Chapter
6
Son of God Is Born
In This Chapter
Who is Jesus, the Son of God, the Christ, the Messiah?
The meaning of the Incarnation
The Virgin Mary’s role in salvation history
The Immaculate Conception, Mary’s virginity, and Mary’s predestination as Mother of God
The next part of the creed focuses on Jesus, the Son of God. Not surprisingly, this is a pretty substantial part of both the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. This portion of the creed is not just about professing a basic belief in Jesus; it is about professing a profound belief in the many aspects of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection that make him the keystone of Christianity.
By delving more deeply into this section of the creed, we will get a closer look not only at Jesus the man and Jesus the Messiah, but also at Mary his mother, and at the particular events of Jesus’ life that led up to his victory over death and sin. The Nicene Creed once again expounds on some of the simpler language of the Apostles’ Creed giving us, in this case, a prayer that is filled with poetry and imagery.
For many people, this part of the creed will feel the most familiar and, despite its extremely heavy subject matter, will be the easiest to understand. And that is precisely the point. By becoming a man, God made it possible for us to know him better and to grasp his existence in a way that makes sense to us.
God Becomes Man
The second part of the Apostles’ Creed states: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.” The Nicene Creed, on the other hand, says the same thing like this: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven ….”
As you can see, there’s quite a difference. In the Nicene version we need to wrangle not only with the idea of God having a Son but also with the more esoteric ideas of “light from light” and “eternally begotten.”
Church Speak
Begotten means to generate through procreation. However, repeatedly in the New Testament Jesus is referred to as the “only begotten,” a term that comes from the Greek monogenes, meaning “only” (mono) and “birth” (genes). This sets Jesus apart from any other believer who is considered a son of God. In the creed, Jesus is referred to as “begotten, not made,” meaning that he is not a work from God’s creation, nor is he just a thought that pops into God’s mind. Jesus’ relationship to the Father is unique in that he is not an adopted child of God, as are the rest of us, but the one and only Son of God. By taking on human form in the person of Jesus Christ, God became human like us in every respect except sin.
Let’s begin with the basics: Who is Jesus of Nazareth? There are certain aspects of Jesus’ life we can understand from a strictly human perspective. He was born in the time of King Herod in a town called Bethlehem to a young woman named Mary and a carpenter named Joseph. As an adult, Jesus healed the sick and preached by parables to crowds who flocked after him. At first they wondered who this man from Nazareth could be, then they praised him, and finally they crucified him.
He inspired many people with his invitation to leave everything behind and follow him. He scared some people with his radical message of love and forgiveness and mercy. He scandalized other people with his willingness to sit down to dinner with sinners or let an adulteress walk away from a stoning unharmed.
Those are the seemingly more human aspects of Jesus. To truly know him, however, we must recognize he is not simply just one more holy man. The Gospel of John and the first seven councils of the Catholic Church tell us he is God made man, a distinction that is at once startling and comforting.
The Catechism says the Good News we often talk about or hear about can be summed up in one sentence: God has sent us his Son. This message is at the core of the Catechism. Jesus is the “heart of catechesis,” the Catechism explains, reminding us that the Christian faith is about bringing people to Jesus, about spreading his word, and about helping people understand Jesus is God, who alone can bring us into communion with the Trinity and who will live with us forever. (426)
Church Speak
Evangelize comes from the Greek word euaggelein, which means “announcing good news.” When you evangelize, you bring others to Jesus Christ by spreading the Gospel through both your words and actions.
