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I wasn't sure where to post this. Miscellaneous was too random, and though the source is extra-Biblical, it is a good reflection and representation on the Word becoming Flesh. These are basically my extensive notes on the work called De Incarnatione by Athanasius. It was written in the 4th Century. I thought ya'll might find it an interesting read! Forgive any spelling errors please!
I Creation and Fall
+ The Word of the Father is divine. All creation owes its being to Him.
+ Through the Word the Father orders creation.
+ The Word renews this creation, having made it in the beginning.
+ The distinctness of creation suggests a Cause, and we can assume the Cause is God.
+ God is Maker, though his ability to create is not dependent upon anything that has been caused before him (pre-existing matter) because nothing existed before him. He created by will alone.
+ Man, being a created thing of God, was set apart from the animals by the grace to be made in the image and likeness of God.: the ability to share in the reasoning ability of the Word.
+ Man, being given free will, was bound by place and law to receive this grace. The place was paradise
(Eden) and the law the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
+ To disobey the command was to die.
+ Man is an embodied spirit . Man was to have an uncorrupted body.
+ The Word called man into being, in sin knowledge of God was lost, sin causing non-being for being is only in and through God.
+ God makes man from nothing. He bestows divine life by grace through the Word. Man rejects this grace and turns towards evil, causing corruption through sin and death. By nature they were subject to corruption, but by grace they had been given the ability to escape corruption, but in sin they chose corruption and rejected saving grace.
II & III The Divine Dilemma and its Solution in the Incarnation
+ God can not go against his ruling that man should die for eating the fruit, but he also could not allow beings that were to share God’s nature should fall into on-existence through corruption.
+ If he let them fall into corruption, why would he have created them anyways? It is unfitting for God to allow mankind to be left to corruption.
+ It would seem good for God to offer incorruption for the repentance of man, yet repentance does not change the (sinful) nature of man…he would still be corrupt.
+ It was required that grace be recalled for man, but no one could offer this better or more fully than the Word of God himself, through whom these men had been created.
+ The incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God alone could save man, and had to enter into the world.
+ To come into the world, to redeem man, the Word took on the body of man, from a virgin, untainted by intercourse with a man.
+ All bodies of men, being corrupted, were subject to death. He took on a body like ours, subject to death, he surrendered his body to death on our behalf. In his death all die, but the law of death is abolished because he took the power of death over the body and made it without power by his own death & resurrection.
+ The Word saw that corruption could only be rid of through death, but since the Word could not die, he had to take on a body that could. By his indwelling he made this body incorruptible. By his resurrection he made death powerless over the body. The promise of the resurrection is a promise of the incorruptibility of the body.
+ “For by the sacrifice of His own body He did two things: He put an end to the law of death which barred our way; and he made a new beginning of life for us, by giving us the hope of resurrection.”
+ Death was given power over men by men. Death is made powerless by the Word. As in Adam all die, in Christ all is made alive.
+ What use is it for the creature to exist if it can not know its maker? How can men be reasonable (Image and likeness of God) if they do not know the Word and Reason of the Father?
+ Man defiled his soul through sin so as to be unable to know God. As a result, man invented other things to take the place of God.
+The honor which was due to God the Creator by man the creature was instead given to other things.
+Knowing the limitations of man, God provided things in nature that man could observe and see in them the work of God, that they might know that God exists.
+ God also gave man a law and sent man prophets, so that if they could not recognize God through the world they might recognize him this way.
+ God provided three ways to know him: 1) By pondering creation realize the Creator, 2) Holy men could tell them of God, 3) By abiding by the Law they could live a good life.
+ Since man was so limited, it was necessary for God to renew His Image in man so that men could come to know God.
+ Mankind was blinded by evil and were unqualified to convert the souls and minds of other men. “You can not but straight in others what is warped in yourself.”
+ Men were made in the likeness of the Image, and could not remake the Image being corrupted beings. Angels were not made in the Image of God and could not renew the Image. The Word alone is the Image of the Father, and the Word alone could renew the Image in man by becoming a person.
+ The Word assumed a body in order to renew the Image in man.
+ Man no longer contemplated heavenly things to find God, but instead looked to created things on Earth.
