The use of the term incarnation (later Latin) may be traced back to Irenreus, A.D. 180, as in the expression " Incarnatio pro nostra salute" {Contra Hcer. i, 10).
III. Theory.— 'Y:he doctrine of the incarnation is fun- damental to Christianity, and is the basis upon which the entire fabric of revealed religion rests. It is pre- sented to our faith from the plane of the miraciflous, and is to be considered as the one aU-comprehensive miracle of Christianity. It contains within itself essen- tially the entire series of miracles as taught in the Gos- pels. These miracles are the fruit, after its kind, which this divine tree brings forth. Faith sees in the fallen estate of so noble a being as man, and his restoration to purity, immortality, and God, objects commensurate with the sacrifice and humiliation that are implied in the incarnation, and accepts the doctrine as correspond- ing to the wants and necessities of human nature ; but a divine revelation elevates our vision, and meets all ob- jections founded upon the comparative insignificance of our race by indicating that in some mysterious manner the influences of the atonement may beneficially affect the entire universe. See Garbett, Christ as Prophet, i, 12 ; Kurtz, Astron. and the Bible, transl. p. 95 sq. ; Calvin on Col. i, 20 ; Olshausen, Stier, and Harless on Eph. ii, 20.
The blending together of two natures implied in an incarnation presupposes some element of nature common to both. As far as we can see, " things absolutely dis- similar in their nature camiot mingle: water cannot coalesce with fire ; water cannot mix with oil" (F. W. Robertson on Matt, v, 48). '-Forasmuch as there is no union of God with man without that mean between both which is both" (Hooker), we see in the incarnation, re- flected as in a mirror, the true nobility of man's nature, and the secret of the fact that the incarnation took place in the seed of Abraham rather than in angels, " For verily he takcth not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold" (Heb. ii, 16, marginal rend.). " The most common mode of presenting the doctrine is to say that the Logos assumed oiu- fallen hu- manity. But by this, we are told, is not to be under-
INCARNATION
532
INCARNATION
stood that he assumed an individual body and soul, so that he became a man, but that he assumed generic hu- manity, so that he became the man. By generic hu- manity is to be understood a life-power, that pecidiar law of life, corporeal and incorporeal, which develops it- self outwardly as a body, and inwardly as a soul. The Son, therefore, became incarnate in humanity in that objective reahty, entity, or substance in which all hu- man lives are one. Thus, too, Olshausen, in his com- ment on John i, 14, says, ' It coidd not be said that the Word was made man, which would imply that the Re- deemer was a man by the side of other men, whereas, being the second Adam, he represented the totality of human nature in his exalted comprehensive personal- ity.' To the same effect he says, in his remarks on Kom. V, 15, 'If Christ were a man among other men, it would be impossible to conceive how his suffering and obedience could have an essential influence on mankind : he could then only operate as an example ; but he is to be regarded, even apart from his divine nature, as the man, i. e. as realizing the absolute idea of humanity, and including it potentially in himself spiritually as Adam did corporeally.' To this point archdeacon Wil- berforce devotes the third chapter of his book on The Incarnation, and represents the whole value of Christ's work as depending upon it. If this be denied, he says, ' the doctrines of atonement and sanctification, though confessed in words, become a mere empty phraseology.' In fine. Dr. Nevin, of America, in his Mystical Presence, p. 210, says, ' The Word became flesh ; not a single man only, as one among many, hut flesh, or humanity, in its imiversal conception. How else could he be the prin- ciple of a general life, the origin of a new order of exist- ence for the human world as such ?" (Eadie). This fine distinction, however, savors too much of transcendental- ism to be capable of clear apprehension or general re- ception. It is sufficient to say that the divine Logos actually assumed a human body and soid, not precisely such as fallen men have, but like that of the newly-cre- ated Adam, or rather became himself the archetypal man after whom, as a pattern originally in the mind of Deity, the human race was primevally fashioned. See Image of God.
The question whether there would or could have been an incarnation without the fall of man has especially engaged the speculative minds of Gennan divines, most of whom maintain the affirmative. "If, then, the Re- deemer of the world stands in an eternal relation to the Father and to humanity — if his person has not merely a historical, not merely a religious and ethical, but also a metaphysical significance, sin alone cannot have been the ground of his revelation ; for there was no meta- physical necessity for sin entering the world, and Christ could not be our Redeemer if it had been eternally in- volved in the idea that he should be our JNIediator. Are we to suppose that what is most glorious in the world could only be reached through the medium of sin ? that there woidd have been no room in the human race for the glory of the only-begotten One but for sin ? If we start with the thought of humanity as destined to bear the image of God, with the thought of a kingdom of individuals filled with God, must we not necessarily ask, even if we for the moment suppose sin to have no existence, ^^'llere in this kingdom is the perfect God- man? No one of the individuals by himself expresses mors than a relative union of the divine and human natures. No one participates more than partially in the " fulness of him that filleth aU" (Eph. i, 23). All, therefore, point beyond themselves to a union of God and man, which is not partial and relative (sk i-dpovg, 1 Cor. xii, 27), but perfect and complete" (Martensen, Ch ris- tian Dogmatics, § 131). See also jMidler, Deutsche Zeit- schrift, 1853, No. 43 ; Philippi, Kirchliche Glauhenslehre, Einleitung ; Ebrard, Dogmaiik, ii, 95 ; British and For- eign Ev. Rev. in Theol. Eclec. iii, 267.