The Incarnation is the mystery and the dogma of the Word made Flesh.

The Incarnation consists of three facts: (1) The Divine Person of Jesus Christ; (2) The Human Nature of Jesus Christ; (3) The Hypostatic Union of the Human with the Divine Nature in the Divine Person of Jesus Christ.

The divine person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ was a real person of history. He is the Messiah prophesied of the Old Testament. The historical worth and authenticity of the Gospels and Acts is true and total; they establish the divine ambassadorship of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ established an infallible and never failing teaching body to have and to keep the deposit of revealed truth He entrusted; all this deposit of tradition of part thereof by Holy Writ was handed down; the Sacred Scriptures are of canon and inspired.

The Divine nature and Divine personality are one and inseparable, as in the Trinity.

The historical person, Jesus Christ, is really and truly God, i.e. has the nature of God, and is a Divine person.

The Divinity of Jesus Christ is established by the Old Testament, by the New Testament and by tradition.

The Old Testament Proof of Christ's Divinity.

The Old Testament testifies to Jesus as the Christ.

The Old Testament promises the Christ, the Messiah, in such terms it is certain that the One promised is God, is a Divine Person in the strictest sense of the word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of the Father, One in nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The Old Testament, weighty alone, with the fulfillment whereof in the New Testament, and the testimony of Jesus and His apostles and Church, overwhelmingly and forcefully prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

The sources of the Old Testament drawn from shall be the Psalms, the Sapiential Books, and the Prophets.

(a) Psalms

Psalm 2:7. "The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." God speaks to the promised Messiah.

In Acts 13:33, St. Paul reveals the text of Hebrews 1:5 proves the Divinity of Jesus from the Psalm.

There is a real sonship and real Divinity of Jesus.

In the same verse, St. Paul applies to Christ the words of the Lord to David, the type of Christ: "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son". (2 Samuel 7:14)

Christ is the first-born of the Father, and the object of the adoration of the angels. "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever... Thy God, O God, hath anointed thee" (Psalm 44:7-8). St. Paul refers these words to Christ as to the Son of God (Hebrews 1:9).

Hence, the Christ is God; and his throne, or reign, has been from eternity.

Psalm 99:1: "The Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou at my right hand." Christ cites this text to prove that He is Lord, seated at the right hand of God (Matthew 22:44).

In the same psalm, the Lord says to Christ: "Before the day-star, I begat thee."

Hence Christ is the begotten of God; was begotten before the world was, and sits at the right hand of the heavenly Father.

Other Messianic psalms, with clear testimony and inspiration, in the like manner show the Divinity of the promised Messiah.

(b) TESTIMONY OF THE SAPIENTIAL BOOKS

The Sapiential Books describe uncreated Wisdom as a Divine Person distinct from the First Person. The uncreated Logos is the active and creative principle of God, personified, the uncreated Wisdom, who is the Son.

In Sirach 24:7, Wisdom is described as uncreated, the "first born of the Most High before all creatures", "from the beginning and before the World was I made" (Sirach 24:14).

Universal was the identification of Wisdom with the Christ.

"[M]ade" had has to be interpreted in keeping with other passages of Holy Writ.

Prov. viii, 22: "The Lord possessed me (Hebrew gat me by generation; see Genesis 4:1) in the beginning of His ways, before He made anything from the beginning, I was set up from eternity."

The Book of Wisdom, also, speaks clearly of Wisdom as "the worker of all things . . . a certain pure emanation of the glory of the almighty God . . . the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness." (Wisdom 7:21-26).

St. Paul paraphrases this beautiful passage and refers it to Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:3).

The personified wisdom of the Sapiential Books is the uncreated Wisdom, the incarnate Logos of St. John, the Word hypostatically united with human nature, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Eternal Father. The Sapiential Books prove that Jesus was really and truly God.

(c) TESTIMONY OF THE PROPHETIC BOOKS

The prophets clearly state that the Messiah is God. Isaiah says: "God Himself will come and will save you" (35:4); "Make ready the way of the Lord" (40:3); "Lo the Lord God will come with strength" (40:10). That the Lord here is Jesus Christ is clear from the use of the passage by St. Mark (Mark 1:3). The great prophet of Israel gives the Christ a special and a new Divine name "His name will be called Emmanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). This new Divine name St. Matthew refers to as fulfilled in Jesus, and interprets to mean the Divinity of Jesus. "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which, being interpreted, is God with us." (Matthew 1:23) Also in 9:6, Isaiah calls the Messiah God: "A child is born to us... his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Strong One, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace." The very same child is called God the Strong One (9:6) and Emmanuel (7:14); the conception of the child is prophesied in the latter verse, the birth of the very same child is prophesied in the former verse. Isaiah also calls the Messiah the "sprout of God" (4:2), i.e. that which has sprung from God as the same in nature with Him. The Messiah is "God our King" (Isaiah 52:7), "the Saviour sent by our God" (Isaiah 52:10); "The Lord the God of Israel" (Isaiah 52:12): "He that hath made thee, the Lord of the hosts His name" (Isaiah 54:5).

To Jeremiah, He is "the Lord our Just One" (23:6 and 33:16). Micheal speaks of the twofold coming of the Child, His birth in time at Bethlehem and His procession in eternity from the Father (5:2). The Messianic value of this text is proved by its interpretation in Matthew (2:6). Zechariah makes the Lord to speak of the Messiah as "my Companion"; but a companion is on an equal footing with God (13:7).

The New Testament Proof of Christ's Divinity.

The witness of the Four Evangelists and of St. Paul shall be given. The proof from the New Testament has a cumulative weight that is overwhelming.

The New Testament is divinely inspired and Jesus is the Divine ambassador.

The proof is logical and unfailing. Christ established the teaching body to which He gave His deposit of revealed truth, to have and to keep and to hand down that deposit without error or failure. This teaching body gives men the Bible; and gives them the dogma of the Divinity of Christ in the unwritten and the written Word of God, i.e. in tradition and Scripture.

WITNESS OF THE EVANGELISTS

The Gospels are authentic, historical documents given to men by the Church as the inspired Word of God.

We here assume the Gospels to be authentic, historical documents given to us by the Church as the inspired Word of God.

(a) Jesus is the Divine Messiah

The Evangelists refer to the prophecies of the Divinity of the Messiah as fulfilled in Jesus (Matthew 1:23; 2:6; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27).

(b) Jesus is the Son of God

Jesus Himself bore witness to His Divine Sonship.

Firstly, He asked the disciples, "Whom do men say that the Son of man is?" (Matthew 16:13). Peter replied: "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God" (ibid., 16). Jesus was satisfied with this answer; it made Him the natural Son of God.

The sonship is the real and natural Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God.

Jesus is God.