God is One of Us: The incarnation of Jesus Christ sets Christianity apart from every other religion according to Elyse Fitzpatrick

HE IS ONE OF US

Christ Emmanuel, Christian icon with riza by Simon Ushakov, 1668. According to the Gospel of Matthew Immanuel (Hebrew עִמָּנוּאֵל meaning, "God with us") refers to Jesus Christ.

The incarnation sets Christianity apart from every other religion

Christ Pantocrator, God incarnate in the Christian faith, shown in a mosaic from Daphni, Greece, ca. 1080-1100.

The incarnation sets Christianity apart from every other religion. The thought that God would become man is simply without parallel in any other faith. In no other religion does a god do anything more than tell his subjects what to do to become like him, earn his favor, or give instruction on how, if they’re lucky, they might avoid ticking him off. In no other religion does a creator god become weak and an indistinguishable part of his creation.

Jesus’s deity was perfectly veiled in human flesh

The oldest known icon of Christ Pantocrator, encaustic on panel (Saint Catherine's Monastery). The two different facial expressions on either side may emphasize Christ's two natures as fully God and fully human.

Mirror composites of the two sides of the face.

In the incarnation, God became so completely one of us that the people who lived with him didn’t notice anything special about him; Jesus’s deity was perfectly veiled in human flesh. In fact, when he went to his own village, Nazareth, “the people who had known him for many years did not receive him.” “Is not this the carpenter’s son?”they asked. “Is not his mother called Mary?”(Matt. 13: 55). Even his own family didn’t know he was the incarnate one. Think of this: “Not even his brothers believed in him”(John 7: 5).

What did Jesus look like?

The Shroud of Turin: modern photo of the face, positive left, digitally processed image right.

What did Jesus look like? A regular Joe. His form was just like ours. Put this book down for a moment and look across the room at someone. That’s how ordinary he looked. Or, better yet, look at yourself in a mirror. He looked just like you! He had eyes, pores, hair, and teeth. If you’d seen him, you wouldn’t have thought he was anything special. He didn’t have any sort of magnetism that would make you take a second look. He looked like any twenty- or thirty-something carpenter on any construction job.

Jesus completely identifies with us

Isaiah 53 in the Great Isaiah Scroll, found at Qumran and dated to the 2nd century BCE.
“He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him”

His complete identification with us shouldn’t have taken his contemporaries by surprise, because seven hundred years before his birth the prophet Isaiah spoke of how normal the Messiah would appear: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him”(Isa. 53: 2). He willingly took a servant’s form and was born in the likeness of men. He was fully human (Phil. 2: 7–8).

What was baby Jesus like?

"Adoration of the Shepherds" by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622

What was baby Jesus like? Did he have some sort of radioactive glow about him? Maybe a little halo or cherubs floating around his head? No. He looked like any Middle Eastern infant, wrapped in rags and nursing at his mother’s breast. And contrary to the sweet carol “Away in the Manger,” he did cry when awakened by the cattle’s lowing. He cried just like us.

Jesus is unlike mythological gods

Boniface bears his crucifix after felling Thor's Oak in Bonifacius (1905) by Emil Doepler

Unlike ancient mythological gods, Jesus was no naughty demigod stripped of his superpowers and banished to earth as punishment. Jesus isn’t Thor. No, God the Son freely volunteered to become one of us and to forever take to his person all that it meant to be human. “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he [voluntarily] became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich”(2 Cor. 8: 9). The incarnation isn’t a punishment on the Son; it is an act of his love, a “voluntary humiliation.” He gladly “made himself nothing”(Phil. 2: 7 NIV). He who had everything, who was Lord of all, God Most High, creator, became a poor servant—your servant—out of love for you, his beloved. He came to serve you and win you with his love. He became one of our own so that we could be his own.

JESUS THE JEW

Moses receiving the Law (top) and reading the Law to the Israelites

But his self-humiliation didn’t end with becoming a human. He was born as a Jew, into the nation of Israel, an insignificant nation that the Lord described in this way:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. (Deut. 7: 7)

Nehemiah describes Israel

Gustave Doré, Nehemiah Views the Ruins of Jerusalem's Walls, 1866.

