The Word Became Flesh - Part 1

The astounding truth that the unseen and divine Word became visible and human flesh dawned on the first Christians as they tried to make sense of the Jesus they had been with (John 1:12). They heard Him, saw Him, touched Him and were convinced that He was the “Word of life” and eternal life itself (1 John 1:1-2). Such was the experience and the convictions of the early Christians.

Not that there weren’t any debates in the church about who Jesus was and what was going on at His birth. In fact there were some vigorous debates that took place. In these, the Spirit of God ensured that the church was guided by the truth and the testimony of the eyewitnesses who had seen and walked with Jesus. The debates produced various heresies which were identified as such.

For example, because Jesus was considered to be both human and divine (that is, He had two natures), various proposals were made as to how these two natures related to one another.

One idea that emerged has come to be called adoptionism, a teaching that was promoted by Paul of Samosata, a bishop of Antioch. Simply put, it held the belief that Jesus was born as an ordinary human being, but at His baptism (and a few claimed it was after His Resurrection) the divine Logos or Christ entered Him, and He became divine after that.

A man became God? Well, that by itself is quite a radical idea, but that is not what the Bible says. It does not say the flesh became the Word, or that a man became God. It says, rather: The Word became flesh.

The Bible proclaims the existence of a pre-incarnate Jesus; in other words, Jesus existed as the Son of God even before He was born 2,000 years ago. That is why in the Nicene Creed we say that Jesus Christ is “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God … true God from true God …”

This truth was documented after serious debates in the early church. Paul of Samosata was declared a heretic and excommunicated in 269 AD. He had a student named Arius, who was the centre of a controversy dealt with by the first ecumenical council in Niceae (325 AD). Arius taught that Jesus was created by God to be a special Creature, but that He was not the same as God.

At the Council, the debates became so heated that at one point, going by several accounts, Bishop Nicholas of Myra (who later became St Nicholas and is remembered today as ‘Santa Claus’) slapped Arius. The next time you see a Santa Claus, think of this incident!

The Council of Niceae (almost unanimously) pronounced Arius and his teachings to be heretical and developed the Nicene Creed, reiterating what the Bible says: that the Word became flesh.

It is important to say that the Word became flesh, that God became a man, because of its implications for our salvation. Athanasius, one of the chief defenders of the orthodox faith at the Council of Niceae, argued very clearly why the biblical teaching of the Incarnation is central to the doctrinal foundation for our salvation. One needs only to read passages like Hebrews 2:10-18 to be convinced of this.

Consider this:

Read Hebrews 2:10-18. Why is the truth that the Word became flesh so important to the church and to you? Why is this truth the test of orthodoxy and what would happen if it was neglected or abandoned?

Excerpted from Apprenticed to Jesus by Robert Solomon. © 2023 by Robert Solomon. Used with permission. All rights reserved.