At some point in time, the son of God became the son of man. Do you know when that happened? Do you know when the hypostatic union happened? Do you know when full divinity embodied full humanity?
When did God become a human?
It’s an important question. Just as it’s impossible to understand the hope of Resurrection Sunday without understanding Easter Friday, it’s impossible to understand the hope of Christmas and Jesus’ birth without understanding his incarnation.
Jesus’ incarnation, birth, death, resurrection (and return) are the sum of the Gospel. Meaning Jesus’ incarnation is part of the Good News, so we need to understand it.
The incarnation is part of the Christmas story. It’s about God becoming human — or as the Bible says in John 1:14, God becoming “flesh.” It’s about the miraculous conception of Jesus in his virgin mother’s womb.
Many of us take Jesus’ incarnation for granted. So many of us fail to understand why it’s so crucial. God became human because humans sinned against God. Jesus becoming fully human while fully God was the only way for Him to become the mediator between God and humans (1 Timothy 2:5).
Jesus’ incarnation is the answer to the question: how can a holy God forgive humans for breaking His law? How can a just God forgive sinners without punishing the sin? Just as a good judge can’t simply forgive a murderer no matter how remorseful they are, God can’t simply forgive our sin — He has to punish it.
Even if there was one human who was willing to bear the sins of all humanity, He would have to be sinless and righteous. And because our sins against an eternal God demand an eternal punishment — even if a sinless and righteous human was somehow possible, this sacrificial person would have to be able to bear an eternal punishment.
That’s why the righteous son of God became the sinless son of man. That’s why God became human. By becoming human, Jesus was able to bear the weight of all of our sins on his eternal shoulders and He imputed His righteousness to sinners so that whoever believes in him is justified (declared righteous) by faith.
All of that would be impossible without the incarnation of Jesus Christ. If God didn’t become human, humans couldn’t be godly. So the Gospel of Jesus Christ begins with God becoming human.
So with that in mind, when did God become human? When did eternity kiss humanity? When did He who has no beginning commence His humanity?
It wasn’t when He was born. It wasn’t when all of his organs were developed in the womb. It wasn’t when he first kicked his mother in the womb. It wasn’t at his heartbeat.
No, Jesus became a human at the same stage of human development as the rest of all humanity: conception.
Jesus became a human when his virgin mother’s egg was fertilized by the Holy Spirit. Jesus became a human when he was a fertilized egg — a zygote. In his deity Jesus has no beginning, however, like you and me, he can track his human DNA to the point of conception: from the time he was the size of a poppy seed.
At one point, the most precious person in the universe was the size of a poppy seed. So when people advocate for abortion at any point in pregnancy, remember when God became a human.
Originally published at Slow to Write.
Samuel Sey is a Ghanaian-Canadian who lives in Brampton, a city just outside of Toronto. He is committed to addressing racial, cultural, and political issues with biblical theology, and always attempts to be quick to listen and slow to speak.
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