The Incarnation

I was re-reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer recently, and I appreciated some of what he had to say on the topic of the incarnation.

"To be conformed to the image of Christ is not an ideal to be striven after. It is not as though we had to imitate him as well as we could. We cannot transform ourselves into his image; it is rather the form of Christ which seeks to be formed in us. We must be assimilated to the form of Christ in its entirety, the form of Christ incarnate, crucified and glorified.

Christ took upon himself this human form of ours. He has become like a man, so that men should be like him. And in the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Through fellowship and communion with the incarnate Lord, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time we are delivered from that individualism which is the consequences of sin, and retrieve our solidarity with the whole human race. By being partakers of Christ incarnate, we are partakers in the whole humanity which he bore. ...that new nature we now enjoy means that we too must bear the sins and sorrows of others. ...The 'philanthropy' of God revealed in the incarnation is the ground of Christian love towards all on earth that bears the name of man. The form of Christ incarnate makes the Church into the Body of Christ.

...It is only because he became like us that we can become like him. It is only because we are identified with him that we can become like him."