Fitness of the Incarnation

It is most suitable that the invisible things of God should be manifested by visible things. Creatures, as St. Paul says(Rom. 1:20), prove the existence, and show the attributes of God. But the Incarnation, the coming of God himself as man, mostmagnificently shows forth the divine perfections. For God to become man is a work of wondrous goodness, wisdom, justice, and power;these “invisible things of God” could not be more noblymanifested than they are in the Incarnation. Now, since goodnesscommunicates itself and spreads itself abroad, it is fitting that Infinite Goodness should communicate itself in the most perfect manner, and it does so in the Incarnation. Therefore, it is supremely fitting that God should become man.

The Incarnation was necessary for man’s salvation.It was not absolutely necessary, for God is almighty, andhe could have restored fallen man in other ways. But it was relatively necessary, that is, necessary in relation tothe need of bringing redemption to man in the most noble,effective, and admirable way. Consider the surpassing excellence ofthe Incarnation: (a) It advances man in virtue; it enlivens his faith; it strengthens his hope; it enkindles his charity; it shows man the perfect example for good works; it gives a human being an awareness of participating in the divine nature, for, as St.Augustine says (xiii de Temp.): “God was made man that man might be made God.” (b) The Incarnation keeps man from evil; shows him his human nobility that makes him despise the devil; makes him aware of his dignity; makes him understand the degrading effect of sin; teaches him to look humbly to Christ and not to be presumptuous; instructs him in the heartening truth thatthe satisfaction made by God Incarnate releases him from slavery tosin. (c) No mere man could have made satisfaction for the whole race. Yet man owed the debt that had to be paid. Only God could pay the debt, and God did not owe it. Hence it was magnificently right that the payer of the debt, the Redeemer, should be both God and man.

Some have taught that God, in his boundless love forus, wouldhave become man even if there had been no human sin and the consequent need of redemption. But this seems unlikely. All our knowledge on this point is from Holy Scripture, and scripture everywhere assigns man’s sin as the reason for the Incarnation.

Christ who is God-made-Man, that is, God Incarnate,came to take away the evil effect of original sin, and to make it possible for man to get to heaven and so attain his true end. Christ came to give us all the means of getting rid of original sin, of obtaining pardon for actual sins, of gaining grace and staying free from actual sins. And therefore in scripture (John1:29) Christ is called “the Lamb of God … who taketh away the sins of the world.”

The time of the Incarnation was most suitable. Had God become man to redeem us immediately after the first sin was committed, human pride would not have been humbled in consequence of that sin; man would not have realized, through an impressive stretch of time, the greatness of the treasure he had lost. And itwas good for man to prepare, by prayerful longing, for the redemption; thus he would gain a keen awareness of the value of redemption, and of his need for it, so that, when it came, he couldardently take advantage of it. On the other hand, it would not doto have the Incarnation too long delayed, lest human longing turn to hopelessness and despairing disappointment. Therefore, at exactly the right time, in the “fulness of time,” as St.Paul says (Gal. 4:4), God became man.

The perfection of glory to which human nature will finally be raised by the Word Incarnate will appear when souls and bodies are united again at the end of the world in the time of the general judgment. Yet it could not be fitting to have the Incarnation deferred to that moment. For man needed remedy for sin,knowledge of God, reverence, good morals. And the Incarnation gave man these needed things: first, by hope and anticipation in those who lovingly awaited it, and then, by faith and devotion in those who actually experienced it in fact and in its fruits. None ofthese needed things would have come to man had the Incarnation been delayed to the end of the world. Hope and longing would have disappeared; the hearts of men would have grown cold.