Christians often have a hard time with the incarnation. How can an exalted, sovereign God become flesh? This question starts from the wrong end. Instead of trying to learn about God and then trying to make sense of the incarnation, we should learn of God as the God of the incarnation. “The Word became flesh” – that reveals the God we worship.

From the incarnation, we learn that our God is not a detached God, but a God infinitely attached. Father, Son and Spirit cling to one another with infinite eternal love, and in the incarnation the Son attached Himself to us, and will never let us go.

The incarnation teaches us the right way to think about God’s sovereignty. The Triune God is so utterly and absolutely Lord that He can enter fully into our space, be born of Mary, inhabit our nature, live our life, endure our weakness and temptations, die our death, and still remain utterly and absolutely Lord. He is so highly exalted that He is capable of lowering Himself for us.

False theologies are efforts to escape God’s authority. If God is so utterly above us that He cannot have real contact with us, we are pretty much on our own. If God is so utterly transcendent that He cannot speak clearly, we don’t have to listen to Him.

As you meditate on the incarnation during this Advent season, let it transform your preconceptions of who God is. By all means, repent of your actual sins, but also repent of all the sophisticated subterfuges you use to justify your disobedience.