Chapter 10: Greatness Incarnate
In this
final chapter of the book we have been reading through, Abdu Murray’s Grand Central Question, an examination
of the incarnation takes place to determine whether it helps answer Islam’s
Grand Central Question: How is God
great?
Murray
first clarifies that the classical understanding of the incarnation is that the
second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, took on human nature. The
incarnation is one person, Jesus of Nazareth, having a divine nature and a
human nature. Jesus has all of the essential properties to be God and all of
the essential properties to be human. In no way is the incarnation impossible.
However,
the Muslim responds with questions of doubt:
Does it not limit God? Does it not reduce God’s greatness? We even see
limitations of Jesus in the Gospels do we not? These limitations culminate in
his death. God cannot die! Murray writes:
When my nine-year-old son and I
wrestle, I suspend the full use of my strength, but I don’t divest myself of
it. And so when Jesus exhibits seeming limitations, it can easily be no more
than the mere suppression of his power and knowledge.1
Regarding
the death of God: Jesus did not die as
God; he died as a man. In no way does the incarnation denigrate God.
Murray
contends that the incarnation manifests the greatness of God because it is the greatest
possible revelation of the Greatest Possible Being. He writes:
The interlacing revelation of
the written Word and the incarnate Word shows us how God fought for us on
battlefields, delivered laws from atop mountains and ate among us in a quiet
room. We can know God in the beauty of a life lived in a person, Jesus of Nazareth
– someone each one of us can relate to. The fact that God devised a way to make
that kind of disclosure, despite our limitations, testifies to his great
ingenuity and great affection.2
Finally,
the incarnation displays the Greatest Possible Being expressing the greatest
possible ethic (love) in the greatest possible way. Jesus sacrificed by
becoming sin and bearing the wrath of God deserved to be dealt upon us. While
we are capable of self-sacrifice to the point of death we do not reach such a
level for our enemies; for those who hate us. Yet, while we were still sinners
Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Truly the incarnation demonstrates God’s great
affection for us and truly it answers Islam's question of how God is
great.
Stand firm in Christ,
Chase
Footnotes:
1.
Page 217.2. Page 220.
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