Incarnation and Salvation

Irenaeus stresses strongly in chapter 18 the reality of the incarnation, and is particularly critical of adoptionist and docetic christologies. Some reasons for this concern are:

(1) For Irenaeus salvation requires a genuine incarnation. "For unless man had overcome the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been legitimately vanquished. And again: unless it had been God who had freely given salvation, we could never have possessed it securely."

(2) The suffering of Christians makes sense if Christ genuinely suffered. If not, it becomes a mockery and Christ can be seen to mislead them.

Irenaeus sees salvation as communion with God involving a process in which "God recapitulated in Himself the ancient formation of man, that He might kill sin, deprive death of its power, and vivify man; and thereforeHis works are true."

There are also links between Irenaeus Christology and Trinitarian theology in this chapter, as when he says:

"For in the name of Christ is implied, He that anoints, He that is anointed, and the unction
itself with which He is anointed. And it is the Father who anoints, but the Son who is anointed by
the Spirit, who is the unction, as the Word declares by Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because He hath anointed me,”pointing out both the anointing Father, the anointed Son, and the unction, which is the Spirit."