Part 4 Of Our Advent Series Looking At The Belief That God Is With Us. Series

God With Us

Matthew 1:23

December 19, 2021

I want to talk about something I believe is a cornerstone belief for those who claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior. I want to talk about what theologians call the incarnation. I’ve really been talking all around it for the past few weeks. What do we believe when we talk about the incarnation? I want to read from Matthew 1, some very powerful verses about the incarnation, the birth of Jesus - - -

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph,

before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David,

do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21 She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). - Matthew 1:18-23

This last verse has been the main verse for the past few weeks. It’s a reminder of the presence of God, through the birth of His Son, Jesus Christ, Immanuel. God with us. God with you! It’s the promise that God will never leave you, He will never forsake you.

So, what exactly is the incarnation? In order to clearly define this in a way that everybody would understand, I went to the source of all wisdom and knowledge. The Internet! Specifically to Wikipedia. You know, the Internet never has false information. Yet, I do think Wiki got it right! Now, depending on how you type your search, you get a couple of different ideas about the incarnation.

According to Wikipedia, this is the incarnation - - -

In Christian theology, the incarnation is the belief that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, also known as God the Son or the Logos, "was made flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman, the Virgin Mary, also known as the Theotokos. The doctrine of the incarnation, then, entails that Jesus is fully God and fully human. These two natures, human and divine, were hypostatically united into the one personhood of Jesus Christ.

Wikipedia did a really good job getting this right. But, what does all of this mean?

Well, Jesus is not two persons. He is one person. The hypostatic union is the mysterious joining of the divine and the human in the one person of Jesus. What’s the significance? Why bother with this fancy term?

It is foundational and awe-inspiring to know that Jesus’s two natures are perfectly united in His one person. Jesus is not divided. He’s not two people. He is one person. As the Chalcedonian Creed of 451 AD states, Jesus is - - - one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

I think that’s all pretty clear. Bottom line - - Jesus is one.

This means Jesus is one focal point for our worship. He is always fully man and always fully divine. That’s kind of hard to wrap our minds around all of this.

Because of this hypostatic (one-person) union, Jesus Christ exhibits an unparalleled magnificence. No one person satisfies the complex longings of the human heart like Jesus.

So, that was pretty simple and understandable who Jesus is, right?

What is the incarnation? As simply as I can put it, it’s when God became flesh in the person of His Son, Jesus. John's gospel tells us in John 1:1 and 1:14 - --

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us . . .

The incarnation is when God the Spirit entered into our world in the person, in the flesh, as Jesus. Jesus was all man and all God all at the same time. He is God incarnate. We can go back to our key verse for this series, Matthew 1:23, which tells us - -

23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

God with us - God in Spirit and God in the flesh all at the same time. It’s part of the mystical mystery of the reality what God actually did for us. Next Sunday, I’m going to kind of play out a conversation between God and Jesus, while in heaven, to kind of bookend this series. It may help us to see what God did for us.