The Scandal of the Incarnation

The inclusivist takes the different theological hues of the various world religions and puts them onto one pallet. He then proceeds to paint a garbled picture of “God,” always in obscuro and always in abstracto. We can never quite find the form or the edges of God, no matter where we stand in relation to the easel and no matter how well lit the room. Herein we see the tendencies of pantheism and deism coming to the fore.

A better approach is to allow each religion to gather its own artistry and paint its own picture and let the results be the determining factor. These works of art may share certain colors and capture similar scenes, but in the end they will not be the same picture because the subject matter is not the same.

We find an example of this distinction in the Gospel according to John. In the eighth chapter, Jesus is having a heated discussion with some of the religiophiles of his day. This conversation is a stumbling block to the inclusivist because the two parties involved have so much in common and yet disagreed so vehemently. Both Jesus and the Pharisees were of the same basic bloodline (i.e. Jewish) and thus believed the same promises from the same ancient texts. They called “God” by the same name. They worshipped him in the same location.

But their view of who God was (which is what "name" really means) and how he worked was very different. The Pharisees knew that their country was corrupt politically as the position of the high priest had been profaned in generations past and the exile had not functionally come to an end. They knew that the larger, more powerful Sadducees would cave to the Roman pressure toward syncretism. They retreated into the world of Torah, erecting an oral law of tradition around the written textual law given by the LORD to Moses. When Israel would be disbanded after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, it would be these people who would preserve Judaism and its heritage. The term “Rabbinic Judaism” refers to their textual and traditional legacy.

But Jesus was no fool. He too knew of the corruption. He knew what fate the Roman rule would bring. He could foresee the Temple in ashen rubble. But his answer to this problem was different than that of the Pharisees. He did not appeal to the oral tradition around Torah. He did not appeal to morality. He did not rally a rowdy militia. Rather, he appealed to himself. He used symbols from the Torah and applied them to himself to show how redemption in the past was but a prototype for what would come by him and through him. He was the light of the world, the bread from heaven, the light of the world, the shepherd of the sheep, etc. He was pointing the nation to himself as its only hope for surviving the "woes" to come.

Not surprisingly, this message met bitter opposition from the Pharisees. Yes, they shared so much in terms of heritage and history, but their telelology was incompatible with his. And both parties dug in their heels. To the Pharisees, Jesus was a blasphemer. To Jesus, the Pharisees were blind. Someone was bound to get hurt.

The Pharisees attacked Jesus’ credentials on a most fundamental level: his family. They claimed that Abraham was their father, while Jesus had no legitimate father as he was born out of an act of fornication (pornei,aj, John 8:41). Jesus continually appeals to his heavenly Father in the face of these allegations. The Pharisees don’t catch the nuance and proceed along purely physical lines of reasoning. Jesus tells them that Abraham rejoiced to see him coming into the world (John 8:56). The Pharisees wonder how the two could have met, being that Abraham had been dead for nearly 2,000 years and Jesus was a relatively young man (John 8:57). Jesus' answer to this supposed anachronism is one the renders the Pharisees speechless, though not without venomous anger.

He tells them, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” This saying may mean little to the reader on a surface level. It is very pithy and even more cryptic, but underneath it carries profound implications, implications which the Pharisees comprehended, as they response clearly shows (let the reader understand). Jesus had claimed that he was the God who revealed himself to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 and following. He claimed that he was Yahweh, the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is how Abraham could rejoice at his coming and this is how he could simply "be" before Abraham "was."

So how did he make this subtle yet subversive claim? The last words that Jesus left them with were “I am.” This may seem harmless but it is not. The Greek couplet used here is evgw. eivmi,, two words which echo (if not directly allude to) the name of God given to Moses and Israel via the burning bush and the Torah. There, he tells Moses, “I AM who I AM” (hy<+h.a,( rv<åa] hy<ßh.a,(). Shifting this phrase out of the first person singular and into the third person singular provides the formal, covenantal name of God in the Bible: Yahweh (hw"ïhy>). When we see the English word LORD in all capitals, it is this name that is used in the Hebrew text. And when the Hebrew Scripture was translated into Greek not two centuries before Jesus’ birth, how was this Hebrew phrase rendered in Greek? You got it….. evgw. eivmi. So Jesus is identifying himself as this God in the flesh, standing before the Pharisees and having a theological conversation with them.

This they certainly could not stomach. Yahweh is holy, invisible, inaccessible and not a peasant carpenter from Galilee who was born out of wedlock, or so they thought. This man must be put to death from such blatant acts of blasphemy. And yet, Jesus strangely evaded their grasp and left the Temple to continue his ministry before finally being captured and crucified, but only to further frustrate their plans by bursting open the flood gates of divine grace.

The point of this story is that the incarnation itself is an exclusive event. Here, Yahweh took on human flesh in the second person of his being, the Son, the Word, Jesus Christ. But the Pharisees could not and did not believe this because their view of God was wholly incompatible with such an event. Even if he did become flesh, he would not look like Jesus. He was far too simple. He was far too meek. He was far too human.

John 8 is a beautiful example of how God’s ways often confound the supposed “wisdom” of the wise and yet, inclusivism would want to do away with its beauty. It would like to remove its scandal, the scandal of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us (John 1:14) in a specific time, in a specific place, saying specific things that require some being invited and others being excluded. Inclusivism would like to make God a private affair only to be talked about in whispering tones behind closed doors. But Yahweh is he who is, as his name suggests. There is nowhere where he is not and as Kuyper loved to say, there is not one square inch of creation of which he does not rightly say, "Mine!" This sovereign claim was further emphasized by the incarnation itself. By this event, he has stepped into our history and that event must be reckoned with, no matter how scandalous it is (and it is scandalous). The Christian picture of God is one of vibrant colors, both dark and light, ominous and glorious. It's texture is rich and deep with images jumping off the canvas to enter our world and drawing us out of our world into its own. These are exclusive and unique colors and textures, but ones that are used to paint the most exquisite portrait of redemption available to mankind.