In this message we shall consider Christ’s person in incarnation.
In the incarnation Christ is God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). He was manifested in the flesh not only as the Son but as the entire God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. As the Word, who is the very God, Christ became flesh (John 1:14). Therefore, He is God—the Triune God— manifested in the flesh.
It is important for us to realize that it was the entire God and not only the Son of God who was incarnated. John 1:14 says that the Word, which is God, became flesh. This God, who the Word is, is not a partial God; rather, He is the entire God—God the Son, God the Father, and God the Spirit. The New Testament does not say that the Word, who became flesh, was God the Son. Instead, the New Testament indicates that in the beginning was the Word, and this Word is the entire Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Hence, Christ in incarnation is the entire God manifested in the flesh.
Because of the influence of traditional teaching, we may think that only the Son of God, not the entire God, was incarnated. Actually, the New Testament does not say that the Son of God was incarnated; it says that God was manifested in the flesh. This means that the entire God became incarnated.
Through incarnation and human living God was manifested in the flesh. “In the flesh” means in the likeness, in the fashion, of man (Rom. 8:3; Phil. 2:7-8). In the form of man Christ appeared to people (2 Cor. 5:16), yet He was God manifested in a man.
Christ is the God-man. As the God-man, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence (Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:20). The Gospel of Luke is unique in telling us how the God-man was conceived. He was conceived not of a man but of the Holy Spirit with the divine essence. The Holy Spirit is God Himself reaching man. In the conceiving of the God-man, the Holy Spirit came into humanity.
Because the God-man was conceived of the Holy Spirit, He has the divine essence, the essence of God. Here we use the word “essence” in a strong sense to denote something even more intrinsic than nature. The essence is the intrinsic constituent of a certain substance. The God-man was conceived of the Holy Spirit not only with the divine nature but with the divine essence.
Concerning the conceiving of the God-man, Luke 1:35 says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; wherefore also the holy thing which is born will be called, Son of God.” As the cloud overshadowed the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:5) and the tabernacle (Exo. 40:34, 38), the power of the Most High overshadowed Mary. It seems that, according to this verse, the Holy Spirit only came upon Mary as the power for her to conceive the Lord Jesus. However, Matthew 1:18 and 20 tell us that Mary “was found having in womb out of the Holy Spirit” (lit.), and “the thing begotten [generated] in her is out of the Holy Spirit” (lit.). This indicates that the divine essence out of the Holy Spirit had been generated in Mary’s womb before she delivered the Lord Jesus.