Scriptural Evidence for the Incarnation

In posting on Christianforums.com I've run into some interesting perspectives on the Incarnation of Christ.  When I taught church history, I liked to tell my students that there was "no new heresy."  That isn't entirely true, but it IS true that many of the non-Orthodox teachings floating about in our society today are complete re-hashings of old heresies.  In particular, ebionism (the idea that Christ was a mere man) and arianism (that the Son of God is a created being, less than God the Father) have stormed back.  They've become so ubiquitous that I've begun seeing them appear casually even among traditional Christians who just don't know any better.

For the secular humanist who likes Christ's teachings, ebionism is an attractive option.  Asserting Christ's pure humanity, and denying His divinity, leaves one able to affirm His ethical teachings without all that messy supernatural stuff.  Most people of this sort that I know really like the Gospel of Matthew.  Aside from the fact that it contains the Sermon on the Mount (perhaps the single best summary of Christ's ethical teahcings), it also has a reputation for focusing heavily on Christ's fulfillment of the role of Messiah - that is, on Christ's humanity (this in contrast to the Gospel of John, which focuses more on His divinity).

I don't think that's accurate, though.  Matthew may not be as direct (to us) about the divinity of Christ, but there is plenty of evidence throughout Matthew which implies that Matthew intended his reader to see Christ as above and beyond all the prophets - indeed, as God Himself.

A bulleted list of references after the jump!  Yay!

• Matt 1:18 - Mary is found to be with child "through the Holy Spirit." This indicates that her child is human (being her child), and God (being God's, that is the Holy Spirit's, child).
• Matt 1:21 - the child is named Jesus because the name means "God saves." In most cases, that name refers to God saving others, but in Christ's case HE is the one doing the saving and, as such, the "God" in "God saves" (His name) must and can only be Jesus Himself. Since (only) God saves, and Jesus saves, Jesus is God.
• Matt 1:23 - an additional name prophetically makes the connection between "God saves" and Jesus being God, as Jesus is called "Emmanuel" or "God with us." Now, the only way that "Emmanuel" could be prophetic of the name "Jesus" is if Jesus's name (which means "God saves") is implying that Jesus IS God. Otherwise He cannot be God with us, and His name would not have been prophetically foreshadowed in the name Emmanuel.
• Matt 2:11 - the Christ child is worshipped by the Magi. Worship belongs to God alone. You can say that this is merely "bowing" or paying "homage" (which may be paid to any honorable person), but that this is particularly divine worship is indicated by the gifts of the Magi: Gold (for a king, to whom homage is due), Myrrh (to one bound to death, as Christ's salvation will be victory over death), and Frankincense (that is incense, which was used in the worship of a god - note the use of incense in Revelations, or in the Temple / Tabernacle). The homage given to Christ (the bowing) is as to a King, a Savior, and a God (that is, to God). Christ is, therefore, God.
• Matt 3:1-3 - John the baptist is said to be the one who "prepares the way of the Lord." We know, from the story, that by "Lord" here is meant "Jesus Christ" (as this is the one for whom John is preparing the people). Yet we know from the original passage that the Lord in the prophecy is God. Therefore, this Jesus is the Lord of that prophetic passage and is God.
• Matt 3:11-12 - Christ is said to be mightier than John, who, according to Christ Himself, is the greatest born of man. We know, therefore, that Christ is greater than those born of man (that is, greater than the mightiest of prophets; greater than Elijah and Moses and John). Also, Christ is said to baptize by the Holy Spirit - that is, to baptize the people with God (to immerse them in God). He is also depicted here as judge. Having command of / with the Holy Spirit (that is, having command of God or command with God) makes Christ GOD, as no-one can command God but God Himself. Furthermore, God alone is the utlimate judge of our fates, yet here Christ is pictured as judge ("He will clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn..." etc). If only God can judge in this way, and Christ judges in this way, then Christ is God. Furthermore, we know that the wheat (that is, the righteous) belong to God alone - yet here they are called Christ'swheat and it is Christ's barn (that is, Christ's Kingdom). If the Kingdom is God's alone, and the righteous are God's alone, and if the Kingdom is Christ's and the righteous are Christ's, THEN Christ must be God.
• Matt 3:17 - Christ is called God's son (confirming that He was born of God through the virgin birth, as reported in Matt 2). As the Son of Man is a man, so the Son of God is God. Therefore, Christ is God.
• This sense of sonship implying divinity is confirmed by Matt 4:3 where the tempter recognizes that, as Son (and therefore God), Christ has power over nature on His own terms (that is, direct and immediate power - not the power of a prophet which can only work within God's allowance).
• Matt 4:23-24 - Christ demonstrates this direct power and direct authority by teaching (in His own name) and doing miracles (in His own name). Only God could do this without it being blasphemy.
