When God became man: To place adopted sons

"But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons" (Gal. 4:4-5).

When God the Son came to earth, He lived a perfect life under the Law in order to be an acceptable sacrifice to His Father. The result of His atoning death following His righteous life was that sinners and slaves became sons of God by adoption.

In the great Old Testament chapter on God's Suffering Servant, the prophet Isaiah said this One "will see His offspring" (Is. 53:10). God the Son left Heaven to produce children for His Father. We who have passed from death into life can thank God that He has adopted us because His own Son was willing to come to earth as the child of a woman and place us in His own family.

When God became man: To save the lost

"For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10).

God the Son came to earth as a seeker. He came seeking lost sinners who had earned God's wrath but would receive God's grace. The Son's seeking mission took Him to the cross and to a death with saving consequences for those who had no hope of finding their way to God. God acted to redeem the lost, and Jesus of Nazareth was His agent in purchasing our redemption.

The New Testament testifies to God's initiative in our salvation: "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (I John 4:10). God the Son came to earth to seek souls on behalf of His Father and to bear His Father's judgment so we might be saved.

When God became man: To serve others

"[T]he Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28).

If anyone deserved to be served, it was the God-man, Jesus. Yet, when His disciples squabbled over position and greatness, Jesus told them even He was not with them to be served. Instead, He -- though Lord -- was on earth as a servant.

The apostle Paul wrote of this mind-set of Christ in his letter to the saints in Philippi. He told them Christ, "although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped [clutched and held onto at all costs], but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:6-7).

God the Son provided the supreme example of servanthood. The first steps in a life of service were willingly to be conceived in the womb of a poor Jewish maiden and to be born in a stable. The final step in a life of service was to give His life freely as a "ransom for many."

When God became man: To enrich the impoverished

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich" (II Cor. 8:9).

God the Son left the riches of Heaven, the position He possessed there, and the glory and intimacy He shared with God the Father there to lift human beings out of spiritual poverty. He impoverished Himself to make us rich. He exchanged His riches for poverty that we in our poverty might be truly rich.

He did all this by willfully becoming a human being.

The apostle Paul told the Ephesian believers God “seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6-7).

Through His incarnation, Christ came to give us the true riches that never pass away.

When God became man: To glorify the Father

"I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do" (John 17:4).

When Jesus prayed to His Father on the night before He was crucified, even then He could speak of accomplishing what God intended for Him to do in becoming a man. In so doing, He had glorified the Father, the One who had purposed for the Son to come to earth.

Earlier, when Jesus compared His future death to a grain of wheat that must die before it bears fruit, He said, "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save me from this hour?' But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name" (John 12:27-28a).

Jesus came to die. Even at His birth, this was His mission. In so doing, He would glorify His Father.

When God became man: To do the will of the Father

"For I have come down from Heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent me" (John 6:38).

God the Son came not only to represent God the Father with exactness but to perform the Father's will at the Father's direction.

Jesus did not leave us confused about what He was referring to when He spoke in this verse of the will of God. In the two verses that follow, Jesus said, "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

The Son came to earth as a baby because it was the Father's will. Even then, the Father had a people for His Son to resurrect as a result of their trust in Him.

When God became man: To represent the Father

"God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power" (Heb. 1:1-3a).

God had spoken to the people of Israel through His prophets in many ways over many years. There came a time, however, when He spoke through Someone like Him -- His Son, according to the opening of the letter to the Hebrews.

The writer of Hebrews described God the Son as the "exact representation of His nature." Jesus perfectly represented who God the Father is. In His time on earth, Jesus flawlessly portrayed for those who witnessed His life and ministry what the unseen God is truly like. One of the purposes Christ fulfilled in His incarnation was to demonstrate God's nature in human form.

-- Photo by Aleks Dahlberg on Unsplash