All the Fullness of Diety
Monday, December 15, 2008 at 9:29PM I wrote this bit to go with this one. Like the one before it, it will probably change a whole lot as I tweak, tweak, tweak it over time, but it’s a start.
In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, and the Word who is from the beginning came into our history. The eternal became temporal, and the Word who was with God, became God with us. In him, all the fullness of deity lived among us in a human body. Great indeed, is the mystery of our faith which we confess: God who is eternal spirit became God in flesh and blood.
According to God’s plan, as the centerpiece of his purpose and the turning point of history, God the Son emptied himself. God-with-God and God-equal-with-God made himself nothing, and he did it by adding rather than subtracting. The sovereign Lord—the one who created thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities, and who upholds them all by his powerful word—emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant. Great indeed, is the mystery of our faith which we confess: The Creator took on the likeness of his creatures.
It was for our salvation that the all powerful One became weak and the self-existent One became subject to death. To make us rich, the heir of all things became poor. To destroy the one who has the power of death, the radiance of the Father’s glory became like us in every respect. Great indeed, is the mystery of our faith which we confess: The Lord of glory veiled himself in humanity for our deliverance.
And in the inscrutable wisdom of God, the Son’s humanity veiled God’s glory, and yet, in that veiling, he showed God’s glory to us. Christ the man revealed by concealing and disclosed by covering, for in the incarnate Word we see God’s glory—“glory as of the only Son from the Father.” No one has seen God, but in the Son who is the image of the invisible God, we see what is unseen. The Light who comes from the Father’s side into our world has made him known to us. Great indeed, is the mystery of our faith which we confess: We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
In the mystery of God’s will, according to his purpose, the honored Son humbled himself to suffer the shame of crucifixion; the one for whom and by whom all things exist died to free us from the fear of dying. Great indeed, is the mystery of our faith which we confess: From his fullness we have received the grace of Christ.
According to the unfathomable wisdom and knowledge of God, and from his unsearchable judgments, the word became flesh and changed everything.
To him be glory forever.