• Matt 5:1-7:29 (the Sermon on the Mount): This is so full of references its hard to know where to start
  • Christ goes up to a mountain, like Moses. But He doesn't recieve teaching (like Moses), rather He gives the teaching. In Exodus (to which this is alluding) the voice doing the teaching is God. Here, again, that implies that Jesus is God as it is HIM that does the teaching.
  • Those who are persecuted for Christ are compared to the prophets who were persecuted. Yet the prophets were persecuted because they were OF GOD. Here, Christ says that those who are persecuted are OF CHRIST. This only works (as non-blasphemy) IF Christ is God.
  • Christ says He fulfills the Law - yet the Law is God's and God's alone. Only God can fulfill (that is, super-fill or expand beyond) the Law as ONLY God can expand the revelation that belongs to Him in the first place. As Christ DOES fulfill (super-expand) the Law, Christ must own the Law in and of Himself and must, therefore, be God. As if to confirm this by His very language, Christ says in Matt 5:18 "Amen, I say to you..." This is an allusion to the prophetic introduction "Thus sayeth the Lord..." only here it is Christ saying something on His own authority, and that which He is saying is expanding, interpreting, and redelivering the primary revelation of God (the Law). The only way this could be said without being blasphemy is IF Christ is God. Therefore, by saying "I say unto you" in this particular context, Christ is claiming to be God Himself.
  • Christ commands in Matt 7:1-5 that we are not to judge. Then, in Matt 7:21-23 talks of Himself and God interchangeably when discussing who does the judging at the Lord's Day. This only works (as non-blasphemy) if Christ is God.
  • In Matt 7:24-26 Christ says to build one's whole spiritual life and foundation on CHRIST - and that is blasphemy unless Christ is GOD, since we are to have our foundation in God alone (as He alone do we worship, which is what Christ commands earlier in Matthew).
  • Matt 7:28-29 confirm that Christ taught differently from the scribes, teachers, pharisees, etc. because Christ taught from His own authority. The only way He can have this authority is if He is God (as only God has this authority).
• Matt 8:1-17, 28-34; 9:18-34 - Christ does miracles on His own authority, confirming the authority He displayed in teaching. Again, ALL the prophets do miracles in the name of God. Christ does miracles on His OWN because He IS God. Otherwise, His actions here would be the height of blasphemy.
• Matt 8:23-27 - Christ displays direct authority over all of nature (that is, the storm and seas) such as only God has (see God's speech at the end of Job, or any number of Psalms). This follows the same logic as the miracles and the teachings: only God has this authority directly, and Christ is NEVER have said to invoke God's authority - rather, He uses HIS OWN authority (and this can only be if He is God).
• Matt 9:1-8 - Christ forgives a man His sins AND does a miracle on His own authority. Christ's words are quoted directly, and He never calls on God's authority for either act. Therefore, Christ must be God (as any prophet who was merely acting on God's behalf would have to invoke God's authority in order to avoid blasphemy).
• Matt 10:1 - Christ gives authority to do miracles in HIS name. See the above logic for why this necessitates that Christ be fully God.
• Matt 10:37-39 - we are told to love Christ even above father and mother; even above our own life. This, in other words, demands absolute loyalty, dedication, and love towards Christ. Yet those things, which are the essence of faith and worship, are truly due to God alone! Christ is, here, telling us to worship Him (and way beyond the kind of physical homage / bowing due to a King - this is a total homage of our entire life, the very meaning of worship). This can ONLY avoid being blasphemy if Christ is God. Therefore, Matthew is implying that Christ is God.
• Matt 11:27 - "All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him." Note, if all things belong to the Son, then the Son (that is Jesus Christ, called the Father's Son in Matt 3) IS GOD. Only God can rule all things. Note that only the Father can know the Son, and the Son know the Father - a human being can be known, for we are finite and limited. This statement implies the unlimited nature of God (we cannot know Him) and clearly states that this incredible infinitude applies to the Son as well as the Father. Note further that Christ's condescension into the flesh is the means by which the Father is revealed - in Christ, in a human man, we see (by the Son's voluntary self emptying; see Philipians), God revealed to us. This is what is meant by "to whom the Son wishes to reveal Him." He is able to do that because He is God (and no other way).
• Matt 11:28-30 - Christ is depicted as the master and ruler. Yet God alone can be this (in the ultimate sense). If righteousness belongs to God, and here Christ is saying that it is His yoke that we are to put on, He is saying that He is God.
• Matt 12:1-8 - Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath! That is as direct a reference to Christ's divinity as you are likely to find. Lord of the Sabbath means the Lord OVER (that is, the founder and commander of) the Sabbath, which is GOD’S REST. The human Sabbath (of the 10 commandments) is an imitation of God’s Sabbath. Christ here, in proclaiming Himself Lord of the Sabbath is proclaiming Himself to be God.
