The Incarnation of God was fitting.

• To each things, that is befitting which belongs to it by reason of its very nature.
  • The very nature of God is goodness.
  • Hence, what belongs to the essence of goodness befits God.
• It belongs to the essence of goodness to communicate itself to others.
  • Hence it belongs to the essence of the highest good to communicate itself in the highest manner to the creature,
  • and this is brought about chiefly by
    • His so joining created nature to Himself that one Person is made up of these three—the Word, a soul and flesh.

(a)

It was necessary for the restoration of the human race that the Word of God should become incarnate.

• A thing is said to be necessary for a certain end in two ways.
  • First, when the end cannot be without it.
  • Secondly, when the end is attained better and more conveniently.
• In the second way it was necessary that God should become incarnate for the restoration of human nature;
  • there was not a more fitting way of healing our misery.

(b) The incarnation greatly furthered the good of man.

(1) First, with regard to faith,

• which is made more certain by believing God Himself Who speaks:
• In order that man might journey more trustfully toward the truth, the Truth itself, the Son of God, having assumed human nature, established and founded faith.

(2) Secondly, with regard to hope,

• which is thereby greatly strengthened:
  • Nothing was so necessary for raising our hope as to show us how deeply God loved us.
  • And nothing could afford us a stronger proof of this than that the Son of God should become a partner with us of human nature.

(3) Thirdly, with regard to charity,

• which is greatly enkindled by this:
  • There is no greater cause of the Lord's coming than to show God's love for us.
  • If we have been slow to love, at least let us hasten to love in return.

(4) Fourthly, with regard to well-doing,

• in which He set us an example:
  • Man who might be seen was not to be followed; but God was to be followed, Who could not be seen.
  • And therefore God was made man, that He Who might be seen by man, and Whom man might follow, might be shown to man.

(5) Fifthly, with regard to the full participation of the Divinity,

• which is the true bliss of man and end of human life; and this is bestowed upon us by Christ's humanity:
  • God was made man, that man might be made God.

(c) The Incarnation withdrew man from evil.

(1) Man is taught by the incarnation not to prefer the devil to himself, nor to honor him who is the author of sin. Since human nature is so united to God as to become one person, let not these proud spirits dare to prefer themselves to man, because they have no bodies.

(2) We are thereby taught how great is man's dignity, lest we should sully it with sin. God has proved to us how high a place human nature holds amongst creatures, inasmuch as He appeared to men as a true man. Christians learn their worth; and being made a partner of the Divine nature, refuse to return by evil deeds to their former worthlessness.

(3) In order to do away with man's presumption, the grace of God is commended in Jesus Christ, though no merits of ours went before.

(4) Man's pride, which is the greatest stumbling-block to our clinging to God, can be convinced and cured by humility so great.

(5) In order to free man from the thraldom of sin, which ought to be done in such a way that the devil should be overcome by the justice of the man Jesus Christ, and this was done by Christ satisfying for us. Now a mere man could not have satisfied for the whole human race, and God was not bound to satisfy; hence it behooved Jesus Christ to be both God and man. Weakness is assumed by strength, lowliness by majesty, mortality by eternity, in order that one and the same Mediator of God and men might die in one and rise in the other—for this was our fitting remedy. Unless He was God, He would not have brought a remedy; and unless He was man, He would not have set an example.

(d)

There are very many other advantages which accrued, above man's apprehension.