Sermon Tone Analysis

The Incarnation Of Christ

I. THE MEANING OF INCARNATION

Though the word itself does not appear in Scripture, its components (“in” and “flesh”) do.

John wrote that the Word became flesh (John 1:14).

He also wrote of Jesus coming in the flesh (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7).

By this he meant that the eternal second person of the Trinity took on Himself humanity.

He did not possess humanity until the birth, since the Lord became flesh (egeneto, John 1:14, in contrast to the four occurrences of en in vv.

1–2).

However, His humanity was sinless, a fact Paul guards by writing that He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom.

8:3).

II.

THE PREDICTIONS OF INCARNATION

A. Prediction of the God-Man

In this prophecy concerning Messiah in Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah foretold the union of Deity and humanity in Him.

He said that a child would be born (a reference to humanity) and that His character would be such that He may be designated as the Mighty God (el gibbor, a reference to Deity).

Isaiah uses el only in reference to God (see 31:3); gibbor means hero.

Thus the phrase means a hero whose chief characteristic is that He is God.

Thus in this single verse both the humanity and deity of our Lord are predicted.

The name Immanuel reveals the same truth about the Lord (Isa.

7:14).

This means more than God’s presence with His people in His providential dealings.

It means in this text that the very presence of the virgin-born Child brings God to His people.

B. Prediction of the Virgin Birth (Isa.

7:14)

In this prophecy Isaiah foretold the means of the Incarnation as being a virgin birth.

Liberals have challenged the translation “virgin” for the Hebrew word almah, stating that bethulah should have been used if Isaiah unmistakably meant virgin.

It is true that almah means a sexually mature, marriageable maiden, and bethulah means a separated woman, usually a virgin, but not always (Esther 2:17; Ezek.

23:3; Joel 1:8).

Thus it is not true to say, as the critics do, that bethulah would have been a more precise word to use if Isaiah clearly meant virgin.

Apparently almah is not a technical term for virgin but refers to a young woman, one of whose characteristics is virginity (Gen.

24:43).

There is no instance where it can be proved that almah designates a young woman who is not a virgin.

The Septuagint translates it by parthenos in two of its seven occurrences, as does Matthew 1:23.

Thus the word means a young woman of marriageable age, one of whose characteristics was virginity, and necessarily so in the case of the fulfillment of this prophecy in Christ’s birth.

Who is the virgin referred to in the prophecy?

The interpretations fall into three basic categories.

(1) The nonmessianic interpretation that understands the prophecy fulfilled by some unknown woman in the past who may or may not have been a virgin.

How then can verse 23 be explained?

(2) The strictly messianic interpretation that sees the prophecy referring only to Mary with no reference to any maiden of Isaiah’s time.

Unquestionably it does refer to Mary (v.

23), but whether to her only is the question.

Without a reference to someone in Isaiah’s time what value would the sign have been to Ahaz? (3) The prophecy refers both to someone in Isaiah’s day and to Mary in the future.

According to this third interpretation, who would be the maiden in Isaiah’s day?

Again there are three answers: (a) Ahaz’s wife; (b) some unknown maiden in Israel; or (c) Isaiah’s second wife to whom he was not yet married when the prophecy was given.

If (a) is true then the son was Hezekiah.

If (b) is true, then the son is unknown.

If (c) is true the son was either Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa.

8:3) or another unmentioned son of Isaiah.

In this view Isaiah’s first wife, the mother of Shear-jashub (7:3) had already died.

Matthew unambiguously sees Christ as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

Of this there can be no question.

And both the strictly messianic and the double-reference views acknowledge that.

III.

THE MEANS OF INCARNATION

A. The Evidence

The Virgin Birth was the means of the Incarnation.

The Incarnation, once accomplished, is a lasting state for our Lord.

It began at His birth and continues (albeit in a resurrection body now) forever.

In contrast to the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth was an event that lasted only a matter of hours.

When Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the Messiah, she protested that she would need a husband.

The angel’s response was, in essence, you won’t need a husband, because the Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (Luke 1:35).

The statement emphasizes more the fact of divine generation of the Child than the method.

Matthew carefully guarded the fact of the Virgin Birth in the genealogical table of our Lord (Matt.

