How is Jesus Both God and Man? (continued)

We’re talking about how it could be possible for Jesus to be fully God and fully man. In the previous post, we stated that while we’ll never be able to fully understand this truth, we can look at what God has told us in the Bible and draw a conclusion based on that information. 

The first truth we looked at this that Jesus, though he became human, was and is still 100% God. 

A second truth the Bible gives us is that Jesus wasn’t two different people sharing the same mind or body. The two natures of Jesus, human and deity, never function apart from each other. He didn’t act like a human at some times and like God at others. He was always divine/human. 

This means that while Jesus had self-imposed limitations while here on earth, he could use his power to accomplish miracles. He still had the power to be everywhere at all times, but he limited himself in doing that. The same is true of not only what Jesus could do, but also what he knew. For example, he didn’t know the day of his Return (Mark 13:32), but he knew all about the Samaritan woman (John 4:17-18). 

So Jesus, while on earth and while still fully God, limited himself temporarily. It’s like when a group of us men played Wiffle ball against our kids, but we adults had to bat in our reverse stance. Our right-handed guys had to bat left-handed, for example. Needless to say, the kids won the game. One of the best hitters on our team kept striking out. The kids even started chanting, “Who bats after Mr. Danny? We do!” That’s the way it was with Jesus’s incarnation. His ability wasn’t diminished at all, but his performance was limited by the conditions he placed on himself. 

Jesus was still all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent, but he allowed himself to be limited in all those things by his humanity. Jesus’s divine abilities were restrained because he was surrendered to the Father’s will. He said this over and over again.

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 5:30)

“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38)

So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” (John 8:28-29)

So armed with the twin truths that Jesus never gave up his deity and that Jesus was always human/deity and had self-imposed limitations while here on earth, we probably can’t do better than the folks did a long time ago at the Council of Chalcedon in Turkey in AD 451. That group of Christian leaders stated this as part of their final report:

“We, then, …confess one and the same Son…perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood…to be acknowledged in two natures inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparately…the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

That may sound like a lot of big words, but basically, it’s saying what we’ve said all along — that we don’t understand how and never will, but Jesus is both perfectly God and perfectly man, one person and not two.

The word “subsistence” in the quote also means “being,” and is based on the Greek word hupostasis. This is why theologians sometimes use the term “hypostatic union” when it comes to Jesus because his two natures are completely united in his one being. With Jesus, it isn’t a matter of a God possessing a human body or a human possessing God. It’s both natures perfectly united in one person.

Jesus is one person with two natures, human and divine. His divine nature is the same as God the Father. His human nature is exactly like our human nature except without sin. At the Incarnation, Jesus didn’t lose any of his deity, and at the resurrection/ascension he didn’t lose any of his humanity. Somehow, in God’s plan and as only he can do, Jesus is 100% God and 100% human. And there’s no parallel to this anywhere in the universe. 

 And now, as we close out this series on who Jesus is, comes that all-important question — what does this have to do with me? Why is it important that I accept that Jesus is both fully God and fully man?

The great theologian J. I. Packer said that the key verse in the doctrine of Jesus is not Philippians 2:5-8, but this one:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9). 

God the Son didn’t choose to take on humanity to show off. The Incarnation is all about his grace. It’s all for us.

Jesus’s fully human nature was joined to his fully divine nature out of love for us. He was born to go to the cross. He did all of this so that he could pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus did this for us so that we can be saved. 

If you can’t explain or understand how Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, you’re not alone — no one can. But know that it happened because Jesus loves you beyond your ability to comprehend,  and he wants you to have eternal life with him. My advice about this doctrine is simple — accept the truth of it, and thank God for it. 

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