He Is the Christ, and the Messiah
When the angel Gabriel appears to Mary in Luke’s Gospel and tells her that she is to bear the Son of God, he also tells her this child will be named Jesus, Y šûa’ or its shortened form Y šû in Hebrew, which means “God saves.” So Luke gives us not only the name of God’s Son but “his identity and his mission.” He has come to save people from their sins, God’s greatest gesture on behalf of the people he created in his image. (430)
Jesus is also known as the Christ and the Messiah. The words—Christ is from the Greek and Messiah is from the Hebrew—mean “anointed” and refer to Jesus as the anointed king of the House of David, long awaited by Israel, who was sent to bring the rule of God into the world in a definitive way. He is consecrated by God and anointed by the Spirit not only as king, but also as prophet and priest. (436)
At the time of Jesus, “messiah” was not a strictly religious term; it had political connotations. Jesus accepted the title of Messiah, but did not use the term to describe himself. He had to constantly remind his followers he was not going to be an earthly king of any old run-of-the-mill kingdom. (439) That was a hard one for people of the times to grasp. They expected a political revolution, not a spiritual revolution.
When Jesus’ own disciples argue over who is going to have the greater power in Jesus’ kingdom, Jesus has to break it to them that those who want to be the greatest among them will be the servants. “Just so, the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)
Son of God
Jesus Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, is first and foremost the Son of God. In the early “symbols” or creeds, Jesus is known as the “only begotten Son of the Father” and the “eternally begotten Son,” reminding us, once again, of his presence since before time began and his role as second person of the Holy Trinity.
The Catechism explains that in the Old Testament, the title “son of God” (with a lowercase “s”) was given to “angels, the Chosen People, the children of Israel, and their kings.” This was not a title that would have shocked people who heard it used in reference to Jesus, because it referred to an adopted-child relationship with God. So saying Jesus is the “son of God” would not have necessarily implied he was more than human. (441)
However, in Jesus’ case, we have come to understand we use Son with an uppercase “S,” meaning this title takes on a very different and unique meaning, much more than what everyone expected. Even among Jesus’ own followers, many could not recognize him for who he really was—the Son of God.
When Jesus asks his disciples who the people say he is, Simon Peter responds: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” (Matthew 16:16) And Jesus tells him only his Father could have revealed this to him, a truth that will become the cornerstone of the faith. (442)
Teachable Moment
Twice in Scripture God speaks directly of his “beloved Son.” When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, the heavens opened, and the Spirit of God descended on him like a dove. A voice from the heavens said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16) Later on, Jesus took the apostles Peter, James, and John up a mountain and was transfigured before them with Moses and Elijah on either side, and a voice from heaven once again said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5) In these cases, Jesus is not only the Son with a capital “S,” but he is also the son child and servant of God, as written about by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.
Lord of Lords
In the last chapter, we talked about how God revealed himself to Moses in the Old Testament, calling himself “I Am Who Am,” or the Hebrew word YHWH. Pious Jews, unwilling even to speak the name of God, used another term: Adonai, which is translated in Greek as Kyrios and in English as Lord. Now, in the New Testament, “Lord” is used not only as a name for God the Father but also for Jesus the Son. Jesus refers to himself in this way to his apostles, and then demonstrates his “divine sovereignty” through his power over nature, sickness, demons, and death. (447)
The Catechism explains that the earliest Christian creeds professed that the same “power, honor, and glory due to God the Father are due also to Jesus.” (449) By calling Jesus Lord, believers—with the assistance of the Holy Spirit—recognize Jesus’ divinity and his place of prominence in the world, in history, and in their own individual lives.
The Incarnation
Jesus is often referred to as the “Incarnation” or as “God Incarnate.” That’s really just an impressive way to say Jesus is God in the form of a human being. It comes from the Latin meaning “in flesh.”
Why did God choose to become flesh? Couldn’t he have done whatever he needed to do from above? The Catechism explains God took human form for several important purposes:
To save us by “reconciling us with God” (457)
To help us “know God’s love” (458)
To be “our model of holiness” (459)
To make us “partakers of the divine nature” (460)
Teachable Moment
Going back to the idea of Jesus as the Word, we now take that a step further: Jesus is known as the “Word made flesh.” This is how it is stated in the poetic prologue of the Gospel of John (John 1:14) and is the same as the Incarnation: God’s one true Word was Jesus, who was God in the flesh of a fully human man.
