Christmas Is about the Incarnation

Benjamin Cabe

9 years ago

In a recent Conciliar Post article entitled, Christmas is about the Cross, George Aldhizer presented the Reformed understanding of the Incarnation as a means to an end. The end being the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and the salvation of the elect; a salvation that needed to be “purchased” in order to “fully satisfy the justice of [the] Father”.¹ George explained the purpose of the article in footnote 1 as,

a response to some comments within the Round Table against the Reformed understanding of the Incarnation. Ben Cabe argues that the Orthodox view, in contrast to the Protestant view, of the Incarnation is “not viewed as a reaction to man’s fall but rather a plan in accordance with the eternal will of the Father.” This article sees this comment as presenting a false dichotomy. The eternal will of the Father has always been to redeem broken humanity out of sheer grace through the person and work of Jesus Christ, applied through the drawing of the Holy Spirit.

George mentions in his first paragraph the article’s main points: 1. The Incarnation was not an end in itself but was rather meant to restore broken humanity to God. 2. The cross of Christ and the Incarnation are intricately connected to accomplish the salvation of the world. At first blush, these may sound reasonable when applied to postlapsarian (fallen) mankind. Human beings today are certainly plagued with a fractured human nature. The Incarnation and the death of Christ on the cross do, together, accomplish the salvation of the world. However, the purpose behind George’s article, while propounding the Reformed understanding of the Incarnation, also seeks to refute the claim that Christ would have become Incarnate even if man had not fallen into sin. As a result of this de-emphasis on the unique accomplishment of the Incarnation, it is marred beyond recognition; it is reduced to having little or no significance for mankind in its own right. George implicitly states that the Incarnation is meaningless without the death of Christ on the cross. With this, I could not disagree more.

A brief critique of George’s Article

First, George argues his points solely with regard to postlapsarian human nature, and thus fails to address prelapsarian (pre-fallen) mankind. Second, he does not speak of the man’s creation in the image and likeness of God, that is, of the Incarnate Logos. Third, he does not present the telos of prelapsarian man and creation.

Concerning the second, I can only assume that George does not connect man’s creation in the image and likeness of God with the Incarnate Christ—who, as the Archetype, came to fulfill the human person.

Finally, George’s understanding of salvation does not have a positive aspect. Hear me out here. Surely being “saved from damnation” is positive, but the reality is that we were not just saved from damnation but to salvation in Christ. To participate fully in the life of Christ. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The questions lingering behind George’s article must be addressed. Did pre-fallen man have something to aspire to? What was the state of his communion with God? What did the Incarnation uniquely accomplish for man’s relationship with God? And, ultimately, what is salvation?

In response to George’s article, I will offer a few thoughts:

Response

Within the Orthodox Tradition there is a rich emphasis on the fulfillment of all things in Christ. In contrast to the Reformed idea that “the eternal will of the Father has always been to redeem broken humanity,” Orthodox Christians understand creation, in accordance with the eternal will of the Father, as an act of love. “For God so loved . . .” could be rightly added as a prefix to every movement of the Holy Trinity. This is the Orthodox starting point: God is love². Christos Yannaras, in Relational Ontology, explains that,

[the word] Love here does not mean a form or quality of behavior that is usually in evidence in expressions such as to be “full of love,” or to “show love,” and so forth. In spite of its semiologically given referential (relational) character, the word love functions in this particular proposition as a definition: it defines the is, the reality of being, before any manifestation of activity or determination of behavior.³

The question of the eternal will of the Father must address the question behind God’s creation. From my limited understanding, the Reformed tradition claims that God created human beings to glorify Himself through the salvation and damnation of select individuals. In stark contrast to the idea of glory by damnation, the Orthodox maintain that the Holy Trinity created out of their “unceasing movement of mutual love”⁴. The glory of God is not the damnation of man, but rather the fulfilment of man in himself; the human being made fully alive.⁵ God did not create in order to redeem, he created in order to deify—to give all of himself to man in ecstatic love; to grant the life of the uncreated Holy Trinity to man.

This Divine Love would not be satisfied with anything less than full communion; the pre-eternal will spoken of in scripture is referring to the fulfilment of all things in Christ.⁶But here, several other questions must be asked: what constitutes, and what do we mean by ‘full communion’? Why was full communion necessary? What was the status of prelapsarian mankind with relation to this communion?