+ The Word became an object for the human senses so that those looking for God with their senses might find him.
+ Christ did not immediately offer up himself in sacrifice because to do so immediately there would be nothing for the senses of men to observe and know him by.
+ Christ remained in the body and allowed him self to be seen through deed, words, and actions that showed him to be not only man but God, proving himself Word of the Father.
+ Being the Word made Flesh did not impede his ability to be elsewhere. He did not cease to direct the universe.
+ He existed in a body that he gave life too and was still the source of life for the universe.
+ He lived a human life as man but sustained the universe as the Word. As son he was in union with the Father.
+ The Word was not defiled by the body, but the body was sanctified by the Word.
+ Being man and God, the body did those acts proper to a body lest it be confused that he was merely appearing to be in a body.
+ Those things he did with the body that can only be done by God were to show the divine nature of the Word in the body. The Word being the Lord and Maker of all things had power over all things through his body (water to wine).
IV The Death of Christ
+ “…recognizing His bodily acts as works of God, men who were blind to His presence in creation might regain knowledge of the Father.”
+ All men were doomed to die. There was a debt owed to God.
+ He offered his body as a sacrifice on behalf of all to cover the debt, free man from his sin, and prove life mightier than death by the resurrection of his body.
+ The Body of the Word was liable to death. The indwelling of the Word freed it from this liability. The death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body, and the Word within destroyed death.
+ Death of the body is a result of man’s natural weakness. The Lord is not weak but is powerful. If the Lord had merely died of old age, he would appear to have died as men do according to their weak nature. This would make the Lord look no different than a normal man.
+ The Lord did not prevent his death because he took on a body to overcome death through resurrection. The body must die before it is resurrected.
+ The Lord did not avoid the plans of the Jews but waited for death to end death, hastening it to complete his offering of self on behalf of all.
+ He came to bring the resurrection of the body. It would be an assurance that he had conquered death and corruption.
+ He had to die publicly, because if he had died privately, resurrected, and then said he had resurrected with no witnesses to his death, he would have been taken as a liar. The Pharisees refused to believe in miracles they had seen, why would they believe in a private resurrection?
+ He died on the cross in an dishonorable way lest he be accused of being afraid to die…suggesting he had no power over death.
+ His body was whole and undivided in death so that there would be no excuse for division amongst his Church later.
V The Resurrection
+ On the cross he made all of creation witness to the creator. He could have resurrected his body immediately to show to all his power of his death, but then it could be said that he had not completely died on the cross. He waited one day to show his body was truly dead and then showed it to be incorruptible on the third day.
+ “Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch.”
+ The destruction of death is manifested in the risen body of the Lord.
+ Christ’s present activity in the world is a proof that he is alive.
+ The body of the Lord was human and mortal and had to die, but being a temple of Life itself, it could not remain dead. “It therefore died as a mortal but lived again because of the Life within it.”
+ The invisible God is now known also through his works in the world. Those who can not behold him with their eyes can see his works.
+ His name drives out evil spirits, and the name of one who is dead can not have power over evil spirits.
VI Refutation of the Jews
+ Scandal lies in the seemingly unfittingness of the Cross and the Incarnation.
+ Scripture says
“You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes, and you shall not believe” (Deut. 28: 66).
“But I as an innocent lamb brought to be offered was yet ignorant of it. They plotted evil against me saying ‘Come, let us cast wood into his bread and wipe him out from the land of the living” (Jer. 11: 19).
“They pierced my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones, they divided my garments for themselves and cast lots for my clothing” (Psalm 22: 16-18).
+ Death on the cross is a death by wood that is lifted up before many. Death on a cross pierces the hands and the feet.
+ All the great prophets had a father as the reason for their being, but only Jesus was born of a virgin without a human father.
+ Jesus “proceeded from a virgin, and appeared as a man on earth, He it is Whose earthly lineage cannot be declared, because He alone derives His body from no human father, but from a virgin alone. We can trace the paternal descent of David and Moses and all of the patriarchs. But with the Savior we cannot do so, for it was He Himself Who caused the star to announce His bodily birth, and it was fitting that the Word, when He came down from heaven, should have His sign in heaven too, and fitting that the King of creation on His coming forth should be visibly recognized by all the world.” 70
+ “It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stands, neither is prophet raised up nor vision revealed among them.”
