Title The Word became flesh (John 01:14)
It was about AD 180. There was a great persecution of Christians in what is now Lyon, France. Thousands of Christians were sacrificed. Lyon's manager at the time was a 90-year-old man named Pothinus. Fortinus was so weak that he could barely breathe. His body was almost fading away from old age and disease, but his soul was not afraid of martyrdom. Those around him attacked Potinus with their hands and feet, even though he was a sickly old man. People from afar threw anything they could get at him. After two days in prison, Fortinus was finally martyred (Eusebius, HE,5,1).
After Potineus, a man named Irenaeus became bishop of Lyon. Irenaeus wrote a huge disputation of heresy to combat the heresies prevalent at the time. In this book, Irenaeus explains in this book, How can we overcome and overcome both at once when the Church of God is tormented by the persecution of Rome on the one hand and the Church of God is thrown into chaos due to the prevalence of heresy on the other hand? I did a conjecture. What Irenaeus discovered after deep research was that one of the ways to overcome persecution and heresy was to understand the incarnation of Jesus Christ. When we understand the meaning of the incarnation of Jesus Christ in human flesh, Christians can overcome persecution and heresy.
So Irenaeus thought deeply about what it meant for Jesus Christ to come in the flesh. And Irenaeus came to the following conclusion. 'He became like us, that we might be like him' (Irenaeus, adv.haer. Introduction to Volume 5). We need to dig a little deeper into this statement. Above all, the incarnation of Jesus Christ makes us think again about the identity of a believer. When we think of the incarnation of Jesus, we must think about our status as a result of the incarnation.
1. The identity of Christ
In many cases, when we think of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, we stop at the question of the identity of Christ. It is a question about what Jesus Christ was like before the incarnation, what kind of person Jesus Christ became after the incarnation, and so on. This must be a very important question. If you do not understand the identity of Jesus Christ before the incarnation and the identity of Jesus Christ after the incarnation, you will not be able to realize the tremendous love of God.
Jesus forsakes the glory of God and puts on the lowliness of men. God became human. As Irenaeus put it, 'He has become like us'. This is how today's text explains it. 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us' (14a). What an amazing event this is. The thorough humiliation of God is of decisive importance in the event of the incarnation.
2. Our Identity
But we go one step further. Along with the question who the incarnate Jesus is, we must ask who we are who believe in the incarnation of Jesus. The great thing about the incarnation of Jesus Christ is that God became a human being, and at the same time, through the incarnation of Jesus, lowly and lowly human beings were given a new identity. To paraphrase Irenaeus, 'that we may become like him'. Today's text points out this fact: 'We beheld his glory, full of grace and truth' (14b).
But the problem is that the story doesn't stop there. If you continue to follow the flow of the text, you will find these words. 'We all received from his fulness, grace upon grace' (16). In other words, the fullness of Jesus Christ is not independent of us. The fullness of Jesus leads to our fullness. Because Jesus Christ is full, we are full. The fullness of Jesus is our fullness! Putting all of this together, we can see that the incarnation of Jesus was for the fullness of us.
3. Conclusion
God lost a son through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. However, God obtained many sons through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. God's loss in losing one son is God's gain in gaining many sons.
When Irenaeus discovered the idea of the incarnation, and when the Saints in Lyon learned the idea of Irenaeus' incarnation, he was able to endure even in the face of severe persecution and fierce heresy. Irenaeus' idea of the incarnation had a profound influence on Athanasius, a famous church theologian who appeared about a hundred years after Irenaeus. Athanasiu wrote a theory on the incarnation called 'On the Incarnation', where he further developed Irenaeus' thought and said: 'He became man that we might be God' (Athanasius, de incar. 54,3). Athanasiu discovered what the true identity of a believer was before the incarnation of Jesus Christ. The incarnation of Jesus Christ makes us divine. The absolute ascension of man!
This is the idea of the incarnation that was able to overcome hardships and heresies when the saints of the early church suffered and met heresies. The saints of God overcome persecution and heresy when they confirm the high status that Jesus Christ obtained through the incarnation of the flesh. The strength of God's saints to overcome reality is given when they realize the meaning of the incarnation of Jesus Christ again.
Now, let's listen to Irenaeus again. 'He became like us, that we might become like him'. God's presence with us makes us with God.