We love superhero movies. The box-office numbers tell us that they are the most popular movies world-wide. I remember for me the superhero movie craze started in 1978 with the release of Superman played by Christopher Reeve. It was the highest grossing film of the year and the most successful film Warner Bring others had made at the time. Though having purchased and read several Superman comic books, I now saw the mild mannered reporter of the Daily Planet, Clark Kent, saving the day on the big screen. The thing about Superman is that he looked like an ordinary man, but in reality he wasn’t. He was another kind of being from the planet Krypton. Superman was able to save people precisely because he wasn’t human.
When it comes to the person of Christ, however, things are very different. Jesus Christ was truly divine, but he was also truly human. He was able to save us because he fully and completely took on our humanity. Because divinity took on our humanity, God was able to enter our planet to reassert his reign over his creation and reverse the effects of the cosmic rebellion against him.
In this article, we want to understand how Jesus, in his divinity, took on human nature and why this is essential for restoring people and the world back to God’s plan.
The Humanity of Jesus
The writer of Hebrews informs us that Jesus became truly human:
14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.
Hebrews 2:14-16
This remarkable section of the Bible, uses the very raw language of “flesh and blood,” to heighten the point that Jesus was a real human being, just like us. This is the clear and profound testimony regarding Jesus in the scripture. Jesus took on himself all that it means to be human—with the exception of sin.
He was born an infant. The circumstances of Jesus’s conception were obviously miraculous. He was conceived by Mary through the Holy Spirit without a human father. But the nature that was created by God in the womb of the virgin was undeniably human. The savior shared in Mary’s humanity and is, in this way, truly the offspring of Abraham and David—indeed, the offspring of the first woman, Eve, the mother of all the living. Although his conception was miraculous, his birth was typically human.
He grew and developed as a man. Jesus experienced ordinary human growth and development. We read that when his family returned to Nazareth:
“…the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.”
Luke 2:40
Jesus grew intellectually, physically, spiritually, and relationally through all of the phases of childhood and adolescence.
He experienced the limitations of being human. The human nature that Jesus assumed in his incarnation was free from any stain of sin or corruption, but it nevertheless possessed all the marks of ordinary humanity: hunger (Matt 4:2), thirst (John 4:7), physical weariness (John 4:6). There are indications in the Gospels that Jesus did not possess omniscience (all-knowing ability) in his human mind. For example, he asked who had touched him when power went out from him to heal the woman with an issue of blood. (Mark 5:30) He, also declared to his disciples that he did not know the day or the hour of his return. (Mark 13:32)
He was tempted. The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus never sinned, but he was truly tempted and “suffered” in his temptations.
“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Hebrews 2:18
He suffered, died, buried and was raised in his humanity. Christ’s suffering, death, and burial also highlight his humanity. In his divine nature Jesus did not die; he is immortal. But because God the Son assumed humanity, he was capable of suffering and death as a part of his atoning work. He was raised in the same body in which he died, only now in glorified, immortal life.
He continues his kingly and priestly work. The Son’s incarnation had a beginning in human history, but it has no end. He continues to reign as the exalted Son of God from the Father’s right hand (Romans 1:4; Colossians 3:1) and to make intercession for us.
“…but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
Hebrews 7:24–25
He will return in his humanity. When Jesus ascended to heaven, the angel announced to the apostles that Christ would return just has he had been taken up into heaven.
“This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Acts 1:11
Jesus did not shed his humanity like a garment when he entered the clouds. He remains a glorified human being and will return personally and visibly on the last day.
Historical Denial of Jesus’ Humanity
As we have just seen, the truth of Scripture is very clear regarding the humanity of Jesus. Early on as the church was emerging, in the first century, Jesus’s humanity was placed into question by some. It seemed impossible to these that divinity would take on humanity. One of the most notable of these views was known as Docetism. Docetists—from the Greek work dokeo (“to seem”)—argued that Jesus only appeared, like Superman, to be human. He really was not truly mortal. The Docetists were absolutely convinced of his divinity (which is a good thing); they were also equally convinced that God could never take on the limitations of human flesh. But the earliest Christians plainly and repeatedly condemned this misunderstanding. The apostle John even makes Jesus’s humanity a test of true belief:
“This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.“
1 John 4:2-3
Jesus Did You Know?
