The Insurrection of the Incarnation
In 2 Kings 11, we read the story of Queen Athaliah, who usurped the throne of Judah when her son, Ahaziah, was killed. To take the throne for herself, she murdered all her grandsons, except one who escaped. His name was Joash. Several years passed before his survival was made known, but when he was publicly unveiled before the people, we read in 2 Kings 11:12 that, “the people clapped their hands and shouted, ‘Long live the king!’”
When Athaliah, the traitorous and wretched queen hears the commotion, she runs out shouting, “Treason! Treason!” But she cannot stop the Lord’s anointed. Her death is ordered by Jehoida, the priest who helped crown Joash, and King Joash proceeds to tear down the altars to Baal, smash the temples, and kill Baal’s priests. The people rejoice.
A godly insurrection had occurred. And believe it or not, this points us to the godliest insurrection of all: The incarnation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2:5-11 is likely the most well-known text that speaks of the incarnation of Jesus:
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so 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.
Philippians 2:5-11 is rather famous for its explanation of the incarnation. In this text, the Apostle Paul calls and exhorts us to live a life of humble service to the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ. But, in exhorting us to do so, Paul explains to us the miracle of the incarnation—the miracle of Christmas: Jesus truly did become a man. The God-man walked the earth and humbled Himself to die the death we were owed upon the cross. But He didn’t stay dead—He was raised from the dead, and in His resurrection was highly exalted above all else, named the King of kings and Lord of lords, and was promised a Kingdom where all His adversaries, one way or another, would one day come to bend the knee before Him and confess that He is Lord, to the glory of the Father.
This means that, whether or not we realize it, the Christmas message of the incarnation of Jesus Christ—that Jesus came down from Heaven and became a man to seek and save His bride, the Church, made up of all the elect that the Father had promised to give Him—is a message of joy and hope to the followers of Jesus, but a message of rebellious insurrection to all His enemies, declaring that all the kings and rulers of this world have been displaced, ravaged, and conquered by Christ.
In the ancient Roman world, it was an act of treasonous insurrection to proclaim that Christ was Lord. To claim that there was another King who was not Caesar was thought blasphemous. To further claim that even Caesar was called upon to bow down before the King of kings was thought to be utter insanity by the Roman populace. Yet, this was exactly what early Christians proclaimed, especially through the Gospel, and this was one of the main points of the incarnation of Jesus Christ: By taking upon Himself the form of human flesh, not only did God become man, but Heaven invaded earth.
We can’t understand Christmas, or our hope in Jesus, or the incarnation, apart from this truth: It was an insurrection when Jesus came down and Heaven invaded the earth. A rebellion was taking place, wherein the rightful King and Ruler of all was coming to reclaim what was always His. For a time, it was as though He had permitted the inmates to run the asylum, but the birth of Jesus was God’s “checkmate” move in a cosmic game of chess.
- The incarnation of Jesus is the rebelliously good news that God became man.
Consider the first few verses of this section of Scripture in Philippians 2:5-7: “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”
Paul begins this doctrinally rich section of his epistle by giving us the practical outworking of these doctrines. This is slightly unusual because we typically move from doctrinal truths to practical outworking of those truths, but I believe that Paul does the opposite here because he knows how vitally important it is we understand the incarnation of Jesus.
Nonetheless, we mustn’t neglect what we’re being called to do here. We must share in the mind of Jesus Christ. We must, in a sense, participate in the nature of Jesus Christ. This is more than simply modeling our lives after the example of Jesus Christ. A lot of people can read the Bible, get some good insight about how they ought to live, especially based off the life of Jesus, and then totally reject Christ as their Lord and Savior. Such a person will be like the pharisees—that is to say, they’ll become, as Jesus said, white-washed tombs. Really nice and pretty on the outside, but as dead as a doornail on the inside.
