Jesus's Incarnation: What Happened Before the Christmas Story (and Why It Matters to Us)

Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so that thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. This is Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological conversations, Thinking Christian offers a mix of interviews and discussions that highlight the ways God is working in the lives of his people and question the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that keep the church from conforming more closely to the image of Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christians. This is Dr. James Spencer. Today, we're going to be discussing the incarnation. You know, we're coming up on Christmas and we're gonna all be reading the Christmas story out of Matthew and Luke. And, you know, Jesus's birth is an important aspect of his incarnation. Incarnation, I think, assumes the physical presence of Christ. As the Gospel of John talks about, you know, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. There is the incarnation requires that Jesus become human. And so that's definitely an aspect of it. And when we think about sort of imitating Christ's incarnation, I don't think we can just think about it in terms of being there. You know, our physical presence isn't necessarily what we mean when we talk about Jesus's incarnation. And so to investigate this idea, I think one of the maybe one of the most unexplored ways of understanding the incarnation and really thinking about what it means to imitate Christ in his incarnation is to first think about disincarnation. What's the negative of being there? You know, obviously, you could say that's not being there, but I think there's more involved. You know, so we live in a time in sort of our technological society where we can be present in new and more immersive ways, right? We can have Zoom meetings. We can connect with each other on text or via phone. Like, there's ways for us to be present with others and to be there for others in a particular way through that technology. And so, but there's also a way, I think, for us to disincarnate through that technology. In other words, if we find that it's never necessary for us to actually be there, be physically present with people, I think we're probably making a mistake and we have a bit of an over-reliance on that technology. And so, you know, I don't usually count the people that I've never met who I connect with on Facebook as actual friends. Sorry to those who I've become connected to on Facebook, but I've never actually met. You know, the reality is there's a difference between someone you actually know in real life, in that, you know, the tangible, concrete moments of your day-to-day existence versus someone that you know online. And so one aspect of being disincarnate, I think, is assuming that we never actually have to be there. But to sort of illustrate further what I mean by disincarnation, I want to turn to sort of an oldie but a goodie at this point, The Matrix. The Matrix came out in 1999. It's a movie that starred Keanu Reeves. And it's about most of the human population has been taken captive by artificial intelligence machines. So at some point, artificial intelligence decided to take over the world. And these machines now have plugged many of the human, much of the human population into what they call The Matrix, which is a massive simulated reality. And they do that in order to, they kind of store them in this pink goo. And they do that so that they can harvest the energy from the human bodies. The machines need this energy to continue surviving. And so one of the themes in the movie is sort of like the ongoing interdependence between humans and machines and all that kind of fun stuff. But it's not exactly where I want to focus right now. But the idea is that The Matrix provides this mediated experience and it creates a simulation that isn't discernible as a simulation. In other words, the simulation really seems like it's just reality. You know, I don't know whether you've used virtual reality goggles or anything like that. But while they can give you some sense, they can be a little disorienting, most of them aren't at the level where they could fool you into thinking that the simulation is actually real. And so unlike the Matrix that we're talking about here, this simulation is completely undiscernible from reality. And so the movie's plot sort of follows this group of humans who were either born free or freed from The Matrix. Freed from the computer simulated reality to help free others and ultimately to defeat the machines. And what they want is they want to pull these people out, show them this unmediated reality and then have them join their fight against the machines. And part of the problem is that this new, you know, the unmediated reality, the unsimulated reality is not particularly great. People seem really cold, kind of dirty, the food doesn't look that great. And so, you know, you're living life in the Matrix and the simulation seems better than the non-simulated reality. And it is, in a lot of ways, the Matrix seems like it's more preferable than non-simulated reality. And that's part of the, that's important to understand because as we get to this point where I think demonstrates the disincarnation, there is a difference between the simulated reality and the non-simulated reality that's really crucial. The