These questions are tied to the creation of mankind which is, in turn, tied to the telos of man. We are told in Genesis one that human beings were made according to the image and likeness of God; and in Colossians 1:15-18 we see that the image of God is Jesus Christ, who is the firstborn of all creation and the firstborn from the dead.⁷

The fact that Adam was created in the image of Christ implies that it was his vocation to be raised up to the Archetype or, more precisely, to be purified and to love God so much that God would come to dwell within him, that the Logos would enter into a hypostatic union with man, and thus appear in history as the Christ, be manifested as the God-man. The ‘entry of the firstborn into the world’ (Heb 1:6) fulfils the eternal will of God, the highest mystery ‘hidden from ages and from generations’ (Col 1:26).⁸

The very creation of man in the image and likeness of God presupposed the Incarnate Christ, the Archetype. For the telos of man is his perfection—or completion—in Christ.

The fact that Christ did not exist historically at the time of Adam’s creation is of no significance. It is a fundamental biblical teaching that on the level of supra-temporal reality of God, Christ is ‘the firstborn of all creation’ (Col 1:15-17). If man, for whom all the material creation was brought into being, rose last of all creatures from the earth, it is surely logical that Christ, who is the goal of the whole of the material and spiritual creation, should be later than Adam, since all things are led from imperfection to perfection. Christ, as the highest realization of man, naturally constitutes the goal of mankind’s upward journey, the beginning but also the end of history.⁹

The very image according to which man was created is “not simply the Logos but the incarnate Logos.”¹⁰ Man’s creation in the image and likeness of God is not a small matter; it enables mankind to receive the Incarnate Logos who, in turn, is the telos of man.

‘in the image’ implies a gift within man but at the same time a goal set before him, a possession but also a destiny, since it really does constitute man’s being, but only in potentiality. The ‘in the image’ is a real power, a pledge, which should lead to marriage, that is, the hypostatic union, the unconfused but real fulfilling mixture and commingling of the divine and human natures. Only then does the iconic or potential being of man become real, authentic being. Man finds in the Archetype his true ontological meaning.¹¹

Man’s perfection in Christ is something that Adam was called to achieve, not a static reality imposed on him. Once again, man’s creation in the image and likeness makes this quite clear.

The word translated ‘likeness’, homoiosis, suggests something more precise in Greek: the ending, -oisis, implies a process, not a state (the Greek for Likeness as a state would be homoioma). The word homoiosis would moreover have very definite resonances for anyone who had read Plato, who envisages the goal of the human life as homoiosis — likening, assimilation — to the divine.¹²

What George is uncomfortable with is the idea that the Incarnation is a reality that accomplishes something in its own right—and thus for prelapsarian man. In one of our conversations, he mentioned that he does not see this idea anywhere in scripture. The scriptures, however, make it quite clear that man’s goal is perfection in Christ—one that is accomplished in man’s assimilation and recapitulation in him, through the union of the divine and human natures in the hypostasis of Jesus Christ. Scripture also clearly states that Christ is the firstborn of all creation.

The reality is, that human nature does not have to be broken in order to need fulfillment. Certainly man’s sin in the garden mentally complicates the issue. But God did not miss a beat. Out of love he exiled man from the garden so that he would not eat from the tree of life, and live eternally in his state of spiritual sickness. Salvation from damnation is the negative aspect of salvation that entered the scene after man’s sin. The positive aspect of salvation, that of full communion with God, constituted the eternal will of the Father and the telos of man—a reality fully accomplished through the Incarnate Christ.

George uses 1 Timothy 1:15 and Matthew 1:21 in the beginning of his article to prove that the reason for the Incarnation is only to save men from sin. But this argument does not work. Orthodox Christians have never denied the fact that Christ came to save sinners (postlapsarian man). Every Sunday we confess that, “Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.” But this aspect of Christ’s Incarnation does not automatically exclude all other aspects. The facts that we are saved to something, and as a result, from something, are not mutually exclusive. The telos of man has always been union with God.

The final end of the spiritual Way is that we humans should also become part of this Trinitarian coinherence, or perichoresis, being wholly taken up into the circle of love that exists within God. So Christ prayed to his Father on the night before his Crucifixion: ‘May they all be one: as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, so may they also be one in us’ (John 17:21).¹³

Concerning this fact, George fails to see that creation ex nihilo requires the God-man, the Incarnation, in order to make this union possible. The creature has, “no ontological foundation either in itself (for it is created from nothing), nor in the divine essence, for in the act of creation God was under no necessity of any kind whatever.”¹⁴ This is what the creation of man in the image and likeness and the proclamation of Christ as the firstborn of creation means for the telos of man. That we might have “life more abundantly.” ¹⁵ The Incarnation enables us to be “partakers of the Divine nature.”¹⁶ Created man is dependent on his creator, and without “the hypostasis of the Logos, [human nature] was in some way without real hypostasis—it lacked real ‘subsistence’.¹⁷

I have had conversations with George centered around this topic he has refused to accept the given fact that, because the uncreated God created out of nothing, the “fundamental division within reality [is] not between the spiritual and the material, but between the created and the uncreated.”¹⁸ Perhaps it is not this fact that he refuses to accept but rather the thought that this division must be overcome in prelapsarian man, if at all.

