Incarnation

“ In the Incarnation we see what God has actually done. Here we have, not a fancy, not a hope, not a vague expectation, not a promise, but accomplished fact, as solid and unchangeable as our own past life. This God whom we have often shunned, and felt to be in our way and an obstacle, whom we have suspected of tyranny and thought little of injuring and disobeying, has through compassion and sympathy with us broken through all impossibilities, and contrived to take the sinner’s place. ”

“ Why, therefore, should the Incarnation be thought incredible or impossible because it does not come within the limitations of our present understanding and it is not taught by our limited human experience. ”

“ He came into the world, not as leaving the Father, for He is 'the Son of Man which is in heaven,' and He ascended up on high, not as leaving us, for He is 'with us alway, even to the end of the world.' Thus the Incarnation and the Ascension support each other. ”

“ But by the grace of God, supremely manifested in the Incarnation, the man is humbled, and his heart is touched and drawn to love the power of the divine pity and humility. The lesson of the Incarnation and its guiding grace, emboldens the heart and enlightens the mind; and the man’s faculties are strengthened and uplifted to the contemplation of God, wherein the mind is satisfied and the heart at rest. ”

“ I am come that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.”
One great purpose of the Incarnation was to show what we are in our deepest being in the purpose of God, and what we are capable of. Our Lord did not come to parade before men the exceptional life to which they could never attain. ”

“ Is it not a symbol of the very heart of the meaning of His Incarnation? 'For as much as the children are partakers of flesh and blood He also Himself likewise takes part of the same.' 'He is found in fashion as a man.' He chooses to enter within the limits and the obligations of humanity. Round the radiant glories of the divinity, He gathers the folds of the veil of human flesh. ”

“ This mystery of incarnation is the great mystery of God’s love for the world; and as much of this is incomprehensible and inconceivable by human intelligence, so much is it natural with divine love and omnipotent nature. In this great mystery was the salvation of mankind, for this the entire humanity waited, and, therefore, the law and the prophets in this mystery of incarnation were fulfilled. ”

“ The revelation or manifestation of God, and especially of His eternal and infinite love, was the great design and end of the incarnation. Taken apart from this doctrine the incarnation becomes a dry hard fact, without use or meaning. It is when viewed as a means of revealing God,—of making manifest His infinite goodness, and by that means melting and purifying man's heart, and transforming his character, that it is seen to be full of interest and power and glory. ”

“ This is what is meant by being born again, the incarnation of the Spirit in the conscious, or human. The two selves are no longer divided, and the higher self assumes control,—takes the reins, so to speak. ”

“ Indeed, the development of the Ego is effected by that of the personality it sends on to the earth each incarnation; it is the new mental body which controls the new astral and physical bodies of each incarnation, and which is, in very truth, the flower and the fruit of the labour of life. ”

“ We may and do express all this differently, but it has a direct bearing on life. It is the doctrine of the Incarnation. We begins to perceive through it that our own incarnations mean something, and that our task is to discover what they do mean—what part in the world purpose we are designed to play here. ”

“ The Incarnation.—In Christ God shares man's nature, and thus makes possible a union of the divine and human. On its divine side the incarnation is the complete revelation of God in human life, and on the human side it is the supreme expression of the spiritual meaning of human nature itself. ”

“ We can not make a home of cold magnificence; we can not take immensity by the hand." 931 Hence the need and the desire that God shall condescendingly approach to man, and by some manifestation of himself in human form, and through the sensibilities of the human heart, commend himself to the heart of man--in other words, the need of an Incarnation. ”

“ Now in scientific language, the Incarnation may be said to have introduced a new species into the world—a Divine man transcending past humanity, as humanity transcended the rest of the animal creation, and communicating His vital energy by a spiritual process to subsequent generations of men. ”

