The Incarnation

The Catholic claim

The eternal Son of God became true man in Jesus Christ, without ceasing to be true God. Divinity did not shrink into a body, and a man was not later promoted: the Person of the Son assumed a human nature and remains one Lord.

That is the hinge of salvation. If he is not truly God, no human obedience can redeem the race. If he is not truly man, our nature is not healed from within. The Church confesses both, because both are required (CCC 456).

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

  CCC 456

  CCC 461

  “With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

  Why

  “Taking up St. John's expression, "The Word became flesh," the Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul,…”

  Fact

Biblical evidence

John states the fact without softening it: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Paul sings of the same descent. Christ Jesus, who was in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and was obedient unto death, therefore God highly exalted him (Philippians 2:5–11). The emptying is addition of a human life, not subtraction of deity. In him all things were created, and in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, making peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15–20).

Hebrews then gives the reason: he shares our flesh and blood so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, and become a merciful high priest who can help those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:14–18). Galatians dates the act: when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law (Galatians 4:4–5). The Incarnation is the Son entering our condition to redeem it, not a myth of a god in costume.

• John 1:14

  “The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

• Philippians 2:5-11

  “Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,”

• Colossians 1:15-20

  “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth,”

• Hebrews 2:14-18

  “Since then the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also himself in the same way partook of the same,”

• Galatians 4:4-5

  “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law,”

• Sacred Scripture

  Colossians 1:15-20

  Galatians 4:4-5

  “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth,”

  Scripture

  “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent out his Son, born to a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law,”

  Scripture

Tradition and magisterium

Four councils fixed the Church’s language about Christ. Nicaea in 325 confessed the Son as consubstantial with the Father against Arius. Constantinople I in 381 defended his complete humanity, including a human mind and soul, against Apollinaris. Ephesus in 431 affirmed against Nestorius that Mary is Theotokos, since the one born of her is a single divine person. Chalcedon in 451 gave the classic formula: one person in two natures, without confusion, change, division, or separation.

Constantinople III in 681 completed the account by teaching that Christ has two wills, divine and human, the human will freely and perfectly obedient to the divine. In every case the motive was soteriological rather than academic. As Gregory of Nazianzus put it, what is not assumed is not healed. If the Son did not truly take a human mind, will, and body, then those parts of us are untouched by God; and if he is not truly God, no human obedience however perfect could redeem the race (CCC 464).

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

  CCC 464

  “The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human.…”

  Two natures

• Athanasius

  Discourses Against the Arians 2:70 · A.D. 360

  A treatise against Arian teachers.

  He defends the full divinity of the Son, born of the ever-virgin Mary.

  “Let those, therefore, who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his essence deny also that he took true human flesh from the ever-virgin Mary”

  Fathers

• Hilary of Poitiers

  Commentary on Matthew 1:4 · A.D. 354

  A commentary on Matthew.

  He argues the ‘brothers’ of Jesus are not Mary’s sons, from the scene at the cross.

  “If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary’s sons and not those taken from Joseph’s former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, ‘Woman, behold your son,’ and to John, ‘Behold your mother’ [John 19:2…”

  Fathers

History and development

The New Testament confesses the Word made flesh. Ignatius and Irenaeus already fight docetic denials—the claim that Christ only seemed to be man. Controversies about how God and man unite in Christ culminate at Ephesus and Chalcedon.

Catholic faith keeps both truths together: Mary’s Son is true God and true man—one person, two natures—without confusing or dividing them.

• Hippolytus of Rome

  Against Beron and Helix: Fragment VIII · A.D. 210

  A fragment against heretical accounts of the Incarnation.

  Often classed as Pseudo-Hippolytus; it confesses Mary ever-virgin.

  “But the pious confession of the believer is that . . . the Creator of all things incorporated with Himself a rational soul and a sensible body from the all-holy Mary, ever-virgin, by an undefiled conception, without conversion, and was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness. . . ”

  Fathers

• Origen

  Commentary on Matthew 2:17 · A.D. 248

  A commentary on Matthew.

  He expounds the Gospel at length, including the infancy and the teaching on marriage.

  “The Book [the Protoevangelium ] of James [records] that the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary. Now those who say so wish to preserve the honor of Mary in virginity to the end, so that body of hers which was appointed to minister to the Word . . . might not know inter…”

  Fathers

Mastery and practice

State Chalcedon in ordinary words: Jesus is one Person, the eternal Son; he has two natures, divine and human, neither mixed into a third thing nor split into two selves. Then say why both matter. If the Son did not take a human mind and will, those parts of us are not healed. If he is not God, a good man’s death cannot redeem the race.

Answer the usual reductions one at a time. “God cannot become man” confuses a change of the divine nature with the Person assuming a human nature. “Jesus never claimed to be God” belongs on the divinity page, but the Incarnation already includes that claim: the Word who was God became flesh. Keep the two natures together; drop either one and the Gospel collapses.

• State Chalcedonian faith in plain words.
• Explain why full humanity and full divinity both matter for salvation.
• Answer a common reduction of Jesus.

• Catechism of the Catholic Church

  CCC 456

  CCC 461

  “With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

  Why

  “Taking up St. John's expression, "The Word became flesh," the Church calls "Incarnation" the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. In a hymn cited by St. Paul,…”

  Fact

Common objections

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