The Incarnation wasn’t just something decided upon in the Trinity somewhere in the upper atmospheres and then dropped onto us on earth for our benefit. There was something earthly in it for God, too. It was practical and hands-on.

It was God’s avenue to being Prophet, Priest, and King…offices of relationship that belong to this world for the sake of men.

God didn’t need to be a prophet, priest or king within the Trinity. The Godhead is complete within itself.

God gave us prophets so we’d hear from him accurately.

God gave us priests so we would learn how to worship Him rightly.

And God wanted to be our king, but sadly, we were not content with that.

1 Samuel 8:1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel…3 But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. 4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” 6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.

That is one of the most depressing passages in the Bible, ranking right up there with the decision to rebel against God in the first place and eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden. We are forever making bad choices and on our own, we’re likely to get the worst of humanity: false prophets, fraudulent priests, and failed kings.   Because we rejected hearing from God, worshiping Him rightly, and serving Him as our King, we gave up on having God’s presence in our world and a relationship with Him.

The Incarnation, however, made this Prophet, Priest, and King accessible in Jesus. He was a man and therefore someone we could relate to. And yet He is God so there’s nothing false, fraudulent, or failed about Him.  God restored our proper relationship, communication, worship, and service and He did it all through the Incarnation.

Thought for today: The Incarnation was God’s avenue to accommodate us, to give us an accessible leadership, a perfect shepherd, and a King of kings and Lord of lords worth serving.

Questions for reflection:

1. There is relationship within the Trinity. Why should it matter to God that mankind has a Prophet, Priest, and King in Jesus?
2. Thinking about relationships, what does a Prophet bring to us? What about a Priest? What about a King?
3. How did the Incarnation of Jesus (Emmanuel, God with us) bring us into a new relationship with Him?

In the Incarnation, there was a little insider stuff going on in the Trinity.

God was gaining from the Incarnation in another way: In Jesus’ submission to the Father.

Some of you may be thinking, “Shut your mouth!”

After all, submission of Jesus within the Godhead is one of those hot-button topics in theological circles. It makes some theologians genuinely angry at the very suggestion.

Submission, in general, is kind of a taboo topic for men to discuss (and women to do). To this group, it reeks of all the patriarchal stuff that modern men and women associate with a different era, like the Stone Age.

Well, I’m one woman who doesn’t mind submission because I understand it. I understand it and I see Jesus doing it. When I am in submission to authority in my life, I look like Jesus and He looks like love. I’m bearing His Image. And it’s all good!  Yay!

Where am I finding Jesus’ submission in the Incarnation?

John 12:44-50, especially John 12:49 For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”

John 5:18-30, especially John 5: 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. …30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

John 12:27 “Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.”

Mark 14:36 “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Thought for the day: Jesus was Incarnated in order to demonstrate a perfect submission to God and God’s ways…something that Adam refused to do. Jesus models for us how mankind should live.  The Son of God had to experience submission even in the “surely die” because Adam didn’t take God’s word as loving, life-giving boundaries in the days prior to the death sentence.

Questions for reflection:

1. Read John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”   What is the connection between love and submission?
2. In the Godhead, submission looks like love. It does not look like power. Why is this an important distinction? Why is it important for the Incarnation?
3. What is the difference between the Father forcing Jesus to die and what happened on the Cross?
4. For insight, read John 10:17 “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life– only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

What was in it for God? Why did God do the Incarnation?

Did He do it only for us?

Romans 5: 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

I’d like to go out on a limb and suggest that while God did the Incarnation for our benefit, God also did it for Himself. God’s Image was at stake. And God’s Image looks like Love. The Incarnation was God’s supreme love on display—His perfect Love in His perfect Image, Jesus Christ.

1 John 4: 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Reading this passage, what was in it for God?

1. He rescued His Image-bearers from surely dying. His Image in us is preserved by His love.
2. He exerted His sovereignty even while our free will is upheld. His authority and power remain unchallenged and our free will was not violated.
3. He maintained His Image as loving and His judgments as holy–all at the same time. His character of holiness is unaltered.
4. He amplified love to its completion, perfection, and fullness. His love is displayed as supreme.  This cannot be underestimated.

Thought for the day: It doesn’t diminish God’s supreme and sacrificial love for God to have gained from the Incarnation as well.

Questions for pondering:

1. Had God just let His Image go to waste, what would that say about God?
2. If God had just ignored our sin, what would that say about His character?
3. John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” How do Jesus’ words alert us to the supremacy of God’s love and what God might have gained from Jesus’ death for our sins?

