The Incarnate One—The Nicene Creed for Noncreedal Christians, Post 11

 

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
and became human.

            In this series of postings as part of the remembrance of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, we move to the next phrase in the Christological declaration that is found in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The previous phrase declared belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, through whom all things were made. Now, we move from a statement about Jesus’ divinity to his humanity.

                The creed declares of Jesus that for our salvation, the Son came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. The first thing revealed here is that the incarnation has soteriological dimensions. Following upon the previous statement, the Creed wants us to note the Son’s pre-existence. He came down from heaven and became incarnate. Is this not the message of Philippians 2:6-7?  He did so for our salvation. This statement reflects what we find in John’s prologue, such that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Why? It was for our salvation (John 3:16). The descent from heaven on the part of Jesus was designed to reconcile humanity with God.

                Here is where things get tricky, especially for modern believers. The Creed calls upon us to confess that the Son was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, becoming human. The Creed does not specify how this takes place, only that Jesus, our Lord, the one through whom we gain our salvation, was incarnate (made flesh) through the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. In making this confession, we declare that Jesus is both divine (from the Holy Spirit) and human (through the Virgin Mary). Karl Barth in his Credo offers this word:

The formula “Conceived by the Holy Ghost” makes at least this general statement: that the human existence of Jesus Christ in its creatureliness as distinguished from all other creatures, has its origin immediately in God, and is therefore immediately God’s own existence. And the formula “Born of the Virgin Mary” makes at least this general statement: that God’s own existence in Jesus Christ, without prejudice to the fact that here also God is the Creator, has also a human-creaturely origin and is therefore also human-creaturely existence.   [Barth, Karl. Credo (p. 67). ANTHEM PUBLISHING. Kindle Edition].

As we make this confession, we declare that Jesus is both like us and different from us.

                One of the critiques of this Creed is that it says very little about Jesus’ human existence, except that he has a soteriological mission (came down from heaven for our salvation). Nothing is said here about his ministry and his teachings. Yes, he is incarnate (made flesh), but what about the important teachings about loving God and neighbor? Where does the Sermon on the Mount fit into the creed? How does the incarnate one model a life of faith? These are important questions that remind us that the Creed does not give us a complete picture of Jesus, our Lord.

                So, we return to the confession as it stands before us, knowing that it is incomplete and must be supplemented. Regarding what we have before us, Joe Jones writes helpfully about Jesus' identity as divine and human.

We are now prepared to say that Jesus is God in human flesh in that historical location and time of first century Palestine under the rule of Rome, including the time of Pontius Pilate. This is the radical Jewish particularity of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ Jewishness is essential to who he is, and apart from the narrative identification of his Jewishness, Jesus could easily be lost in a nonhistorical myth. In affirming this Jewish particularity, I am denying that it is a theological accident that God appeared in Jewish flesh. Rather, the reality of Jesus as a Jew reminds the church that Jesus cannot be wrenched out of this Jewish history and context. [Grammar of Theology, 2:405].

We will get to Pontius Pilate in the next post, but the point that I wish to make here concerns the historical particularity of the incarnation. While the Creed doesn’t specify that particularity directly, the reference to Mary (however we understand her virginity) is a reminder of that particularity. Again, Jones writes that “though Jesus is ‘truly human,’ he is not ‘merely human’” [Grammar of Theology, 2:409]. Therefore, we should not pull back from declaring, with the Council of Ephesus (431), that Mary is theotokos (mother of God).

                When it comes to Mary’s role, as mother of God, I turn again to Joe Jones, who reminds us that “The decisive grammatical point is not to involve us in useless speculation about the mechanics or hydraulics of this impregnating and apparent virginity. Rather, the impregnating of Mary by the Spirit makes two limiting points: (1) this eternal Son becomes incarnate from the womb of a woman, another human being; (2) this eternal Son becomes incarnate by the empowering action of the Holy Spirit” [Grammar of Theology, 2:409-410]. Thus, the message that the Creed offers us is that Jesus came down from heaven and, being incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, thus being truly divine and truly human, he became the means of our salvation. What that means has not been fully defined, only declared. 

So, we return to John 1:14, and its declaration that the Word, who is God, became flesh and dwelt among us. As Barth writes:  “The Word became flesh. God’s becoming and being man is and remains His free decision. The Incarnation means no ascent of man to God, but a descent of God to man” [Barth, Credo (Kindle p. 69)]. From here, we move to his death under Pontius Pilate.