+ “…there is no longer any king or prophet nor Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision among them; yet the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God, and the Gentiles, forsaking atheism, are now taking refuge with the God of Abraham through the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.”
VII & VIII Refutation of the Gentiles
+ Christians say the Word was manifested in a body.
+ Greek philosophers said the universe was a great body. They say we perceive the universe and its parts with our senses. The Word is in the universe and has entered into every part of it. Why then could he not enter into human nature?
+ He enters the universe and reveals himself through it, humanity being a part of the universe, and he had entered the universe by the part of it that is humanity.
+ As a man exists in his entire body, he exists in parts of the body. God exists in the body of the universe but also in the part that is Humanity. In humanity, he enlightens the human body.
+ It is fitting that the Creator be in the thing he created. Man is part of creation, so the creation has put himself in man by taking on the human body.
+ The Word is present in the whole and in the parts. He wills to reveal himself to the whole by manifesting himself in the part that is humanity.
+ Nothing in creation had sinned against God but man, so it was necessary for the Word to become man.
+ Men are able to recognize God in the Whole by seeing him in the part (as man). Men come to know the Father through the Word manifested as a man. Comparing the works of the Word made man to their own, they would see His as divine.
+ He used a mortal body as an instrument, but was not subject to its defects. Instead, he sanctified the human body by abiding within it.
+ The corruption of the body was not external but internal.
+ Death was within the body from sin. Life had to take the place of death within the body. If the Lord had come outside of the body, he would have defeated death but corruption will have remained within the body. He took on the body and dwelt within it to replace death with Life.
X Conclusion
+ The scriptures speak of the second manifestation of God, one which will be glorious and divine when the Word comes not in lowliness but in power.
+ “But for searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of good life and a pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word.”
We read this book in my theology class and I am using it to write a paper for my Christology class. This is sort of the reasoning of Athanasius behind the faith in the truth and necessity the God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. Pretty gnarly stuff. I definately recommend this work to any Christian.
I Creation and Fall
+ The Word of the Father is divine. All creation owes its being to Him.
+ Through the Word the Father orders creation.
+ The Word renews this creation, having made it in the beginning.
+ The distinctness of creation suggests a Cause, and we can assume the Cause is God.
+ God is Maker, though his ability to create is not dependent upon anything that has been caused before him (pre-existing matter) because nothing existed before him. He created by will alone.
+ Man, being a created thing of God, was set apart from the animals by the grace to be made in the image and likeness of God.: the ability to share in the reasoning ability of the Word.
+ Man, being given free will, was bound by place and law to receive this grace. The place was paradise
(Eden) and the law the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
+ To disobey the command was to die.
+ Man is an embodied spirit . Man was to have an uncorrupted body.
+ The Word called man into being, in sin knowledge of God was lost, sin causing non-being for being is only in and through God.
+ God makes man from nothing. He bestows divine life by grace through the Word. Man rejects this grace and turns towards evil, causing corruption through sin and death. By nature they were subject to corruption, but by grace they had been given the ability to escape corruption, but in sin they chose corruption and rejected saving grace.
II & III The Divine Dilemma and its Solution in the Incarnation
+ God can not go against his ruling that man should die for eating the fruit, but he also could not allow beings that were to share God’s nature should fall into on-existence through corruption.
+ If he let them fall into corruption, why would he have created them anyways? It is unfitting for God to allow mankind to be left to corruption.
+ It would seem good for God to offer incorruption for the repentance of man, yet repentance does not change the (sinful) nature of man…he would still be corrupt.
+ It was required that grace be recalled for man, but no one could offer this better or more fully than the Word of God himself, through whom these men had been created.
+ The incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God alone could save man, and had to enter into the world.
+ To come into the world, to redeem man, the Word took on the body of man, from a virgin, untainted by intercourse with a man.
+ All bodies of men, being corrupted, were subject to death. He took on a body like ours, subject to death, he surrendered his body to death on our behalf. In his death all die, but the law of death is abolished because he took the power of death over the body and made it without power by his own death & resurrection.