======

Sometimes technology is imperfect and I’m sorry.  I have no idea why yesterday’s devotional ended up listed as “missed schedule” and it just decided not to publish in time for the mail delivery.  Yesterday’s is probably along with today’s instead.  Life is like that, I guess.  Thanks for understanding.

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

At one point in my life, I worked in the garden department at Home Depot. It was the only work I could get. I would have liked to believe that I might have been hired at some church for a ministry job, after all I was seminary trained and was told in my exit interview from seminary that I had very strong “gift clusters” of leadership and teaching.

The cold, hard reality is that my theology is far too conservative for denominations that welcome women and denominations that might appreciate my perspective on the Scriptures, well, I was far too female.

One day when I was having a pity party for poor old Barb-n-garden and was hoisting heavy pallets onto a stack in the loading dock, I started to cry. It was hard, heavy, and humiliating work…especially when I considered that my peers from seminary, those men, were younger and stronger than I am and here I was, doing manual labor. Humiliating. Humbling. Hoisting. Hauling. Sweeping up dead leaves and dirt when I ought to have been teaching the Bible somewhere.  Such was the pity party.

Now don’t get me wrong, I was valued at the Home Depot. I loved my coworkers and our customers…and they loved me. I loved being with the plants and being useful and so I stayed for quite a few years. Even beyond the mission trip which was the reason for needing paid employment at the time.

I learned a lot about humiliation, condescension, and accommodation from being there. That pity party I’d had back in the loading dock?

It had revealed I had far too little humility and thought I deserved something better.

The truth is that I had far too much pride and deserved far worse.

*.*.*

Pride is ugly and insidious and the solution is humiliation, humbling, and accommodation.

*.*.*

What does this have to do with the Incarnation?

Everything.

Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus was not arrogant in the tiniest sense though He was God in every sense. And yet, He humbled Himself. The Incarnation was God’s accommodation to mankind who deserved every last bit of wrath. And Jesus came to humbly show us the way of salvation. He was humiliated for our deliverance. He had no insidious pride and yet took upon Himself all that we deserved (wrath) so that we could receive what He would give (grace).

Thought for the day: The path to exaltation is through humiliation. The Incarnation was both God’s accommodation to mankind and the perfect display of love worth exalting.

Questions for reflection:

1. What types of things stand in the way of your attitude being what is listed in Philippians 2 above?
2. Have you ever felt like some type of work was beneath you or you were asked to stoop beneath your dignity? What kinds of feelings did it foster?
3. Re-read Philippians 2 above and also Isaiah 53:5 and highlight what Jesus gave up in the Incarnation as God’s accommodation for what we could not do for ourselves.

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

Aladdin’s Genie: What would you wish of me? The ever impressive… the long-contained… the often imitated, but never… duplicated… (duplicated… duplicated… duplicated…) Genie of the Lamp! Right here, direct from the lamp. Right here for your very much wish-fulfillment. Thank you.

Jesus is not a genie from a lamp or a genie that was put in a lamp of a human body. What happened in the Incarnation is totally unique! Jesus is always impressive, long-contained starting with about 33 years on earth and continuing into eternity.  He’s often-imitated in good ways (at least we’re supposed to be imitators of Christ), but He is lampooned by those who really have no clue what they’re doing.

One thing’s for sure: Jesus’ Incarnation is never ever duplicated and it certainly did not happen so that He could grant wishes. Why is the Incarnation unique? Because He’s God.

Wikipedia uses this definition of Incarnation:

Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient being who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial. In its religious context the word is used to mean the descent from Heaven of a god, or divine being in human/animal form on Earth.

Because they define it as being basically a temporary form change, a morphing, avatar, or visitation, they are able to suggest that many world religions have gods who have been incarnated. Some suggest that the Pharaohs were incarnations of gods.  All kinds of beings get all kinds of bodies.

The bad side-flip side is that some believe the flesh is bad and therefore the goal of religion is to be free from a body.

Ugh.  Whatever. People believe all kinds of bunk.

The truth is the biblical idea of the Incarnation is a huge stumbling block to all but those who are willing to see that Jesus is totally unique as The Son of God/Son of Man.

Thought for the day: Jesus didn’t just take on a human form and then go back to being an immaterial entity or change into many different bodies like Aladdin’s Genie.