“ Brethren, let us not forget that this stooping, and pardoning, and self-imparting love, has for its main instrument to appeal to our hearts, not the cradle but the Cross. We are being told by many people to-day that the centre of Christianity lies in the thought of an Incarnation. ”

“ Moreover, the capital element of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the renewal of humanity. ”

“ That is to say, the physical immortality of mankind as a whole (the varied manifestation of the Spirit of Life through changing species) is crowned by individual consciousness of spiritual immortality, wherein the purpose of the incarnation of life finds fulfilment. ”

“ As all nature is contained in man, so all humanity is contained in the Word of God. [24] When we speak of the incarnation, we do not mean an individual, historical fact, but the eternal connexion of the ideal and actual. Cause and effect, as has already appeared, cannot be separated in God ; they are implied in his single creative will. This union is revealed in the incarnation, by which the Word of God passed from the region of cause to that of effects, and descended into the sensible world. ”

“ Thus the Incarnation brings God, if we may use the expression, within man's reach, so that the latter has no mere abstract and invisible Being to love, but a definite Person, Whose Character he can appreciate, and Whose conduct he can to some extent follow. In short, the Incarnation provides man with a worthy Being for his love and devotion, yet with a Being Whom he can partly at least understand and partly imitate. ”

“ And they might, and indeed must, have concluded, each at their several date, that the highest historical person known to them must have been the Incarnate God; so that unless the Incarnation was the first fact in human history, there must have been a time when they would have used the argument and it would have led them wrong. ”

“ Thus they learned that the divine life must be led amid the ordinary conditions of mortality. Even the incarnation of Deity was wrought in the likeness of sinful flesh. But yet the incarnation was the bringing of a new life, a strange and unknown energy, to man. ”

“ The lessons of the Incarnation are obvious. First, from it we are to take our idea of God. Sometimes we feel as if in attributing to God all good we were dealing merely with fancies of our own which could not be justified by fact. ”

“ Just realize that this wonderful being is filled with the tenderest human love for the worst of us, and has all the divine power at his command—being both man and God—to make good his love by bringing about our spiritual and temporal welfare. {368} The Incarnation is the divine Mercy made man for the love of us. Can we suppose that such a being, having begun the good work of our salvation by giving us the true religion, will leave anything undone, that we will let him do, to bring us to the kingdom of heaven? ”

“ Then and thus in body, soul, and spirit we do truly participate in the privilege and blessing of the Incarnation, then and there we receive that strength which enables everyone of us to become factors in the great extension of that marvellous occurrence throughout the ages and throughout the world. ”

“ From the mystery of the Incarnation necessarily follows the substantial reality of human nature as a composite of spirit and body, the Pg 149 excellence and endless existence, in its own distinct entity, not only of the spiritual but also of the corporeal part of man and of the visible universe to which he belongs as being an embodied spirit. ”

“ Their acceptance by faith, even when they seem to conflict with reason, is a part of our earthly probation and a meritorious confession of our dependence on the Supreme. The final purpose of the Incarnation, like the idea of any revelation whatever from God to man, is above comprehension. ”

“ Vehicles of Revelation; Scripture, the Church, Tradition.
(a) The supreme and unique revelation of God to man is in the Person of the Incarnate Son. But though unique the Incarnation is not solitary. ”

“ But all these things are incongruous and do not pertain to the incarnation of the Word. And there is yet another reason which renders it more fitting for the Son to become incarnate than the other persons. ”

“ I shall therefore not draw my examples exclusively from royal personages, as I wish to illustrate the general principle of the deification of living men, in other words, the incarnation of a deity in human form. ”

“ The idea of the Incarnation of God in human form as the final and logical fulfilment of the Creative purpose and process—the manifestation of the Creator in the created—has had for many great thinkers a very deep attraction. ”

“ For as soon as we begin to look steadily at the facts, we find that the differences between all these other appearances and the Incarnation are so great as to raise the presumption that their origins are different. ”

