Purpose of the incarnation in modern theology

Abstract

God in the freedom of His love willed to communicate Himself to man. This is why He has creatively brought the world into existence as the recipient of His self-communication, in such a way that this self-communication is God's fundamental purpose, as is clearly manifested in this eschatological phase of the history of salvation, which is constituted by Jesus Christ. Since this created spiritual reality is by its very nature a part of the world, this self-communication of God as accepted by the creation in Jesus Christ means that the world is in principle accepted by God for its salvation. Thus in the Incarnation the history of the world has been decided as a victorious history of salvation, not as a perdition, and has been made manifest as such. The freedom of the Incarnation, can certainly be regarded as one and the same freedom as that of God is gracious self manifestation to the world. The assumption of a reality belonging to the world and its unity in the Incarnation implies God's fundamental will to sanctify and redeem the world as such. And, conversely, the historical definitive manifestation of God's will to a self-communication to the world, that is, the absolute eschatological mediator of salvation, already implies Incarnation.