+ The Word saw that corruption could only be rid of through death, but since the Word could not die, he had to take on a body that could. By his indwelling he made this body incorruptible. By his resurrection he made death powerless over the body. The promise of the resurrection is a promise of the incorruptibility of the body.
+ “For by the sacrifice of His own body He did two things: He put an end to the law of death which barred our way; and he made a new beginning of life for us, by giving us the hope of resurrection.”
+ Death was given power over men by men. Death is made powerless by the Word. As in Adam all die, in Christ all is made alive.
+ What use is it for the creature to exist if it can not know its maker? How can men be reasonable (Image and likeness of God) if they do not know the Word and Reason of the Father?
+ Man defiled his soul through sin so as to be unable to know God. As a result, man invented other things to take the place of God.
+The honor which was due to God the Creator by man the creature was instead given to other things.
+Knowing the limitations of man, God provided things in nature that man could observe and see in them the work of God, that they might know that God exists.
+ God also gave man a law and sent man prophets, so that if they could not recognize God through the world they might recognize him this way.
+ God provided three ways to know him: 1) By pondering creation realize the Creator, 2) Holy men could tell them of God, 3) By abiding by the Law they could live a good life.
+ Since man was so limited, it was necessary for God to renew His Image in man so that men could come to know God.
+ Mankind was blinded by evil and were unqualified to convert the souls and minds of other men. “You can not but straight in others what is warped in yourself.”
+ Men were made in the likeness of the Image, and could not remake the Image being corrupted beings. Angels were not made in the Image of God and could not renew the Image. The Word alone is the Image of the Father, and the Word alone could renew the Image in man by becoming a person.
+ The Word assumed a body in order to renew the Image in man.
+ Man no longer contemplated heavenly things to find God, but instead looked to created things on Earth.
+ The Word became an object for the human senses so that those looking for God with their senses might find him.
+ Christ did not immediately offer up himself in sacrifice because to do so immediately there would be nothing for the senses of men to observe and know him by.
+ Christ remained in the body and allowed him self to be seen through deed, words, and actions that showed him to be not only man but God, proving himself Word of the Father.
+ Being the Word made Flesh did not impede his ability to be elsewhere. He did not cease to direct the universe.
+ He existed in a body that he gave life too and was still the source of life for the universe.
+ He lived a human life as man but sustained the universe as the Word. As son he was in union with the Father.
+ The Word was not defiled by the body, but the body was sanctified by the Word.
+ Being man and God, the body did those acts proper to a body lest it be confused that he was merely appearing to be in a body.
+ Those things he did with the body that can only be done by God were to show the divine nature of the Word in the body. The Word being the Lord and Maker of all things had power over all things through his body (water to wine).
IV The Death of Christ
+ “…recognizing His bodily acts as works of God, men who were blind to His presence in creation might regain knowledge of the Father.”
+ All men were doomed to die. There was a debt owed to God.
+ He offered his body as a sacrifice on behalf of all to cover the debt, free man from his sin, and prove life mightier than death by the resurrection of his body.
+ The Body of the Word was liable to death. The indwelling of the Word freed it from this liability. The death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body, and the Word within destroyed death.
+ Death of the body is a result of man’s natural weakness. The Lord is not weak but is powerful. If the Lord had merely died of old age, he would appear to have died as men do according to their weak nature. This would make the Lord look no different than a normal man.
+ The Lord did not prevent his death because he took on a body to overcome death through resurrection. The body must die before it is resurrected.
+ The Lord did not avoid the plans of the Jews but waited for death to end death, hastening it to complete his offering of self on behalf of all.
+ He came to bring the resurrection of the body. It would be an assurance that he had conquered death and corruption.
+ He had to die publicly, because if he had died privately, resurrected, and then said he had resurrected with no witnesses to his death, he would have been taken as a liar. The Pharisees refused to believe in miracles they had seen, why would they believe in a private resurrection?
+ He died on the cross in an dishonorable way lest he be accused of being afraid to die…suggesting he had no power over death.
+ His body was whole and undivided in death so that there would be no excuse for division amongst his Church later.