simulated reality offers people the opportunity to live life very similar to what we would live on a day-to-day basis. All right, we have enough food, we have enough water, you know, we're relatively comfortable. We can find things that we can enjoy, all that kind of good stuff. And there's not a constant war with machines going on. So that's good. But in the non-simulated world, that is really not that happening. You know, life for humans in the non-simulated world is very difficult. They're in sort of a revolution of sorts and trying to rebel against the machines. They don't have all the resources they could ever possibly need, those kind of things. And so it is a difficult world. And so understanding that sort of separation, we have this character in the movie named Cypher. And Cypher is a member of the rebel group. He's going to try to, he's been trying to, you know, defeat the machines for a while now. But he ultimately decides that the simulation of the Matrix is far better than the the unmediated reality. And so he makes a deal with the machines. And he says, hey, I'll betray my friends. I'll give you, you know, access to everything you need to defeat them. All I want is to be inserted back into the Matrix. I want you to make me somebody important so that I have the illusion that I am not in a vat of pink goo fueling your, you know, your machine efforts. But that I am like a, he talks about being an actor or something like that. Like he wants to be somebody important. He wants to live a comfortable lifestyle. And at the end of the conversation with this, this program that he's making a deal with, he says, what I've realized is that ignorance is bliss. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed with inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty? More families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And then you're finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And so at that moment, I think that Cypher is deciding to disincarnate. And what I love about this illustration is that you have both aspects of disincarnation. First, Cypher is going to distance himself physically. He's actually going to take himself physically away from the rebel group that he's been working with, all these friends that he sort of fought alongside for a while. He's now saying, nope, I'm not going to be physically present with you at all. I'm just going to be reinserted back to the Matrix. And so I'm removing myself physically from you. But there's another aspect of incarnation that I think Cypher's act here of disincarnation really highlights. You know, addition to his body's location and how it contributes to his disincarnation, he's deciding to go back into the Matrix because he wants, he sees it as being better for himself. It's a self-interested move. He no longer wants to sacrifice his comfort for his friends. And so essentially he's saying the comfort of the illusion, the bliss that comes with ignorance, is more important than these other people who are depending on me.

Depending on me, who trust me, who have been with me in this whole revolt. I'm going to choose my own comfort, my own interests, over that of my friends. And so in this act of self-interest, I think he's grasping for that personal comfort, regardless of what the comfort costs others. And his self-interest and disregard for his friends, they lie at the core of his disincarnation. So yes, he removes himself physically, but it's not just a physical removal. It's also a decision that his comfort, what he can gain, what he wants, is far more important than other people. And in those two ways, what we're really seeing is Cypher is illustrating what it means to disincarnate, to disincarnate. I'm going to take a short break, and when we come back, I'm going to talk about the positive side of this, the incarnation. And then we'll also discuss a little bit about how some modern movements may be fooling us into or creating a situation where we're more inclined to disincarnate than we are to actually incarnate. So we'll be back in just a second. Hey everyone, welcome back. So I want to talk about the positive side of incarnation, right? So where Cypher, the character in The Matrix, decides that he is no longer going to be either physically present with his friends, nor is he going to continue to sacrifice himself or give of himself in order to benefit others, he's going to do the selfish thing and be reinserted back in The Matrix and enter into the bliss of ignorance. But he illustrates almost perfectly the opposite of what Christ does. So if we look at Philippians 2, Philippians 2, particularly around 6 through 9, what we're finding here in Philippians is Christ's decision to do the exact opposite of Cypher. And so Paul's going to begin this chapter and he discusses, you know, he wants the Philippians to be together in their mission. He wants them to be together and of the same mind. He wants them to have agreement. He doesn't want them to pursue things out of selfish ambition. He wants them to give to one another, to be with one another, not to look after their own interests, but to look after the interests of others. And so he's advocating for this sort of self-giving. And then he says, have the mind that you now have available through Christ. In other words, take a look at what Jesus did and thought and adopt this orientation to life that Jesus is illustrating for