This is the great hidden mystery [viz., the mystery of the Divine Incarnation]. This is the blessed end for which all things were created. This is the preordained divine goal of the origin of beings, which we define as the preordained end for the sake of which all things exist, although this end itself depends on nothing. It was with a view to this end [Christ, the hypostatic union of divine and human nature] that God brought forth the essence of all beings.¹⁹

The Incarnation is deeply related to the creation of man in the image which is also related to the telos of man: perfection in Christ. These two realities were givens before the fall; it stands to reason, then, that the Incarnation was also a part God’s original plan for creation.

Christ is the first perfect man—perfect, that is to say, not just in a potential sense, as Adam was in his innocence before the fall, but in the sense of completely realized “likeness”. The Incarnation, then is not simply a way of undoing the effects of original sin, but is an essential stage upon man’s journey from the divine image to the divine likeness. The true image and likeness of God is Christ himself; and so, from the very first moment of man’s creation in the image, the Incarnation of Christ was in some way already implied. The true reason for the Incarnation, then, lies not in man’s sinfulness but in his unfallen nature as being made in the divine image and capable of union with God.²⁰

Scripture attests that the telos of man is to be made perfect in Christ; this is a perfection in actuality, not merely through some sort of imputation. To be “made perfect in Christ” was the calling of Adam in the garden, not merely a reactionary clause referencing the “reversal of the fall.” God created man for communion—and communion with an infinite God is infinitely realized.

“Ineffably the infinite limits itself, while the finite is expanded to the measure of the infinite”²¹

Created human beings are called to participate in the uncreated life of the Holy Trinity. And by participation, man is made by grace everything that God is by nature²² thereby superseding natural necessity and createdness. This allows for real and total communion in ecstatic love and has always been the telos of man—this can be seen by the gift, in man, of the divine image.

Instead of addressing the question of man’s goal in life, the Christocentric nature of creation, and the indelible event of the Incarnation as fulfillment, George presents a view of the man, creation, and the incarnation that falls radically short of what we read in scripture and in the teachings of the early Christians. One that, does not exhaust the mystery of the Incarnation of Christ but rather does the complete opposite.

What does it really mean for the creature, for the creation, that the second person of the Trinity became man? What does it mean that the immaterial God indwelled creation? The implications of the Incarnate Logos are staggering; He sanctified and fulfilled creation and united for the first time the divine and human natures in His hypostasis.

To claim that the Incarnation was a means to the end of the cross, and thus has no significance in its own right, is unreasonable. Such thinking leads to an impoverished Christianity—because the Incarnation touches all of Christianity. It informs how we worship and makes possible literal transformation by participation in the life of Christ, the realization of man’s calling. How does man achieve the goal for which he was created? How is he perfected in Christ? How do all things find their true end and fulfillment? It is all made possible through the Incarnation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, man’s creation in the image and likeness of God points directly to, and is fulfilled by, the Incarnate Christ—who is the firstborn of all creation. The Incarnate Christ makes possible the telos of man—union with God through participation in the life of the Holy Trinity—by overcoming in the person of Christ the division between the uncreated God and created man: a fundamental division that cannot be denied without denying creation ex nihilo. When man sinned in the garden, human nature was fractured and death entered the world. The death of Christ, the immortal God, on the cross destroyed death and opened the way for the resurrection of mankind. For us today, these two realities make possible the reality of salvation—not one without the other. When we journey toward fulfillment in Christ (salvation) we are at the same time journeying away from damnation. The second, negative aspect of salvation—salvation from damnation—entered the scene only after man’s sin. However, the positive aspect of salvation—salvation as fulfillment, communion with the infinite God in Trinity—existed before the fall. This is why we say that prelapsarian man needed salvation, because prelapsarian man needed the Incarnation. The Incarnation, then, is certainly of great significance in its own right. And today, December 25, we celebrate the birth of Incarnate Logos; Christmas is about the Incarnation.

Merry Christmas, Christ is born! I would like to leave you with this quote by Kallistos Ware.

St. Isaac urges [that] God’s taking of humanity is to be understood not only as an act of restoration, not only as a response to man’s sin, but also and more fundamentally as an act of love. An expression of God’s own nature. Even had there been no fall, God in his own limitless, outgoing love would still have chosen to identify himself with his creation by becoming man.

