was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man

The Text

The clause closes the descent. Where clause 10 named the why and the whence of the incarnation (for us; from heaven), the present clause names the how and the what: by the Spirit and the Virgin (the how), and as a complete human being (the what). The two participles in the Greek — enfleshed (σαρκωθέντα) and became human (ἐνανθρωπήσαντα) — are dogmatically distinct and complementary. The first names the entry into the human condition: the eternal Son took flesh. The second names the completeness of what was taken: the eternal Son did not merely take a piece of human nature but became a complete human being. The two together close every door through which a softened or partial incarnation might enter.

The clause is the Nicene confession of what the Apostles’ Creed names more briefly as conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. The Apostles’ Creed gives the dual confession in two lines; the Nicene gives it in one densely woven clause. Both confess the same catholic doctrine: the eternal Son entered the human condition through the agency of the Holy Spirit and the consent of the Virgin Mary, and the humanity he assumed is full, complete, and real.

Translation Notes

Sarkōthenta / incarnatus est — was incarnate. The verb of the doctrine of the incarnation. The English word comes directly from the Latin (in-carnatus: in-fleshed). The verb names the eternal Son’s voluntary taking of human flesh — not the flesh of an avatar, not the appearance of flesh, not flesh in metaphor, but flesh in the full biblical sense: weak, mortal, dependent, embodied. The doctrine refuses every Docetic softening. The Son did not seem to take flesh; he was made flesh.

Ek Pneumatos Hagiou / de Spiritu Sancto — of the Holy Spirit. The conception is by the Holy Spirit. The dogma is biblical (Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35) and trinitarian: the incarnation is the work of the Father (who sends the Son), the Son (who becomes incarnate), and the Spirit (who accomplishes the conception). The clause refuses any reading of the incarnation as the work of the Son alone; the Father and the Spirit are present in the act, in their proper modes.

Kai Marias tēs Parthenou / ex Maria Virgine — and of the Virgin Mary. The dual ἐκ / de-and-ex names both agents of the conception: the divine agent (the Spirit) and the human source (the Virgin). The conjunction is dogmatically significant. The conception is both by the Spirit and of the Virgin; neither agent replaces the other. The Spirit does not bypass Mary’s human agency, and Mary’s human agency does not displace the divine work of the Spirit. The doctrine of the virgin conception (sometimes called, less precisely, the virgin birth) confesses that Mary conceived without male agency, by the work of the Spirit — and that her consent (Luke 1:38: let it be with me according to your word) is the human side of the divine work.

Tēs Parthenou / Virgine — the Virgin. The article in Greek (the Virgin, ἡ Παρθένος) makes Virgin a title, not merely a descriptive adjective. Mary is the Virgin — the one through whom the Word became flesh, the one whose womb bore the eternal Son. The Latin Virgine is treated as a title in the same way. The catholic confession of the Theotokos (God-bearer, Dei Genetrix in Latin) — the title formally affirmed at the Council of Ephesus (431) — is the dogmatic extension of the present clause: if the one conceived in Mary’s womb is the eternal Son, then Mary is properly called the God-bearer, the mother of God in the precise sense that her son is God.

Enanthrōpēsanta / homo factus est — was made human. The verb of complete humanity. The Greek ἐνανθρωπέω (to become a human being) is a technical theological term that the patristic tradition coined to articulate, in a single word, the catholic doctrine: the Son did not become something less than human (the Apollinarian danger) and did not remain something more than human while only seeming to be human (the Docetic danger), but became a complete human being. The Latin homo factus est says the same thing in three words: was made human.

The English translation choice between was made man and was made truly human involves the question that ran through clause 10: the older English man could mean human being generally, but the contemporary English has narrowed man to male human, with the pastoral cost that the universal scope of the catholic dogma is obscured. ELLC 1988 chose was made truly human, which preserves the universal scope and adds the catholic emphasis on the truly (a real, complete, full humanity, not a partial or apparent one). The 2010 Roman Missal retained became man for fidelity to homo factus est. The Wesleyan and most Protestant English use has followed ELLC.