us. And an aspect of that is that Jesus did not view equality with God as something to be grasped. Now, that grasping has been interpreted in a number of different ways, depending on who you read as a commentator. Some would talk about, you know, a real grabbing or holding on to. Some talk about it in terms of theft, even. But what I think it is, is Christ decides that equality with God is not something to be used to his own advantage. It's not something that he should exercise and keep to himself and for himself. In other words, he recognizes that being God, the very being of God, what it means to be God, is to be self-giving. And so we have this interesting interplay. There's Christ and he's sitting up there and he's equal to God. And he's saying, I am equal to God. And yet I recognize that there has to be a self-giving element that someone has to go down and become flesh and dwell among these people and make sure that they have salvation, that they have forgiveness, that they have a path that they can follow. And so Christ says, I do not view equality with God as something to be used to my own advantage. It is to be used to the advantage of others. And we see this in Philippians 2, 6-9. Again, if we go back to Cypher, what we're seeing is a real nice opposition, right? These are ideas about incarnation and disincarnation that are complete opposites. Cypher decides that he's going to reinsert himself back in the Matrix for his own self-interest. Christ decides to give up all the comfort and advantages of being God and does not want to keep that as something to be used to his own advantage, but gives it up in an act of selfishness or an act of selflessness and an act of self-giving. And so I think the incarnation reflects a way of life characterized by self-giving and self-sacrifice that we are to emulate. That would be something of what Paul is, I think, getting at in Philippians 2. He's really using Christ as this paradigm. And it's not that Christ is just an example, but he is an example. He's a template for us to follow. He is our model. He's the one that we are supposed to be imitating. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And so, while we may, it's always possible, right, and we can always view self-giving and self-sacrifice as sort of these abstract principles that anyone could exhibit, right? Christian or not, there are people who can be self-giving and self-sacrificial. And I don't disagree with that. I think that there are, there's a way in which non-Christian people can be self-giving, right? But that's not what we are to imitate as Christians. We're supposed to imitate the actual incarnation of Jesus Christ, this mind that he had in and of himself that led him to suffer the humiliation of becoming a human and to do all the things that he did while he was here in his earthly ministry. That's what we're imitating. And so, I think that these ideas, they do gesture toward the nature of the triune God. But if they remain abstract principles, we will have missed the point of the incarnation, which is to imitate Christ's incarnation. And so, when we imitate Christ's incarnation, it's not a matter of just being present or changing the way we embody the world to sort of suit our own preferences or interests, right? It isn't about us being present for ourselves. In part, I think that's why some of these philosophies, like liberalism or ideologies like transhumanism, miss the mark. And that's where I want to sort of pivot the conversation now and talk about how some of these political philosophies and ideologies can fool us into thinking that we are actually incarnating appropriately, but are really keeping us from imitating Jesus Christ. So, I'm going to take one more break, and then when I come back, we'll talk a little bit about these ideologies and political philosophies. Hey, everyone, welcome back. So, we're kind of diving into Jesus' incarnation. We're thinking about a couple of, you know, political philosophies like liberalism. Liberalism is, you know, it makes the liberty of individuals, the free choice of individuals, sort of the basis of society. It's largely what we live in in America. You know, it's associated with democracy, but not necessarily coterminous with it. And then I want to talk a little bit about ideologies like transhumanism. If you're not familiar with transhumanism, I would really encourage you to get familiar to some degree with transhumanism. As we move into a more artificial intelligence-rich environment, let's say, I do think that transhumanism is going to continue to be, is going to continue to grow in its influence. But the basics of it is this. Transhumanism believes that individuals should have what they call morphological freedom or the ability to use available technologies to enhance and or overcome the limitations of their biology. And so we have these two ideas, liberalism, which makes the liberty and freedom of individuals the basis of society, and transhumanism, which said almost like a subset of liberalism, to some degree, are drawing on certain of those principles that individuals should have so much control over their human bodies that they should be able to use whatever technologies are available to enhance and or overcome the limits of their biology. And I think both of these ideas, both systems, provide the means for humans to embody the world in self-determined ways that don't necessarily...