“ Do we mean by Incarnation that on an already existing human being there descended in an extraordinary measure the Divine Spirit, so that He was by moral association so closely allied to God that He might be called God? ”

“ In dealing with the special case of man, only, there are two standpoints from which the question may be considered. Man in incarnation is certainly made up of seven principles, if we so term the seven states of his material, astral, and spiritual framework, which are all on different planes. ”

“ But, dwelling on the Manhood, so as almost to overpower us with the contrast between the distinct and living truth and the dead and dull familiarity of our thoughts of routine and custom, he does so in such a way that it is impossible to doubt, though the word Incarnation never occurs in the volume, that all the while he has before his thoughts the "taking of the manhood into God." What is the Gospel picture? ”

“ By "Reincarnation" we mean the repeated incarnation, or embodiment in flesh, of the soul or immaterial part of man's nature. The term "Metempsychosis" is frequently employed in the same sense, the definition of the latter term being: "The passage of the soul, as an immortal essence, at the death of the body, into another living body." The term "Transmigration of Souls" is sometimes employed, the term being used in the sense of "passing from one body into another." ”

“ They realized that redemption was a means to an end, and that end the reconsecration of the whole universe to God. And so the very completeness of their grasp on the Atonement led them to dwell upon the cosmical significance of the Incarnation, its purpose to 'gather together all things in one.' For it was an age in which the problems of the universe were keenly felt. Philosophical thinking, if less mature, was not less exuberant than now, and had already a great past behind it. ”

“ The fact that such physical traits and mental peculiarities are transmitted does not confute reïncarnation, since we know that the guiding mind and real character of each are not the result of a body and brain but are peculiar to the Ego in its essential life. Transmission of trait and tendency by means of parent and body is exactly the mode selected by nature for providing the incarnating Ego with the proper tenement in which to carry on its work. ”

“ There are many forms of belief—many degrees of doctrine—regarding Reincarnation, as we shall see as we proceed, but there is a fundamental and basic principle underlying all of the various shades of opinion, and divisions of the schools. ”

“ At the end of the tenth generation, we find the same soul, as far as it exists, with the same defects, the same virtues, and, as it were, with the original black feather. While giving you this illustration, it is necessary to distinguish between the soul which reappears thus hereditarily, and that which comes back by reincarnation. ”

“ Through Him alone can salvation and immortality be secured by man; and the end and object of all initiation is to ascertain His attributes and connection with humanity, realize His sacred presence in every human heart, and discover the means of transferring man's higher individuality, purified and ennobled by the virtuous Karma of a series of incarnations, to His feet as the most sacred offering which a human being can bestow. ”

“ Through the infinite [60] condescension of God in employing mankind as a medium of His revelation, the privilege of realising the increasing purpose of His Will is placed within our keeping. Made in the image of God, man is endowed with the creative faculties of his Maker. The Creator wills that His creatures shall consciously share in the glory of creation, whereby through the perfecting of spiritual apprehension is revealed the Kingdom of God. Are we willing to take up the cross of sacrifice and suffer gladly with and in the passion of Incarnate Love? ”

“ And yet, if the Creator endows His creatures with the ability to question, and thus approach, the border-land between Known and Unknown, Seen and Unseen, can it indeed be irreverent or presumptuous to look to Him for guidance from mystery into knowledge, from ignorance into understanding?
If the revelation of God be indeed a revelation throughout Nature, chronicled by the evolving collective consciousness of Creation; and if the incarnate purpose of Love be recognisable as the vesture of the Spirit of Life, God ”

“ Is it not ineffably more simple and more delightful to recognize Creator, Redeemer, Regenerator, and Sanctifier, all in one Being, and one Person? Will not the amazing love which he has manifested kindle ours? Shall we not enter upon a community of spirit with the Lord himself? Shall we not live in his life, love in his love, and thus walk in his name? Can it be otherwise than that a higher form of spiritual life shall develope itself under these circumstances? ”