Historical Context

The clause has had a complex textual history. The 325 Nicene Creed contained a briefer form (and was incarnate, was made human); the 381 Constantinopolitan revision added the trinitarian-Marian specification of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. The expansion was not a development of doctrine but an explicit confession of what had been catholic teaching from the earliest period (compare Ignatius of Antioch, To the Smyrnaeans §§1–3, c. 110, which confesses Christ as truly of the family of David according to the flesh, and Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John).

The clause does dogmatic work against several major patristic-era heresies. Against Docetism (the second-century view that the Son’s humanity was only apparent), the clause affirms a real enfleshment from a real human mother. Against Adoptionism (the view that Jesus was a man who was adopted into divine sonship), the clause affirms that the eternal Son is the subject of the incarnation: the one conceived in Mary’s womb is the one who pre-existed his conception as the Word with God. Against Gnosticism (which held the material world to be the work of an inferior demiurge and therefore unfit to bear the divine), the clause affirms the catholic conviction that flesh is good, that material reality is the creation of the same God who took flesh in it. Against Apollinarianism (the view that the divine Logos replaced the rational soul of Jesus), the enanthrōpēsanta affirms that the Son took a complete humanity — body, soul, mind, will. Against Nestorianism (the view that there are two persons in Christ, one divine and one human), the dogmatic substance of the clause was extended at Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451) into the doctrine of the hypostatic union: the divine and human natures are united in the one person of the eternal Son.

The Council of Ephesus (431) formally affirmed the title Theotokos (God-bearer) for Mary, on the principle that what is born of her is the eternal Son of God; therefore Mary is properly called the Mother of God, not in the sense that she is the source of the divine nature (an absurd reading the catholic tradition has always rejected), but in the precise sense that her son is God. The Council of Chalcedon (451) gave the formal definition of the two natures in one person: one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. The Nicene clause is the dogmatic foundation; Ephesus and Chalcedon are the conciliar extension.

The Western (Latin) reception has differed from the Eastern in liturgical practice. The Roman tradition prescribes a genuflection (kneeling on one knee) at this clause on the feasts of the Nativity (December 25) and the Annunciation (March 25), and a profound bow at this clause on all other Sundays. The Eastern liturgy makes the bow standard, though without the seasonal distinction. Protestant traditions have generally not retained the gesture, but its catholic logic — that the body should confess what the mind affirms about the most stunning fact in the history of the world — has been recovered in some contemporary high-church Protestant practice.

Lines of Interpretation

Patristic

Tradition: Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.21–22; Athanasius, On the Incarnation; Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter to Cledonius; Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ; Leo the Great, Tome; Augustine, Confessions and On the Trinity

The patristic settlement on this clause is the dogmatic core of the doctrine of the incarnation. Irenaeus’s Against Heresies III.21–22 articulates the doctrine of recapitulation in incarnational form: the eternal Son, in becoming a complete human being, has recapitulated the human race in himself — has lived from conception through every stage of human life so that every stage is sanctified by his presence. Irenaeus’s particular interest in the Virgin Mary as the new Eve (where Eve’s no unmade the human race, Mary’s yes in Luke 1:38 is the human consent that allows the divine remaking to proceed) gives the doctrine its specifically Marian articulation.

Athanasius’s On the Incarnation presses the why of the assumption: the eternal Son took flesh because flesh was the locus of the human creature’s plight — flesh was perishing, dying, dissolving back into the non-being from which it came; the eternal Word became flesh in order to communicate to flesh his own incorruptibility. The doctrine of the assumption (the Son’s taking of flesh) is therefore inseparable from the doctrine of the healing (the Son’s communication of his own divine life to the flesh he has taken).

Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter to Cledonius gives the catholic regula on the completeness of the humanity assumed: what is not assumed is not healed; what is united to God is saved. The Apollinarian position — that the divine Logos replaced the rational soul of Jesus — would mean that the rational human soul was not assumed and therefore not healed; the Gregorian reductio is that this would leave the human creature unsaved in the very faculty (the rational soul) most in need of salvation. The eternal Son therefore took the full humanity, with body, soul, mind, and will, in order to heal the full humanity.