It is only the Christian, who has believed in Christ by faith and received salvation by faith, according to God’s perfect grace, who is enabled to truly follow after the example of Jesus in living humbly, lovingly, graciously, and as servants to Jesus who seek the glory of God above all else. This mind is given to all Christians as a gift from Christ Himself, by way of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Now, having called us to live for Christ by following the example that Christ set, Paul immediately begins to explain how Christ set this example, and we see that He primarily did it by becoming a man. Apart from the incarnation of Jesus, then, we’d really have no clear picture of who God is. We’d have the Old Testament passages about God, of course, but how can we really be expected to follow the example of the Creator? Besides that, if God never took flesh upon Himself, perhaps doubts would exist in our minds about whether or not God could even keep the commandments He had given to us. But, so as to leave us without doubt about who this God is, Colossians 1:15 tells us that, “He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” So,
The birth of Jesus Christ by the virgin Mary is more than God simply becoming a man—though that’s pretty miraculous. It is also a revelation that reveals more information to us about who God is. It is a revelation about how God chooses to save sinners. It is nothing less than the hinge upon which all redemptive history turns. In his book Miracles, C.S. Lewis wrote that:
The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion—an invasion which intends complete conquest and “occupation.” The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depends on their relation to the Grand Miracle; all discussion of them in isolation from it is futile…
Everything depends on and hinges upon the resurrection. This is, effectively, a Gettysburg or Waterloo type moment, where the entire direction of the Cosmic War becomes as plain as can be. The moment Jesus is conceived in the womb of Mary, everything is as good as done. God has won.
So it is that Paul tells us, then, that Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” It isn’t that Jesus stopped being God—He remained fully God even in the womb of the virgin Mary. He continued to uphold all of existence itself even while a man. But He emptied Himself in the sense that rather than rely on His divinity, He became a human being who prayed to the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit and kept the Law perfectly on our behalf in His humanity, so that He could then also become the perfect sacrifice on our behalf. This is why the Chalcedonian Creed tells us that:
our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable soul and body; consubstantial with us according to the manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
- The incarnation of Jesus is about the King coming to put down His enemies.
Jesus came to die, but even more than this, to rise again and put all enemies beneath His feet. Philippians 2:8 tells us that, “8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
It was, in fact, the miracle of the incarnation, wherein Jesus became both fully God and fully man, that made the miracle of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection possible. This is why C.S. Lewis saw the incarnation as the hinge of all the Christian faith. Apart from it, there’s nothing to hang the door on, and nothing to enter through. It upholds everything.
After all, apart from Jesus becoming man, there is no way for God to die upon the Cross. Apart from God taking our sins upon Himself at the Cross, there is no way of salvation. And, apart from salvation being offered to us through, Christ, there is no hope for mankind. But, by taking upon Himself a form of flesh, Jesus enters Satan’s domain, where Ephesians 2:2 tells us he ruled as the “prince of the power of the air,” and Jesus does battle with him on his own turf. And Jesus doesn’t simply battle the devil on his own turf; He takes the lowly form of a human being, and still conquers Satan! And He doesn’t just conquer Satan as a man, but He does it from the Cross, in the lowliest of all possible positions!
So, we’re told to follow His humble example of servanthood. Yes, we must follow Christ wherever He leads, as an army marching unto battle, even if it leads through the valley of the shadow of death. Yet, we need not fear because Christ is victorious, and all who call Him Lord and Savior will find they share in this victory. Ultimately, the incarnation of Jesus is an eviction notice to Satan and all his followers stating: Your days are numbered. God has come.
