Revelation of the Heart of God

In the secret depths of his being and decree the living God willed and promised the messianic mission of the sent Son, “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8). God has deliberately encapsulated his grace in the name of Jesus Christ, in the humiliation of the eternal Son and the glorification of the Crucified One who stands incomparably related to the cosmos and all mankind. The Almighty manifests himself in the form of the Nazarene who, by falling prey to death exposes the depth of human animosity toward God, and by his resurrection reveals himself to be the unconditionally omnipotent executor of the Father’s will and thus discloses in the public arena of cosmic life the secret of his existence. In Jesus of Nazareth we reckon and deal with God; the Godhead is revealed in embodied existence (John 1:14; Col. 1:19). In Christ, moreover, the divine being has been made fully evident; his earthly life and ministry mirror the perfections of divinity. It is no longer baffling that the divine comes to great glory through the incarnation and crucifixion and resurrection. The revealed mystery of the incarnation, of the virgin birth, of the passion, of the resurrection, define the now open secret that the eternal God has given himself redemptively in Jesus Christ, the God-man.

Carl F.H. Henry, God, Revelation, & Authority, Volume III, 18.