Q: Recently I was watching an Islamic video where a man is arguing about the Lord's incarnation saying that God is the creator, and to solve/know a problem he does not need to become a human being...would you please comment on this matter.
A: This is actually a very good question. Dr. N*** is right that God can know about a problem and how to solve it since he is powerful and all-knowing and the Creator. However, the problem that man has is not one of knowledge, but a judicial one of guilt. The New Testament claim is not that God became a man to know men better, but that God became a man in order to do something for men that men could not do for themselves. In this lies the problem between man and God and why God had to become incarnate in order to offer the solution for the sins of man. God is holy and perfect and will not permit sin in any man to remain unpunished. The standard of the Bible is actually stronger and more deep than that which the Koran gives and which Muslims in general imply. Sin is not something that man can “make up for” with prayers and deeds and pilgrimages. And the Bible declares that all men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. When a deed is committed, God cannot forget it, nor sweep it under the rug, nor pretend that it did not happen. The standard is perfection and righteousness. If a man says he will do good in order to pay for his evil—that is no offer to God, because doing good is expected as the standard anyway. The wrong and evil of the deed must be judicially dealt with. And here, God will not let any sin go unpunished. Forgiveness to God is not “being soft on man” or “allowing men to get away with what they did.” Forgiveness cannot simply be handed out like candy by God. Forgiveness can only be given when there is a judicial reason for forgiveness supplied. Here is the reason that Christ has to be incarnated—He became the substitute for the sins of man. By being a man he was able to offer himself as the right substitute (a bull, goat or chicken won’t do!), and by being in nature also fully God, He could offer Himself as a substitute for the whole world. This is the basic rationale in the Bible for Christ coming to earth and going to the cross—to be a substitutionary atonement for the sins of men, for any who would believe and accept the offer of God in Christ for forgiveness, a forgiveness that has a judicial supply –the payment of the judicial debt of sin in the crucifixion of Christ on the cross.