The answer
Christ, to Him be glory, to the Christians, regardless of their ethnicity, race, or language, unanimously-East and West-be they Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant, is God the Word Incarnate (John 1:14).
“God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).
God, Who was manifest visibly, is Christ. This is the meaning of His being “Son of God.” It does not mean that God begets in the same way as humans or animals, God forbid. But His being the Son of God means that He is the “Image of the Unseen God.” Or, God, Who is unseen in His nature (John 1:18), was united to our humanity so that He may be seen by men. Christ is the Unseen God Who has been made manifest. Why was He made manifest?
To accomplish the task of redemption and salvation, which could not have been accomplished by anyone else other than God, as was previously discussed in question 59 and 60.
God was Incarnate in Christ for the sake of redemption and salvation:
Redemption is the end, and the Incarnation is the means.
“He became man, but did not dwell in a holy man,”28 according to St. Athanasius the Apostolic.
His Holiness Pope Tawadros II
Notes
28 Translator’s note: In Synodal Letter to the People of Antioch 7, “[T]he Word did not...dwell in a holy man at the consummation of the ages, but that the Word Himself was made flesh, and being in the Form of God, took the form of a servant, and from Mary after the flesh became man for us” (Schaff, Philip, and Henry Wace, ed. A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Vol. 4. Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995.).
Pope Tawadros II, My Faith: A Series of Dialogues on the Creed (Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, 2014), 81–82.
The pages in the book (81–82)
