Incarnation

The Bible states that the Incarnation (John 1:14) is when God’s Son, Jesus, came down to earth and became a human being. The “Word” mentioned here refers to Jesus Himself. John 1:1 says, “the Word was God,” which means Jesus is God. God so loved the world that He sent His one and only Son, Jesus, into the world (John 3:16a). He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary (Luke 1:35), so the Son of God took on the form of the Son of Man to reveal God to humanity.

Why did Jesus have to become incarnate? Luke 19:10 gives us the answer: The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). Jesus came to die on the cross for our sins so that we might have eternal life. Because the children are of “flesh and blood,” He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil (Hebrews 2:14). Through His physical death, the Lord Jesus overcame the one who held the power of death.

Jesus was fully divine, holy, and omnipotent; He was also fully human, but without sin. Through Jesus, people can come to know and believe in God. The death of the Lord Jesus was an act of obedience to God’s will, dying on the cross as a substitute for sinners. On the third day, He rose from the dead, completing God’s great work of salvation, so that all who believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16b).

The Bible records:

[John 1:14] The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

[John 1:18] No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.