Questions for reflection:

1. What is the difference between an avatar (a manifestation or visible representation) and the Incarnation?
2. A theophany is a visible manifestation of God to humankind. Read Gen 18:1-3 and 32:24-25, 28-30. How is this different than the Incarnation?
3. This list of verses talks about “the Angel of the Lord” whom many believe are references to the pre-Incarnate Christ. Gen. 16:7-11, Gen 22:11-15, Exo 3:2, Num. 22:22-35, Jdg. 2:1-4, Jdg. 5:23, Jdg. 6:11-22, Jdg. 13:3-21, 1 Ki. 19:7, 2 Ki. 1:3-15, 2 Ki. 19:35, 1 Chr. 21:12-30, Ps. 34:7, Ps. 35:5-6, Isa. 37:36, Zech. 1:11-12, Zech. 3:1-6, Zech. 12:8. If “the Angel  of the Lord” is Jesus before He was fully man (in addition to fully God), how is His Incarnation superior to even this?

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

• Captain Hook: Fly! Fly! Fly! You coward!
• Peter Pan: Coward! Me?
• Captain Hook: Ha-ha-ha! You wouldn’t dare fight old Hook man-to-man. You’d fly away like a cowardly sparrow!
• Peter Pan: Nobody calls Pan a coward and lives! I’ll fight you man-to-man, with one hand behind my back.
• Captain Hook: You mean you won’t fly?
• Wendy: No, don’t, Peter! It’s a trick!
• Peter Pan: I give my word, Hook.
• Captain Hook: Good, then let’s have at it!

Having the power to do something yet experiencing some level of constraint is a curiosity of the Incarnation. What happened here?

It’s not exactly like Peter Pan fighting man-to-man and refusing to do what was within his power (i.e. flying) to save his own life. It is even more than Pan’s self-decision… for self-restraint. Yet, Jesus had divine power as the Eternal Word. Powerful enough to create the entire universe with it. In the Incarnation, though, His human body had certain limitations without leaving Him powerless.

These limitations are referred to as making Himself “nothing” in Philippians 2: 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This making Himself nothing, sometimes called emptying or kenosis, is a confusing concept. It’s easier to identify what He did not empty Himself of. He did not give up His divinity, His divine attributes, His divine power, His intrinsic equality with the Father or His nature as the Eternal Word of the Godhead.

I’d like to propose that what He emptied Himself of was His independent use of His divine attributes. He depended on the Father, showing the perfect fruit of the Spirit in perfect love and perfect self-control.

How do I arrive at that?

Matthew 26: 39 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” 40 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. 41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” 42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

Matthew 26:53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?

The spirit is willing but the body is weak. Jesus experienced all the weakness of humanity, all the frailty, all the sorrows.  Jesus knew He could call upon His Father to relieve Him of these human limitations and yet, He submitted Himself as a servant would to the will of the Father. He submitted to the full attributes of humanity, including mortality.

Thought for the day: Jesus modeled what a life looks like when a person is fully submitted to God.

Questions for pondering:

1. In what ways is Jesus the perfect man?
2. Is the perfect man in perfect control, perfect submission, or both?
3. In what ways did Jesus’ limitations not act as limitations at all?
4. Could we, if we were fully submitted to God, rely upon Him and receive full power from the Father as Jesus did?
5. Why does submission get such a bad rap?

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

The Incarnation was a very costly move.

It was costly for the Father.

It was costly for the Son.

And yet, God did it.

Why?

The Bible tells us that the Incarnation is the perfect expression and revelation of Divine Love. And strange as it seems, love and sacrifice are intimately connected.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins

It’s Christmastime and many people give gifts to those they love. My son, remarking on how many of his friends are getting engaged this Christmas recently wrote, “Engagement Season…because nothing says ‘I Love You!’ like seasonality.”

The truth is that Christmas is a time of Love coming to mankind.

And Easter is when it was shown in its fullness.

Thought for the day: Love gave the gift of the Incarnation. The Incarnation is the gift of perfect Love.

Questions for reflection:

1. Read Ephesians 2:1 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions– it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God– 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” How is God’s love shown to us in the Incarnation?
2. Read 1 John 4:16 “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 17 In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.” How does the gift of Love at Christmas keep on giving even beyond Easter?
3. How might you give to others this Gift who keeps on giving?

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

The Incarnation was God’s answer and man’s only hope.  If anything created could have saved us, then God was a fool to do it Himself.

Think about that statement for a moment.

Now think about all the things we think are going to save us:

• exercise
• diet
• health care
• concern for the planet
• jobs and the economy
• gold
• elections

Certainly you can add your own ideas to that list.

Unless God is the only point of hope for you, the list contains created things.  Even if some of the created things were done by created beings.  And yet think about it: none of those created things are going to save us.