Augustine’s Confessions VII.18–21 and On the Trinity IV bring the doctrine into the personal-existential register: the Son’s becoming human is the divine accommodation by which the eternal God meets the human creature where the human creature actually is, in the actual flesh of historical existence.

Strengths

• The patristic settlement is the foundation of all subsequent incarnational theology
• Irenaeus’s new Eve typology gives the Marian dimension its catholic articulation
• Athanasius’s why of the assumption integrates incarnation and redemption
• Gregory’s what is not assumed is not healed is the catholic regula

Weaknesses

• The polemical context produced sharper articulations than the catholic substance required
• The patristic articulations occasionally drifted toward speculative refinement of the Marian dimension

Scholastic

Tradition: Anselm, Cur Deus Homo; Peter Lombard, Sentences III, dd. 1–11; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.1–6, 27–35 (on the conception of Christ); Bonaventure, Sentences III; the medieval Marian-incarnational synthesis

The scholastic tradition received the clause as the dogmatic foundation of the unio hypostatica (the hypostatic union) and articulated it with great care. The doctrine: in the one person of the eternal Son, two complete natures are united — the divine nature (which the Son possesses from eternity) and the human nature (which the Son assumed in the womb of the Virgin) — and the two natures are united without confusion (each retaining its proper character), without change (neither nature being altered by the union), without division (the union being real and substantial), without separation (the union being permanent, not temporary).

Aquinas’s treatment in ST III.2–6 gives the comprehensive scholastic articulation. The Son’s assumption of human nature is the work of the divine person of the Son, by the agency of the Spirit, with the consent of the Virgin. The human nature assumed is complete (body, soul, intellect, will) and is the instrument (Aquinas’s instrumentum coniunctum: the joined instrument) by which the divine person works in the created order.

The medieval Marian theology developed at length on the basis of the clause. The Marian dogmas (the perpetual virginity affirmed by the Lateran Council of 649; the immaculate conception, controverted in the medieval period and dogmatically defined by Roman Catholicism in 1854; the bodily assumption, defined by Roman Catholicism in 1950) all rest on a reading of the present creedal clause as warranting further reflection on Mary’s role. The Protestant traditions have generally retained the perpetual virginity in some forms (Luther, Calvin, and Wesley all affirmed it) but have declined the immaculate conception and the bodily assumption as not warranted by Scripture.

Strengths

• The hypostatic union as articulated by Aquinas is the catholic settlement
• The doctrine of the instrumentum coniunctum is a powerful image for the unity of Christ’s action
• The medieval Marian theology, at its best, is a faithful extension of the catholic dogma

Weaknesses

• Some scholastic articulations drifted toward speculative refinement
• The post-medieval Marian dogmas (immaculate conception, bodily assumption) are not received by the Protestant traditions and remain points of ecumenical division

Lutheran

Tradition: Luther, Sermons on the Magnificat, Small Catechism on the Second Article; Augsburg Confession III; Formula of Concord VIII (on the person of Christ); Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center

The Lutheran tradition has held the clause in catholic form, with characteristic pastoral emphasis. Luther’s Sermon on the Magnificat (1521) is one of the great Marian writings of the Reformation: Luther confesses Mary as the Mother of God (without reservation, in the Ephesine sense), commends her humility and her consent as the catholic Marian image, and refuses the late-medieval excesses without thereby dismissing Mary herself. She is, after Christ, the highest woman; she is the Mother of God.

Luther retained the perpetual virginity of Mary as a catholic teaching, though without making it a piece of binding dogma. He pressed the dogmatic substance of the clause — the eternal Son became a true and full human being — with characteristic Lutheran sharpness against any Christological softening.

The Formula of Concord VIII articulates the Lutheran doctrine of the communicatio idiomatum (the communication of attributes): in the one person of the incarnate Christ, the divine and human natures share their proper attributes, so that what is true of the human nature can be predicated of the divine person and vice versa. The Formula gives this doctrine its most elaborate Lutheran articulation.

Bonhoeffer’s Christ the Center (1933 lectures) returns the doctrine to its existential and ecclesial center: the Christ who is the eternal Son enfleshed by the Spirit in the Virgin is the Christ who is preached, the Christ who comes in the eucharist, the Christ who is present in the church. The who of Christ is inseparable from the where of Christ.

