The infinite became finite; the eternal and supratemporal entered time and became subject to it. The immutable became mutable. The invisible became visible. The Creator became created. The sustainer of all became dependent. The Almighty became weak. God became man.
Christianity displays a supernatural view of the cosmos. The origin of the universe was in a decision of Almighty God to create the heavens and the earth. The God who created is not silent. He has spoken through the prophets – through Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Elijah and the writing prophets. Creator God is also triune: the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. These three different persons are the one incomparable true and living God.
The three have eternally existed in the closest affection for one another, never is the Father at odds with the Son and the Spirit. There are no neuroses, no tensions, no disagreements, not the slightest unhappiness any person has with another. They are one in their attributes, infinite and eternal. They are unchangeable in their being, wisdom, holiness, power, patience, meekness, kindness and truth. Each delights in the others with adoring affection.
God, having spoken to men and women through his servants the prophets, finally commissions his only begotten Son to come into the world. The Son had visited and communed with people in the appearance of a man on numerous occasions. He walked and talked with our first parents in Eden; he appeared to Abraham; he wrestled with Jacob; he strengthened Gideon as one dressed as a mighty warrior. The Son of God was filled with the anticipation of coming to our beautiful yet groaning globe for vast ages, longing for the set time to come when he would come into a family and village and enjoy especially close friends.
The Son of God came
So, at the right time, in these last days which he inaugurated, the Son of God came. He abandoned none of his distinctive divine attributes. How could he cease for a second being what he eternally had always been and eternally will be? That would be impossible – God no longer God! He remained omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnicompetent, but he did veil those characteristics by coming in flesh and blood. He became incarnate, that is, he added to his divinity everything that is human, three-dimensional, historical, touchable and visible in wounded humanity.
He had exactly the same biochemical composition as our own, exactly the same anatomy and physiology, the same central nervous system, the same sensitivity to pain. God did not give him some unique analgesic, a pain killer. The Holy Spirit overshadowed his mother Mary and then she made the same contribution as any human mother makes to the genetic make-up of her child – half his chromosomes came from her while the rest were imparted miraculously by the Holy Spirit in the virgin birth.