Incarnation, by Will Willimon

Chapter 3

1.  Quite early on, the church realized that to get Christ wrong is to get God wrong. It took us four centuries to find ideas commensurate with the reality of Incarnation. We tried simpler solutions but none of them worked.

- What do the ancient heresies of Adoptionism, Docetism, & Arianism have in common with today’s confusion over the Incarnation?

2. The Doctrine of the Incarnation is opposed to all theories that surmise Jesus as a mere theophany, a transitory appearance by God in human form, such as we often meet among the world’s religions.  Jesus is actually the full truth about God, God’s descent to us, because we could not progress up toward God.

- Why are some resistant to Jesus embodying the full truth about God?

3.  His own experience of the Incarnation led Paul to tell the struggling little band at Corinth that even in their difficulties they must not forget that “the world, life, death, things in the present, things in the future—everything belongs to you, but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (1 Cor. 3:22). It’s a rather preposterous claim to make for the poor Corinthians—unless the Incarnation is true.

- How does Paul’s claim clarify our ultimate need of belonging?

4.  Look at, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life.”  Sometimes the church acts as if what Jesus said was, “For God so loved me and my church friends who resemble me...” thus limiting the scope and salvation in Incarnation.

- Give some examples of when we do the latter.

5. Incarnation is an aspect of the Atonement, God’s setting right things between us and God.  Bethlehem and Golgotha are linked.  

In Jesus Christ, God said a divine, dramatic, loving yesto us; the God of the cross also said a resounding, decisive noto how we were living and to what we made of the world.  Christ loved us enough to become one with us as we are, but Christ loved us enough not to leave us as we are.  As the creed proclaims, he became incarnate, “for us and for our salvation,” not simply to affirm our humanity or to condone our continued sin. 

- In your own words, describe how Bethlehem & Golgotha are linked.

6. In the rhythm of the church’s worship, we experience Incarnation.  The pattern of prayer and praise that we follow on Sunday morning is a very human activity that takes place in earthly space and time.  We dare to believe that God uses these thoroughly human activities – bathing, eating, and drinking – to come very close to us in all of God’s holy otherness.

- How do the sacraments of Baptism & Eucharist shape our contextual relationship with this present, living God?

7.  I asked a distinguished new church planter what virtue he most admired in a potential new church planter.  “A robust theology of Incarnation,” he replied.  “Only someone who believes that God is relentlessly reaching out to save the world has the drive to birth a new church.”

- How does your understanding of Incarnation motivate you to reach out to others in the spirit of the gospel?