The Incarnation of Christ, looked at in this way, effects [sic] more than a reversal of the fall, more than restoration of man to his original state in Paradise. When God becomes man, this marks the beginning of an essentially new stage in the history of man, and not just a return to the past. The Incarnation raised man to a new level; the last state is higher than the first. Only in Jesus Christ do we reveal the full possibilities of our human nature; until he is born, the true implications of our personhood are still hidden from us.²³

*I would like to mention that, while I am an Orthodox Christian, I do not officially speak for the Orthodox Church. For this reason, I subject all of my thoughts and reasonings to the Orthodox Church for any needed clarification and/or corrections.

**This article was not meant to assume that I know everything about George’s beliefs (or Reformed Christians in general). Neither it is an attack on George. It is my attempt to explain why I believe the Incarnation is, indeed, of great importance in its own right.

Show Sources

George Aldhizer, Christmas is About the Cross. Conciliar Post. Web. 22 Dec. 2014. https://conciliarpost.com/theology-spirituality/christmas-is-about-the-cross/
1 John 4:8
Christos Yannaras, Relational Ontology. Brookline: Orthodox Press, 2011. Page 11.
Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999. Page 27.
St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies
Ephesians 1:10: “that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.”
Colossians 1:15-18 is striking: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.”
Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987. Page 35.
Ibid
Ibid
Ibid, 37.
Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. Page 84.
Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999. Page 28.
Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991. Page 98.
John 10:10: The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
2 Peter 1:2-4: “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption, that is in the world through lust.”
Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987. Page 38.
Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013. Page 37.
St Maximus the Confessor, To Thalassios: On Various Questions.
Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999. Page 71.
St. Maximus the Confessor, Letter 21.
St. Athanasius, On The Incarnation.
Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999. Pages 70-71.

Comment string on George’s article:

Ben Cabe: George, thank you for contributing this piece about the Reformed worldview / understanding of the Incarnation and the cross. In the stead of a long comment, I will write a response in the form of an article. Look for that this week, sometime before Christmas. Thanks again

George Aldhizer: Very much so looking forward to it. I don’t want the article to read as aimed against Orthodox or Methodist views. I think the views I outlined from these reformed creeds are in many ways shared across Christian traditions. What I was meaning to say in the footnote is that one could read the article as rebutting a couple of comments in the Round Table discussion, though that is not the starting point of the article.

All of that is to say I’m excited to read your upcoming article. Hope that gives you a better picture of where I was coming from in writing the piece.

Ben Cabe: Thank you, George. In contrast, my article may be a little more critical. However, my intention is to outline the importance of the Incarnation—an importance for both pre-fallen and fallen mankind. Should be posted on Christmas day.

Your article gives me a great platform to propound the Orthodox understanding of the Incarnation. I value your insights and beliefs (which many others share)—although we disagree on this subject (more specifically on the eternal will of the Father and whether the Incarnation would have taken place for pre-fallen man) I am greatly appreciative of your work here on Conciliar Post. I do mention you and the article in my up-and-coming piece. I will take this comment into consideration while crafting my references to your intent.

George Aldhizer: I welcome the critical 🙂 Merry Christmas to you!

Benjamin Winter: I love your focus on humility in this article. Also, the Catechism quotations were very informative.

It will be interesting to see the dialog continue with Ben’s upcoming post. I do have a question now for George, though! You state: “The Incarnation, rather than being a stand-alone celebration, proceeds from an eternal will that precedes it, and results in a death that reconciles.” My question is about the eternal will behind the incarnation. How would you answer the critique that your focus on the reconciling death (effect #1 of 4 from my post on the roundtable) seems to tie God too closely to the injustice of sin, or rather, to give sin (which is not a thing in in itself, but a “missing the mark”) too important a role in the divine economy?

Another articulation of my thoughts: If the sole purpose of the incarnation involves God identifying himself with humanity through taking on sin, does it then follow that God’s will and sin are too closely tied? So this can perhaps be seen as a question about the effects of God’s foreknowledge, and about the extent of human freedom (which is a question of anthropology), especially given that your acknowledgment that “God from eternity past decided to create the world, knowing that it would fall into sin.” Thanks!

George Aldhizer: Thanks Benjamin for your probing questions. I have a feeling that Ben’s response article coming out tomorrow may assume that this article is saying too much than I mean it to say, maybe that reflects poor writing on my part. By the statement, “Christmas is about the Cross,” I don’t mean to be saying Christmas is only or even primarily about the cross. I’m merely hoping to connect our imaginations from Advent and Christmas to Good Friday (and then Easter). I also don’t want this to be viewed as THE Reformed view on the Incarnation, or even THE Reformed view on the atonement. I think there is more to the Incarnation than subsequent atonement (as my prior article on setting the captives free in my earlier article) and there is more to the Reformed view on the cross than penal substitution.

