God Come As Man

This writing was prompted by a recent conversation with a woman who is more gnostic with her beliefs, believing that the physical, the flesh, is a type of container of the spiritual but is not good in itself. She posed these questions to me "Why was Christ born? Did He have to enter the world in that way? Why would He enter the world that way?" And my answer was that yes, He had to be born because it makes sense that God would enter into the world in this way, because if He were to adopt our humanity then He would, to fully embrace our experience of it, be born, He would grow, He would feel hunger, He would tire. Below is my full rationale for my thinking, with which you are free to disagree. Perhaps you think my propositions to be too strong, but in order to be in opposition to the rejection of the physical (those modern Gnostic tendencies people have in belittling the good of the physical) I choose to enthusiastically affirm God's goodness in adopting who we are for Himself in every way.

Now, with the permission which I have given to you to critique my approach to this essay topic, I wish to bring in some perspective. Jerome, Augustine, these two men (along with many others) fought against heresies in their days and used language which some say exaggerated the points they were wishing to make. In order to oppose heresies held by many, these and other great saints made statements which has led to controversy; these controversial statements have caused apologists in the Church to explain and contextualize the writings of these past saints so that the faithful do not stray from the truth, wishing to explain that the extreme statements made by saints were enthusiastic but not always meant to be taken at face value. Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying that these saints taught heresy, only that by their enthusiastic opposition to a heresy that their statements were actually either overzealous or have been interpreted by us to be so, which can draw others to a heresy unintended by the saint.

I say this because I zealously oppose the heresy that the flesh is a vessel, or that the material is evil. I stand with the Church and declare the body to be good, and I wish to make others realize this as well. You may think I go too far in my proposition, but I still make the claim regardless, and I pray that the things which I say may be understood as they are meant. If the Church makes any statement which would render what I say to be in opposition to Her, then I repent of my words and seek to be in Her fold. But, I do write these things and share them with the world because I believe them to be orthodox and good and right. And now, on to my actual points.

Christ, in a sense, had to be born and grow up as man in the story of salvation. He (in theory) could have simply appeared fully formed in the world having no human parents, appearing out of the desert and beginning His ministry in a flash. But man is made, he is not "manifested", so if Christ were to have simply "appeared" into the world with no history of His existence before then, one could argue that we would see Him as something different from "human". Yes, Christ could have come in this way and still be our Savior, still be the sacrifice for the remission of our sins, but I argue that it makes the most sense that He came in the way in which He did.

Or, rather than appearing from nowhere and suddenly coming into existence (His humanity, not His divinity of course), Christ could have come from the dirt as Adam did, but then the same problem would still be present since He would be "something different"; the problem being that He would be like us, He would look like us, He would be Human like us, but would not be "of us" in that He would be of a different "family" of humanity. He would be man, but would be "another man" as if there is two species of man - both identical, but not sharing the same origin. That He became man, Christ took on our nature (that is, to be body and soul in man), He is one of us and only different in the way that He is without sin. He took on our humanity, not another humanity. He is not "another man" with a different origin, He is just as much man as any of us - a perfect man, but still "of the same family" you might say.

This is not the only reason I propose why Christ had to be born of woman, but it is the one which I think will appeal the most to others. And when I say "must" I of course do not mean to place restraints upon God and tell Him what He may or may not do, I mean that in His mercy and justice that this is the clear path He would take. Of course God could have redeemed humanity in whatever way He wished to do so, salvation can come about through any means He chooses. But again, it makes sense, and it seems just, that He came into the world the way in which He did. Scripture says Christ came to redeem humanity, and to redeem something is not to replace it with something else. You don't save or redeem an old tool, and old house, by getting rid of it or demolishing it, you renovate and renew it. What is broken is fixed, what is dirty is cleaned, what is hurt is healed. Christ entered into our humanity to "fix" all of us, to redeem us.

And in the vein of justice (that thing which is good, right, and proper in a given situation) it is right that Christ came by woman so that the new Adam would be accompanied by the new Woman. Salvation comes by Christ, but we must cooperate in order to receive this redemption, which is the story of Mary. God chooses to allow us to collaborate in our salvation. And, with the man Christ being male, the redemption is not just for the men with the women being permitted to be saved as well - no, both man and woman have their own role model in their sex to look up to in our process of redemption (not to say that a woman cannot look to Christ, or that a man cannot look to Mary, just that we each have someone "like us" that we can look to).

From the rejection of God by Eve, this is redeemed with the fiat (yes) from Mary; the fruit which Eve takes, is now redeemed by the fruit of the womb which Mary gives; in the garden the Woman has her name changed to Eve as she becomes the mother of all after the fall, and Mary who is Christ's mother is called by Him "Woman", and so has her place in the garden redeemed; when in the garden the Woman is blamed by her husband and she is approached by God, Mary at the wedding feast at Cana approaches God and rather than hiding she petitions Him for help. It is right and just that God brought a new Woman into the plan of redeeming humanity, that she may come alongside the new Adam. Just as there is a redemption of the first man, there is a redemption of the first woman.

St. Athanasius said "God became man that man might become God." If Christ would not have come from man (receiving His body from His mother) then I cannot see the saint professing this idea in the same way. God adopted the flesh and soul of a man to redeem it, to make it new. Our Lord became like us to give us a path to redemption, to healing. Our God saw it fit to save that which was lost, to make holy the very flesh that pulls us from Him when we give in to sin. It is not just the soul which has a home with Him, but our bodies as well.

Written for VME Catholic, by Ethan Hall