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Wilson:The miracle of the incarnation is vitally important to Christian faith.


When Colossians 2:9 says, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,” we are meant to stagger in wonder.
Will the Empire State Building occupy a doghouse? Will a killer whale fit inside an ant? Yet the Gospels tell us that omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, utter eternality, and holiness dwelled in a tiny, unformed person.
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“The head of all rule and authority” (Col. 2:10) had one of those wobbly baby heads. The government rested on his baby-fatted shoulders (Isa. 9:6).
The miracle of the incarnation is vitally important to Christian faith. We must hold it tightly or we lose some of the majesty of God’s glory in Christ. God came as unborn child, as helpless babe, as dawdling toddler, as awkward teenager, as breathing, sweating, bleeding man so that Christ would experience all of humanity. And he experienced all of humanity so that we might receive all of him for all of us.
Surely if God came as a vulnerable, needful, weak baby, we have no need to fear for our own vulnerability, needfulness, and weakness. He emptied himself (Phil. 2:7) so that we would not see our own emptiness as a hopeless cause. “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord”—desperate, helpless, desirous—“so walk in him” (Col. 2:6). The miracle of the God-man proclaims the gospel’s specialty: rescue of the helpless.


Wilson, J. C. (2014). The wonder-working god: seeing the glory of jesus in his miracles. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

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