And was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man

Introduction

When we began to study the Nicene Creed together on Wednesday evenings, I explained that the Council of Nicaea met in the year 325 — which was 1700 years ago last year — and produced the Creed of Nicaea. That Creed of Nicaea was further developed in 381 and became what we now know as the Nicene Creed. Because of the anniversary last year, lots of theologians and others were talking about the Creed and writing about it and I thought I’d do the same.

And I explained that, in the early church, each town or city where there was a church had their own creed which they used as part of public worship. And they were also used when new converts were being baptised. The new converts were asked whether they believed this and that about God. And they would reply: ‘Credo’ which means ‘I believe’. And having made a public profession of their faith, they were baptised.

So, in the beginning, there were lots of creeds. But then the Council of Nicaea met in 325 so that the whole church — represented by the bishops — could consider and respond to the teaching of Arius, who was a bishop in Alexandria who denied the fully divinity of the Lord Jesus. And the Council came up with the Creed of Nicaea to make clear that Arius was wrong about the Lord Jesus; and to make clear what all Christian everywhere believe about God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And as I explained when we began, the Nicene Creed in particular, and all other creeds in general, are a public commitment to the gospel. When we stand up in church and say the words of the creed, we are confessing that we believe these things. And that means we’re committing ourselves to these things. We can be vague about many things. Someone asks us if we’ll visit them on Saturday. We’re not sure what we’re doing on Saturday, and so we say: ‘Perhaps. Maybe.’ On other occasions, we make a commitment. ‘Will you take this woman to be your wife?’ It’s yes or no. You have to decide and remain committed to your decision. And when we stand up to say a creed, we’re committing ourselves to these things. We’re saying: This is what I believe about God the Father. This is what I believe about God the Son. This is what I believe about God the Spirit. We’re committing ourselves to the truth about God as revealed in his word. And we will therefore live our lives in light of these truths to which we’re committed.

And then when we say the Creed, we’re also proclaiming the good news of the gospel that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God the Father, became one of us and he lived for us and he died for us and he rose again for us and for our salvation.

The Creed is nothing less than a summary of the gospel. And the only reason we’re able to believe these things and proclaim these things is because of God’s kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Out of God’s overflowing goodness and love, and not out of any obligation or necessity, God the Father created us and gave us our life. And out of God’s overflowing goodness and love, God the Son came down from heaven as one of us to save us from our sin and misery by his life and death and resurrection. And out of God’s overflowing goodness and love, God the Holy Spirit came into our lives and gave us the hope of everlasting life through faith in Christ the Lord. Out of God’s overflowing goodness and love, he did these things for us. And out of his overflowing goodness and love, he revealed these things to us in Holy Scripture. And out of his overflowing goodness and love, he enabled us to believe these things. And now we’re able to stand up and confess and proclaim these things to the glory of God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The first part of the Creed is about God the Father Almighty. The second part of the Creed is about the Lord Jesus Christ. The third part of the Creed is about the Holy Spirit. And at this point in our studies, we’re half way through the second part. So, we’ve studied what the Creed says about God the Father Almighty who is the maker of heaven and earth and all of things visible and invisible. And we’re studied what the Creed says about who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Who is he? He’s the only begotten Son of God the Father who was begotten of the Father before all ages; and he is God from God and Light from Light and true God from true God; and he is begotten, not made; and he has the same being as the Father. And right before the Christmas break, we began to think about what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us and how, for us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven. He came down from heaven to save us from our sin and misery and to give us eternal life in the presence of God.

Today we come to the next line of the Creed, where we confess and proclaim that the Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made man.

Biblical witness

As we’ve done before, let’s think about the biblical witness to what this line says.

And we can begin with Matthew’s gospel, where we’re told that the Lord’s mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. And then Matthew tells us that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. So, Matthew’s gospel bears witness to what the Creed says: the Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and Mary.

Luke 1:27 confirms for us that Mary was a virgin. And in Luke 1:34+35, Mary asked Gabriel how it will be that she will bear a son since he was a virgin. And the angel explained that the Holy Spirit will come upon her and the power of the Most High will overshadow her. And so, the Scriptures once again bear witness that the Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and Mary. And they make clear that Mary was a virgin.

Then there’s John 1:14 where it says that the Word — which is John’s title for God’s only begotten Son — became flesh and made his dwelling among us. And the word in the Greek version of the Creed which is normally translated ‘was incarnate’ can also be translated ‘became flesh’. It matches what John says about the Word of God.

