The New Testament simultaneously holds up these two realities: that Jesus is a single person with two natures, one divine and one human, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”1 The man Jesus of Nazareth is inseparable from God the Word, just as the Word is inseparable from the man. Jesus did not, at some point in his life, gain divine status or power. It was not granted to him when he was baptized in the Jordan and the Holy Spirit descended and rested upon him (Matthew 3:13–17). His divine nature is eternal—it is who he has been from before the beginning of everything. There was never a time when Jesus did not exist as the Word. But at a specific moment, the eternal Word became a human being.
Which, of all the things Christians believe that seem strange to those on the outside looking in, this might be the strangest thing of all.
The Reason For the Season (and the Incarnation)
Jesus taking on human form, becoming one of us, is called the incarnation, a Latin word that means “to make flesh.” Throughout the Old Testament, there were moments when different people had encounters with a being whom they recognized as God himself. Abraham and Sarah, who entertained the Lord (Genesis 18:1–33). Jacob, who wrestled with God in the night on the way to meet his brother Esau (Genesis 32:24–29). Joshua, who met with the commander of the Lord’s armies (Joshua 5:13–15). Isaiah, who was given a vision of the Lord’s throne room and saw the Lord in his splendor (Isaiah 6:1–13).
But Jesus’ incarnation was not merely the appearance of God in human form. “The incarnation means that he who never began to be in his specific identity as Son of God, began to be what he eternally was not.”2 In his incarnation, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, actually became one of us. He took on human flesh, looking like other humans and “sharing in human nature” (Philippians 2:7). But even as he was one of us, he was different from us: he was without sin. He was unencumbered by the chains that ensnare us; the ones that, left to our own devices, we love dearly.
Why did he do this? Why would God the Son leave his glorious state to become one of us? He did it so that he might rescue us—that sin would be “condemned…in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). He humbled himself to endure humiliation on our behalf, dying on a cross, becoming “sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV). Jesus’ humiliation would be turned into exaltation because of his resurrection from the dead in his defeat of sin and death, followed by his return to his glorious state at the right hand of the Father.
Excerpted with permission from Faith Simplified by Aaron Armstrong, published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 97408. Copyright 2025, Aaron Armstrong. www.harvesthousepublishers.com. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash.
- H. Bettenson and C. Maunder, Documents of the Christian Church, 4th ed. (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011), 54. This statement comes from the Definition of Chalcedon, an ancient creedal statement written in response to controversies related to the two natures of Jesus. ↩︎
- John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1977), 132. ↩︎
