What does incarnate mean and how was Jesus God incarnate?

It is clear then that Scripture, in saying that the Word became flesh, teaches us that this was a new beginning, a condition not existing before, but now become true of the One who was and is the Word. And all true Christians agree surely that the words "became flesh" refer to His becoming Man; to the Incarnation of the Word, in fact.

The second difference is in one sense a minor one. "We beheld," in that context, would probably convey to any spiritual mind that it was spiritual vision and not mere physical sight. So that it would not mean a mere incident in the lives of the beholders, but a continuous impression upon the mind, and hence is rendered in the New Translation as, "we have contemplated "His glory."

These passages clearly show that the truth of the incarnation consists in the great fact that a Divine Person — the Son — became flesh, took a bondman's form, took a place in the likeness of men, was found in figure as a man, partook of blood and flesh, and dwelt in the body prepared for Him.

In the various ways in which I have thus far spoken of God (as coming out of the light in which He dwells to display before men some distinct and special characteristic of Himself), He remained still the invisible God. In none of them had He yet placed Himself in conditions in which He could be seen; but in the incarnation He has done so. There we see "God manifest in flesh."

The incarnation is a profound mystery. The mind of man cannot explain it or understand how it was effected, but the fact is plainly evident. The power of the Holy Spirit in and through the virgin produced a Man who is both a divine and a human Person. Thus supernaturally come into the world, He unites Deity and humanity in Himself — in one Person. He is thus truly God and truly Man: with human spirit, soul and body — God is seen in flesh.

The incarnation of the Son of God then was a stooping from "the form of God" (Phil. 2:6), the condition of essential Deity to the condition of humanity — a coming down into the condition of human and creature dependence. In this human condition He is not only "the Firstborn of all creation" (the One who has the first and highest rank in it), but also the image, the representation of God (Col. 1:15). Come thus from the unapproachable light, from the bosom of the Father, to be the image of God among men, He has declared the God whom no man has seen nor can see (John 1:18). So far as knowledge of God is communicable He has fully communicated it. He has fully expressed and exhibited it.

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (v. 14). Here is the greatness of His condescension made manifest in His incarnation, for His humanity was not in form merely, something put on, as one would put on a garment for a certain purpose and then cast it off again when that purpose was accomplished, but it was a reality. He became an actual man, and this He will never cease to be.

Now the Word is looked at as become flesh. In verse 14 a new part commences. Before, it was what He was; now, what He became (what He began to be). The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; it was a real thing, not like God visiting Abraham; but He dwelt among us, tabernacled there "and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." His own incarnate character and our connection with it. The part about John the Baptist comes in in the middle. But there is the statement, "the Word was made flesh": and then you get the aspect He had. We beheld His glory, not of the Son as such, but as of an only-begotten with a Father. He had all the title of that excellency and value in everything. All that that was to the Father was with Him. It is His personal glory made visible in flesh. When He was made flesh, we get a witness of John (v. 15), just as before, saying, "This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me, for he was before me."

“In flesh” – His true and perfect humanity; “come in flesh” – His incarnation. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). We, ordinary human beings, did not become flesh. We did not exist prior to our conception and birth into this world. But He did. He became flesh. “Jesus Christ come in flesh” therefore encompasses also where He came from and who He was that came. It encompasses His deity, His eternal being, His eternal Sonship. Further, “ come in flesh” denotes His work when He was here – His sinless, spotless life, and His sacrificial death in all its perfection and perpetual value. Further again, “ come in flesh” implies more than merely “ came in flesh”. It is not merely the historical fact but the abiding results – the truth that He is still a Man, that although now raised from the dead (Luke 24:39) and in heaven (Hebrews 10: 20) He is still “in flesh”.

There are hasty souls who fancy that the manifestation in flesh only means that Christ was a man. But the true wonder is Who He was that became man. It would be devoid of force or even sense to speak of Moses, Elijah, or of Julius Caesar or any other man, as manifested in the flesh. For there was no other way for any mortal man to be manifested. But for Him it is not so, for the Son of God might have come as He pleased. Here is the marvellous fact that He came in flesh. He Who made all things, and without Whom was not anything made that has been made, — He was manifested in flesh, Who could command all glory. But the Creator God is the Redeemer God. And one of the most momentous objects of this Epistle is to identify the God, Who created all things and is now the Preserver of all, with the Saviour. God is the Saviour God. And He deigned to be manifested in flesh. None other was He than the Son of God, but the Son of God "man" in this world.

