Creation and providence happen first. God is not breaking into anything alien to himself in the incarnation. He is not uniting himself to stuff he “finds.” He started history and has controlled history all along the way.
That’s why revelation is never derivative. Every concept, every word, is a concept or word God planned from eternity. The word spoken and written do not break into history and neither did the Word made flesh.
History always belonged to him. Otherwise, the incarnation would simply be impossible.
Years ago in a children’s sermon at my brother’s church the assistant pastor asked the assembled kids at the front what kinds of things they got to do when they grew up.
My brother Tim’s 4-year-old son, thinking of his sister just graduating from a bottle to a glass, answered in front of the whole church, “We get to drink!”
The church was convinced their pastor already had his son looking forward to coming of age.
Man, I’m inept at this system. I thought I was leaving the above comment on the below post. Crud.
David