The Catechism says belief in “the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith.” (463) To be Christian, you must first believe in this singular event: that God, being fully God, became a man, who was fully man. Jesus was not part God and part man, and God was not watered down by taking on human form. Even more, Jesus is not a third thing, distinct from God and man, like the color green you get by mixing blue and yellow.
As we discussed in Chapter 3, God the Father and God the Son are each fully God, and yet Jesus is also fully human. As the Nicene Creed reminds us with its poetic language: “God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God.”
It’s interesting, but the Catechism notes the first heresies in the Church did not necessarily deny that Christ was divine, but instead took issue with the idea of him being truly human. I guess we humans have a hard time believing that our God would want to take our form. (465–469)
He Is Body and Soul
So if Jesus is fully God, is it really possible for him to be human just like the rest of us? The Church teaches the Son of God had a “rational, human soul” along with his human body. Jesus even had to learn many things through experience just like we do. (471)
The Catechism refers to the Third Council of Constantinople in the year 681, which affirmed that Jesus “possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human,” which do not contradict or oppose each other but cooperate as the Father willed it to be. (475) So, yes, Jesus really is human just like the rest of us.
True Confessions
Because Jesus had a true human body, just like you and me, his image can be recreated and venerated. He is the unseen God made visible to us. Put in modern terms, if Jesus were alive today, we could take an actual photograph of him, unlike God the Father or God the Spirit—whose image cannot be captured.
Hail Mary, Full of Grace
In the next line of the creed, the Virgin Mary enters the scene. The Apostles’ Creed, when referring to Jesus’ birth, says, “Who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary ….” The Nicene Creed says, “By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became Man.”
When we talk about Jesus being “conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit,” we are talking about the Spirit of God allowing Mary to conceive Jesus in her womb sans sex. So Jesus, who is God’s Son and is God, will be born of an earthly woman, who was “invited” to bear the Christ child. As always, God allows his creation to exercise free will. Mary freely chose to do as God wished, which is known as Mary’s fiat.
Church Speak
Fiat refers to Mary’s statement of choice to conceive the Son of God: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” the angel of God says to her. (Luke 1:34) The Catechism explains the Holy Spirit “is sent to sanctify the womb” of Mary and “divinely fecundate it,” meaning God conceives the child within her. (485)
Teachable Moment
The Feast of the Annun-ciation is celebrated March 25 and commemorates Luke’s narrative of the announcement by the Angel Gabriel that Mary would conceive and bear the Son of God. Note it is 9 months before the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25.
Now, God didn’t choose just any woman to bear his Son. The Church teaches that Mary was predestined to be the mother of God. For all time, God had handpicked this “daughter of Israel” to be the mother of the Messiah. (488)
The Catechism explains that throughout the Old Testament we come to know the holy women who prepared the way for Mary: Eve, Sarah, Ruth, and Esther, among others. Quoting from Lumen Gentium, which is the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church written at Vatican II, the Catechism states Mary “stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord” and that in her the “new plan of salvation is established.” (489)
The Immaculate Conception
So how did God prepare Mary to be mother of the Son of God? Well, when the Angel Gabriel appears to her, he says she is “full of grace.” Over the years the Church has come to understand that from the moment of her conception, Mary is filled with God’s Spirit and is free from the original sin that the rest of us carry with us into this life. (490–491)
You’re Absolved If …
You may think the Immaculate Conception refers to Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb, but actually it does not. The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception without the stain of original sin in preparation for her role as the mother of Jesus and, therefore, the Mother of God.
What did Mary say when presented with this most unusual request? Well, after the initial shock of being told she would bear a child without the assistance of a man, she agrees without hesitation to take the job. Pretty impressive! Imagine how incredibly frightening this must have been for her. Remember, Mary would have been very young, a young teenager in fact, and she had to know telling her neighbors she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit was not going to go over well with them, or with Joseph, her betrothed.
