Mystery of the Incarnation

The Word became flesh — God the Son took our nature and dwelt among us. The second of the Five Pillars of Mystery of our Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

Ethiopian Orthodox icon of the Incarnation — the Virgin Mary (Kidane Mihret) holding the Christ Child, flanked by two angels
Kidane Mihret — the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, in Ethiopian iconographic tradition
✝ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit — One God. Amen. ✝

The Second Pillar — The Word Made Flesh

The Mystery of the Incarnation (Meshtire Sgaye) is the doctrine of the divine birth of our Lord Jesus Christ — the astonishing truth that God the Son became man. Our Church confesses this with a name unique to us: Tewahedo — meaning “unified” or “made one.”

By this word we describe the perfect, inseparable union of Christ’s divine and human natures into one divine-human nature. This union is without absorption, without confusion, without alteration, and without separation. It is the mystery from which our Church takes her very name.

The Incarnation is God’s supreme act in saving the world. Creation is God’s work; redemption is also God’s work. And redemption required, above all else, the healing of man — which the Incarnation was believed by the Church to have aimed to accomplish.

What follows is drawn from the theological witness of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and from the Anaphoras of the Divine Liturgy — the sacred prayers in which we confess, week by week, who Jesus Christ truly is.

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The Tewahedo Confession

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church confesses that Jesus Christ is one Person, God the Son incarnate — continuous with Godhead and continuous with manhood. In Him, Godhead and manhood continue each in its integrity and perfection, in a state of indivisible and unconfused union.

God the Son became man.

united into one, without mixing, without dividing.

True God and true man.

He is not two natures, but one incarnate nature of God the Word. The “one” here does not ignore the dynamic continuance of either Godhead or manhood — it confesses a real Incarnation whereby God the Son entered our world as a man. He is truly God the incarnate Son, even while He is found to undergo the frailty of manhood.

Sinless, He entered our battle with sin and evil as a man, fell victim to our death, scored a victory over evil by His suffering and cross, and rose again in eternal unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit — and in unbroken union with the manhood.

✝  Glory to Him who put on our flesh to give us His own life. Amen.  ✝
✝ Glory be to God. Amen. ✝