Death still happens because sin still happens. And why does sin still happen?  Because we have a sin nature.

It takes God to redeem our sin nature.  And here is our hope…not in something created, but in the Eternal Word made flesh.  Our Hope is in Christ Jesus.

In His Incarnation. Nothing created could do it.  So, God did it Himself.

Thought for the day: God’s holiness and our sin are such opposing opposites that God had to save us Himself.

Questions for reflection:

1. When a person insists on doing something himself, what are some of the reasons?
2. How is God doing it Himself different?
3. How is God’s eternal and infinite being sufficient to save all who are willing to be saved by faith?

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

Q: Why did Jesus come as a man and not some other sort of creature?

A: Because only man bears God’s Image.

Jesus, as a man, was not only an Image bearer of God, He is the Image of God.

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

Jesus was Incarnated in human flesh in order to rescue the Image of God from mortality. It was through Jesus’ humanity that God would reconcile man and all the rest of creation groaning under the weight of human sin…and reconcile to Himself these things through Jesus’ blood shed on the cross.

Thought for the day: No other man bears God’s Image the way Jesus did.  Jesus is God’s Perfect Image, His Perfect Reflection, and His Perfect Revelation.

Questions for pondering:

1. What is the significance that Jesus IS the very Image of God?
2. Read 2 Corinthians 3: 17 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” When will we reflect God’s Image perfectly? Even so, will we ever BE the very Image of God?  Look at the reflection in the photo and ponder the distinction between an object and its perfect reflection.
3. How does a perfect and eternal being provide a sufficient and complete sacrifice for all mankind?  Would a near-perfect reflection on account of behavior alone have accomplished the same thing?  Jesus did not earn heaven and achieve godhood by being a well-behaved guy.
4. What role does our faith accomplish if Jesus paid it all in the death of God’s perfect Image bearer?

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><

Strange, isn’t it, to think that Jesus still has a body? Once incarnated, He would have a body forever. No return to being some sort of spirit minus a body like the Father or the Holy Spirit. No return to being uncontained, as it were.

My first thought as I was pondering this was a song by the Talking Heads titled “And She Was”—a rock tune written by David Byrne. In talking about his inspiration for this song, he wrote, “I used to know a blissed-out hippie-chick in Baltimore…She once told me that she used to do acid (the drug, not music) and lay down on the field by the Yoo-hoo chocolate soda factory. Flying out of her body, etc., etc. It seemed like such a tacky kind of transcendence… but it was real! A new kind of religion being born out of heaps of rusted cars and fast food joints. And this girl was flying above it all, but in it too.”

Okay, that’s pretty weird.

Jesus didn’t have an out-of-body or rather in-the-body experience as some sort of drug-induced trip from which He’d return to reality. Nope. For Him, He existed before all time and then, in God’s perfect timing, He added full humanity to His full divinity and it would be a forever thing.

The Infinite would gain—through the Son’s Incarnation—the experience of being finite. (Aw go ahead and say, “Whoaaaaa”)

The experience of death. (Whoaaaa.) The experience of knowing what created beings feel and know…even if Jesus was never created.

Jesus was Incarnated—in part—to experience full humanity. (Whoaaaa…)

Thought for the day: Once Jesus was Incarnated, He would be the Word made Flesh. There would be no Flesh going back and returning as simply the Word.

Questions for reflection:

1. When Jesus returns, what does the Bible say? Read Luke 21: 27 At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Will Jesus have a body?
2. Read Luke 24:13-31 about Jesus walking with the two men on the road to Emmaus. Did Jesus have a body? Was it a regular human body? In what ways was it different?
3. Why is it important that Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t just His spirit but also His body? What if His body was still in the tomb…what could anyone prove?
4. Does Jesus’ body still serve some function, and if yes, what functions does His humanity serve? For thinking about “in Him”, read 2 Corinthians 5:21 “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (Consider also Eph 1:4-14, Eph 2:21, Eph 3:12, Eph 4:21, and Col 2:6-7)

======

Incarnation (2015 Advent Devotional Series) began November 29th.  By way of reminder, if you haven’t signed up yet, you can receive these devotional studies in your email throughout Advent 2015 by entering your email address on the SeminaryGal.com home page in the space provided in the sidebar.  Or “Like” the SeminaryGal Facebook page to access them there.  If you like these devotionals, I’d really appreciate your letting others know so I can continue to spread the Good News far and wide.  Blessings to you, in Christ always, Barbara <><