• Matt 13:42 - Having declared Himself greater than John (the greatest prophet) and Moses (because He gives the law on His own authority), He now shows Himself greater than Solomon (the greatest King). Greater than all the prophets, greater than all the Kings - this is again alluding to Christ's divinity, though it is a less direct reference than the preceeding ones.
• Matt 13:11-17 - Christ speaks of a prophecy in Isaiah, which is spoken about GOD and how GOD's teaching relates to GOD's people. He connects this prophecy to HIS teaching and how it relates to HIS people, and has the audacity to say that THIS fulfills the prophecy! Only if Christ is God can this be said without it being blasphemy
  • Matt 13:34-35 confirms that Christ is, indeed, connecting His revelation to God's own teaching (and, if you follow the use of pronouns, the parables in the quoted Psalm are old stories of the Jews). God reveals Himself through these Jewish stories, yet Matthew connects THAT to CHRIST'S NEW parables & stories. In this way, we are to understand that Christ's parables are GOD REVEALING HIMSELF (otherwise, the reference to the Psalm makes no sense). Given that Christ teaches on His own authority, this only makes sense if Christ is GOD.
• Matt 14:13-21, 15:32-39 - Jesus feeds the multitude. This alludes to God sending mana from heaven. Jesus is, therefore, alluding to the fact that He is God (God alone sends mana from heaven; Christ sends mana / food, therefore Christ is God).
• Matt 14:22-33 - Christ walks on water. St. Peter asks Christ to save Him. It is faith in Christ that allowed Him to walk on water, and a failure of that faith that caused St. Peter to sink. This kind of faith (leading to salvation or condemnation) is due to God alone. Christ must therefore be God. Further, the fact that He walks on water is an allusion to God's power over nature (i.e. "The Spirit of God moved over the waters" in Gen 1), and could be an allusion to pagan gods like Poseidon. Regardless, it is a clearly divine power which Christ demonstrates and does on His OWN authority. This is an implicit claim to be divine.
• Matt 15:1-20 - Christ again claims personal authority to teach & interpret / expand the Law - a power which belongs to God alone.
• Matt 16:13-20 - Christ is revealed as the annointed one, the Messiah, by St. Peter's confession that He is the Son of God. Again, that means He is GOD (even as calling Him the Son of Man emphasizes the fact that He is a man). Furthermore, here Christ promises something GOD alone could promise (that the Church will not die) and gives to St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom. He can only do that if He HAS the keys of the Kingdom, and only God could have that.
• Matt 16:24-28 - Here Christ again ties the spiritual life (that is, the life of worshiping God) to having ABSOLUTE and UNCONDITIONAL faith and loyalty and love towards Christ. This can ONLY be non-blasphemous if Christ is God. Further, and most importantly, the KINGDOM (earlier called the Kingdom of God) is explicitly tied to Christ: "Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom." If this Kingdom is GOD's (as Matthew proclaims throughout this gospel) and yet this Kingdom is CHRIST's then Christ must be God - for emphasis, here He is called the Son of Man so that in this statement "until they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom" we have a reference to Christ's humanity and divinity all in one.
• Matt 17:1-8 - Christ is transfigured, revealing Himself again as the Father's Son, and He transcends death itself, conversing with Moses and Elijah. Notice that CHRIST stands in glory, Moses and Elijah do not. This alludes to Christ's divinity.
• Matt 18:18-20 - Christ gives the power of binding and loosing to the Apostles (implying His authority over these things as He is God), and further teaches of His own omnipresence (something God alone has) when He says "Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Note He says "Gathered in my name" - this is blasphemy unless His name is God's name, that is unless He is God. He is saying He is omnipresent and that His name is God's - only God can say these things. Notice, earlier, that in Matt 18:1-5 he says that we should recieve children in HIS name.
• Matt 19:1-12 - Christ CORRECTS Moses, and says again (when giving His teaching as having higher authority than the LAW) "I say to you" (19:9), NOT "thus sayeth the Lord" (as a prophet would say). Therefore Christ must be God, as only God could revise His OWN revelation given to Moses, reinterpret it, and deliver a new (more authoritative) revelation.
• Matt 21:12-13 - Christ drives moneychangers out of the temple, then calls it (by virtue of the prophecy quoted) "My house" - the temple belongs to God alone, Christ says it belongs to Him; therefore Christ must be God. Christ is, at this point, higher than the Law, higher than the prophets, higher than the kings, Lord of the Sabbath, Lord of the Temple, doer of miracles in His own name, teacher of revelation in His own name, the Divinely concieved & direct Son of God whom we are to worship and follow above all others (indeed, to have the whole foundation of our life resting upon Him), and He is omnisciently present when we gather in HIS name. How can we NOT say Matthew thinks He is God? Which, of ANY of these things, can be said of a MERE man? He MUST (according to Matthew) be more than man - He is both Son of God AND Son of Man.
