The beautiful paradox of the Incarnation – which Christians the world over celebrate every December 25th – is that when Christ took on flesh, it also meant that all flesh took on Christ.
This miracle convergence of humanity and Deity is embodied in Christ, and because of this, everyone alive is now also infused with the living spirit of Christ.
This is why the Apostle Paul could say things like this:
“For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:21-22)
“…For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
In other words: through the Incarnation, Christ has become one with all humanity. This union of God and man through Christ allows for the entire world to be rescued from the power of sin and set free from the power of death.
Not only that, but this mystical union of flesh and spirit; God and Man; opens up incredible possibilities for all creation to be made new and transformed from the inside out.
As Jesus urges us to realize, “…I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (John 14:20) This means the Incarnation is a declaration of God’s eternal union with mankind.
It goes something like this: Jesus is in the Father. We are in Christ and Christ (who is in the Father) is in us.
This speaks of a mind-bending paradox that defies the imagination, and yet we are told to realize that it is the truth. This is reality. We are in Christ and Christ is in us.
So, what happens to Jesus happens to us. What is true of Christ is true of us because of this miracle of Incarnation. We are in an eternal, unbreakable union with Almighty God through our abiding connection with Christ.
As my friend Baxter Kruger so beautifully explains:
“As Jesus bowed to be slaughtered as an innocent lamb by the human race, he brought his oneness with his Father and the Holy Spirit — and his divine but jeopardized union with the human race — into the abyss of the great delusion where Satan has his hold. In so doing Jesus Christ the Creator meets us at our twisted worst, using our bitter rejection of him to bind us in union with him forever. Thus, the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected Creator Son secured his union with us by way of our unbelief, once and for all obliterating the threat of our nonexistence, rendering separation from him an eternal impossibility…”[1]
Our union with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit also affirms our union with all humanity: We are all one in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This means that it is impossible for us as individuals to enjoy eternal oneness and union with God through Christ without also recognizing that all humanity is also intertwined in this same exact union and oneness with God through Christ.
So, everyone you meet, everyone you’ve ever know, everyone who has ever lived in the past or will live in the future is also one with Christ in the same way that you are one with Christ. We are all in Christ who is in the Father and they are in us – all of us.
Therefore, there is truly no such thing as “them” anymore. There is now only one eternal “us” that finds itself forever in union with God through Christ.
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Col. 1:15-17)
The implications of this radical union we enjoy with God and one another through the miracle of the Incarnation is astounding and breathtaking. Just imagine, if the fall of Adam – a mere created being – could mire all humanity in sin for eons, what marvelous and miraculous realities are now unleashed upon mankind through the Incarnation of God in human flesh? If the Creator died, then we all died. If Christ resurrected, then so did we. If Immanuel ascended and now sits at the right hand of Almighty God, then so do we. Why? Because in Christ all Humanity was forever united with the Father for all eternity and now nothing can ever separate us. [See numerous verses throughout the New Testament]
Here’s the miracle that many modern Christians have completely missed. They deny the fullness of the Incarnation and limit this miracle to the body of Jesus and not every single one of us. Now, the Apostle Paul connects the Incarnation of Christ to everyone, and many early Christians also understood the Incarnation to be an infusion of all humanity with the Divinity of Christ, but these days we’ve lost this teaching in favor of a religious dogma that divides us into separate camps of “Christians” and “Non-Christians” or “Saved” and “Lost.” But this narrow view fails to incorporate the fullness of the Incarnation of Christ and what it really means for all humanity.
This Christmas, I’d love to put the “Christ” back into everyone – especially Christians – and celebrate the miracle that once-and-for-all settled the question of who is “in” or “out” with the emphatic declaration that we are all God’s Children, and He is the One in whom we ALL live and move and have our being, and that God was – in Christ – NOT counting our sins against us but reconciling the World to Himself….forever.
Now, let’s all work to incarnate Christ in our own daily life. Let’s love as Christ loved. Let’s give as Christ gave. Let’s declare that everyone is welcome into the family of God because Christ is in the Father, and you are in Christ, and Christ is in you!
And “Christ in you” [and all of us] is truly “the hope of Glory.”
Amen.
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[1] Baxter Kruger, The Mediation of Christ, pg. 12-13
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