In Acts 1:14 Luke refers to Mary as the mother of Jesus. And in Galatians 4:4 Paul tells us that when the time was right God sent his Son, born of a woman. He doesn’t mention Mary’s name, but he’s clearly referring to Mary when he says the Son of God was born of a woman.

In 1 Timothy 2:5 Paul says there is one mediator between God and men and it’s the man Christ Jesus. In other words, he was made a man, which is what the Creed says. And in Hebrews 2:14 we’re told that the Lord shared in our humanity and that he was made like us in every way. And in Hebrews 4:15 it says he was tempted in every way just as we are tempted. In other words, he became just like us. He was made man.

And then, one of the marks of the spirit of the antichrist, according to John in his first letter, is that it denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

And so, the Scriptures bear witness that the Son of God became flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and that he therefore was made man. He became like us in every way — apart from sin. And as one writer says (Lane), all the gospel writers describe the Lord Jesus as a man, even if they don’t specifically say that he was one. So, when Matthew, Mark, Luke and John describe him, it’s clear that they’re describing a human being like us, who looked like us and who walked like us and who ate and drank and slept like us and who became tired and weary like us and who suffered and died like us. And after he died, he was raised, as we will do one day. Without ceasing to be God, the Eternal Son of God became one of us when he was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

And was incarnate

Let’s think about the phrase ‘And was incarnate.’ It’s worth pointing out that the subject of the verb ‘was incarnate’ is the Lord Jesus Christ. And, as we’re already confessed and proclaimed, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages; and he’s God from God and Light from Light and true God from true God; and he’s begotten, not made; and he has the same being as the Father; and all things came to be through him.

In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ is God. And so, the Creed is now telling us plainly that God became flesh. He became flesh and blood like us and subject to all the human limitations and weaknesses that we experience. So, he was hungry. And he was thirsty. And he was tired and needed to rest and sleep. And he couldn’t be in two places at once. And so on. Whatever it means to be human, that’s what he experienced by being incarnate.

And the wonder of the gospel is that God chose to do this. So, he did not have to become like us. He was under no obligation to do so. It wasn’t necessary for him to become flesh like us. But out of his overflowing goodness and love, and wanting to deliver us from our sin and misery and wanting to bring us to perfection in his presence, he was willing to become flesh and blood like us. As one writer says (Cary), no other human being chose to be what we are. So, you did not choose to live and neither did I. We were brought into the world by our parents. But the Most High God, the most perfect being, the Eternal God, chose to become one of us and to endure all the limitations and weaknesses of humanity. And he chose to become one of us so that he could save us from our sin and misery and bring us to perfection in his presence.

And so, his incarnation was an act of sheer grace on his part: an act of his overflowing goodness and love. Not only did he give us our life in this world, but the Most High God was willing to humble himself like this in order to raise us up to life in the presence of God.

From the Holy Spirit

Let’s now think about the phrase ‘from the Holy Spirit’. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit. As the angel Gabriel said to Mary: she was able to conceive and give birth to the Lord Jesus because the Holy Spirit came on her and the power of the Most High God overshadowed her.

And so, the incarnation of God’s only begotten Son involved not just the Son, but the Holy Spirit as well. In fact — and I’ve made the same point on a few occasions recently — the incarnation of the Son was an act of all three Persons of the Trinity. Since the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are inseparable, then they work inseparably too.

The Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable, because they have one and the same divine being. They are not three separate gods, but are one God. And since they have one and the same divine being — and since therefore they have one and the same divine power and one and the same divine will — then they work inseparably. They work together so that each person of the Trinity is involved in every work of the Trinity. So, while the Son alone was incarnate, the Father and the Spirit were involved too. The incarnation was an act of the Father, because he was the one who sent his Son into the world. And the incarnation was an act of the Spirit, because he was the one who caused the Son to be conceived in Mary’s womb. The Creed says that the Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate from the Holy Spirit. And that’s because the Holy Spirit acted with the Father and with the Son to bring the incarnation about.

And the Virgin Mary

The incarnation involved the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But it also involved the Virgin Mary and that’s what we proclaim when we say the next phrase in the Creed. The Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary.

By saying that she was a virgin, the Creed is reminding us that the Lord Jesus was conceived without the involvement of any man. Joseph was not the father of the Lord Jesus, because the Saviour was conceived in Mary from the Holy Spirit and before Mary and Joseph had come together as man and wife.