Strengths

• The catechetical use of the clause is pastorally strong
• Luther’s Magnificat retains a catholic Marian piety in Protestant form
• The Formula of Concord VIII articulates a robust Chalcedonian Christology
• Bonhoeffer’s integration of Christology and ecclesiology is permanently valuable

Weaknesses

• The doctrine of ubiquity (developed from the communicatio idiomatum) has not been received by the Reformed tradition
• Some Lutheran scholastic treatments pressed the doctrine into Christological refinement beyond the catholic substance

Reformed

Tradition: Calvin, Institutes II.13–14; Heidelberg Catechism QQ. 35–36; Belgic Confession Articles 18–19; Westminster Confession Ch. 8; Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2 §15; Torrance, Incarnation

The Reformed tradition has held the clause in catholic form. Calvin’s articulation in Institutes II.13–14 is patristic in inheritance and Chalcedonian in form: the eternal Son took a real and complete human nature in the womb of the Virgin, by the agency of the Spirit, in such a way that the two natures are united without confusion, without change, without division, without separation. Calvin’s account of the extra Calvinisticum — the doctrine that the Son’s eternal divine being is not exhausted by the human nature assumed, but remains also extra (outside) the assumed nature, sustaining the universe (Institutes II.13.4) — is a distinctively Reformed doctrinal contribution. It preserves the dogmatic point that the eternal Son did not cease to be the cosmological Logos when he became incarnate; he continued to uphold all things by his word even while lying in the manger.

The Heidelberg Catechism Q. 35 gives the catechetical form: What is meant by “conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary”? That the eternal Son of God, who is and remains true and eternal God, took upon himself the very nature of man, of the flesh and blood of the Virgin Mary, by the working of the Holy Spirit, so that he might also be the true seed of David, like his fellow human beings in every respect, except for sin. The catechism is exemplary patristic-Reformed clarity.

Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics I/2 §15 gives the most sustained 20th-century Reformed articulation of the doctrine. The virgin conception, for Barth, is the catholic confession that the incarnation is the work of God alone, not the result of any creaturely process or initiative; Mary’s virginity is the dogmatic sign of the grace of the incarnation, the fact that the incarnation occurs from God and not from the human creature.

T. F. Torrance’s Incarnation (2008) gives a substantial patristic-Reformed treatment of the doctrine, with particular attention to the vicarious humanity of Christ: the humanity assumed in the womb of the Virgin is humanity in vicarious solidarity with the entire human race — the humanity that lives, obeys, suffers, dies, and is raised on behalf of all.

Strengths

• The extra Calvinisticum is a permanent Reformed contribution to incarnational theology
• The Heidelberg Catechism Q. 35 gives the catechetical form its definitive Reformed shape
• Barth’s reading of the virgin conception as the sign of grace is theologically powerful
• Torrance’s vicarious humanity is a major modern Reformed-Patristic articulation

Weaknesses

• Some Reformed treatments have been thinner on the Marian dimension than the catholic tradition warrants
• The Reformed reception of the perpetual virginity has been ambivalent in the post-Calvinian tradition

Eastern Orthodox

Tradition: the Council of Ephesus (431) on the Theotokos; Cyril of Alexandria; the Cappadocians; John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith III–IV; the iconographic tradition (especially the Theotokos icon and the Nativity icon)

The Eastern tradition has held the clause in catholic form with particular emphasis on the title Theotokos and the Marian dimension. The Council of Ephesus (431), in defining Theotokos, gave the dogmatic shape: the one born of the Virgin is the eternal Son of God; therefore the Virgin is properly called the Mother of God. The Ephesine confession is the catholic dogma; it has been received by Rome, by the Eastern Orthodox, by the Anglican tradition, and (with care for the precise meaning of the title) by the Lutheran and Wesleyan-Methodist traditions.

