in human flesh, then it was clearly also his will to die. Why then did Jesus wrestle so intensely with the assignment to sacrifice himself, finally surrendering and saying “…nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done“? If this struggle were between his divine and human natures, then why invoke God his Father in prayer in what was really an internal, almost schizophrenic, struggle?33
In our considered opinion, attempting to artificially exalt Christ via theological manipulation results in the complete negation of the heroic character of this free act of his will. Unless he was really a man, “…in all points tempted like as we are…” (Heb. 4:15 – KJV), with real freedom to turn his back on the assignment, the value of his act as a magnanimous sacrifice (an emptying of his own will and desire) is virtually eliminated. If he were God, he could hardly deny himself or disobey his own directive. Seeing Jesus as an empowered human being who had to obey God like we do is the proper context and backdrop for appreciating his heroism. Seeing him as essentially God, endowed with a divine perspective of human events, results in a view that he was only going through the prearranged motions. In that case, his heroic commitment and example collide with his supposed “deity” and sink into a gray and uninspiring sea of inevitability.
Along with the demise of Christ’s heroism is the destruction of the logic of Philippians 2:8–11, and a diminishing of his exaltation based upon the merits of his obedience. Scripture here reveals that God highly exalted Jesus Christ in response to his humbling himself to be obedient unto death, even a death as humiliating and painful as crucifixion. If Christ were “co-eternal” and “pre-existent ” with “God the Father,” and if he already occupied the highest position in glory before the “incarnation,” then what is the significance of this special exaltation relative to his obedience unto death? Was he not simply returning to his former elevated station, one that could hardly be denied him since he willingly gave it up with the understanding that he would be able to return to it? If we are truly concerned about giving Christ his proper due and honoring him appropriately, does it not make more sense to place his accomplishments in a theological framework in which his heroism is more apparent rather than less?34 Consider the power of James Moffatt’s translation of Isaiah 9:6 in this regard:
Isaiah 9:6Yet another casualty of the “Incarnation” is the significance of his Lordship. Acts 2:36 says that God made Jesus of Nazareth “both Lord and Christ.” If Jesus Christ were already “God,” then one cannot comprehend the granting of the title “Lord” to him as anything particularly notable, because he already had every right to the title and had already been exercising it in the Old Testament. Again we find that man-made theological attempts to exalt Christ beyond what is specifically revealed in Scripture result in a radical demeaning of the value of his obedience and accomplishments on our behalf. Man, however sincerely, cannot add to Jesus’ greatness by making him something that Scripture does not. In fact, any attempt to do so significantly subtracts from the greatness of the biblical message. When we let the Word of God speak for itself and allow every piece of the puzzle to fit together without squeezing it to fit our own traditions or preconceived notions, both God and His Son are glorified, reason is satisfied and the Christian Church is blessed as it builds upon a sound cornerstone.
For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us; the royal dignity he wears, and this the title that he bears—”A wonder of a counselor, a divine hero, a father for all time, a peaceful prince!”
No comments:
Post a Comment