V The Resurrection
+ On the cross he made all of creation witness to the creator. He could have resurrected his body immediately to show to all his power of his death, but then it could be said that he had not completely died on the cross. He waited one day to show his body was truly dead and then showed it to be incorruptible on the third day.
+ “Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch.”
+ The destruction of death is manifested in the risen body of the Lord.
+ Christ’s present activity in the world is a proof that he is alive.
+ The body of the Lord was human and mortal and had to die, but being a temple of Life itself, it could not remain dead. “It therefore died as a mortal but lived again because of the Life within it.”
+ The invisible God is now known also through his works in the world. Those who can not behold him with their eyes can see his works.
+ His name drives out evil spirits, and the name of one who is dead can not have power over evil spirits.
VI Refutation of the Jews
+ Scandal lies in the seemingly unfittingness of the Cross and the Incarnation.
+ Scripture says
“You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes, and you shall not believe” (Deut. 28: 66).
“But I as an innocent lamb brought to be offered was yet ignorant of it. They plotted evil against me saying ‘Come, let us cast wood into his bread and wipe him out from the land of the living” (Jer. 11: 19).
“They pierced my hands and my feet, they counted all my bones, they divided my garments for themselves and cast lots for my clothing” (Psalm 22: 16-18).
+ Death on the cross is a death by wood that is lifted up before many. Death on a cross pierces the hands and the feet.
+ All the great prophets had a father as the reason for their being, but only Jesus was born of a virgin without a human father.
+ Jesus “proceeded from a virgin, and appeared as a man on earth, He it is Whose earthly lineage cannot be declared, because He alone derives His body from no human father, but from a virgin alone. We can trace the paternal descent of David and Moses and all of the patriarchs. But with the Savior we cannot do so, for it was He Himself Who caused the star to announce His bodily birth, and it was fitting that the Word, when He came down from heaven, should have His sign in heaven too, and fitting that the King of creation on His coming forth should be visibly recognized by all the world.” 70
+ “It is, in fact, a sign and notable proof of the coming of the Word that Jerusalem no longer stands, neither is prophet raised up nor vision revealed among them.”
+ “…there is no longer any king or prophet nor Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision among them; yet the whole earth is filled with the knowledge of God, and the Gentiles, forsaking atheism, are now taking refuge with the God of Abraham through the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ.”
VII & VIII Refutation of the Gentiles
+ Christians say the Word was manifested in a body.
+ Greek philosophers said the universe was a great body. They say we perceive the universe and its parts with our senses. The Word is in the universe and has entered into every part of it. Why then could he not enter into human nature?
+ He enters the universe and reveals himself through it, humanity being a part of the universe, and he had entered the universe by the part of it that is humanity.
+ As a man exists in his entire body, he exists in parts of the body. God exists in the body of the universe but also in the part that is Humanity. In humanity, he enlightens the human body.
+ It is fitting that the Creator be in the thing he created. Man is part of creation, so the creation has put himself in man by taking on the human body.
+ The Word is present in the whole and in the parts. He wills to reveal himself to the whole by manifesting himself in the part that is humanity.
+ Nothing in creation had sinned against God but man, so it was necessary for the Word to become man.
+ Men are able to recognize God in the Whole by seeing him in the part (as man). Men come to know the Father through the Word manifested as a man. Comparing the works of the Word made man to their own, they would see His as divine.
+ He used a mortal body as an instrument, but was not subject to its defects. Instead, he sanctified the human body by abiding within it.
+ The corruption of the body was not external but internal.
+ Death was within the body from sin. Life had to take the place of death within the body. If the Lord had come outside of the body, he would have defeated death but corruption will have remained within the body. He took on the body and dwelt within it to replace death with Life.
X Conclusion
+ The scriptures speak of the second manifestation of God, one which will be glorious and divine when the Word comes not in lowliness but in power.
+ “But for searching and right understanding of the Scriptures there is need of good life and a pure soul, and for Christian virtue to guide the mind to grasp, so far as human nature can, the truth concerning God the Word.”
We read this book in my theology class and I am using it to write a paper for my Christology class. This is sort of the reasoning of Athanasius behind the faith in the truth and necessity the God became man in the person of Jesus Christ. Pretty gnarly stuff. I definately recommend this work to any Christian.
