Why did God become human?

What the Bible says

The incarnation does not mean that God seemed to be a man. It means that the Son of God became truly human. John says it in one sentence.

The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14

Scripture gives several reasons. The first is to make God known. No one has seen God, but the Son has shown him.

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father's side, has made Him known.

John 1:18

Jesus says the same to Philip: "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).

The second reason is to save humans as a human. Hebrews explains:

Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Heb 2:14-15

As God, the Son cannot die. To die for us, he took a body that could. Paul writes in the same vein:

But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.

Gal 4:4-5

The third reason is to be our high priest. A high priest had to stand before God on behalf of the people.

For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, in order to make atonement for the sins of the people.

Heb 2:17

And this high priest knows our situation.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who was tempted in every way that we are, yet was without sin.

Heb 4:15

Philippians says the whole path was one of descent. He did not grasp at equality with God but "emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness," and became obedient to death on a cross (Phil 2:6-8).

The church's witness

The Apostles' Creed says he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary Apostles' Creed. The Nicene Creed says he came down for us and for our salvation Nicene Creed. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon defined that Christ is truly God and truly man, one person in two natures, without confusion or change, without division or separation Definition of Chalcedon.

In the fourth century Athanasius took up the question directly in On the Incarnation. Humans, made in God's image, were falling into the corruption of sin and death. The Word who made them came himself to restore them, as a spoiled portrait can be redrawn only when the one it portrays comes and sits for it again Athanasius, On the Incarnation.

In the eleventh century Anselm, in Why God Became Man, looked from another side. Sin is a debt owed to God. Humans owe it but cannot pay it; God could pay it but does not owe it. So one who is both God and man is needed Anselm, Why God Became Man. The church has never fixed on one of these accounts as the only one. Some stress victory over death, some substitution and satisfaction, some the example of love. What all confess is that God saved us by becoming human.

Augustine, on John 1, says: "Know that God Himself was born of man." Augustine He also compares the lowliness of the flesh to an ointment for diseased eyes: "No one could see His glory, who was not healed by the humility of the flesh." Augustine

Matthew Henry finds love in Hebrews 2: "Here the wonderful love of God appeared, that, when Christ knew what he must suffer in our nature, and how he must die in it, yet he readily took it upon him." Matthew Henry

In the original languages

The verb "made His dwelling" in John 1:14 is skenoo (σκηνόω), literally "to pitch a tent." As God once dwelt among Israel in the wilderness tent, John says, he now pitches his tent among us in a person.

"Emptied" in Philippians 2:7 is kenoo (κενόω). What the emptying involved has been much discussed, but the church has always confessed that it does not mean he gave up or reduced his deity. Paul says how: by "taking the form of a servant." He emptied himself not by subtracting deity but by adding humanity; he did not clutch at his glory, and he never stopped being God.

"Flesh" in John 1:14 is sarx (σάρξ), which often stresses human frailty and limits. He took the whole weak human being, soul as well as body.

Common objections

"God becoming a man is impossible." This is the deepest objection. God is eternal, unchanging and infinite; humans live finitely in time. For the infinite to become finite looks like a contradiction. Many Jewish and Muslim thinkers press it, and it deserves a serious hearing. But Christianity does not say that God was changed into a man. Chrysostom writes that "He did not change His substance into flesh," but "remaining what He was, took upon Him the form of a servant." Chrysostom He adds that a change in an unchangeable nature is a contradiction. The incarnation is not a shrinking or alteration of deity but the Son, remaining God, taking on a human nature. This is hard to picture, so the church calls it a mystery (1 Tim 3:16), but a mystery is not a contradiction. If God is truly almighty and loving, there is no ground for declaring in advance that he cannot enter his creation in the way he chooses.

"Why not simply forgive? Why such a roundabout way?" A fair question; we can forgive someone freely. The Christian answer is that forgiveness is not free of cost. Sin really breaks relationships and destroys people, and a good God does not treat it as if it never happened. Scripture says God paid the cost himself. Anselm, Athanasius and later theologians explain that cost differently, but they all say it shows the depth of God's love and does not cheapen it. Whether God could have saved another way is debated: Anselm argued this way was necessary, Thomas Aquinas that it was the most fitting. Both agree that God chose it, and that it is love.

"A God born in a stable and killed on a cross is unworthy of God." Ancient philosophers found it undignified for a god to mix with poverty, pain and death, and Christians knew from the start that this was a stumbling block. But it is the centre of the gospel. A god who rules by force does not ease our fears; one who stands where the suffering stand comforts them. God's majesty is not in being unable to stoop but in stooping because he loves. Whether to accept this is, of course, for each reader to answer.

Going further

Christmas marks this fact. Luke records the angel's words to the shepherds: "Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord!" (Luke 2:11) The one who came was himself the gift. Before we found a way up to God, God came down.

You might ask yourself: Do I feel that God is distant and does not know my situation? If Jesus is a high priest who knows my weakness, what could I bring to him today? How does God's becoming human change how I see the body, ordinary life and suffering?

To read further, see Who is Jesus?, Why did Jesus have to die? and Was Jesus really born of a virgin?.