...and the Word became Flesh
The Incarnation
The Incarnation is the mystery of the Word made Flesh. ln this technical sense the word incarnation was adopted from the Latin incarnatio. The Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God." ( Hebrews 10:5 and Psalm 40:7). Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith. And according to John 3:16: "God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." Therefore it was necessary for man's salvation that God should become incarnate. The Latin Fathers, from the fourth century, make common use of the word (Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Hippolytus, Hilary and others). I. The Fact of the Incarnation The Incarnation implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ. (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ He was a real person of history; the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition and of part thereof by Holy Writ; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures A. Old Testament Proofs Assuming then, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, from the terms of the promise it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the strictest sense of the word, the texts from the Old Testament have weight by themselves; taken together with their fulfilment in the New Testament, to make up a cumulative argument in favour of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that is overwhelming in its force. The Old Testament proofs we draw from the Psalms, the Sapiential Books and the Prophets. They are far too numerous to mention them all here. (For Example: Psalm 2:7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. and "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son" from II Kings 7: 14. It is to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated Logos, or hrema, is the active and creative principle of Yahweh (see Ps. 32: 4, 6; 115: 89; 102: 20; Isaiah 40: 8; 60: 11). Later the logos became sophia, the uncreated Word became uncreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the works of creation and Divine Providence (see Job 28: 12: Prov. 8 and 9 Ecclus. 1:1; 24: 5-12; Wis.6: 21; 9: 9). In Wis.9: 1-2 we have a remarkable instance of the attribution of God's activity to both the Logos and Wisdom. In 9: 6, Isaiah calls the Messiah God: "A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Catholics explain that the very same child is called God the Strong One (Isaiah 9: 6) and Emmanuel (Isaiah 7: 14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse.)
B. New Testament Proofs The argument from the New Testament has a cumulative weight that is overwhelming in its effectiveness, once the inspiration of the New Testament and the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus are proved. The Divinity of the Messiah as fulfilled in Matt.1: 23; 2: 6: Mark 1: 2: Mark 3: 12: Luke 7: 27, and many others. Also, Jesus Himself clearly assumed the title. He constantly spoke of God as "My Father" (Matt.7: 21; 10: 32; 11: 27; 15: 13; 16: 17, etc.). Jesus also said "he that sees me sees the Father" (John 14: 9). C. Witness of Tradition The two main sources wherefrom we draw our information as to tradition, or the unwritten Word of God, are the Fathers of the Church, certain pagan historians, and the general councils. The Fathers are practically unanimous in explicitly teaching the Divinity of Jesus Christ, among them are St. Clement of Rome (A.D. 93-95), St. Ignatius of Antioch (A.D. 110-117), Saint Justin Martyr (A.D. 150), St. Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 150) and others too numerous to mention here. To the witness of these Fathers of the Apostolic and apologetic age, there are witnesses from the pagan writers of tht era such as: Pliny (A.D. 107), Emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117), and Aristides (A.D. 138-161). The first general council of the Church was called to define the Divinity of Jesus Christ and to condemn Arius and his errors. The Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. defined the Divinity of Christ in the clearest terms: "We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten not made, the same in nature with the Father by Whom all things were made". (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ The title that is characteristic of Jesus in the New Testament is Son of Man; it occurs some eighty times in the Gospels; it was His Own accustomed title for Himself. The phrase is Aramaic, and would seem to be an idiomatic way of saying "man". The life and death and resurrection of Christ would all be a lie were He not a man, and our Faith would be vain. (I Cor.15: 14). "For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim.2: 5). Why, Christ even enumerates the parts of His Body. "See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; touch and see: for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me to have" (Luke 24: 39). St. Augustine says, in this matter: "If the Body of Christ was a fancy, then Christ erred; and if Christ erred, then He is not the Truth. But Christ is the Truth; hence His Body was not a fancy'. In regard to the human soul of Christ, the Scripture is equally clear. Only a human soul could have been sad and troubled. Christ says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt. 