Introduction — Defending the Incarnate Christ
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics (Komoszewski & Bowman, 2024)
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Who is Jesus? It seems like a simple question. But in 2022, a major survey by Ligonier Ministries revealed something startling: 43% of people who identified as evangelical Christians agreed with the statement that "Jesus was not God." At the same time, more than 90% of those same people said they believed in the Trinity. Something is deeply broken in our understanding of who Christ is — and it matters more than we might think.
The confusion isn't new, and it isn't going away. In our culture, Jesus has become a kind of spiritual mirror: people see in him whatever they want to see. A moral teacher. A revolutionary. A mystic. A prophet. A myth. The British church is even more theologically adrift — only 29% of British respondents affirmed the Trinity in a similar survey, while 74% of British "evangelicals" agreed that Jesus was "the first and greatest being created by God."
Here's the problem: these ideas are not just theological fine points. They cut to the heart of everything Christianity claims. If Jesus is a creature — even the greatest of all creatures — then our faith is not what we think it is. If Jesus is not truly God, then his death on the cross cannot accomplish what the gospel says it does.
Why the Confusion?
Part of the confusion comes from cultural pressure. In a pluralistic world, Christians are tempted to make Jesus more "approachable" by leaning heavily on his humanity while downplaying his divinity. On the surface this feels humble, even respectful of others. But in practice it quietly hollows out the gospel. A Jesus who is mostly human but perhaps divinely inspired is a very different Jesus from the one the New Testament proclaims.
Another source of confusion is the influence of alternative Christologies — organized belief systems about who Jesus is that directly contradict the historic Christian faith. These come not only from secular skeptics but from major world religions and even from Christian-adjacent movements like the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, and Oneness Pentecostalism. Each claims to have the true Jesus. Most of them use the Bible to make their case. If you don't know what those alternative views are and how to respond to them, you're more vulnerable to them than you realize.
The Stakes
The doctrine of the incarnation — the belief that the eternal, divine Son of God became a human being in Jesus Christ — is not a fourth-century invention cooked up at church councils. It is the consistent witness of the New Testament, present even in its earliest writings. Paul's letters, written within 15–20 years of Jesus' crucifixion, already speak of Christ in terms that place him on the same level as God himself.
This matters because the incarnation is the hinge on which everything else turns. It's why Jesus can forgive sins. It's why his death atones for ours. It's why his resurrection promises ours. Strip away the deity of Christ, and you don't have a purer, simpler Christianity — you have a different religion entirely.
What This Series Is About
Over the coming weeks, I'll be working through a remarkable book — The Incarnate Christ and His Critics by J. Ed Komoszewski and Robert M. Bowman Jr. — and sharing what I'm learning in plain language. The authors organize the biblical case for Christ's deity under five categories they call HANDS:
- H — Honors: Jesus receives the honors due to God alone
- A — Attributes: Jesus possesses the characteristics of God
- N — Names: Jesus bears the names that belong to God
- D — Deeds: Jesus does what only God can do
- S — Seat: Jesus occupies the throne-position of God
Each of these categories is rich with biblical evidence. None of them stands alone; together they build a case that is, I believe, overwhelming.
My goal in sharing this isn't to win arguments. It's to help us — all of us who love Jesus — know him better. There's a deep difference between being saved by a great man and being saved by the living God who loved us enough to enter into our suffering as one of us. That difference is the incarnation. It changes everything.
If you've ever wondered why it matters whether Jesus was "really" God, or if you've found yourself confused by what someone told you about who Jesus is, I hope this series gives you some solid ground to stand on — and a deeper reason to worship.
"Who do you say that I am?" (Matthew 16:15)
That's still the question. And the answer still changes everything.