Humanity According to Jesus
The Scriptures affirm that Jesus was both 100% God and 100% human. In kind of a similar way we talk about the living Word and the written word both having these properties of humanity and deity; the written word is both 100% the word of God and the word of human authors, the word of men. But even more in a more precise way the Christ the person Jesus Christ of Nazareth was in His person was 100% God in His nature and 100% divine in nature. Christ is both God and man but also this area of the humanity of Christ is especially important for us evangelicals to think carefully about because there has been a tendency in the history of the church due to the opposition there has been to the deity of Christ.
Bible believing people have defended the deity of Christ and in the process have not given sufficient careful thought to what it means that Jesus was fully human. There are enormous implications. It has a lot to do with how we live our lives being that we are called to follow in His steps; we are called to live our lives as He lived His life. So many of us growing up in the church don’t take that concept seriously, live as Jesus lived because we have been pressed with importance of the deity of Christ. So when we think of Christ we think He was God that is the one conception that comes clearing our thinking; Jesus was fully God and He was. I am not challenging that, all I am saying is that is not the whole truth. We don’t have a vivid vibrant conception of His humanity. So when we hear that we should live like Christ, we kind of dismiss it because we think, well He was God and there goes the punch of Scripture that says:
Philippians 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus.
1 Peter 2:21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 1 Peter 2:22 who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth.
But we say, oh He was God. So we tend to dismiss looking at the life of Christ as example of how humanity ought to life. We ought to think of Jesus as the prototype human being; not Adam. Jesus was the prototype human on which Adam was modeled and failed terribly and now Christ lives out perfectly. He is the who not only the one who is our example but we are being conformed to be just Like Him;
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
So He is the prototype of the humanity we should live. So we need to do our work on the humanity of Christ and see what this means.