26: 38). "Now is my soul troubled" (John 12: 27). His obedience to the heavenly Father and to Mary and Joseph supposes a human soul (John 4: 34; 5: 30; 6: 38; Luke 22: 42). Finally Jesus was really born of Mary (Matt. 1: 16), made of a woman (Gal. 4: 4), after the angel had promised that He should be conceived of Mary (Luke 1: 31); this woman is called the mother of Jesus (Matt. 1: 18; 2: 11; Luke 1: 43; John 2: 3); Christ is said to be really the seed of Abraham (Gal. 3: 16), the son of David (Matt. 1: 1). (3) The Hypostatic Union We all know about this one. But to be clear about it we speak here of no moral union, no union in a figurative sense of the word; but a union that is physical, a union of two substances or natures so as to make One Person, a union which means that God is Man and Man is God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
A. The Witness of the Scriptures John says: "The Word was made flesh" (1: 14), that is, He Who was God in the Beginning (1: 2), and by Whom all things were created (1: 3), became Man. According to the testimony of St. Paul, the very same Person, Jesus Christ, "being in the form of God emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil. 2: 6, 7). It is always one and the same Person, Jesus Christ, Who is said to be God and Man, or is given predicates that denote Divine and human nature. The author of life (God) is said to have been killed by the Jews (Acts 3: 15); but He could not have been killed were He not Man. B. Witness of Tradition The early forms of the creed all make profession of faith, not in one Jesus Who is the Son of God and in another Jesus Who is Man and was crucified, but "in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who became Man for us and was crucified". The forms vary, but the substance of each creed invariably attributes to one and the same Jesus Christ the essence of the Godhead and of man. II. The Nature of the Incarnation Now we deal with the question of the nature of this fact, the manner of this tremendous miracle, the way of uniting the Divine with the human nature in one and the same Person. First I will point out several heresies that pertain to the nature of the Incarnation and how the Church dealt with them.
Read the rest of the study at - http://www.psalm40.org/incarn8.html
The Incarnation is the mystery of the Word made Flesh. ln this technical sense the word incarnation was adopted from the Latin incarnatio. The Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, "Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, Lo, I have come to do your will, O God." ( Hebrews 10:5 and Psalm 40:7). Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith. And according to John 3:16: "God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life everlasting." Therefore it was necessary for man's salvation that God should become incarnate. The Latin Fathers, from the fourth century, make common use of the word (Saints Jerome, Ambrose, Hippolytus, Hilary and others). I. The Fact of the Incarnation The Incarnation implies three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ. (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ He was a real person of history; the Messiahship of Jesus; the historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts; the Divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ established thereby; the establishment of an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth entrusted to it by the Divine ambassador, Jesus Christ; the handing down of all this deposit by tradition and of part thereof by Holy Writ; the canon and inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures A. Old Testament Proofs Assuming then, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, from the terms of the promise it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the strictest sense of the word, the texts from the Old Testament have weight by themselves; taken together with their fulfilment in the New Testament, to make up a cumulative argument in favour of the Divinity of Jesus Christ that is overwhelming in its force. The Old Testament proofs we draw from the Psalms, the Sapiential Books and the Prophets. They are far too numerous to mention them all here. (For Example: Psalm 2:7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. and "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son" from II Kings 7: 14. It is to be noted that in the pre-sapiential books of the Old Testament, the uncreated Logos, or hrema, is the active and creative principle of Yahweh (see Ps. 32: 4, 6; 115: 89; 102: 20; Isaiah 40: 8; 60: 11). Later the logos became sophia, the uncreated Word became uncreated Wisdom. To Wisdom were attributed all the works of creation and Divine Providence (see Job 28: 12: Prov. 8 and 9 Ecclus. 1:1; 24: 5-12; Wis.6: 21; 9: 9). In Wis.9: 1-2 we have a remarkable instance of the attribution of God's activity to both the Logos and Wisdom. In 9: 6, Isaiah calls the Messiah God: "A child is born to us . . . his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." Catholics explain that the very same child is called God the Strong One (Isaiah 9: 6) and Emmanuel (Isaiah 7: 14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse.)
Read the rest of the study at - http://www.psalm40.org/incarn8.html
