A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (9)

Systematic theology is all over the ancient creeds and confessions of the early Christian church and here, with the Athanasian creed, as it discusses the unity of the person of Jesus, it’s as dense as it gets.

The creed reads: He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. 

That which made the Son of God, the Son of God, did not change during the incarnation. We saw that much in the previous statement, and through the words of Paul in Philippians 2. Instead of the Son of God being changed by becoming a human being, he took upon himself humanity and, thus, remained as he was and always had been: the Son of God from all eternity.

This truth leaves us with the wonderfully complex and mystifying reality that Jesus Christ, is one within himself while being God and man. There is no hint of a complex unity of persons like there is within the godhead (see Genesis 1:26: then God said, “Let us make man in our image.”). 

There is not a fractured existence with Jesus where his divinity and humanity are fighting it out with one another. As we saw before, Jesus is truly and completely God while, through his incarnation, being truly and completely man.

In the one person of Jesus—the Son of God—there is unity. There is unity between the natures of Jesus, just like there is unity among the persons within the Trinity. It is impossible to speak of the biblical God without assuming the existence of the Trinity. In a similar manner, following the incarnation, it is impossible to speak of the existence of Jesus without assuming the reality of his divinity and humanity.

To put it another way: God is complex, therefore, the Son of God is complex. However, his complexity is not a barrier to keep us from him; instead, it’s an invitation to come and see, and worship this Jesus.

A Moment on the Scriptures: The Theology of Christmas (8)

How does something like the incarnation happen?

The Athanasian Creed does its best to give a succinct answer to this question by saying: He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God’s taking humanity to himself.

To be clear, and this is where numerous creeds and confessions are so helpful, this creed is cautious to clarify what it means by saying that the Son of God became a human being. He did not become a human being by being turned into a man. Instead, he became a human being by taking flesh upon himself (i.e., being incarnated).

Again, whenever we can turn to Scripture to substantiate a section of the creed (which is an end to which we should always be pursuing) this will help us better understand what the early drafters of the creed meant by what they wrote. The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Philippians 2: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6-7, ESV).

I’d like to focus on one phrase in that statement by Paul: taking the form of a servant. In Greek, the phrase is: μορφὴν δούλου λαβών. The last word in the Greek phrase is what helps us understand what’s going on here. It’s a Greek word that often means I take or I receive. In this sense, it clearly means, I take. Paul shows us by using the word λαβών that the being of the Son of God didn’t change through the incarnation. 

Admittedly, it’s splitting hairs, but it’s important.

When the Son of God became a man he did it without changing the essence of who he was; instead, he did it by taking upon himself humanity. You might say that the Son of God added humanity to himself. Or, if you want to stick close to the words of Paul, then Jesus took the form of a servant.