The Eastern liturgical reception of the doctrine is dense and constant. Every Eastern Orthodox liturgy contains repeated invocations of the Theotokos, and the Marian icons (the Hodegetria, the Eleousa, the Glykophilousa, the Platytera) each express a different aspect of the doctrine. The Platytera (the Wider-than-Heavens) icon — Mary depicted with the Christ-child in her womb, often in the apse of the Eastern church — names the catholic mystery: the eternal Son, through whom all things were made, was contained in the womb of the Virgin who is therefore wider than the heavens.

The Eastern soteriological reading of the doctrine ties the incarnation directly to theōsis. The eternal Son became human so that the human creature might become god; the incarnation is therefore the first half of an exchange in which the divine descent makes possible the human ascent into participation in God.

Strengths

• The dogmatic substance of the Theotokos is the catholic settlement
• The iconographic tradition makes the doctrine visible in the liturgy
• The soteriological integration with theōsis is permanently valuable
• The Marian piety of the Eastern tradition, at its best, is faithful to the catholic dogma

Weaknesses

• The Eastern Marian tradition is occasionally pressed in directions the Protestant traditions cannot follow
• The detailed iconographic-theological vocabulary requires translation for cultures unfamiliar with the tradition

Wesleyan

(See Wesleyan Voice below.)

Modern Ecumenical

Tradition: Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2 §15; Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center; Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale; Pannenberg, Systematic Theology II; Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ; Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology I; Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self; Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Mary; Tina Beattie, God’s Mother, Eve’s Advocate

The modern theological recovery of the doctrine of the incarnation has been attentive to this clause in both its Christological and its Marian dimensions. Barth’s reading of the virgin conception as the dogmatic sign of grace has been broadly received in Protestant theology. Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology II reads the virgin conception with historical-critical care, defending its dogmatic substance while declining to make the biological detail load-bearing for the doctrine.

Feminist theology has given particular attention to the clause. Some readings (Mary Daly, Daphne Hampson) have argued that the Marian-incarnational tradition has been used to subordinate women; other readings (Beverly Gaventa, Sarah Coakley, Tina Beattie) have argued that the catholic doctrine of the Virgin is in fact deeply liberating for women — Mary is the human consent that allows the divine work to proceed, and her yes is the model of the church’s yes. The ecumenical conversation has been productive, and a recovered, non-distorted Marian piety has been increasingly received across Protestant traditions in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Beverly Gaventa’s Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (1995) is the most substantial modern Reformed-mainline treatment of the Marian dimension. Sarah Coakley’s God, Sexuality, and the Self (2013) gives a major modern Anglican-feminist articulation of the doctrine in its trinitarian-pneumatological dimensions.

Strengths

• The modern recovery has restored the Marian dimension to Protestant theology
• The ecumenical convergence on the substance of the doctrine is remarkable
• The feminist-theological retrieval, at its best, has restored Mary to her proper catholic dignity
• Gaventa’s Mary is a substantial modern Protestant Marian treatment

Weaknesses

• Some modern reconstructions have so historicized the doctrine that the dogmatic substance is at risk
• The feminist-theological conversation has not yet reached a settled ecumenical consensus

Wesleyan Voice

Wesley’s confession of the incarnation is catholic, deeply pastoral, and characteristically Marian (within Protestant limits). The Methodist Articles of Religion (1784), Article II, names the doctrine in classical form: the Son … took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin. Wesley retained the catholic Marian language. His Explanatory Notes on the New Testament on Matthew 1 and Luke 1 read the infancy narratives with patristic seriousness: the virgin conception is the catholic confession that the incarnation is the work of God alone.

What is distinctively Wesleyan is the experiential register of the doctrine. The incarnation is not a remote piece of fourth-century dogma; it is the dogmatic ground of the believer’s actual experience of grace. Sermon 5, “Justification by Faith,” integrates the doctrine with the gospel: the Christ who is received in faith is the Christ who is truly God and truly human; the human dimension makes him for us, and the divine dimension makes him able to save. Sermon 8, “The First-fruits of the Spirit,” integrates the doctrine with the doctrine of the new birth: the Christ who was conceived by the Spirit in the Virgin is the Christ who is the source of the Spirit’s work in the believer.

