The Human Jesus

 

When you think about the person we know as Jesus Christ, what comes to mind? “Son of God”? “100% God, 100% man”? Yes, this is a question of the ontology (the what) of Jesus Christ, but definitely in answering this question, we definitely learn something important about the personage (the who) of the Son and of the precious Father.

What do I mean?

I remember when I was just beginning to consider the sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the world – for my sins; those who’d acknowledged and accepted this sacrifice before I did would often tell me such things as:

Jesus could not have sinned.

If Jesus sinned, it would have proven He was not God.

This didn’t make sense to me, and the reason is very simple: they cheapened my Lord’s sacrifice for me, made it into nothing. Let me explain.

The beauty of the Son of God becoming man is that He lived life as you and I did. He lived our weaknesses, experienced the sufferings of humanity, and the ravages of mortality. He understands us and sympathizes when we fall into sin because He had been tempted as we are (Hebrews 4:15).

If He truly could not have sinned, then what is mentioned in Hebrews 4:15 is a lie. He did not experience our humanity, He is unfit to be our High Priest, and He was never tempted as we are. In order to be tempted, one must be able to succumb. It would be like waving some delicious lamb chops in front of a rabbit, “tempting” it to eat it; the herbivorous rabbit wouldn’t pay it any mind.

So, in order for Jesus to be what the Scriptures say about Him, he must have been able to sin, which does not mean that He did sin (and we know He did not, as Hebrews 4:15 and other Scriptures say).

But that leaves us with a dilemma: How could God sin? After all, God can’t lie or even be tempted to sin! (Titus 1:2; James 1:13) And yet, as we have seen, Jesus was tempted. If we recall His temptation in the wilderness a few weeks after His baptism, we see that He fasted for 40 days (Matthew 4:1-2; Mark 1:13); someone who could not be tempted would have no need of this spiritual strengthening.

To begin to answer all these questions, it would be good to start from the beginning, as cliché as that might sound. The Scripture says:

John 1:1 – In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 – He was with God in the beginning.

The context makes it clear that it is Jesus being referred to here. He was with God and He was God. There’s a distinction in verse 1 between these two instances of the word God: in the original Greek text, there is a definite article before the first use of God, while there is none before the second. This means that there are two separate entities here: the Word and God. How, then, can the Word be God?

The answer is found in the words of the apostle Paul, who says that Jesus was (before His birth on Earth) “in very nature God” or “in the form of God” (Philippians 2:6, NIV and NKJV respectively).

Elsewhere, we see:

Hebrews 1:3a – The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. …

The Son (Jesus) is the exact representation of the Father (God). He is God because He is the only begotten of God (John 3:16), the one being to exist as a perfect copy or reflection of the Father. So, in essence, He is God in nature, not in person.

Having established the Divinity of Jesus, we move on to Jesus’ existence on Earth as a human being. Paul says about Jesus:

Philippians 2:6 – Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
Philippians 2:7 – but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

So, here’s where the Human Jesus steps in; the One that was Divine in every way, just like the Father in Heaven rescinded that divinity and embraced humanity. This is seen in these two verses:

Hebrews 2: 17 For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 4: 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.

To fulfil His purpose of redemption, Jesus needed to become like us, living life as we are, experiencing our temptations. In order to do this, He had to give up His Godhood. He was the same person, the Word who had been there from the beginning with the Father. But His nature was not divine anymore; it was human, purely and only.

If He was God-man while He was on Earth instead of only man, He would not have been tempted as we are; God cannot be tempted. God cannot sin. But Jesus could have been tempted. Jesus could have sinned.

But He didn’t.

Jesus grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52). Jesus learnt obedience (Hebrews 5:8). He who had all the wisdom of eternity gave it up to live as a mere human. Can that be matched, ever?

One thing to consider here is that it is by His Father’s Spirit and His own love for the Father (and us) that Jesus didn’t sin. And remember, the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

Can you imagine what a great sacrifice that was? Jesus became fully human; able to sin if He faltered even once. And then, He would die, never able to attain life and Godhood again. And then we would die, because there was no offering for sin. Jesus offered His life and risked never getting it back ever again.

For us.

That’s exactly why He was given a name above all others (Philippians 2:9). After His death, He was resurrected and given His former glory and divinity (John 17:4-5).

The vast humility of Jesus is seen in the words of His human ancestor King David, written many generations before: “you stoop down to make me great” (Psalm 18:35).

And it is this humility that opens the door for us to be given the greatest gift God has for us. Jesus became like us so we could become like Him:

Romans 8:29 – For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

1 John 3:2 – Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

The nature of Jesus as He walked the Earth is a critical issue, a pillar of faith upon which much rests. He was not God superimposed on humanity (or the other way around) but human in all respects. His was a walk with a message: none of us has to sin; we can overcome because He did, so long as we have His direction and Spirit within us.

The life of the Human Jesus heralded this. And today, the life of the Divine Jesus heralds the truth of the great reward that has been made available through His mortality: we can be made like Him, we can be given the glory and immortality that He had given up, so long as we accept the sacrifice He made in His great humility.

What a precious Lord. What a precious promise.

 

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise indicated.

 

 

© Copyright 2008, 2009 Keneil Thomas

Readers are permitted and encouraged to reproduce this paper in its entirety. To copy subsections, you will require the permission of the author, who may be contact at the e-mail address below. All reproductions and distributions must have the name and e-mail address of the author.

Contact: [email protected]

http://www.geocities.com/keniru_san/