Summary

The question that has been asked throughout the history of the church is whether or not the Incarnation would have happened “even without sin.” Or to put it in Berkouwer’s words, “Does the incarnation originate in and is it motivated by the lost condition of mankind, or would it also have occurred if there had not been a fall of mankind, or, at least, would it have been conceivable and possible?”[1]

There are those who would a priori insist that the “miracle of the incarnation simply cannot be a mere response to an act of human apostasy…. The connection between incarnation and cross is recognized as a historical fact, but it is a ‘connection’ in a condition which developed later, viz., of man’s lost condition and guilt.”[2] The sort of theologians that have entertained this idea in the Western Tradition are not the kind that “inspire confidence that the confession would be kept pure.”[3] These include Osiander, Socinus, and several nineteenth-century Vermittlungstheologen (mediation-theologians). Those who adhered to this view were responding to what they perceived as an overemphasis on hamartiology (doctrine of sin).

Among the medieval scholastics, Duns Scotus and the Scotists argued that to relegate the incarnation to a function of salvation was uncouth. This seemed to the Scotists to not do justice to scriptures like Colossians 1:16 in which all that is created is said to point to Christ. The Scotists had argued against the position of Thomas Aquinas who had concluded that the cosmic significance of Christ does not necessitate the incarnation. Thomas’ argument was rooted in the Fathers but also “simply on Holy Scripture.”� Thomas seems to view the idea of the incarnation apart from sin entering into the world as a way of abstracting an element of “the way of salvation” out of its soteriological context.[4]

Along with Thomas and Abraham Kuyper, John Calvin also surrenders to the superior authority of scripture. Calvin argued against Osiander who put for the idea of “the incarnation even without sin.” Calvin rejected out of hand the abstraction of the incarnation as a concept out of its historical place in God’s acts of salvation. Calvin was convinced that the Scriptures clearly taught that the “‘motive’ of the incarnation was deliverance from sin and death.”[5]

The incarnation then is something that fulfills the many Old Testament prophecies in which Immanuel comes to save his people (Isaiah 7:14). This ‘God with us’ is not a general abstraction but a historical realization of prophecy. Berkouwer argues that:

to speak first of Christ’s cosmic significance, ontology, and the anthropologic “elevation” of human nature to this unification; rather, the reality of Immanuel must be seen as the fulfillment of the prophecy of salvation, and full attention must fall on God’s Son descending and the heavens’ rending.

The message of the incarnation is never a thing by itself; it preaches not the elevation of human nature but its deliverance and restoration by him whom the Father had sent.[6]

That deliverance, writes Berkouwer, is one that is historical and very much a reaction of God to sin entering the world through Adam.[7] “That which has been called the harmartiocentric conception of history is nothing but the recognition of the reality of the historic reconciliation.”[8] The Church has understood (viz. in the Nicaean Confession: “he descended for our sakes”) that the incarnation was in a historical unity with the cross.[9] The only elevation of humanity that is possible is alone through the reconciliation and restoration accomplished by the blood of Christ’s cross. Christ’s coming was not for “our elevation but the communion with him.”[10]

Reflection

This writer very much agrees with Berkouwer (Thomas, Calvin, and Kuyper too) that the incarnation cannot be abstracted from its historical context, making it inextricably connected to salvation. Certainly, the primacy of the “movement” of God in the incarnation is upon his condescension to us in the incarnation, the invisible clothing himself in the visible. However, such a “move” is not with out immeasurable cosmic implications. Berkouwer wants to shy away from any intimation that humanity might be elevated. He intimates that suggesting that humanity might be elevated as a result of the incarnation denigrates the glory and wonder that God has for himself in it.  Nevertheless, I do not see how he can avoid such an elevation of humanity as a necessary consequence of God’s condescension in Christ to redeem a people for himself. When God takes on the stuff out of which we are made there is an immediate revaluation of that stuff even when the rubric for his incarnation is salvation. This does not seem to denigrate the glory and wonder of God in the incarnation but to rather increase it.

[1] G. C. Berkouwer, “The Motive of the Incarnation,” in The Work of Christ (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1965), 20.

[2] Ibid., 21.

[3] Ibid., 22.

[4] Ibid., 26-7.

[5] Ibid., 28.

[6] Ibid., 29.

[7] Ibid., 30.

[8] Ibid., 32.

[9] Ibid., 33.

[10] Ibid., 34.