The purpose of the incarnation was that the Son of God would participate in the same things (flesh and blood) as we who have fallen into sin through the wiles of the devil, in order that becoming like us, he would pull us out of slavery to sin and death. 

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”(Mark 1:14, 15)
If the ministry of our Lord Jesus began with his proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom, then the gospel must be important. And if the gospel is important, it must be understood. So, what is “the gospel?”
The gospel (Greek: euangelion) is the good news that the eternal Son of God has come in the flesh to redeem us from our fallen estate by his perfect obedience, atoning death on the cross, resurrection, ascension, enthronement, and session, and that he will return to judge the living and the dead.
This is the good news that Christians confess in the historic Christian creeds such as the Nicene-Constantinopolitan and Apostles’ creeds. It is the good news that saves us from the sin and death that we have inherited from our first father, Adam (Rom 5:12). Thus, it is important that Christians understand the gospel and how the work of Christ saves us. The first step in understanding the work of Christ, is understanding, insofar as we are able, the mystery of the incarnation.
The incarnation is the word used to describe the Son of God coming in the flesh through his conception and birth. “Incarnate” comes from a Latin word that means “to be made flesh” (in carne) and refers to the Divine Son of God coming into humanity and taking on human flesh and blood.1
The purpose of this short primer in two parts is to introduce the vital topic of the incarnation by considering it first from the perspective of the Holy Scriptures and second from the Reformed Confessions and Catechisms of the 16th and 17th centuries with the goal of helping both the laity and those in pastoral ministry to have a more precise grasp the gospel of Jesus Christ for their preaching, hearing, piety, and practice.
The Holy Scriptures
We may be tempted to think that since the incarnation occurred in the 1st century AD, we can only know of the incarnation through the New Testament. However, the Old Testament bears witness to the good news of the incarnation as soon as mankind fell into a state of sin and death in the Garden of Eden.
After the serpent deceived Adam and Eve, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15)
From this point on, humanity was awaiting a seed of the woman who would come and crush the head of the serpent. The details surrounding who, when, and how this would occur were at the time not perfectly clear. But for those who heard this promise and believed in it, redemption was wrought by the future work of the offspring of the woman who would do battle against the serpent.
Throughout the history of God’s people, he continued to elaborate on his promise of an offspring to come. For example, to Abraham he said:
I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.(Gen 17:6, 7)
The apostle Paul explains that this is not only a reference to future offspring (plural), but also a promise of a particular royal offspring (singular) through whom the nations would be blessed and through whom God would be their God (see Gal 3:16, 29).
The promise is further elaborated in Israel’s last will and testament to his offspring, in particular to his son Judah, to whom he promised:
Judah, your brothers shall praise you;your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;your father’s sons shall bow down to you.Judah is a lion’s cub;from the prey, my son, you have gone up.He stooped down; he crouched as a lionand as a lioness; who dares rouse him?The scepter shall not depart from Judah,nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,until tribute comes to him;and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.Gen 49:8-10)
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Faith in the Time of Plagueis both encouraging and edifying and is thus recommended for all who labor within the church, as well as for those who sit in the pews. It will cause pastors, sessions, consistories, and diaconates to carefully consider the last two-and-a-half years, not in a vacuum, but with proper historical, biblical, and Reformed theological perspective.

The past two-and-a-half years of COVID-19 fears, restrictions, and dissensions have led to strenuous circumstances for many professions and vocations. The callings of pastors and ministers have been no exception. It has been especially difficult for sessions, consistories, diaconates, and congregations in general, as they have had to navigate thorny paths while remaining faithful to the Scriptures and, in particular, the Great Commission.
Elders have been forced to make decisions they never thought they would have to make regarding church closures and openings, social distancing, outdoor services, live streaming, and visitations of both the sick and the healthy. Deacons have had to discover ways to carry out mercy ministry during times when close contact was not only difficult, but in some states and locales, restricted by edict. Pastors and congregants alike have been forced to think deeply about the most practical theological matters concerning the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, as well as Christian fellowship.
As arduous and seemingly unique as this process has been, as the Preacher says, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl 1:9). Thus, it is important to be aware of Church history, for we are not the first Christians to live through times such as these. Christians have been thinking through such issues all throughout the history of the Church. Indeed, many of our Protestant and Reformed theologians have written on and even experienced such issues firsthand.
This makes the volume Faith in the Time of Plague: Selected Writings from the Reformation and Post-Reformation (2021) an invaluable resource for the Church today. In it, editor Stephen M. Coleman and editor-translator Todd M. Rester have compiled, contextualized, and provided numerous primary readings from many 16th and 17th-century Protestant and Reformed theologians and pastors.
It will perhaps surprise the reader to know that most of our Reformed forefathers dealt with not only similar circumstances to our own, but also with far worse in both quality and quantity than our recent pandemic. During the 16th and 17th centuries, for example, as the Bubonic Plague swept through Europe several times, up to 25 percent of populations were wiped out.1  Hardly a Protestant Reformer remained untouched by the Plague in one way or another. Several great minds of the Reformation died from the plague, including Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531) and Franciscus Junius (1545–1602), with several others surviving the disease. 2
The reader of Faith in the Time of Plague is provided access to Theodore Beza’s (1519–1605) “A Learned Treatise on the Plague,” written from the perspective of one who not only taught and ministered during the Plague, but also suffered from it himself. Beza is followed by the French Protestant Andre Rivet (1572–1651), who wrote his “Letter to a Friend,” as an overview of what fellow theologians said concerning the Plague and how to continue to minister faithfully amid ravaging pestilence. He died of the Plague fifteen years after writing the letter.
Dutch Reformed theologian Gisbertus Voetius’ (1589–1676) “A Treatise on the Plague” provides both a comprehensive view of the Plague and how to respond spiritually. He closed his treatise with these words, “Conquer the fear of death and you will conquer the fear of the plague.”3 Following Voetius’ work is that of his student, the lesser-known, yet no less influential in the Dutch Further Reformation, Johannes Hoornbeeck (1617–66). In his “Theological Dissertation on the Plague,” Hoornbeeck wrote with scholastic clarity concerning how to think about the Plague and respond pastorally.
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