God Incarnate

Scripture focus

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 1:14 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Packer identifies the Incarnation, rather than the more commonly debated miracles, as Christianity's deepest and most staggering claim: that the eternal Son of God became fully human without ceasing to be fully God. He argues that once this is genuinely grasped, other stumbling blocks in the gospel — the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection — stop being separate difficulties and become natural consequences of who Jesus already is.

He works through what the New Testament actually claims for the child of Bethlehem: not merely a specially favored man, but God's own eternal Son, present with the Father before creation and active within it, now clothed in a genuine, limited human nature. Packer is careful to reject any theory that Christ set his divinity aside to become human; instead, the Gospels present a Son who submitted his divine power to the Father's will while remaining fully God throughout.

The chapter ends by turning the doctrine toward Christmas itself. The purpose of the Incarnation was never comfort or spectacle but sacrifice — the Son became poor, Packer says, so that others might be made rich, and that self-spending love, not sentiment, is what the season is actually meant to commemorate.

Key points

• The Incarnation — God become man — is the central mystery of the Christian faith, not a secondary miracle among others.
• Once the Incarnation is accepted, the virgin birth, miracles and resurrection follow naturally rather than needing separate defense.
• Scripture presents Jesus as fully God and fully man simultaneously, not God temporarily disguised as a man.
• Theories that Christ emptied himself of his divine attributes to become human go beyond what the text actually claims.
• The purpose of the Incarnation was always redemptive: the Son became poor so that others could be enriched.

A line worth remembering

The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man.

J. I. Packer Knowing God, ch. 5

Related Scripture

• John 1:1-14
• Philippians 2:6-8
• Hebrews 2:17-18
• 2 Corinthians 8:9

For reflection and discussion

1. Why might grasping the Incarnation make the rest of the gospel easier, not harder, to accept?
2. How does knowing that Jesus was 'made like his brothers in every way' change how you bring him your own struggles?
3. What would it look like, this Christmas, to imitate the self-spending love of the Incarnation rather than just its sentiment?