When a likeness painted on a panel has been obscured by stains from outside, the person whose likeness it is must come again so that the image can be renewed on the same material. Because his likeness is painted there, the panel itself is not thrown away; the image is restored on it.
In the same way, the all-holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came among us to renew the human being made according to Him and, through the forgiveness of sins, to find him as one who was lost. As He Himself says in the Gospels, "I came to find and save what was lost." Therefore He also said to the Jews, "Unless someone is born again," not referring, as they supposed, to birth from a woman, but declaring that the soul is born again and created anew according to the Image.
When the madness of idolatry and godlessness filled the world and the knowledge of God was hidden, who could teach the world about the Father? A human being, perhaps? But human beings could not travel throughout the whole world. They lacked the physical strength to go so far, could not be sufficiently credible in this matter, and could not by themselves withstand the deception and illusions of demons.
For when everyone had been wounded and confused in soul by demonic deception and the vanity of idols, how could a human being persuade the soul and mind of other human beings, since he could not even see them? How can someone reform what he cannot see?
Perhaps you will say, then, that creation was enough. But if that had been so, such great evils would never have occurred. Creation was there all the time, yet human beings still wallowed in the same error concerning God.
Once more, then, who was needed except the Word of God? He sees both soul and mind, moves all things in creation, and through them makes the Father known. For He who teaches about the Father through His own providence and ordering of all things was also the one who could renew that same teaching.
How, then, could this renewal have taken place? Someone might say that the same means as before were available, so that He could again reveal the truth about Himself through the works of creation. But this was no longer a reliable means. Human beings had already overlooked creation, and they no longer kept their eyes directed upward but downward.
Therefore, fittingly, because He wished to help human beings, He came among us as a human being, taking a body like theirs. Through lower things—that is, through the works of the body—those who had refused to know Him from His providence and rule over all things could at least come to know the Word of God in the body. Through Him, they could also come to know the Father.