The next fact stated as to Him in the mystery of godliness is "justified in Spirit." But when was that? In the Holy Ghost Christ walked and testified all through the days of His flesh. The very demons bore witness to Him with abject terror. But man reviled Him with impunity and shamelessly. When was He irrefutably justified? They called Him a winebibber, a Samaritan. They said, He had a demon. There was no end to the wickedness that was spoken of the Lord Jesus. How then did His justification come? When He was raised from the dead. This was the standing justification of Him Whom man crucified. If lawless hands slew the Lord of glory, God raised Him up, having loosed the pains of death: such was His answer to man. And this seems to be what is referred to in the words, "justified in Spirit." In the first Epistle to Peter He is said to be "quickened in Spirit," being in contrast with "put to death in flesh" (1 Peter 3:18). The quickening in Spirit expresses the divine power in which He rose. This fell to the province of the apostle Peter; as the apostle Paul is the great witness in bringing out, not only life and resurrection but, justification. No doubt justification has a different sense as applied to the Lord Jesus compared with any other person; for every other man is a sinner. Still there is a common point in all; and justification in every case means that the person is proved or pronounced righteous — here inherently so. Man had spoken contumeliously against Him, and none more so than the religious people of the day. The scribes, Pharisees, and the chief priests were educated enough, but the worst of the Lord's adversaries when He walked the earth. Surely that is a very instructive fact. Consequently it became God to mark His sense of what Christ was. And He was "justified in Spirit." The same Spirit of God, Who had led "Jehovah's righteous Servant" in all His course of unswerving obedience and love during His life, now justified Him against the world that treated Him as the worst of malefactors. How true the prediction Christ cited from their law, "They hated Me without a cause!"

We turn now from considering the deity of our blessed Lord to see how Scripture speaks of His incarnation. This, of all the Evangelists, the apostle John, the historian of His divine glory, most forcibly expresses: "The Word became flesh," he says, "and tabernacled among us." "Flesh" characterizes humanity by that which is its lowest part; and the depth of this condescension is the glory of the revelation which this expression — the "Word was made flesh" — so perfectly conveys. In His human personality Christ was Himself the gospel that He preached, as "Son of man" was the title He so loved to give Himself.

We are to consider the entrance of this august Person into the world and to enquire what manner of birth was His who bears all this glory. That He was born of a woman is not disputed; He was a true and proper Man and not a phantom. Every other man born into the world began to be at his conception, and came into the world as a personality that had had no former existence; but our Lord Jesus Christ was rich before His poverty in Bethlehem; He thought it not robbery to be equal with God before He was found in fashion as a Man; He was the Word before He became flesh; He was God's own Son who was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, made of a woman, when the fulness of time had come (Gal. 4:4). This glorious pre-existence surely means that the birth of our Lord into this world was not as the birth of any other man that had ever been born. His birth was an incarnation, the coming of a Divine Person into a condition in which He had not been before, to carry out all the will of God and be the Saviour of us men.

We are to consider the entrance of this august Person into the world and to enquire what manner of birth was His who bears all this glory. That He was born of a woman is not disputed; He was a true and proper Man and not a phantom; and yet we must not, we cannot lose sight of the fact of who He was before He became Man. Every other man born into the world began to be at his conception, and came into the world as a personality that had had no former existence; but our Lord Jesus Christ was rich before His poverty in Bethlehem; He thought it not robbery to be equal with God before He was found in fashion as a Man; He was the Word before He became flesh; God's own Son who was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, made of a woman, when the fullness of time had come (Gal. 4:4). This glorious pre-existence surely means that the birth of our Lord into this world was not as the birth of any other man that had ever been born; it was an incarnation, the coming of a Divine Person into a condition in which He had not been before, to carry out all the will of God and be the Saviour of us men.