Friends: Easter intensifies our understanding of the mission of Jesus. Let’s look closely at His identity. Happy Easter, and have a great week. Blessings, Bob

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Spirituality Column #962

April 22, 2025

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Person of Faith

By Bob Walters

“And the Word became flesh.” – John 1:14

Bible scholar George Bebawi was well known among his students for endless lists of key points describing and detailing scripture, faith, doctrine, life … you name it.

The following list is a faithful though somewhat shortened adaptation of George’s “Ten Reasons to Believe in the Incarnation.” While the incarnation harkens Jesus’s birth and Christmas, in this resurrection season let’s consider the identity and person of Jesus as he entered the world, even as Easter celebrates His departure.

1. The Word (Logos) became flesh. Try to imagine life without words. How could we think and live? But Jesus isn’t just any word; he is the spiritual rational power of God. As a powerless baby he cried in the voice of humankind, like the powerless life which hung on the cross, in both cases His divinity hidden. Jesus was a real person.

2. Born a baby, His was the birth of the King of Israel (Matthew 2:1), the Holy Son of God (Luke 1:35), a savior who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:11). Jesus was born of woman, under the law (Galatians 4:4), a servant in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7). He is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), and the image of God (Colossians 1:18).

3. As Adam was a seed sown in dishonor and weakness from dust of the earth, Jesus is a seed raised in glory and power, a spiritual body from heaven born of earth.

4. Bethlehem is the birthplace of redeemed humanity. Jesus is the one Lord who must not be divided in separate events of Christmas, crucifixion, and resurrection.

5. The incarnation is the glory of both God and humanity, because God became like us so that we will become like him. Beloved, we are God’s children now.

6. Jesus is the revelation of divine Love for our humanity that is no longer a word but the incarnate son of God. He became like me so that I may become like him.

7. We are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Christ was born a man and was born of a woman. Both sexes have been honored.

8. Truth is not merely an idea; Truth is this person Jesus. Truth has sprung up out of the earth, and justice has looked down from heaven. (Psalm 85:11). Truth which abides in the bosom of the Father is sprung out of the earth to dwell also in the bosom of the mother. Christ, who said I am the truth (John 14:6), is born of a virgin

9. Peace is also born. Whence is Peace on earth, if not for the fact that Truth is sprung out of the earth, that is, Christ is born of flesh? Let us be men of good will, bound by the sweet bonds of unity, who rejoice in this grace, and who glory in the Lord.

10. Jesus is the eternal union of the divine and the human, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Let no one believe that the Son of God was changed into the Son of man, but rather let us believe that He, remaining the Son of God, was made Son of man without the loss of His divine substance and by a perfect assumption of the human substance. The Word was made flesh; Emmanuel, God with us, was born.

Jesus is the ultimate person of faith – He IS faith – and our abiding truth forever.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) finishes with a word about George, who passed away Feb. 4, 2021, at age 82. He was a multi-lingual Bible translator and patristics (early church) scholar raised in Egypt. A Coptic priest who earned a PhD from Cambridge University, England, George had a broad, lifelong Christian academic and missionary vocation. He retired in 2004 from Cambridge as a divinity lecturer and moved to Carmel, Ind., where he married May and graciously, for 14 years, taught a weekly Wednesday night Bible class at Indy’s East 91^st Street Christian Church that Walters rarely missed.