The Wesleyan reading of the Marian dimension is catholic but Protestant. Wesley confessed the perpetual virginity of Mary as a catholic teaching (in line with Luther, Calvin, and the broader Reformation magisterial tradition), but he declined the post-medieval Marian dogmas (the immaculate conception, the bodily assumption) as not warranted by Scripture. The Wesleyan posture on Mary is reverent without being excessive; the Methodist hymnody confesses her in catholic form without the late-medieval accretions.

Charles Wesley’s hymnody confesses the incarnation with particular passion. Hark! the herald angels sing names the Marian-incarnational confession: late in time behold him come, / offspring of a Virgin’s womb. Let earth and heaven combine names the contraction of the eternal Son into the form of a particular human being: our God contracted to a span, / incomprehensibly made man. Come, thou long-expected Jesus names the longing for the descent: born thy people to deliver, / born a child and yet a King. Hail to the Lord’s Anointed (James Montgomery, 1821) takes up the same confession: he comes with succor speedy / to those who suffer wrong.

The pastoral Wesleyan posture: confess the incarnation in its full catholic form; receive the Marian dimension with reverence and without late-medieval accretion; integrate the doctrine with the gospel of justification and the experience of the new birth; let the human of the Son’s full humanity ground the believer’s confidence that he understands the human condition from the inside; let the divine of the Son’s full divinity ground the believer’s confidence that he has the power to save.

Hymnody

The hymnody on this clause is the great Christmas repertoire, overlapping with clause 10 but with particular focus on the Marian-incarnational dimension.

“Of the Father’s love begotten” (Prudentius, 4th c.) confesses the eternal-incarnate Son: O that birth forever blessèd, / when the Virgin, full of grace, / by the Holy Ghost conceiving, / bore the Savior of our race.

“O come, all ye faithful” (Adeste, fideles, 18th c.) confesses the Marian dimension directly: lo, he abhors not the Virgin’s womb.

“Hark! the herald angels sing” (Charles Wesley, 1739) names the Marian confession at the heart of the Christmas hymn: offspring of a Virgin’s womb.

“Let earth and heaven combine” (Charles Wesley, 1745) is the great Wesleyan hymn of the incarnation, with the most extraordinary line in English hymnody on the descent: our God contracted to a span, / incomprehensibly made man.

“Come, thou long-expected Jesus” (Charles Wesley, 1744) confesses the Marian-incarnational longing: born thy people to deliver, / born a child and yet a King.

“Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming” (German, c. 1500; trans. Theodore Baker, 1894) confesses the Marian image: Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming / from tender stem hath sprung! / Of Jesse’s lineage coming / as men of old have sung. / It came, a flow’ret bright, / amid the cold of winter, / when half-spent was the night.

“Once in royal David’s city” (Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848) confesses the catechetical form: he came down to earth from heaven / who is God and Lord of all, / and his shelter was a stable, / and his cradle was a stall; / with the poor, and mean, and lowly, / lived on earth our Savior holy.

“Mary, did you know” (Mark Lowry, 1991; in some recent hymnals) presses the dogmatic question: Mary, did you know that your baby boy / would one day walk on water? … Mary, did you know that your baby boy / was Lord of all creation? The hymn is recent and divisive in some traditions, but its dogmatic substance is the present clause.

“Sing of Mary, pure and lowly” (Roland Ford Palmer, 1938; in some hymnals) is a substantial modern hymnic confession of the Marian dimension in Protestant register.

“The Magnificat” (Mary’s song, Luke 1:46–55; sung in many traditions in various paraphrases) is the great Marian hymn given by Scripture itself: my soul magnifies the Lord, / and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, / for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

For the liturgical year: this clause is the heart of the Annunciation (March 25) and Christmas (December 25). The Annunciation makes the how of the descent (the Spirit’s overshadowing, the Virgin’s consent) the focus; Christmas makes the what (the eternal Son lying in the manger) the focus. The two feasts together are the liturgical confession of the present clause.

Pastoral and Liturgical Use

Three pastoral tasks attach to this clause.