So, no man was involved the Lord’s conception. But Mary was. And because of her willingness to submit herself to God’s will for her, Mary became the mother of the Lord Jesus. Of course, when we refer to him as the Lord Jesus, we’re saying that he is God.

And so, while it may seem strange to us, Christians in the past were willing to call Mary ‘the mother of God’ and also ‘God-bearer’. She is the mother of God, not in the sense that God came from her, because God did not come from anyone, since he is eternal and he has all life in himself and not from anyone else. But Mary is the mother of God, because the son she conceived and gave birth to is none other than God in the flesh.

And she is known as God-bearer for the same reason: it’s because the child she bore in her womb was God the Son. As God, he exists eternally. There never was a time when he did not exist. But as a man, he began his human life in the womb of Mary. As God, he is begotten from the Father before all ages. But as a man, he was born to Mary in time. We can say therefore that he has two births, because he is begotten eternally from the Father and he is born in time from Mary.

Calling Mary the mother of God and God-bearer is not about magnifying Mary. It’s about magnifying her son. It’s about making clear that Mary’s son is God in the flesh.

And was made man

And so, God’s only begotten Son was made man, which is the last phrase in today’s line from the Creed.

Without ceasing to be God, he became one of us so that he is God and man in one person. He is one person, because he’s God’s only begotten Son. That’s who he is. But from the moment of his conception in Mary, this one Person has two natures; his divine nature, which he has had eternally, and his human nature. We might ask: Who is he? And the answer is: he’s the Son of God. And then we might ask: What is he? And the answer is: he is God and man.

Since he is God, then he has all the same attributes as the Father and the Spirit. So, as God, he has all life in himself and he is impassible so that he’s not affected by anything outside of himself. And he is omnipresent so that he is present everywhere all at once. And he is omnipotent so that he is all-powerful. And he is omniscient so that he knows all things. And he is holy and good and just and unchangeable. He is simple so that he is not made up of parts. That’s what he is as God.

But since he is also a man, then he is like us in every way as well (yet without sin). So, whatever it means to be human, that’s what he is. When he was born, he needed Mary to hold him and to dress him and to feed him. And he needed to learn how to talk and how to walk and so on. As we read in the gospels, he grew and became strong. So, as God, he is omnipotent. There’s nothing he cannot do, because he’s all-powerful. And yet, as one of us, he grew in strength, just as we do. And when we read about him in the gospels, we read about the times when he was hungry and thirsty and tired.

Christians have always struggled to understand the mystery of the incarnation. And there have been many efforts to understand it which have fallen short. One ancient heresy is Docetism which says the Son did not really become human, but he only appeared to be human. Another is Apollinarianism which says that he took to himself a body like ours, but not a soul like ours or not a mind like ours. And so, according to this heresy, he was not fully human. And there have been other heresies. But none of them is correct, because what we believe is that, without ceasing to be God, the only begotten Son of God took to himself a body and soul like ours so that he is one person with two natures. He is perfect God and perfect man.

Conclusion

The only begotten Son of God became incarnate from the Holy Spirit and Mary and was made man. He became one of us.

And the reason he became one of us is so that he could give up his human life on the cross in our place. As God, he cannot die. But as a man, he was able to suffer and die and to bear in himself the penalty we deserve for all that we have done wrong for our rejection of God and his ways.

Since we are the ones who have broken God’s laws, then one of us had to stand in our place and pay the penalty for all that we have done wrong. But it could only be one of us who is perfectly righteous. And there is only one of us who is perfectly righteous and who obeyed God the Father in all things. And that one obedient human being is the man Jesus Christ.

And the man Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, paid for our sins with his human life, when his body was broken and his blood was shed for us and for our salvation. And through faith in him, we are not only pardoned by God for all that we have done wrong, but we receive by faith his perfect righteousness, so that though we may have done everything wrong, God regards us as if we’ve done everything right. And God treats us this way, because of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has paid for our sins with his life and who shares his perfect obedience with us.

And this Sunday, we get to gather around the Lord’s table and to proclaim to each other the wonder of the gospel that God died for us. God, in the person of his Son, gave up his human life to pay for our sins and to make peace for us with God.

What kind of God is this, who not only made us and who gave us our life in this world, but who was willing to become one of us and to die for us to deliver us from our self-chosen path of destruction and to make us perfect in his presence one day? What kind of God is this? He’s a God who deserves our praise and worship and devotion both now and forevermore. And so, we should shake off any spiritual sleepiness and we should give up our sins and we should live the rest of our lives here on earth for his glory and honour and praise.