• Matt 23:37-39 - Christ, having given His refutations of the Jewish sects of the day, laments Jerusalem and speaks of Himself as pre-existing the human life of Jesus when He says "how many times I yearned to gather your children together" - again, He is alluding to His divinity by saying He is the pre-existent eternal Lord over Jerusalem (like a mother hen gathering chicks).
• Matt 24:29-31 - Now we are into the little apocalypse of Mattew, and here Christ says that He (the Son of Man), will appear in heaven in the last days in glory and power. These are things belonging to God alone ("all glory and power and honor" etc). Furthermore, Christ says that the ANGELS belong to HIM ("And He will send out His angels"). Now, on top of ALL the other things He is Lord of (see explanation of Matt 21:12-13) He is also OVER all the Angels. This, again, bolsters the case for His divinity.
• Matt 25:1-46 - Christ here makes Himself the judge and the main figure of the Lord's day. Given that throughout Matthew Christ is called "Lord" this makes explicit that the meaning of "Lord" used throughout Matthew is NOT merely a human master (as in one's boss or one's earthly ruler) but is rather a reference to one the titles of Divinity: Lord. Since the "Lord's Day" is specifically God's day ("the coming wrath") the fact that it is CHRIST who sits in judgment and CHRIST who appears to herald the end and that it is CHRIST'S Kingdom which is being inaugurated all implicitly, but quite strongly, link Christ to being God.
• Matt 26:57-68 - Here again Christ identifies Himself as the Messiah and, more specifically, God's own Son. He also calls Himself the Son of Man and claims the "right hand of the power" (i.e. the right hand, or honorable hand, of God). What is interesting is the Sanhedrin's reaction. They call this blasphemy. Think about that - it might be FOOLISH to say that one is the Messiah, but its hardly blasphemous. However, if His claim to the right hand of The Power and His connected claim to being God's Son are, as I've argued, claims of DIVINITY then the Sanhedrin's reaction makes sense. Otherwise, sense it makes none.
• Matt 27:50-54 - Jesus dies on the cross, and several things happen. First: the veil of the Temple is torn. Now, this represented the barrier between God and man. Christ's death, by completing the Incarnation (since now God was present with us even in death) and by overcoming all requirements of sin (as what greater offering could possibly be given but God?), removed once and for all that barrier. However, only if Christ were God could His sacrifice be the greatest POSSIBLE. Since God is the greatest, only if Christ is God can we say His death once and for all (without possiblity of a greater sacrifice) removed the barrier of sin. Also, if Christ be NOT God, then God did not enter death and death is not filled with God's presence. For the cross to remove the barrier of death, God-enfleshed must die there - must enter death. Notice that immediately after His death the tombs are opened and the saints are seen alive again. This demonstrates that in Christ God has His victory over death - yet this only works if it is CHRIST that is God, since only then could we say that God ontologically entered into death and by doing so united death ontologically unto Himself and transformed it into communion with God (that is, transformed death into life). Also, the Earth itself trembled at seeing its creator dead on the cross. Men die every day and the Earth takes no notice. Here was a man so divine - indeed, God Himself - that the Earth could not sit still upon His death, but trembled in recognition of the horror of the cross. So powerful was this experience that even a pagan recognized that this man must have been God's own Son - that is to say, God Himself.
• Matt 28:1-10 - Jesus rises from the dead on His own authority. What man could possibly do this? This cannot be a mere man; though we know Him as a man, we must also recognize Him as God. What greater miracle - what greater act can there be then this?
• Matt 28:16-20 - Jesus gives the great commission. Notice that He says to baptize IN THE NAME OF the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If the Son and Holy Spirit are not God (and you must claim that the Son is not God for your Christology to have any hope of reconciling with the Gospel) then it makes NO sense to baptize people equally in the name of all three. How can a good monotheist put a non-Godly name next to a Godly name? How can I batpize, worshipfully, in the name of the Father AND the Son AND the Holy Spirit unless all three are co-equally the one God? I am left in a double-bind - I either recognize the divinity of all three, or in denying the divinity of one I convict myself of idolatry as, to obey this commandment, I would have to be caught worshipping someone whom I profess not to be God. Since that is an unacceptable conclusion, I must instead believe that all three are God. Since Christ claims to be God's own Son, I know now that Christ is God - the end of the Gospel makes it explicit (as if all the preceeding hadn't done enough). NO GOOD JEW would EVER put these names together in this sort of a format unless intending to imply that all three are God.

And this is just Matthew!!