Catholic Beliefs & Teachings about Incarnation (AQA GCSE Religious Studies B): Revision Note

The meaning and origins of the belief in Jesus as incarnate

• Incarnation literally means “made flesh”

  • The incarnation of Jesus was when God took on human form. This means that he became fully God and fully human at the same time

• The idea that God was prepared to take on human form and experience life as humans shows Christians how great God’s love is for the human race

• Jesus is described as incarnate in the gospels of Matthew and Luke in their accounts of the “annunciation”, when the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would be the mother of the Son of God

The annunciation in Luke’s gospel

• The annunciation in Luke’s gospel focuses on the role of Mary in the incarnation

• It tells that the angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her that she would conceive and give birth to a son and that he would be named Jesus. He would be a divine baby, the Son of the Most High

  • Jesus means “saviour” in Hebrew

  • The phrase “Most High” is a way of referring to God

• Jesus would be conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit

• Mary was just a young virgin but gave her consent, saying, “Let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38)

  • In this way, Mary showed her obedience to God’s wishes and accepted her role

• Luke’s account of the story shows that Jesus was coming for all people

  • Through Jesus’s birth, all of God’s promises to the Jewish people and the world would be fulfilled

God’s message to Joseph in Matthew’s gospel

• Matthew’s account of the annunciation focuses on Joseph, Mary’s husband

• Joseph was afraid and wanted to quietly divorce Mary because the couple had not yet lived together, and a pregnancy outside of marriage would have been a huge scandal. He did not want to make her situation more difficult

• An angel visited Joseph in a dream and told him that the child had been conceived by the Holy Spirit and that it was right to stay with Mary

• The virgin birth shows that Jesus was both fully God and fully human

  • He was fully God because he was “conceived by the Holy Spirit”

  • He was fully human because he was born of a human mother

• The angel explains to Joseph that the child is the fulfilment of the prophecies

  • He would be a child of God named Jesus (meaning God saves or saviour)

  • He would be “God with us” or Emmanuel (which means “God is with us”)

• The prophecy of Isaiah in the Old Testament that was fulfilled here said:

• Matthew’s and Luke’s gospel accounts contain differences because they were written for different audiences

  • Matthew wrote for Jews, and because women’s evidence  was not accepted in Judaism at the time, he focused on the role of Joseph

  • Luke wrote for non-Jewish Christians, and because women’s roles were more accepted, he could write about the importance of Mary

• The message of both accounts is the same

  • Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit

  • Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophecies

  • God worked through humans to bring about his plan for humanity

  • Mary was a virgin

  • Angels announced the birth of Jesus

Jesus as the Word of God

• John’s gospel repeatedly describes Jesus as the Word of God

  • The gospel starts with a description of the Word of God

• “In the beginning was the Word” shows that the Word is eternal and has always existed, like God the Father

• “The Word was God” means that the Word of God is God — it is God’s self-expression

• “The Word was with God”means that the Word is also something distinct from God

• The phrase “the Word became flesh” explains this idea more clearly. It shows that Jesus was the eternal Word, God, made man. This is the incarnation

  • The Word made flesh is God as a human on earth

• The idea of Jesus as being “full of grace and truth” shows that Jesus came to show people how to live, guiding them to God’s truth

  • Grace means an expression of God’s love. This shows that Jesus was God’s gift to the world, showing humanity how much God loves them and how he wants them to live in response to this love

Jesus as the Son of Man and Son of God

• Jesus was fully human and fully God at the same time, and the two natures cannot be separated

Jesus as the Son of Man

• Son of Man is a phrase Jesus often used for himself

  • For example, he used it when he talked about what would happen to him at the end of his life

• This phrase has two meanings

  • It can just mean a normal person, a son of a man

    • This would apply to Jesus, who lived as a normal human in many ways: he ate food, was tempted, was sad at times and felt pain and suffering, especially on the Cross (as described in the passage above)

  • It can also mean that he is a divine person, someone who has been given power and authority by God. This is because of the way the phrase was used in the book of Daniel

    • This would apply to Jesus as the Son of God

Jesus as the Son of God

• Jesus’s title, Son of God, means that he was God incarnate

  • “Son of God” was used in the Old Testament to refer to holy people, but it has a more specific meaning in the New Testament

• Son of God is not a title Jesus readily used for himself

  • When he was tried before the High Priest after his arrest, the High Priest asked him directly about this 

• By responding with “I am”, Jesus acknowledged that he was the Son of God

• After that, Jesus immediately referred to himself as “Son of Man” to show his humanity

• Jesus, as the Son of God, is the second person of the Holy Trinity, made man by the power of the Holy Spirit, to lead humans to salvation

• God is eternal, with no beginning or end

  • The resurrection of Jesus proves that Jesus always was God — he could not have become God after his resurrection because God has no beginning or end

  • Jesus must have always been God but limited himself to the human condition while on earth