Just as someone who wishes to see God, who by nature is invisible and cannot be seen at all, knows and apprehends Him from His works, so whoever does not see Christ with the mind should at least learn who He is from the works of His body and test whether they are human works or God’s.
If they are human works, let him mock. But if they are not human works and are recognized as God’s, let him not laugh at what is no laughing matter. Rather, let him marvel that through something so humble divine things have been manifested to us, that through death immortality has reached everyone, and that through the Word becoming human the providence over all things has been made known, together with its Giver and Maker, the Word of God Himself.
For He became human so that we might be deified. He manifested Himself through a body so that we might gain a conception of the invisible Father. And He endured abuse from human beings so that we might inherit incorruption. He Himself was harmed in no way, being impassible and incorruptible and the very Word and God; but in His own impassibility He kept and preserved the suffering human beings for whose sake He endured these things.
In general, the Savior’s achievements accomplished through His becoming human are so many and so great that anyone wishing to recount them is like those who look across the sea and try to count its waves. Just as someone cannot take in all the waves with his eyes, because the waves continually rolling in pass beyond the observer’s perception, so anyone wishing to grasp all Christ’s achievements in the body cannot receive them all even in thought, since more pass beyond his thought than he thinks he has grasped.
It is better, then, not to attempt to speak of the whole, when no one can fully tell even a part, but to mention one more thing and leave you to marvel at the whole. For all are equally marvelous, and wherever one looks, one sees the divinity of the Word and is overwhelmed with wonder.