What Does the Incarnation of the Son Have to Do with Our Reconciliation with God?

Lately I have been listening to an audio reading of the five Theological Orations of the Theologian Gregory Nazianzus. He was a fourth century early church father from the Cappadocian city of Nazianzus who served as the bishop of Constantinople. Not known for having perfect health or fine appearance, Gregory influenced the multitudes through eloquent speech and faithful living. He was also a compadre of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa.

The five Theological Orations offered a case for the doctrine of the Trinity. Marcellino D’Ambrosio indicates that “these orations were so masterful and had such an impact on the universal Church’s understanding of God that tradition has given Gregory a special title: ‘the Theologian.’ Only one other in Christian history has been honored with this title — the evangelist John.”¹

Gregory’s five Theological Orations even addressed errors about the incarnation of the Son of God, particularly those espoused by Apollinaris. Apollinaris wrongly taught “the Word united himself to a human body alone, so that he could die for us. He did not unite himself to a human mind, but instead substituted himself, who is the mind of God, for the human mind of Jesus.”² Gregory’s correction noted that “in contrast to the Trinity in which there is only one nature but three distinct persons, in Jesus Christ there is one person and two complete natures, human and divine. The incarnation took place not just, as Apollinaris would have it, to furnish the Son with a body to sacrifice on Calvary and so reconcile God and humanity. No, for Gregory, the reconciliation of God and man began to take place at the moment of the incarnation itself. God overcame the gulf between himself and us in the person of the babe of Bethlehem, for in this baby he united to himself a complete and entire human nature, thereby healing it and ennobling it.”³

What really caught my attention was this bit from Gregory on the way reconciliation happened through the incarnation:

[The Son] was born of a woman—but she was a Virgin. The first is human the second Divine. In His Human nature He had no Father, but also in His Divine Nature no Mother. Both these belong to Godhead. He dwelt in the womb—but He was recognized by the Prophet, himself still in the womb, leaping before the Word, for Whose sake He came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes—but He took off the swathing bands of the grave by His rising again. He was laid in a manger—but He was glorified by Angels, and proclaimed by a star, and worshipped by the Magi…He was driven into exile into Egypt—but He drove away the Egyptian idols. He had no form nor comeliness in the eyes of the Jews—but to David He is fairer than the children of men. And on the Mountain He was bright as the lightning, and became more luminous than the sun, initiating us into the mystery of the future.

He was baptized as Man—but He remitted sins as God—not because He needed purificatory rites Himself, but that He might sanctify the element of water. He was tempted as Man, but He conquered as God; yea, He bids us be of good cheer, for He has overcome the world. He hungered—but He fed thousands; yea, He is the Bread that giveth life, and That is of heaven. He thirsted—but He cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. Yea, He promised that fountains should flow from them that believe. He was wearied, but He is the Rest of them that are weary and heavy laden. He was heavy with sleep, but He walked lightly over the sea. He rebuked the winds, He made Peter light as he began to sink. He pays tribute, but it is out of a fish; yea, He is the King of those who demanded it.

He is called a Samaritan and a demoniac;—but He saves him that came down from Jerusalem and fell among thieves; the demons acknowledge Him, and He drives out demons, and sinks in the sea legions of foul spirits, and sees the Prince of the demons falling like lightning. He is stoned, but is not taken. He prays, but He hears prayer. He weeps, but He causes tears to cease. He asks where Lazarus was laid, for He was Man; but He raises Lazarus, for He was God. He is sold, and very cheap, for it is only for thirty pieces of silver; but He redeems the world, and that at a great price, for the Price was His own blood. As a sheep He is led to the slaughter, but He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world also. As a Lamb He is silent, yet He is the Word, and is proclaimed by the Voice of one crying in the wilderness. He is bruised and wounded, but He healeth every disease and every infirmity. He is lifted up and nailed to the Tree, but by the Tree of Life He restoreth us; yea, He saveth even the Robber crucified with Him; yea, He wrapped the visible world in darkness. He is given vinegar to drink mingled with gall. Who? He who turned the water into wine, who is the destroyer of the bitter taste, who is Sweetness and altogether desire. He lays down His life, but He has power to take it again; and the veil is rent, for the mysterious doors of Heaven are opened; the rocks are cleft, the dead arise. He dies, but He gives life, and by His death destroys death. He is buried, but He rises again; He goes down into Hell, but He brings up the souls; He ascends to Heaven, and shall come again to judge the quick and the dead (Orations 29.19-20).⁴

Darkness really covers the Earth. Sickness, hate, and all sorts of corruptions infect every space of life. This is the effect of the fall. The curse upon humanity which came as the result of the sin of Adam and Eve. If there is any real chance of setting things right in this world, it can only come through the Son of God who came to save sinners. It is through the incarnation that comes our redemption. The Son brings us to the Father, the Father sends to us the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit brings us into fellowship with the Trinity.

The perfect unity between divinity and humanity witnessed in the person of Jesus Christ is the beginning, middle and end of the perfect reunification of fallen humanity and the one true Triune God of the Universe. Humanity once united with God through Christ can then move forward in the right direction they should go.

— WGN

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1. Marcellino D’Ambrosio, When the Church was Young: Voices of the Early Fathers (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2014), 196.
2. Ibid., 197.
3. Ibid. 197-198.
4. Cited from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Charles Gordon Browne and James Edward Swallow, vol. 7 (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1894).