The Son of God...born as gift to mankind

Isaiah prophesied, “A child is born to us, a son is given to us… They name him… God-Hero” (Is 9:5). Christians have long seen in these words a prophecy of Jesus’ birth and an affirmation of his divine identity. Though it took several centuries for the Church to develop her understanding of the relation between Jesus’ human and divine natures, nevertheless, from the beginning she has declared of Christ, as the apostle Thomas declared, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).

The reality that God himself became a man for our salvation — what is called the Incarnation (literally, “becoming flesh”) — is at the heart of the Christian faith. Denial of this truth has been the hallmark of many heretical sects.

Jesus himself declared, “The Father [that is, God] and I are one” (Jn 10:30). When He did, some of those who heard Him picked up stones to kill Him for blasphemy, because they understood (correctly) the implication of what He was saying: He was claiming to be God (see Jn 10:30-33; also Jn 5:17-18).

In fact, virtually every attribute of the Father in heaven — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who revealed Himself in the Old Testament — was claimed by Jesus for Himself. He spoke authoritatively as God (rather than merely for God). He accepted worship. He forgave sins. He said He was equal to the father. And He claimed that He had existed eternally.

New Testament authors verified His claim: “For in Him,” St. Paul wrote, “dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily (Col 2:9); “In the beginning,” the Gospel according to John announced, “was the Word,/… the Word was God. /… All things came to be through Him,/ and without Him nothing came to be. / And the Word became flesh (Jn 1:1, 3, 14).

EXCERPT FROM Insert M-1 “Why Does the Church Teach that Jesus Is God?”, from The New Catholic Answer Bible – New American Bible, Revised Edition (Our Sunday Visitor, 2011).

SCRIPTURE 101

“The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world knew Him not. He came to His own home, and His own people received Him not. But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.”
Gospel of John 1: 9-14

CATECHISM 101

The Church calls “Incarnation” the fact that the Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. Belief in the true Incarnation of the Son of God is the distinctive sign of Christian faith: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God (1 John 4:2).”
Catechism of the Catholic Church, #461, 463