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.

foot_washing

Living Incarnationally

The Christian faith is centered on the belief that in Jesus Christ God became a human being. This is commonly referred to as the doctrine of the incarnation. It means that in Jesus, God became embodied. God left the blessed domain of heaven, was born in Bethlehem, and took on our humanity that we might share in the blessedness of heaven. He took on our sin so that we might share in his righteousness. He entered the domain of Satan’s oppressive reign to free us and transform the world into a domain of his loving reign. Jesus is God’s loving embodiment in the world.

As the embodiment of God, Jesus perfectly manifested what God is like. This is why the New Testament authors refer to Jesus as the Word of God (John 1:1), the image of God (Col 1:15), and the perfect expression of God’s very essence (Heb 1:3). It’s why Jesus could say, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Because Jesus is the embodiment of God, all of our thinking about God must be centered upon him.

But the earliest Christians understood that the incarnation wasn’t just about what God did once upon a time in Jesus. Because Jesus reveals who God really is, the incarnation tells us something about what God is always doing. It’s also about the incarnation of God today. While there’s only one incarnate Son of God, God is always embodying himself in the world. He does this primarily by identifying with those who submit their lives to him.

This is why Jesus followers are collectively referred to as “the Body of Christ.” We are, in a very real sense, an extension of Jesus’ earthly body. We are God’s hands, feet, and mouth in the world.

This is illustrated by the two volumes written by Luke. The gospel of Luke is about the ministry of Jesus, and Acts is about the early church. Luke opens Acts by noting that in his “former book” he wrote about “all that Jesus began to do and to teach” (Acts 1:1). The second book then is about all that Jesus continues to do and to teach. The Gospel was about what God did through Jesus’ incarnate body, while Acts is about what God continues to do through Jesus’ second, corporate body.

The followers of Jesus are called to imitate God in all things (Eph 5:1-2). This includes imitating his incarnational love in the ways we fully enter into the life of others. We are called to live incarnationally. Jesus reveals that God is a God who is willing to set aside the blessedness of his own domain and become fully present to others. So too, we are called to be a people who are willing to set aside the comforts and conveniences of our own lives and become fully present to others. This is part of what it means to “be imitators of God” and “live in love as Christ loved us and gave his life for us” (Eph 5:1-2). As we live incarnationally, God himself is continuing to be embodied in the world.

—Adapted from Present Perfect, pages 118-120

Photo credit: paukrus via VisualHunt / CC BY

Related Reading

The Cruciform Way of the Lamb

In this video, Greg offers insight into how to read the Bible with the cross at the center of the revelation of God, thereby reframing how we interpret the violent and nationalistic passages of the Old Testament. Travis Reed from The Work of the People did a series of interviews with Greg a while ago and…

Twenty Arguments Against Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”

On March 4th, 2007, the Discovery Channel aired James Cameron’s much celebrated documentary, “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.” The documentary basically gives a new spin on an old discovery. In 1980, a first century tomb was discovered in Talpoit (a southern suburb of Jerusalem) that contained 10 ossuaries (that is, boxes that contain the remains…

Unpacking Revelation: Is it Literal?

According to many scholars as well as many Christian laypeople, the Jesus we find in the book of Revelation engages in a great deal of violence. This violence reaches a zenith in chapter 19 where we find Jesus going out to make war on a white horse (v. 11). He is dressed in a blood…

The REAL Problem with Divine Violence in the OT

As I mentioned in my previous blog, while I will continue to offer video-blogs responding to questions that come in, I’m also planning on sprinkling in reflections based on my forthcoming book, Crucifixion of the Warrior God, over the next couple months. Today, I just want to state what I consider to be the real…

How Much Does the Cross Really Matter?

The cross is as foolishness and weakness to nonbelievers, but Paul wrote that to those who are being saved it is both “the power” and “wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:18, 24). In sharp contrast to the controlling power and wisdom that has been ascribed to God or the gods throughout history—including in much of…

How To Fix The Church: The Kingdom of God (Part 4)

God has leveraged everything on the Church loving like Jesus loved, as outlined in our previous posts in this series. “By this the world will know you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “by your love” (Jn 13:35). By God’s own design, Christ-like love is supposed to be the proof that Jesus is real. In John…