reflect the sort of self-giving that we see modeled in Jesus Christ and in his incarnation. And I say don't necessarily because I don't want this to come off as anti-technological or anti-liberal, right? It's not about removing individual freedom. That's not the question. And it's not about eliminating all technology. That's not the question either. The idea is that as we adopt these deeper philosophical ideas, that ultimately the way we view the world and our relationship to it will change. It's as simple as that. One of the best places that I've seen this lately illustrated is in Nancy Piercy's book, The Toxic War Against Masculinity. And she describes a shift from a covenantal view of life, covenantal view meaning that there is an interest in preserving the common good, and that common good is found in both preserving relationships with others, and that often entailed making sure that everyone and the whole relationship overall was cared for and stewarded as opposed to getting the best deal I possibly could. So that was your covenantal viewpoint. And then you also had a shift then to social contract theory. And social contract theory was just like it sounds like. It's a much more transactional sort of mode of thinking about the world. And what she talks about in there is this shift toward social contract theory and its transactional sort of perspective. You essentially get people now moving away from the common good and moving toward getting the best deal for themselves. And so it was more expected that people were trying to get what they could out of a particular relationship. Now, as you see that then spread out into society, what it does is, and this is what she argues, and I tend to agree, she suggests that what we're seeing in that shift, we see a fundamental change in the relationships within the home. Men and women, husbands and wives in particular, begin to relate differently. And as the underlying sort of ideas about how society is structured shifted from a covenantal to a social contract theory, you also have the rise of industrialization and more factory work and those kind of things. And so now what happens is you have a complete and total shifting and a reorientation to reality that most people simply are not ready to deal with. So we can't sit back and think through, you couldn't reason your way to say, well, if we shift from a covenantal perspective to a social contract theory perspective, what all changes do we need to make in order to sustain X, Y, and Z? That's not usually the way that's going to happen. You're going to have a more fundamental shift and then you're going to have to struggle to reorient yourself within a new imaginative context. And so what I'm really concerned with, with regard to liberalism and transhumanism, is that we're going to go through that type of shift again. That these are going to so fundamentally change the way we think about and relate to the world that we're not going to fully understand what it means to have deep, meaningful relationships with one another. And this is why I would argue, particularly for Christians, that Christ's incarnation is so crucial to understand. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. And it's because it gives the fundamental paradigm by which we are to relate to one another. And so if we just take, you know, and I'll just sort of talk through a little bit of the liberalism and the transhumanism, but here's what I would say. You know, when we're trying to embody the world in new ways, and this can be particularly in transhumanism, you know, you're seeing people embed LED lights in their palms or, you know, put RFID chips in their hands, those kind of things. That's a certain way of embodying the world. Like it's a very technologically mediated embodiment. Some people even put magnets in their fingers so they can kind of pick things up with their hands and interact with the world differently. And those are very tangible ways of re-embodying oneself in the world. But I would also, and many other people have argued, you know, they would point to certain drugs as a way of achieving a transhumanist future. So, you know, in my world of exercise, anabolic steroids might be that sort of drug. What you're seeing is that folks who oftentimes have sort of maximized their ability to grow and get stronger through natural means, through just straight working out, no drugs, no enhancements or gear, as people call it now, you know, they max that out and they say, well, I still want to be stronger. I still want to be bigger. I still want to, you know, perform differently. And so then they look to a technology, anabolic steroids, to help them move beyond the limits of their natural body into a more enhanced state. And so there are all of these different kind of things that we can find where technology is being used to help us embody the world in ways that are not natural. That's not necessarily to say that all those ways are bad. It's just to say that we can find them. And so the trick here is not adopting the overall, I think the underlying philosophical structure, because what I would say is that transhumanism tends to believe that overcoming humanity's biological limitations will actually improve human life. And again, if I take something like anabolic steroids and use it as an example of a transhumanist innovation, you know, a way that an individual human might enhance their body and embody the world in a different way. What I would say is, yes, to a certain degree, if the goal is just to be larger and stronger within the world, then anabolic steroids can certainly help with that. But that does not come without negative consequences. And while any individual might believe or be free to choose the upside and say the upside of taking steroids outweighs the downside of taking steroids, it doesn't address the broader issue of has that actually improved human life. So transhumanism believes that. Liberalism often assumes that individual human freedom will provide a better future path. But I think, you know, biblically, that one's actually fairly simple to address. Whenever humans make their own choices, make their own judgments, we tend not to do that great of a job of it. And so in both of these systems, what we have are assertions that propose to help us embody the world well, embody the world differently, embody the world maybe as our best selves, but that have also deep theological problems with those assertions. So we know that human freedom from sin, for instance, is crucial to allow individual humans to walk in newness of life. We've got that in Romans 6.4. And so our human limitations do need to be overcome to a certain degree, but they are only ultimately overcome through Christ, not through our own human efforts. And these are sort of crucial nuances in both of these theories, right? The fact that individual choices are made by fallen human beings who are never going to really be able to discern well where they need to act, how they need to act, or how their individual choices are going to impact everyone else around them. We have an inherent incapability of loving God with all our heart, all our soul, and all our mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. And so our individual choices are maybe preferable, let's say, than having some authoritarian leader tell us what to do, but they are not going to lead us down the path of any sort of sufficiently moral state that would allow us to be free from sin. We only get that through Christ. And so if we want to embody the world in a different way, I think we need to...