The first is restoring a faithful Protestant Marian piety. Much of mainline Protestantism, in its 19th- and 20th-century reaction against late-medieval Marian excess, has effectively lost the catholic Marian piety that Luther, Calvin, and Wesley retained. The pastor’s task is not to import late-medieval devotions that the Reformation rightly questioned, but to recover the biblical and Reformation Marian piety: Mary as the human consent that allows the divine work to proceed; Mary as the Theotokos in the Ephesine sense; Mary as the first disciple, the singer of the Magnificat, the model of the church’s yes to God. The Methodist congregation that has never once confessed Mary as the Theotokos has lost a piece of catholic Christology, and the recovery is pastorally simple: name her properly when this clause comes around.

The second is teaching the parish to hear “was made truly human” as the catholic affirmation of the body. The incarnation is the dogmatic foundation of the catholic seriousness about the body — that the body matters, that material reality is good, that the work of human hands has eternal weight. The Son was conceived in a real womb, born in a real body, nursed at a real breast, hungered, thirsted, slept, walked, ate, drank, suffered, died, and was raised in a real, transformed, glorified body. The Christian’s seriousness about the body — the body of the believer, the body of the neighbor, the bodies of the poor and the suffering, the body of the earth — is grounded in the dogma of the incarnation. The pastor’s task is to make the connection audible.

The third is the liturgical recovery of the bow. The historic Christian liturgical practice — common to East and West for over a millennium — has been to bow at the clause was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and to genuflect on the great feasts of the incarnation. The bodily gesture is the body’s confession of what the mind affirms. Most Protestant congregations have lost the gesture, but its recovery is a worthy pastoral consideration. The pastor may simply demonstrate the bow at the Sunday creed, and the congregation that wants to participate will follow. The body remembers what the mind sometimes forgets: the eternal Son became a complete human being, and this is the most stunning fact in the history of the world, and the body should respond.

For the preacher: when this clause comes around in the Sunday creed, do not let the parish pray it as routine. The whole gospel is in these words. The eternal Son, through whom all things were made, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made truly human. Let the astonishment of the gospel be audible.

Further Reading

• Genesis 3:15 — the protevangelium
• Isaiah 7:14 — the virgin shall conceive
• Isaiah 11:1–10 — the Branch from the stump of Jesse
• Micah 5:2–5 — Bethlehem
• Matthew 1:18–25 — the conception of Jesus
• Luke 1:26–38 — the Annunciation
• Luke 1:39–56 — the Visitation and the Magnificat
• Luke 2:1–20 — the Nativity
• John 1:14 — the Word became flesh
• Romans 1:3; 8:3 — descended from David according to the flesh; in the likeness of sinful flesh
• Galatians 4:4 — born of a woman, born under the law
• Philippians 2:5–11 — the kenosis hymn
• Hebrews 2:9–18; 4:15 — in every respect tested as we are
• Ignatius of Antioch, To the Smyrnaeans §§1–3
• Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho (on Isaiah 7:14)
• Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.18–22 (recapitulation; new Eve)
• Athanasius, On the Incarnation
• Gregory of Nazianzus, Letter to Cledonius; Theological Oration IV
• Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ; Second Letter to Nestorius
• Council of Ephesus (431) — Theotokos affirmation
• Leo the Great, Tome
• Council of Chalcedon (451) — Chalcedonian Definition
• Augustine, Confessions VII; On the Trinity IV
• John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith III
• Anselm, Cur Deus Homo
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III.1–6, 27–35
• Bonaventure, Sentences III, dd. 1–11
• Luther, Sermon on the Magnificat (1521)
• Augsburg Confession III; Formula of Concord VIII
• Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion II.13–14
• Heidelberg Catechism QQ. 35–36
• Belgic Confession Articles 18–19
• Westminster Confession of Faith Ch. 8
• Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church (1784), Article II
• John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament on Matthew 1, Luke 1
• John Wesley, Standard Sermons, Sermons 5, 8
• Charles Wesley, “Hark! the herald angels sing,” “Let earth and heaven combine,” “Come, thou long-expected Jesus”
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2 §15
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ the Center
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale
• T. F. Torrance, Incarnation (IVP, 2008)
• Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (Fortress, 1995)
• Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self (Cambridge, 2013)
• John Behr, The Nicene Faith (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2004)