Michael Horton on Incarnation

Today we read again from Michel Horton on the Incarnation with an extract from an article entitled 'Heaven Came Down':

'If God had been formed in Mary's virgin womb without a fully human nature, Mary could not have survived the experience. If God the Son had not clothed himself in flesh, his glory would have instantly turned Pharisee and fisherman alike to ash. But instead, prostitutes approached him; thieves repented, and sinners ate with him. God even played the bartender at a wedding reception (Jn 2:1­11) and screamed in outrage over the unnatural horror of death (Jn 11:38­44). Gnostics have read these texts in utter disgust. First, Jesus was affirming the goodness of creation by turning water into wine at a party. This is hardly the ascetic spirituality that characterized Gnostic abhorrence of the world. Further, for the Gnostic, death was terrific because it meant the escape of the spirit from the prison house of the body. To them it was hardly something to lament! The resurrection of the body was, for the Gnostic, hell rather than heaven. Such sentiment is not altogether unfamiliar for those of us who recall funerals in which mourners were encouraged to celebrate the unfettering of the spirit from the prison house of the body. 'Anyone who has seen me,' Jesus declared, 'has seen the Father' (Jn 14:9). Israel was taught to seek God only in anticipation, by types and shadows, not by direct encounters. It was by the historical Incarnation of God the Son that the world came to know God and it is only as sinful creatures approach God through the mediation of this God­Man, through the prescribed means of grace, that they can expect to find a father rather than a judge...

...Waiting for the Mediator to return from the heavenly summit, we fashion golden calves of our experience to assuage our impatience. We are like Philip, who even in the presence of God incarnate, demanded to see God's glory, and our Lord tells us, as he replied to the disciple, 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father.' Christ is the glory of God and his Cross is the throne of divine majesty, beheld by eyewitnesses. But for now, situated between the first and second Advent, we must be content with the Messiah's gift, the Comforter who himself is no less divine than the Son himself. This Holy Spirit leads us to Christ and brings Christ to us through Word and sacrament. As God concealed his glory in the physical humanity of his flesh, so he comes clothed to us in the physical elements of ink and paper; in the human language of preaching; in water, bread, and wine. And there we meet with God and feed on him whose flesh is true food and whose blood is true drink, nourishing our world-weary souls with the very substance of Heaven itself.'

Read the complete article at:
www.graceonlinelibrary.org/etc/printer-friendly.asp?ID=506http://