Since a handful of passages in the Old Testament say God is not a man that He should lie, repent or change His mind (Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29; Hosea 11:9), many Muslims will argue that Jesus cannot be God incarnate. But this ignores several things:

1. The incarnation was still a future event from the perspective of OT saints (John 1:1-14; Galatians 4:4-5; Romans 1:1-3, 9:1-5; Hebrews 1:1-3), so statements to the effect that God is not a man that were made antecedent to the time when the Divine Word took on Himself a human nature are misdirected.

2. The passages in question did not rule out the possibility that God could temporarily assume or appear in the form of a man during Old Testament times, something He did many times over (Genesis 18:1-33, 32:24-30; Exodus 15:3, 24:1-18; Numbers 12:5-8; Ezekiel 1-2; Amos 7:7; et al.). If God could temporarily assume a human form without ceasing to be God and without violating the import of this trio of passages, then the same would appear to hold true in the case of the incarnation, for which it may well be argued those earlier appearances during the OT served to prepare for.

3. The same OT that says God is not a man predicts the future coming of God as an actual human being (e.g. Job 19:25; Psalm 68:17-19; Isaiah 7:14, 9:1-7; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Micah 5:2; Zechariah 12:10, 14:3-4; et al.).

Since these verses in the Old Testament appear alongside verses that say God appeared many times as a man in the past and that He would actually become a human being in the future, it can’t be argued that the passages in question are being interpreted according to their original authorial intent when they are used to rule out the incarnation. In fact, the real thrust of these passages is to show that God is not a fallen or sinful human being; He never lies or goes back on His promises. As Old Testament commentators Keil and Delitzsch say on Numbers 23:

> Balaam meets Balak's expectation that he will take back the blessing that he has uttered, with the declaration, that God does not alter His purposes like changeable and fickle men, but keeps His word unalterably, and carries it into execution. The unchangeableness of the divine purposes is a necessary consequence of the unchangeableness of the divine nature. With regard to His own counsels, God repents of nothing; but this does not prevent the repentance of God, understood as an anthropopathic expression, denoting the pain experienced by the love of God, on account of the destruction of its creatures (see at Gen 6:6, and Ex 32:14). (Source)

Since Jesus never lied/lies or failed/fails to keep His promises, as both the OT (e.g. Psalm 16:9-10; Isaiah 11:1-5, 42:1-9, 52:1-53:12; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Malachi 3:1-4) and NT (Luke 1:35; John 7:18, 8:29, 46; 1 Peter 2:22; et al.) affirm, the above verses when interpreted grammatically, historically, and in terms of their immediate and broader canonical context, are not prohibitive of the incarnation.