'Jesus' incarnation was much more than just a kind visit from the Creator. It was the launching of God's full and final counteroffensive against sin, death, and destruction that had entered the world when Adam fell.
You can see the war happening all over the story of Jesus' life in the New Testament. King Jesus goes alone into the wilderness to face Satan - the one who had tempted Adam and thrown the world into corruption so many years earlier - and decisively defeats him! He touches the eyes of a man born blind, and light enters for the very first time. He stares into the sad blackness of a tomb and cries out "Lazarus, come forth!" and death feels its grip on humanity begin to weaken as the dead man walks out.
And then above all, of course, sin itself was defeated when Jesus cried out on the cross, "It is finished!" And death's grip finally failed entirely when the angel said - with a smile, I'm sure - "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen" (Luke 24:5-6).'
Greg Gilbert, What is the Gospel? p.89.
