We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Mary and Her Baby

The Incarnation: More Than a Rescue Mission

A mistake people often make concerning the Incarnation is that they fail to distinguish the eternal plan of God to unite himself with humanity in Christ, on the one hand, from the atoning significance this plan acquired after the fall, on the other. Some therefore think of the Incarnation as a sort of “Plan B” that God had to activate to rescue humanity. It seems to me this “contingency plan” view of the Incarnation compromises the grandeur and beauty of God’s dream to live in unity with humanity (see post), since it makes it look like God would have preferred to remain in heaven and not united himself to us. Within this point of view, one might conclude that our sin forced God’s hand by requiring him to become a human to rescue us.

Others have rightly understood that the divine plan to incorporate humans “in Christ” by means of the Incarnation is spoken of in the New Testament not as a “Plan B,” but as God’s plan from the start. But, they fail to distinguish between the Incarnation itself and the atoning significance the Incarnation takes on in light of our rebellion, and therefore they come to the frightful conclusion that sin itself must have been part of God’s “plan A” all along! This leads to the difficult problems associated with the blueprint worldview where God predestines all things, even sin and rebellion.

The view of the Incarnation I’m advocating steers a middle course between these two interpretations and avoids both of their problems. It’s true that Jesus came to earth to overcome evil with sacrificial love. He came to vanquish the principalities and powers, pay for the consequences of our sin, restore us back to God, etc. And to accomplish this, Jesus had to suffer and die. But none of this suffering had to happen, for sin never has to happen. Sin, by definition, is what’s not supposed to happen. The suffering dimension of the Incarnation was rendered necessary only because of our rebellion.

But this doesn’t imply that the Incarnation itself was only devised as a rescue operation after our rebellion. And it certainly doesn’t imply that our rebellion was part of God’s eternal plan. Rather, as a number of theologians have argued throughout history, God would have become a human being and incorporated us “into Christ” even if there had been no rebellion.

As I see it, God’s original plan was to mature the relationship between humans and himself over time to prepare us for his union with us. Just as a marriage between two people is preceded by a period of courtship, so God courted humans in preparation for his marriage to us. The Incarnation is, as it were, God’s marital union with us, which is why we are called Christ’s bride.

The dream of a beautiful marriage between God and humanity was the reason God created the world. Therefore God was not going to let our rebellion and the rebellion of certain angels get in his way. Rather, with a manifold wisdom that is beyond human comprehension, God devised a way to “kill two birds with one stone.” The union of God and humanity in Christ would, first of all, consummate God’s marriage with us. And secondly, it would defeat the devil, end the reign of the Powers on the earth, free humanity from condemnation, and restore us back to our rightful place as co-rulers with Christ upon the earth.

“Mary and Her Baby” painting by Daniel Bonnell

Related Reading

Podcast: If Open Theism is True, Does it Make Sense to Pray For Intercession?

Greg talks about prayer and freedom. Specifically, if free will is so important, why would God override it in answer to prayer? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0123.mp3

Greg on the Open View of the Future

Greg was featured today on the Pangea blog. (Thanks Kurt!) The blog references a series of lectures Greg presented at the Open Theology and Science Conference at Azusa Pacific University, April 11, 2008 entitled “A Flexible Sovereignty: A Biblical Understanding of Providence and the Nature of the Future” . If you’re looking for a comprehensive video series on…

What Unfulfilled Prophesies Say About the Open View

Image by Lori Greig via Flickr Yesterday, we posted about how Messianic prophesies are understood in the open view of the future. Today, this post will look at prophesies that are not fulfilled in the way predicted and what that can tell us about the open view of the future. In John Goldingay’s excellent multi-volume work, Old…

Topics:

How do you respond to Malachi 3:6?

“For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.” Some cite this verse as evidence that God need never be flexible in his plans and change his mind. But this claim contradicts all the explicit declarations in Scripture which state that God does frequently modify his plans and…

Conflicting Pictures of God

In my ongoing reflections on the ReKnew Manifesto, I’ve spent the last two posts (here and here) arguing that nothing is more important in our life than our mental images of God. If so, then the all-important question is: what authority do we trust to tell us what God is like? To most evangelicals, the…

Thankful that God Outsmarted Satan

Concerning the cross, Paul wrote that God’s intent was “that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places … in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph 3:10-11). One…