Further, there wasn’t any other nation upon which the Lord so incessantly poured his love and yet was so opposed to his wooing. Even though he loved them, they gave themselves completely to wickedness. Nehemiah described Israel’s persistent resistance in these terms:

Nevertheless, they [the Israelites] were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. . . . Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. (Neh. 9: 26–27, 29)

Jesus born under foreign rule

The statue known as the Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century.  "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register." (Gospel of Luke, chapter 3)

In fact, this nation had a history of being so wicked that even the Philistines, those idolatrous wretches, were actually ashamed of Israel’s lewd behavior (Ezek. 16: 27). Because of the Israelites’ relentless stubbornness and unbelief, they were trodden under the heel of one wicked nation after another, and it was into this nation of failures (in every sense of that word) that the Savior chose to be born, in a Roman colony in a barn where his family had been forced to travel for taxation purposes. In his veins flowed Jewish blood, and in his manhood he remains Jesus the Jew to this day. Jesus the Jew embraces Israel’s national identity as the shameful chosen who were not known for their consecration but rather for their idolatry, insignificance, weakness, and slavery. How many times had they suffered exile as punishment for their rebellion? He came unto his own people, but in typical fashion, they “did not receive him”(John 1: 11).

Jesus came to Israel and not to the Chinese, the Romans, or the Greeks

Some of the thousands of life-size Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE.  "Don't lets appeal to the Chinese, for example, where people can read and study evidence and have a civilization. Let's go to the desert and have another revelation there," says atheist Christopher Hitchens.

He could have come as a wise Chinese, a powerful Roman, or a philosopher Greek, but he didn’t. Instead he came as a weak Savior, first to the Jews among whom there were not many wise, not many powerful, not many of noble birth (1 Cor. 1: 26), and then to all the Gentile races who would hear the message through them. He was born as Savior for a world full of foolish, weak, ignoble losers. All of Israel’s history demonstrates how willing Christ was to be humbled.

This is your Savior

The Scourging on the Front (La flagellation de face) - James Tissot

This needs to speak to your heart so that you know that no matter what kind of “loser” you are, Jesus willingly condescended to go even lower than that. He had no great pedigree. He was of questionable lineage, working class, uneducated, poor, weak, despised, rejected, and exiled. This is the baby and his family of origin; this is your Savior.

Source: Fitzpatrick, Elyse M. Found in Him: The Joy of the Incarnation and Our Union with Christ. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013, pages 44 to 47.

In the Ancient Roman Empire, Saint Augustine (354 - 430 AD) was against Ultimate Fighting #ufc (known back then as Gladiator games)

Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872

Augustine's friend Alypius is caught up in the whirl of easy morals at Carthage and deveops a fatal attraction to the games in the amphitheatre with its continual round of futile entertainments

The Colosseum amphitheatre in Rome, built c. 70 – 80 AD, is considered one of the greatest works of architecture and engineering.

This was a constant subject of gloomy talk among my circle of friends, but I used to discuss it especially with Alypius and Nebridius. Alypius came from my own town and his people were one of the leading families. He was younger than I was and had been a student of mine both in our own town, when I first began to teach, and later on at Carthage. He was greatly attached to me because he thought that I was a good and learned man, and I was fond of him because, although he was still young, it was quite clear that he had much natural disposition to goodness. But he had been caught in the whirl of easy morals at Carthage, with its continual round of futile entertainments, and had lost his heart and his head to the games in the amphitheatre. At the time when he was so wrapped up in this wretched sport I had opened my school as professor of rhetoric in Carthage, but because of some difference of opinion which had occurred between his father and me he was not one of my pupils. I found out that he was fatally attracted by the games and it caused me grave anxiety to think that he was likely to ruin a future which promised so well, if he had not already done so. But I had no means of offering him advice or using any pressure to restrain him, for I could claim neither the privilege of a friend nor the right of a master. I thought that he shared his father's feelings about me, although, in fact, this was not the case for he ignored his father's wishes and treated me with courtesy when we met. He soon began to come and listen to some of my lectures, but he never stayed for long.


Augustine converts Alypius from his futile pastime of going to the arena to the right path




"The Conversion of St. Augustine" (Gozzoli)
The figure at right is probably Alypius.  Saint Alypius of Thagaste was bishop of the see of Tagaste (in what is now Algeria) in 394. He is also credited with building the first monastery in Africa. He was a lifelong friend of Saint Augustine of Hippo and joined him in his conversion and life in Christianity.

I had forgotten that I might use my influence with him to prevent him from wasting his talents in this thoughtless, impetuous enthusiasm for futile pastimes. But you, O Lord, who hold the reins of all you have created, had not forgotten this man who was one day to be a bishop and administer your sacrament to your children. You used me to set him on the right path, but so that we might recognize that it was all by your doing, you used me without my knowledge. One day as I sat in my usual place with my pupils before me, Alypius came in and after greeting me politely sat down and listened attentively to the lesson. It occurred to me that the passage which I happened to be reading could very well be explained by an illustration taken from the games in the arena. It would appeal to the students and make my meaning clearer, and it would also enable me to make a laughing-stock of those who were under the spell of this insane sport. You know, my God, that I was not thinking of Alypius, who so badly needed to be cured of this mania. But he took my words to heart, thinking that I had meant the allusion to apply to him alone. Anyone else would have taken this as a good reason to be angry with me, but this conscientious young man saw in it cause for anger with himself and warmer affection for me. Long ago you caused these words of yours to be inserted in your book: The wise are grateful for a remonstrance.


