The answer
It is a free initiation on the part of God towards man, who had steered away from Him, and had rejected Him willingly.
Man cannot know God on his own, and God, in His perfection, does not wish to remain unknown to His creature, man. Given that man does not know of God except that He is God, man cannot know God except through God.
So, it was apparent that God had to deign and a real humanity in order to facilitate for man the means to see and know Him.
God came in the Master Christ, Who took flesh from the Virgin, and united in it all that is God’s (divinity) with all that is human (humanity). This union became the greatest and strongest expression of God’s love for man.
This why St. Athanasius says,
The Lover longs to be likened to His beloved, being one with the beloved. God so loved man in his humility, and so loved to be one with him. This is the incarnation.
His Holiness Pope Tawadros II
Pope Tawadros II, My Faith: A Series of Dialogues on the Creed (Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, 2014), 71–72.
The pages in the book (71–72)
