The Incarnation

The incarnation, the process by which Jesus assumed a human body, is a metaphysically significant event even without taking the later ministry of Jesus into consideration.  Though Genesis alone refutes the possibility of Christianity teaching any form of Gnosticism, the incarnation similarly lands a fatal blow on the idea that matter is itself wicked.  Matter is not only an integral part of the creation that God declared to be "very good," but it is the very vehicle by which Jesus entered human existence.

In assuming a human form (John 1:1-2, 14), Jesus affirmed the goodness of the human body--a divine being could not (Jesus is not Yahweh [1], but as a divine being, James 1:13 still applies to him) inhabit a body of matter if there is something fundamentally evil about physicality.  The redemption of humanity ultimately extends to the redemption of the body, which is affected by sin to the same extent as the human soul.  Though the material component of human beings has suffered decay as a result of sin (Romans 8:20-21), it will be redeemed in the cases of those who have chosen restoration to God.

Christian eschatology teaches that the bodies of the saved will eventually be resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:42-44); the Christian afterlife does not do away with matter [2], instead featuring a very intimate combination of matter and spirit, just as current human existence does.  The idea that matter is a failed experiment to be discarded by God is thoroughly unbiblical.  Matter was not permanently tainted by the Fall, and it will not be wholly destroyed or abandoned by God.  Jesus' very possession of a resurrected body foreshadows what awaits all Christians.

The incarnation is far more than a humble first step in a salvation plan: it is an affirmation of the goodness of the metaphysical substance that God fashioned the physical universe, including the human body, out of.  There is nothing in Christianity that resembles the aversion to matter displayed by ascetic legalists.  When Christians appreciate and accept the physicality of the human body and of nature as a whole, they are capable of celebrating the incarnation of Jesus with an even greater depth, and vice versa.

[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/10/exegeting-john-1428.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-aether.html