7th August 2025
We believe in…Jesus Christ… For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
Part of a series on the Nicene Creed
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…
John 1:14 (NIVUK)
The Psalms are replete with pleas for God to come down and save human beings (Psalm 14:7; 80:1-3; 144:5), because there is an acknowledgement that our sin is great and always with us (Psalm 51:1-3). But God remembers that we are just dust (Psalm 103:14), and that we cannot save ourselves (Psalm 49:7; 146:3). In response to these pleas, several messianic psalms point to Jesus coming to save human beings, including Psalm 8:4-5 (ESVUK), which the writer of Hebrews identifies with Jesus (Hebrews 2:5-9).
And so, the Word took on flesh (the Incarnation) to achieve our full salvation. As T. F. Torrance says, ‘If Jesus Christ the incarnate Son is not true God from true God, then we are not saved, for it is only God who can save; but if Jesus Christ is not truly man, then salvation does not touch our human existence and condition. The message of the Gospel, however, is that Jesus Christ embodies in his human actuality the personal presence and activity of God. In him God has really become man, become what we are, and so lives and acts, God though he is, “as man for us.” Only God can save, but he saves precisely as man – Jesus Christ is God’s act.’ 1
Salvation is accomplished by who Jesus is: fully God, and what Jesus has done by becoming fully human: being born, living, suffering, dying, rising and ascending on our behalf. The Creed, therefore, emphasises that the Incarnation is essentially for our salvation, and that our salvation is supremely incarnational.
What does this full and complete salvation in the incarnate Christ look like? Certainly, it involves saving us from our sins (John 3:16-17), and reconciling us to the Father (2 Corinthians 5:18-19), but it also means that we can know who God is (John 14:9), and be partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). Jesus became what we are, so that we might share in what he is, thus restoring our communion, or fellowship, with God.
When Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she would conceive and give birth to Jesus (Luke 1:26-31), the time of the fulfilment of God’s promises and preparations for the coming of the Messiah had come. Mary was clearly perturbed about how this could happen because she was a virgin (v.34), was told that the Holy Spirit would “overshadow you” (v.35), and she would conceive the eternal Son of the Father, who took on humanity from his mother Mary.
The language of the angel is reminiscent of the creation account in Genesis 1:2. In Genesis, the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters; in Luke, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary. In Genesis, the Holy Spirit impregnated the waters to produce the visible universe; in Luke, the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary to give birth to Jesus. In Genesis, the creation began; in Jesus, the new creation had begun, where he ‘triumphed over the forces of evil entrenched in our human existence, bringing his own holiness, his own perfect obedience, to bear upon it in such a way as to condemn sin in the flesh and to deliver us from its power.’ 2
Prayer
Loving Father, thank you that our salvation is in Christ, the one who forever, and on our behalf, is fully divine and fully human. In his name we pray, Amen.
1 Torrance, T.F. The Trinitarian Faith, p 149.
2 ibid., p 161.
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Study by: Barry Robinson About the author: |
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Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA
Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm
Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church