Audacious Incarnation

One of the significant debates in the early church was whether Jesus really became “flesh” or just appeared to do so. Neo-Platonism, a major Greek philosophy influence on thinking at the time, assumed the material world was evil and could not imagine the spiritual and material mingling in the same “flesh.” That point of view or paradigm led to interpreting John’s clear statement that “the Word became flesh” in ways that would have undermined both the Incarnation and Trinity.

Fortunately Athanasius, an early church father, stood firm for the audacious thought that the Divine Creator had actually become part of the created.

“But let them listen to this: if the Word had been a creature, He would not have assumed a created a body, in order that He might give it life. For what help can come to the creature from a creature, which itself is in need of salvation? But since the Word, being Creator, Himself became the Maker of the creatures… clothed Himself with what was created, in order that He again, as Creator, might renew it, and be able to repair it.”- Athanasius

It’s still an audacious, mind-blowing thing that God has done to really be “with us.”