On the other side there were those who questioned Jesus’s deity. These sometimes wondered, “If Jesus was God how could he be ignorant about such things as the timing of his return to earth?” This goes squarely against a necessary quality of deity: omniscience. (The ability to know all things.) How could Jesus confess ignorance and be God?
To answer this, let’s start with Paul’s great description of how Christ became human:
“Who, being in very nature God,
Philippians 2:6-7
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.”
Paul teaches that Christ “being in very nature God…made himself nothing by…being made in human likeness.” He did this not by losing his divine nature, but by “taking the very nature of a servant.” Jesus took on the union of two complete natures “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation,” as an ancient teaching declares. So how does understanding this help us with the question of Jesus’s confessed ignorance? Jesus laid aside the voluntary use of some of his divine power as far as his human nature was concerned. His human nature did not limit the divine. He did not lose his omniscience. Yet, Jesus’ human mind doesn’t become omniscient—just as his body doesn’t become omnipresent. In Jesus’ divinity he was able to limit what he knew in his humanity.
Theologian Blair Smith explains:
What that means is that these natures don’t switch on and off by some toggle-switch deep within Jesus’s consciousness. Rather, these natures with all their properties commune within the one person who then performs actions according to both natures….It certainly appears that one nature is more reflected in certain actions than others. For example, sleeping in a boat reflects his human nature, and walking on water reflects his divine. Yet, while sleeping in a boat he upheld the world as the second person of the Trinity, and while walking on water he used real human feet…In his human nature, he at times seems to demonstrate access to supernatural knowledge, but at other times operates within the limitations of human knowledge.
Why Jesus’ Humanity Matters?
He is our representative.
Why does Jesus’ humanity matter? The Hebrews passage, cited earlier, clearly answers that question: “for surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.” (Hebrews 2:16) In other words, Jesus could only represent humans if he became a human—a real human. And if he cannot represent us, then he cannot redeem us. The early church fathers who came after the apostles often used a phrase: “That which is not assumed is not saved.” Our salvation is as dependent on Jesus, in his divinity, taking on (assuming) our humanity in order to redeem us.
He understands us.
We need someone who knows what it is like to live in a dark and fallen world. Since Jesus became just like us, he experienced the life humans live. Again, the author of Hebrews:
“For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human 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 2:17
When you think of the many hardships of a human life, Jesus experienced them.
- Temptation (Matthew 4:1–11)
- Sorrow (Matthew 26:38)
- Anger (Mark 3:5)
- Rejection by his family (Mark 3:21)
- False accusation (Mark 14:56)
- Betrayed by a friend (Luke 22:47)
- Desperation (Luke 22:44)
- Grief at a funeral (John 11:35)
When we struggle with life in a fallen world, no one can say, “Jesus doesn’t understand what it’s like.” Yes, he does. He lived a real human life and joined us in the muck and mire of a broken world. But there is one difference. There is a place where Jesus is not like us. He remained sinless.
He is an example to us.
The apostle Peter provides this encouragement:
21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. 22 “He committed no sin,
1 Peter 2:21-24
and no deceit was found in his mouth.” 23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. 24 “He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”
Someone eternally greater than superman is here. In the end, we don’t have a Superman Jesus. We have someone better. We have a Savior who shared in our infirmities and weaknesses that we may share in his salvation.
Conclusion
“The incarnation was not the eternal Son’s abdication of his universal empire, but the reassertion of that empire over rebellious creation.”
David Willis
The incarnation is an addition to deity, not a subtraction. The eternal Son of God does not shrink down to a tiny embryo, leaving his divine majesty behind him. Rather, he comes to us while remaining all he is. He is in a manger, yet fills the heavens he created. He clings to his mother, yet holds the universe in place. Sleeping among the livestock, yet worshiped and adored by the angels.
As the great Christmas hymn declares:
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity.
For Further Equipping:
Memorize: 1 John 4:2
THE JUSTIFICATION OF JESUS CHRIST WAS AND IS AWESOME!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME EXPLAINING THIS TO ME. IT IS JUST WHAT I NEEDED!!!!