Alypius drags himself out of the deep pitfall into which, dazzled by the allure of pleasure, he had plunged of his own accord only to fall into the superstitious beliefs of the Manichees and their false continence

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer, by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1883)

I had not meant to rebuke him, but you use us all, whether we know it or not, for a purpose which is known to you, a purpose which is just. You made my heart and my tongue burn like coals to sear his mind, which was so full of promise, and cure it when it was sick of a wasting disease. Those who have no inkling of your mercy may be silent and offer you no word of praise, but from the depths of my heart I make avowal of your mercy. For after he had heard my words, Alypius hastened to drag himself out of the deep pitfall into which, dazzled by the allure of pleasure, he had plunged of his own accord. By a great effort of self-control he shook himself free of all the dirt of the arena and never went near it again. Then he managed to overcome his father's reluctance to allow him to become a pupil of mine. His father gave in and granted his request. But once he had started his studies with me he became involved in my superstitious beliefs. He particularly admired the Manichees for their ostensible continence, which he thought quite genuine, though of course it was merely a nonsensical and deceitful method of trapping precious souls which had not learnt to feel the depth of real virtue and were easily deceived by the appearance of virtue that was spurious and counterfeit.


Alypius becomes obsessed with an extraordinary craving for gladiatorial shows



Part of the Gladiator Mosaic, displayed at the Galleria Borghese. It dates from approximately 320 AD. The Ø symbol (possibly Greek theta, for thanatos) marks a gladiator killed in combat.

But he did not abandon his career in the world, for his parents would not allow him to forget it. He went to Rome ahead of me to study law and there, strange to relate, he became obsessed with an extraordinary craving for gladiatorial shows. At first he detested these displays and refused to attend them. But one day during the season for this cruel and bloodthirsty sport he happened to meet some friends and fellow-students returning from their dinner. In a friendly way they brushed aside his resistance and his stubborn protests and carried him off to the arena.


'You may drag me there bodily,' he protested, 'but do you imagine that you can make me watch the show and give my mind to it? I shall be there, but it will be just as if I were not present, and I shall prove myself stronger than you or the games.'


When they arrived at the arena, the place was seething with the lust for cruelty

Mosaic at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid showing a retiarius named Kalendio (shown surrendering in the upper section) fighting a secutor named Astyanax. The Ø sign by Kalendio's name implies he was killed after surrendering.

He did not manage to deter them by what he said, and perhaps the very reason why they took him with them was to discover whether he would be as good as his word. When they arrived at the arena, the place was seething with the lust for cruelty. They found seats as best they could and Alypius shut his eyes tightly, determined to have nothing to do with these atrocities. If only he had closed his ears as well! For an incident in the fight drew a great roar from the crowd, and this thrilled him so deeply that he could not contain his curiosity. Whatever had caused the uproar, he was confident that, if he saw it, he would find it repulsive and remain master of himself. So he opened his eyes, and his soul was stabbed with a wound more deadly than any which the gladiator, whom he was so anxious to see, had received in his body. He fell, and fell more pitifully than the man whose fall had drawn that roar of excitement from the crowd. The din had pierced his ears and forced him to open his eyes, laying his soul open to receive the wound which struck it down. This was presumption, not courage. The weakness of his soul was in relying upon itself instead of trusting in you.


When he saw the blood He revelled in the wickedness of the fighting and was drunk with the fascination of bloodshed

Real fighters aren't afraid to get a little bloody. #ufc #ultimate #fighting #match #action #bloody #fight | UFC | Pinterest | Ufc, Blood and Sad

When he saw the blood, it was as though he had drunk a deep draught of savage passion. Instead of turning away, he fixed his eyes upon the scene and drank in all its frenzy, unaware of what he was doing. He revelled in the wickedness of the fighting and was drunk with the fascination of bloodshed. He was no longer the man who had come to the arena, but simply one of the crowd which he had joined, a fit companion for the friends who had brought him.


He watched and cheered and grew hot with excitement, and carried away with him a diseased mind

Nate Diaz celebrates after submitting Conor McGregor in the second round at UFC 196 on Saturday

Need I say more? He watched and cheered and grew hot with excitement, and when he left the arena, he carried away with him a diseased mind which would leave him no peace until he came back again, no longer simply together with the friends who had first dragged him there, but at their head, leading new sheep to the daughter. Yet you stretched out your almighty, ever merciful hand, O God, and rescued him from this madness. You taught him to trust in you, not in himself. But this was much later.

Source: Saint Augustine. Confessions. Translated by R.S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Group, 1961, Book VI, sections 7 and 8, pages 120 to 123.