How can Jesus be fully God and fully Human?
Welcome back my consistent Compadres! One of the mysteries the Church has had to explain about Jesus Christ is the fact that He is fully God and fully Human. There have been all kinds of debates and schools of thought about this mystery. Read along as I discuss this important subject.
Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry once asked His disciples, “who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Matthew 16:13. This question has gone echoing down the centuries ever since the Lord sounded its first note. Many have attempted to answer this question by attributing total divinity to Jesus with little concern for His humanity. Others have attempted to answer this question by saying that Jesus was a “mere” good man with no divine dimensions. Still, others have attempted to get at the question by seeing Jesus as fully human and fully divine [1].
Coherent Theological Tapestry
One of the greatest challenges faced by the early church was the weaving together of the threads of the New Testament witness to the identity of Jesus Christ into a coherent theological tapestry. Christians gradually came to realise that no existing analogy or model was good enough to meet their needs in expressing the significance of Jesus Christ. The concept of the incarnation began to emerge as of central importance to the church’s understanding of Jesus Christ [2].
The process of exploration of religious and philosophical categories suitable for expressing the significance of Jesus Christ reached a watershed in the fourth century. The controversy which forced rigorous discussion of the issue was precipitated by Arius, a priest in one of the larger churches in the great Egyptian city of Alexandria [3].
Jesus Christ, a creature?
Arius held that Jesus Christ was not divine in any meaningful sense of the term. He believed that Jesus Christ was a creature just like any other creature. According to Arius, Jesus Christ was pre-eminent in rank within the created order, yet He Himself was created, hence He wasn’t divine. Arius held that the Father is to be regarded as existing before the Son. This led him to coin the slogan, “There was a time when he was not.” Only the Father can be said to be “unbegotten”; the Son, like all other creatures, originates from this one source of being. Arius’s teachings are traditionally summarised in three basic statements.
- The Son and the Father do not have the same essence.
- The Son is a created being even though He is to be recognised as first and foremost among them, in terms of origination and rank.
- Although the Son was the creator of the worlds, and must therefore have existed before them and before all time, there was nevertheless a time when the Son did not exist.
An arbitrary God
As Arius sharply denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, there were also people who argued against His humanity. One such proponents was Marcion. He held that Jesus Christ was not born of Mary, if he was, he would be subject to Jehovah(an arbitrary God who he believed was wicked). Marcion believed that Jehovah was different from the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that matter was evil created by Jehovah, “an arbitrary God who chooses a particular people above the rest.”
Only God saves
Contrary to the theories propounded by people such as Arius and Marcion against the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine. Athanasius was one of the chiefest church fathers who argued for the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. Responding to the arguments put forward by Arius against the divinity of Jesus Christ. Athanasius presented some strong arguments to counter Arius. There are two points of particular importance that underscored Athanasius’s critique of Arius. Athanasius argues that
It is only God who can save. God, and God alone, can break the power of sin, and bring humanity to eternal life. The fundamental characteristic of human nature is that it requires to be redeemed. No creature can save another creature. Only the creator can redeem the creation. If Christ is not God, He is part of the problem, not its solution [3].
A logical move
Having emphasised that it is God alone who can save, Athanasius then made a logical move which the Arians found difficult to counter. The New Testament and the Christian liturgical tradition alike regard Jesus Christ as Savior. Yet, as Athanasius emphasised, only God can save. So how are we to make sense of this? The only possible solution, Athanasius argued, is to accept that Christ is none other than God incarnate. The only way we can worship Jesus Christ without falling into the sin of idolatry is when we regard him as God. Also, only God can save, no human being can save another human being. Jesus is our saviour because He is fully divine.
Jesus is God
The New Testament continuously insists that Jesus Christ is God. He was God before he was born in the flesh: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was at the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him, not one thing came into being. What has come into being” (John 1:1-3). Jesus is the Word of God through whom the material universe was created. Contrary to the belief of Arius, Jesus has always existed even before creation. John 1:18 says “no one has ever seen God. God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart and has made him known.” After his human birth, He continued to be God.
Jesus forgave sin, something only God can do
On earth, Jesus forgave sins (Mark 2:5-7), something only God can do. He claimed divinity (John 8:58) and thus equality with God (John 10:28-30). These claims led to charges of blasphemy (Matthew 26:63-66) and death by crucifixion. After his resurrection, He continues to be God. Thomas called the risen Jesus “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). The author of Hebrews, quoting Psalm 104, says of Jesus, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever (Hebrews 1:8)” [4].
God became one of us in order to save us
The New Testament also insists that Jesus is in every sense a human being, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). John wrote, “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14), and in his epistles John attacked denials of Jesus’ humanity as demonic heresy (1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 7-11). Throughout the Gospels we see Jesus operating within the confines of human flesh. He was born of a woman and grew up in a human family. He often got tired, and hungered.
At the end of His life, suffering the excruciating pain of crucifixion, He cried out in a human way, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). That Jesus Christ is fully human is of great importance to us. This truth tells us that in order to save us, God became one of us. To do so he did not abandon His divinity (only God can save us), but He fully clothed himself with humanity. Thus, when the Son of God became human, He did so not by ceasing to be divine and transforming into human. Instead, “without ceasing to be what He was, He became what He was not,”
Jesus still remains a Human
This dual nature of our Savior continues as he intercedes for us in heaven: “For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). Scripture thus implies that Jesus continues to be fully God and fully human—now God in glorified human flesh. Herein lies a great mystery of the Christian faith [4]. The Council of Chalcedon was put together to address the heretics who had arisen regarding the divinity and the humanity of Jesus.
It approved the creed of Nicaea and declared that he has two natures in one person and hypostasis. It also insisted on the completeness of His two natures: Godhead and manhood [5]. The Confession of Chalcedon provides a clear statement on the two natures of Christ, human and divine.
The Council of Chalcedon
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence (hypostasis), not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten God , the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us [5].
Conclusion
Jesus Christ is fully human and fully God. He can forgive sins because he is God. We worship Him because He is God. The essence of our salvation lives in His being God, this is because only God can save. At the same time, He is fully human, therefore He qualified to die on the cross to save us because he was a human like us. Human beings sinned and human being needed to die. Jesus would not have qualified to die and take our place if He was not human. He was as human like us yet without sin.
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References
[1] Martin Luthar King, “the Humanity and Divinity of Jesus,” accessed on February 4, 2022, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/humanity-and-divinity-jesus.
[2] Alister E. Mcgrath, Chriatian History: An Introduction, (Wiley-Blackwell: A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication, 2013), 74
[3] Alister, Chriatian History: An Introduction, 75
[4] Ted Johnston, “the two natures of Jesus Christ,” accessed on February 4, 2022, https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/page/view.php?id=4232.
[5] Wikipedia, “council of Chalcedon,” access on February 4, 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Chalcedon.
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