John 1:4 speaks of the war between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of Light, but it’s really worth reading John 1:1-4 and 14:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Light has overcome the darkness, like a dark room made bright with the flip of a light switch. It may seem strange that being born in a manger would be glorious, or that being despised by His generation would be glorious, or that the vile death on the cross could be considered glorious. Yet, that’s exactly what this is. In the incarnation of the Word made flesh, we see the only glory of the Father, and in this glory, we find truth for all our days and grace for all our needs. Gregory of Nazianzus explained:
He whom presently you scorn was once transcendent, over even you. He who is presently human was incomposite. He remained what he was; what he was not, he assumed… he came into being because of something, namely your salvation, yours, who insult him and despise his Godhead for that very reason, because he took on your thick corporeality… Man and God blended. They became a single whole, the stronger side predominating, in order that I might be made God to the same extent that he was made man. He was begotten—yet he was already begotten—of a woman. And yet she was a virgin. That it was from a woman makes it human, that she was a virgin makes it divine. On earth he has no father, but in heaven no mother. All this is part of his Godhead. He was carried in the womb, but acknowledged by a prophet as yet unborn himself, who leaped for joy at the presence of the Word for whose sake he had been created. He was wrapped in swaddling bands, but at the Resurrection he unloosed the swaddling bands of the grave. He was laid in a manger, but was extolled by angels, disclosed by a star and adored by Magi…
As man he was put to the test, but as God he came through victorious—yes, bids us be of good cheer, because he has conquered the world… He dies, but he vivifies and by death destroys death. He is buried, yet he rises again. He goes down to Hades, yet he leads souls up, ascends to heaven, and will come to judge quick and dead….”
This victory of Jesus, by which He conquers the entire cosmos, including what can and cannot be seen, is begun at the incarnation. He came, in fact, to conquer Satan beneath His feet. Genesis 3:15 foretold:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
And this He does during the incarnation. He comes to crush that old dragon, Satan, beneath His feet. He now shares this victory with all who believe in Him, for we’re told in Romans 16:20 that, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” This conquering of Satan and plundering of His domain through the salvation of sinners is, again, only possible through the incarnation.
- The incarnation of Jesus is about God conquering all His foes for His glory.
The reason God conquers is for His own glory. Philippians 2:9-11 tells us that, “9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so 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 made low for a time, but then lifted above all else. He endured great humiliation but has now been exalted above all others. His name is above all other names—even the demons must bow when they hear the name of Jesus. One day, all knees will bow before Him. Some, who have experienced God’s grace, will have already bowed the knee before Him as Lord and professed Him as their Savior, by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Those who rejected Him, however, will also be forced to bow on that day of judgment, confessing that He is Lord, yet not being saved. Either way, God will be glorified.
You were, of course, created to glorify the Lord. This is how the Westminster Shorter Catechism begins “Q. What is the chief end of man? A. To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The truth is that you will, one way or another, fulfill the purpose for which you were created. Either you’ll glorify Him in salvation or in damnation, but glorify Him you shall. But is it not better to be saved by Christ than damned by Him? So it is that Athanasius tells us that God’s greatest glory of saving sinners is impossible apart from His becoming a man:
The Word perceived that corruption could not be got rid of otherwise than through death; yet He Himself, as the Word, being immortal and the Father’s Son, was such as could not die. For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, through belonging to the Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all, and, itself remaining incorruptible through His indwelling, might thereafter put an end to corruption for all others as well, by the grace of the resurrection.
But now, His name is above all other names and His title above all other titles. And, as He reigns, all things are being placed beneath His feet. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 assures us that, “25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” And again, Athanasius explains that:
You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honoured, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so is it with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled, and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have perished utterly had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death.
So it is that through His incarnation, Jesus’s Kingdom takes up residence upon the earth. We, as the Church, are sent forth to do battle through the proclamation of His Word. As this happens, more and more enemies are made friends of Christ, drawn into citizenship in His Kingdom, and His Kingdom advances even further across this world, in which Satan once ruled. And, to His great glory, He has not only conquered His enemies, but is now gathering in an innumerable multitude from the enemy’s army and is making them all His own. Revelation 9:9-10 teaches us to hope for this great and glorious reality, when:
9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!
The insurrection of the incarnation is that Jesus becomes a man, Heaven invades earth, Jesus puts down His foes, and declares far and wide that He is the Lord over all other lords, the King over all other kings, and that His glory will cover the whole expanse of the earth, as the waters cover the seas. In the final analysis, He will have an innumerable multitude of saved sinners who belong to Him.