not necessarily look and certainly not make primary the philosophies like transhumanism or liberalism. What we need to do is we need to look to a model that results in a different outcome than any other human system or strategy. And so what we see in the life of Jesus Christ, what we see in his incarnation that involved both his physical presence and this attitude of self-givingness, this deep desire to serve and sacrifice himself for others. What we see is that Jesus is the only human who lived a life that resulted in resurrection, ascension, glorification. He's the only person. That's a different outcome than we normally get. And so when we overcome our human condition by imitating Christ, we assume that we are going to move, we can anticipate that we are going to move in a direction that he has already moved toward resurrection, toward new life. And we're gonna be with him in glory. And that is the whole idea. And so by not looking to these other models of saying, how is it that we can differently embody ourselves in the world? What does it look like for us to be incarnate, to be truly human in this moment? We can't look to liberalism, we can't look to transhumanism, we can't look to any other sort of human-driven philosophy. We need to look to the incarnation. And so I think Christ's incarnation really does point us toward a different way of embodying the world. And that way involves self-sacrifice and self-giving. We set aside our own interests and preferences, and we look to benefit others rather than benefiting ourselves. And so like Christ, we need to recognize that our own prosperity, the gifts that God has given us, the wonderful capacities that he has gifted to us, are not ours to use for our own advantage. But like Christ, we're to look to serve others, that those things have been, you know, our prosperity, our wealth, our capacity, our God-given gifts, these are things that God gives us, not for us necessarily, but for others, to give others the advantage of, you know, the gifts that we have, to bless others, to care for others, to ensure that others have all that they need. And so, you know, Christ's model, Christ's incarnation does far more than just bring a physical presence of God in our midst. It also shows us what it means to live as truly human. And part of that is in the imitation of Christ, that we are to use our gifts, use our talents, use our lives, not for our own advantage, but for others. So I don't think that incarnation is going to be achieved by chasing liberty, you know, as liberalism might suggest. I don't think it's going to be achieved by overcoming our own biology, like transhumanism might suggest. I do think that both of those, liberalism and transhumanism, you know, there is that sort of interesting truth overlap, right, in so many of these systems. Like, it doesn't feel like they're all wrong, right? And that's why I don't want to reject them completely. I don't want to reject technology. I don't want to reject liberty. I want to leave those things there. But the recognition has to be that exercised in their own right and apart from Christ, these are going to be unguided and unrestrained philosophies that are ultimately going to become subject to the same problems we always have as human beings. We're broken, we're fallen. And so I think what we need to do is we need to embrace Christ. We need to come, you know, if you don't know Jesus Christ, you need to embrace him by faith. You need to find some folks who can help you understand exactly what that means and what you're committing to do. But then, as Christians, we also need to be looking to Jesus, looking at Jesus as our model and saying, I want to do what Jesus did. And part of that is he became present in a community, not for his own advantage, but for the advantage of others. He is the self-giving Savior that we follow and we need to follow his example. So as we move into Christmas, as we think about these things, we look at that, you know, we watch our nativity, you know, pageants and read through the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, you know, specifically the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke. My encouragement would just be to keep in mind Philippians 2, that this little baby made a conscious choice to surrender, to say, being equal with God is not something to be used for my own advantage, but I should set it aside, humiliate myself and become human. That, to me, is the core of the Christmas story and it sort of amplifies all that Jesus has done for us and encapsulates the mindset, not only that Jesus had, but the one that we should have. Thanks, everybody, for being with me on this episode of Thinking Christian. I hope to see you next time. Take care. Christians need to stop listening to the world and start listening to God so that thinking Christian becomes as natural as breathing. I want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. Hey, friends, I'm Susan Michael. My podcast, The Out of Zion Show, is now partnering with Life Audio Podcast Network. You know, after decades of travel and study in Israel, I created Out of Zion to bring you a simple, clear, powerful insights about the Bible, Jesus, Israel, and your own walk of faith. Follow Out of Zion on your favorite podcasting app. I can't wait to take this journey with you.