Mary could have said no, but she was “full of grace” and, therefore, capable and willing to do what would have been too overwhelming for those of us walking around with the baggage of original sin. Her now-famous line, the fiat that we spoke of earlier, is this: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) And with that, Mary became the “new Eve,” giving humankind the opportunity to be redeemed. She says “Yes,” where Eve said “No.” She obeys God’s wishes where Eve disobeyed. (494)
A Virgin Birth
As if the Immaculate Conception of Mary is not hard enough to grasp, we now have to try to understand the virgin birth. As the creed reminds us, Jesus was “born of the Virgin Mary.”
Mary was young and unmarried; she did not “know man” in the biblical sense. The Spirit of God conceived a child within her womb who would be both true God and true man. Doesn’t it make sense that Jesus would be born of a woman and yet also begotten by God? Jesus could not simply be an ordinary child born of two ordinary human beings. He was God made flesh. If Jesus is divine, and that’s pretty much the heart of the matter if you are a Christian, it would stand to reason his conception and birth would occur in an extraordinary way.
Matthew’s account of Jesus’ infancy tells us how when Joseph learned of Mary’s news, he was not exactly overjoyed. He planned to divorce her. But an angel appeared to him in a dream and told him that the Holy Spirit had conceived the child she was to bear. Apparently this was one convincing angel because Joseph reversed course, married Mary, and went on to become Jesus’ foster father, as he is known in the Church.
True Confessions
Mary’s virginity is not an easy thing for many people to accept. The Catechism goes back to the writings by St. Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop and martyr in the first century. He addressed the fact that some early Christians were “troubled by the silence of St. Mark’s Gospel and the New Testament epistles about Jesus’ virginal conception.” He wrote that faith in the virgin birth was met with mockery and opposition from people of all stripes—Jews, non-Jews, and pagans—which flies in the face of claims that belief in the virgin birth was motivated by a nod to paganism. The virgin birth is “accessible only to faith,” meaning that like so many other aspects of faith, it is a mystery that cannot be fully understood in human terms and must be accepted as part of the larger mystery of God’s divine plan. (498)
Mother to Us All
Okay, so Jesus was conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, but it doesn’t end there. The Church teaches that Mary remained “ever virgin.” Once again quoting from Lumen Gentium, the Catechism explains the birth of the Christ child did not “diminish his mother’s virginal integrity but sanctified it.” (499)
Why all the fuss about virginity? Well, first of all, if Jesus had been born of two human parents like everyone else, where would the divinity be? The Church teaches that in being conceived by the Spirit and born of the Virgin, the Son of God was never separated from his heavenly father. Jesus, the “new Adam,” inaugurates a “new creation.” (504)
Mary, the new Eve, through her perpetual virginity, remains an “undivided gift” to God and the spiritual mother of all of us. (506) She is the symbol of the Church. So we can call on Mary our heavenly mother in much the same way that we might call on our earthly mothers for help. She may not be available to watch the kids or fold the laundry, but through prayer she can be a comfort, guide, and support.
You’re Absolved If …
You may think Catholics worship Mary, but they do not. Mary accepted Jesus into her life in the most profound way. She is known as the first disciple and is a model for those trying to accept Jesus into their own lives. Catholics turn to Mary in prayer, not because they see her on an equal plane with God but because they see her as a way to God.
The Least You Need to Know
Jesus is also called Christ, Messiah, Son of God, Lord, and the Incarnation.
Jesus Christ is true God and true man, the physical, visible sign of an invisible God.
God’s Spirit allowed Mary to conceive Jesus in her womb, making him truly human but also truly divine.
Although Mary was predestined since the beginning of time to be the mother of God, she had the freedom to accept or reject God’s request.
The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary’s conception without the stain of original sin, in anticipation of her role in salvation history.
The Virgin Mary is the spiritual mother of all Catholics and a symbol of the Church.