1:16).

He recorded that Joseph was the husband of Mary, but that it was by Mary only that Jesus was born.

The pronoun “by whom” is feminine singular, indicating clearly that Jesus was born of Mary only and not of Mary and Joseph.

Whether Galatians 4:4, “born of a woman,” indicates the Virgin Birth or not is unclear.

It may simply mean that Christ assumed humanity just like He assumed a position under the Law, as the next phrase says.

Or it might refer to the Virgin Birth since the verb is not the regular verb for “be born” but the same verb as in John 1:14 that refers to the Incarnation, though not to the Virgin Birth as such.

However, the passages in Isaiah, Matthew, and Luke are clear.

What was the purpose of the Virgin Birth?

It need not be the necessary means of preserving Christ sinless, since God could have overshadowed two parents so as to protect the baby’s sinlessness had He so desired.

It served as a sign of the uniqueness of the person who was born.

How early and how widely the fact was known among the contemporaries of Christ we cannot say.

Of course, when Matthew and Luke were written it was known, and from that time on the early church regarded it as a crucial doctrine, and by the early second century an established doctrine.

B. The Genealogies

Matthew and Luke both trace the genealogy of the virgin-born Son.

Matthew contains forty-one selected names, whereas Luke includes seventy-seven.

Matthew traces the King back to Abraham; Luke goes back to Adam.

Matthew’s list is commonly regarded as Joseph’s line and Luke’s, Mary’s.

There has been much discussion particularly over the question of whether Luke’s genealogy is that of Jesus through Mary His mother.

Alfred Plummer raised this objection to that view: “It is probable that so obvious a solution, as that one was the pedigree of Joseph and the other the pedigree of Mary, would have been very soon advocated, if there had been any reason (excepting the difficulty) for adopting it.

But this solution is not suggested by anyone until Amnnius of Viterbo propounded it, ca.

A.D. 1490.”

On the other side, F. Godet argued effectively for Mary’s lineage in Luke on the basis of the absence of the article before Joseph (3:23), which links Jesus directly with Eli and seemingly puts Joseph out of the genealogical line altogether.

Various explanations are given for both genealogies being Joseph’s line.

One is that Matthan and Matthat are the same person, making Jacob and Eli brothers and making Joseph the son of Eli and the nephew of Jacob.

If Jacob died without heirs his nephew Joseph would have become the heir, or possibly Joseph became the heir of Jacob because Eli (assuming that his wife had died) married Jacob’s widow according to the custom of levirate marriage.

A strong argument for the Lucan genealogy being Mary’s relates to the curse placed on Jehoiachin (Jeconiah or Coniah) in Jeremiah 22:30.

He was pronounced “childless,” which is explained in the verse as meaning no physical descendant of his would prosperously reign on the throne of David.

(He apparently did have seven sons, though perhaps adopted, 1 Chron.

3:17–18.)

Thus Jesus could not expect to be a ruling king (though He had the legal right) if He were a blood descendant of Joseph, who was a descendant of Coniah.

Therefore the virgin birth was necessary to free Him from the line of the curse.

However, this could also be accomplished if Jesus is linked to Joseph (not as His natural father, of course) through Nathan rather than Solomon (as Luke might be indicating).

It has also been suggested that the curse on Coniah was ended by God’s choosing and exalting Zerubbabel (Hag.

2:23 KJV).

Making him “as a signet” elevated him to a place of authority, and choosing him transferred to Zerubbabel and his family among David’s descendants the messianic promise.

Zerubbabel’s name does appear in both the Matthew and Luke genealogies.

In any case Luke carefully avoided the impression that Jesus might be the natural son of Joseph; yet he preserved His kingly claims by not linking Him solely to His mother (since the claim passed through the male members).

Never in His lifetime did anyone dispute Jesus’ claim to the throne of David.

IV.

THE PURPOSES OF THE INCARNATION

Why did God send His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh?

The Scriptures give several answers to that question.

A. To Reveal God to Us

Though God reveals Himself in various ways, including the magnificences of nature around us, only the Incarnation revealed the essence of God, though veiled (John 1:18; 14:7–11).