In my footnote #3, I write that there can be a serious danger in thinking that Christ only came to earth to die. I’m sure Ben will accuse me of missing the very important doctrine of union with Christ within my article. Maybe that shows a blind spot in my article, but I believe it shows that I wasn’t trying to that much within my article. So, Benjamin, when you write, “If the sole purpose of the incarnation involves God identifying himself with humanity through taking on sin…” I don’t believe that in the slightest. Again, that may reflect poor writing on my part, or a (very right) recognition that the evangelicalism that I write from too often equates Christ’s birth with his death. (These two points are not meant to say that Ben will not have anything left to critique)

As for your important questions Benjamin. In the article, I’m attempting to write concerning Reformed Trinitarian soteriology, that I think is nicely summed up by Michael Horton, “The doctrines of the Trinity and predestination (or God’s decree) converge at the point of the eternal covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) between the persons of the Godhead. In that covenant, before the world existed, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit already turn toward us, with a purpose to create, redeem, and gather a church for everlasting fellowship. As in all of God’s external operations, both the eternal decree itself and its execution in history are accomplished from the Father, in the Son, through the Spirit.”

So, given that framework, certainly sin is, in some sense, tied to the eternal will of God. More specifically, redemption is tied to the eternal will of God. “Everlasting fellowship” with God as the end goal requires a reconciliatory death, given that God knows humanity will fall into sin. I’d be curious if you believe that those explanations still fall into your critiques.

Ben Cabe: Benjamin and George, thank you for these comments. I do believe there is some truth in how I will critique George’s article–as I did read this as “the incarnation does not have any value in itself”, which I am not convinced as of this last comment, that George actually believes.

This being so, the value of my piece may be the explanation of why I believe the incarnation would have happened even without the fall. And that man needed it in order to achieve this union with God (like Goerge says I will critique him) even before the fall.

I also wanted to point out in the article that the incarnation does accomplish something tangible (even without the cross). However, because of our fallenness, it is both the Incarnation and the cross that make open the way for our salvation–not one without the other.

The question is, would man have needed the incarnation if he had not fallen. I would answer yes. For those reasons, look for the article tomorrow morning.

Thanks again, George. Like I said, my article is critical, but I am in no way attempting to attack you; just attempting (probably poorly) to explain my line of thinking, and why claiming the Incarnation was not needed for pre-fallen man, seems to go against the telos of man, man’s creation in the image and likeness, and creation ex nihilo.

George Aldhizer: Again, I’m looking forward to it Ben. I look forward to it both because it’s about me, and it challenges my views. And also because I think it will be the first article written specifically on one of the author’s views of Conciliar Post. I think that kind of engagement among authors (if done well and charitably) is a valuable thing for the site.

Just to clarify, I do believe that the incarnation is not valuable in and of itself. What I mean by this is that god in the flesh does not reconcile a sinful humanity to God, for we remain sinners in the midst of a holy God. Thus, the cross must be connected to the mission of the incarnation. This is not to say that the incarnation is not important for the many ways that the Orthodox believe it to be, just that God in the flesh does not reconcile in and of itself.

Just to be clear, the comment that “the incarnation is not valuable in and of itself” is aimed at sinful humanity, not a hypothetical pre-fall humanity. I look forward to the article, maybe this is too much discussion pre-article haha.

Ben Cabe: Ah, yes. That is what I suspected: that you believe the Incarnation is of no value (to post-fallen) humanity (with respect to reconciliation) without the cross. I would disagree with this. Hence, the article.

Notes:

Of course, in addition to quoting scripture, I am quoting the Church Fathers—”name dropping” is something I have been accused of, though not by George per se. George’s recurring critique of Orthodox and Catholic theology has been their reliance on the Church Fathers for scriptural interpretation. However, I would like to point out that George does just this with his use of the Heidelberg Catechism, which is an articulation and specific interpretation of scripture that does not come into existence until 1563. The point here is not to criticize the nuances in the Protestant’s use of a ‘protestant tradition’ in order to interpret scripture but rather to show that the Incarnation, creation, and the telos of man are all connected as a part of God’s original plan for creation, with or without the fall.

It is not my purpose to rehash in this article everything I have written about this subject (See Round Table on the Incarnation and Roundtable on the Image of God)—as George’s response is just another contribution to an on-going dialogue. But I certainly wanted to write concerning George’s recent article.