Two weeks ago, I wrote a Christmas post exploring the idea that the Son of God took a body to save the human race from corruption and slavery to death.
Today is Epiphany, the day in the church year when we celebrate the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The incarnation of God was also a manifestation of God.
In the prologue John’s Gospel, God manifests his light and life through his Word. The Word that made the world comes to illuminates the world. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:4-5).
Descent into Darkness
The light, says John, came to illuminate the world. This is a good thing because the fallen world is a dark place. People can’t see the truth about God or themselves. They stumble around in the dark. Paul said of Gentiles who do not know God: “They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.” In other words, they don’t know God, so they don’t have life; they can’t see or think or live straight.
How did this come about? Here again, we’ll explore Athanasius’ answer. In the first part of On the Incarnation, he explains the divine dilemma of life and death: the problem was corruption, so the Word became flesh to overcome the disease of sin that corrupts and kills us from the inside out. Today, we are unpacking the divine dilemma of knowledge and ignorance; the problem is that we dwell in the dark; we can’t know God. How did we get here?
In the beginning, humans lived with God; they knew him as Father and saw him face to face. In God’s light, they could see and live wisely. Adam’s sin changed this relationship, and not just for him but for the whole race because he was our representative. Since the Fall, we live in darkness. We can’t see God. We are afraid to know God and to be known by God. We try to hide (like Adam and Eve did), and we don’t seek him. In our selfishness and fear, we run from the light. We want to run our own lives, and we don’t want the light to expose the dark secrets of our own lives. This is why when the true Light was in the world, the world did not recognize or receive him.
God has always revealed himself, but humans mostly miss the message. Darkness clouds our vision. Fear of exposure—that our true self would be seen—keeps us hiding in the dark. But if we hide from God instead of seeking him, we’ll never know him. And if we never know him, we’ll never know ourselves. We’ll never know why he made us. We’ll never live into our purpose to reflect his image in the world. Instead of loving God and living in his likeness, we seek false Gods and become like them. They promise satisfaction but end up enslaving us. We’re blind to the deception, or hardened in our rebellion, so we keep obeying the idols. It’s bad for us and bad for our relationships, but we don’t see the light. We end up in the darkness of despair. Our existence is diminished. We lose our true humanity. We self-destruct. So what is God to do with us?
The Light Shines in the Darkness
Because humans are unable to know God, God made himself known through his Word, “lest their being should be profitless.” Stage 1 was the Law and the Prophets. This was a revelation to Israel, but for everyone. Israel was meant to be the light of the world, to show the world a better way, the way of trusting God and living wisely. The Torah was meant to be “a sacred school of the knowledge of God and the conduct of the soul,” not just for the Jews, but through them for the world. But the Jews didn’t even keep the Law, let alone show the Gentiles the way, so everyone wound up lost in the dark. So what was God to do?
- Let people remain ignorant and irrational, worshipping idols? In this case, he should have never made them! Both their glory and his are diminished. Does a king let his subjects serve other lords? No, he writes letters, sends friends, or “if need be, comes himself, shaming them by his own presence, only so that they not serve others and his work be in vain.”
- Let his image be destroyed? Let the train of human folly and self-destruction run off the cliff so the whole race devolves into chaos? It would not be right for God’s image to be destroyed through the ignorance of idolatry. God won’t neglect or abandon his beloved creatures. He will renew his image in humans.
But renewal of the divine image is no simple task. Imagine a portrait painted on wood that gets destroyed. The only way to repaint it on the same wood is if the person who is portrayed shows up. The human body is the “wood” on which God inscribed his image, and sin ruined the portrait. But God won’t scrap humanity and start over on new material. Instead, he will “reinscribe” his image on the same material. To do this, he shows up in a human body so he can restore his own image in humanity. Christ is the true Image of the invisible God (Col 1:15). As we unite with him, God’s image is restored in us (individually and corporately).
As with the rescue from corruption, this renewing work could only be done by God himself. How can a godless idolater teach the rest of us godless idolaters about the true God? Even if one could, we’d be looking the other way; the darkness of ignorance would blind us. Only the Word can rightly reveal God. So the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He came so we could see, up close and personal, in the flesh, who he is, and through him, who the Father is. “No one has ever seen God,” says John, “but the unique Son, who is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (1:18)!
Jesus revealed the Father in his body by both his words and his mighty works. Jesus said, “I only speak what I the Father has taught me” (John 8:28; cf. 14:10); “I only do what I see the Father doing” (5:19). The revelation was surprising, especially in Jesus’ suffering and death. For humans have never imagined a God who is humble, who forgives, who offers himself on behalf of his creatures, who suffers and dies in our place! We were stuck in ignorance, worshipping cruel and capricious idols, so the Light came to show us the true character of our Father!
Again we see that God comes down. He condescends. He comes in our form. He speaks our language. He does all this so we might pay attention and look up to him and be raised up to eternal life, that is, to join the eternal, joyful fellowship of the Trinity! This can only happen if we know him as Father and trust him as sons and daughters. The Light came to reveal the Father, renew us in his image and show us how to live as his beloved children.
So the question for us is, how will we respond to God’s epiphany, to the manifestation of God’s true Light? “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (1:10-12). On this day of Epiphany, may we see the light and welcome the Son so that we too, can live with joy as beloved sons and daughters!
