. . . let us penetrate the successive events of the gospel story, in which the union of power with love for man is displayed.In the first place, that the omnipotent nature was capable of descending to man’s lowly position is a clearer evidence of power than great and supernatural miracles. for it somehow accords with God’s nature, and is consistent with it, to do great and sublime things by divine power. It does not startle us to hear it said that the whole creation, including the invisible world, exists by God’s power, and is the realization of is will. But descent to man’s lowly position is a supreme example of power–of a power which is not bounded by circumstances contrary to its nature.

It belongs to the nature of fire to shoot upwards; and no one would think it wonderful for a flame to act naturally. But if he saw a flame with a downward motion like that of heavy bodies, he would take it for a marvel, wondering how it could remain a flame and yet contravene its nature by its downward motion. So it is with the incarnation. God’s transcendent power is not so much displayed in the vastness of the heavens, or the luster of the stars, or the orderly arrangement of the universe or his perpetual oversight of it, as in his condescension to our weak nature. We marvel at the way the sublime entered a state of lowliness and, while actually seen in it, did not leave the heights. We marvel at the way the Godhead was entwined in human nature and, while becoming man, did not cease to be God (Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religion Instruction” in Christology of the Later Fathers [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977], pp. 300-301).

All creation is created good, yet remains a sign. In the descent of God in the incarnation, Jesus is not just a sign as creation in the Son in the form of a servant, but Jesus is both God and man, what Kierkegaard would much later call the “absolute paradox.” Creation reflects God’s goodness, but the attributes of God — love, “goodness, wisdom, justice, power, incorruption, and everything else that indicates excellence”(298)– are seen in the gift of the Son who is God.