One day as Jesus and his disciples traveled through Samaria, they came to a well near the village of Sychar. The disciples headed into town to buy food, but Jesus, “wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well” (John 4:6).
Jesus was tired, and he was thirsty.
He was human.
A woman from Samaria came to get water from the well, and Jesus asked her for a drink. During his conversation with this perfect stranger, Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband” (John 4:17b-18).
Here in this passage, we see both the humanity and the deity of Jesus. In his deity, Jesus knew all about a woman he’d just met. But in his humanity, he was tired and thirsty.
It’s important to understand that Jesus is not only fully God, but he is also fully human. I think many people find it easy to accept that Jesus is God. We love to read about his miracles. We don’t like to think of his being limited by his humanity. How could the sovereign God get tired? How could he ever be upset or hurt or angry? But Jesus was human. He is still human.
The theological term for all of this is “Incarnation.” It comes from the Latin incarnatio, or “taking or being flesh,” found in this passage written by the Apostle John:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
That verse is staggering. The Word, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, “became flesh,” he became a human being and lived among us. J. I. Packer writes, “The Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child…” May we never allow ourselves to get over our astonishment at this truth that God humbled himself and became human.
How do we know that Jesus is fully human?
First, the Bible tells us that Jesus had a body just like any other human body. He grew up physically and intellectually just like any other person (Luke 2:52). He got hungry and thirsty (Matthew 4:2; John 19:28). He ate just like any other person (Luke 24:42-43). We’ve already seen in John 4 that Jesus got tired. And, eventually, Jesus died, just like any human (Luke 23:46).
Second, Jesus was fully human emotionally. He was happy (John 15:11; Hebrews 1:8-9), he felt sadness (Luke 19:41-44), he got angry (Mark 3:5), and he loved (John 11:3). Whatever emotions humans feel, Jesus felt.
Jesus is fully human.
Except that Jesus never sinned. Not once. Not in act or word or thought. Not by something he did or by something he failed to do. He simply never sinned. This truth is stated in multiple places in the New Testament: John 8:29; 15:10; Hebrews 4:15; 7:26, 1 Peter 1:19; 2:22.
Then there are these two passages:
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. (1 John 3:5)
So Jesus, who is fully man, was perfect and sinless.
He’s still fully man today. Jesus didn’t stop being a man after the resurrection. His humanity wasn’t just a temporary assignment. As A. W. Tozer said, “God can never cease to be man, for the second Person of the Trinity can never un-incarnate himself.” That’s how, after the ascension of Jesus into heaven, Stephen could see him in heaven as a man:
And he said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:56)
The same is true of Paul:
And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. (Acts 9:5)
Jesus is to this day and will always be both the Second Person of the Trinity and Jesus of Nazareth.
He will always be God the Son and the man Jesus.
When we turn to our Savior for help, we’re turning to the Sovereign God who controls every single part of his creation and to the One who feels what you feel because he’s been where you are.
One day Jesus’s friend, Lazarus, died. Mary, a sister of Lazarus, came up to Jesus, and…
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. (John 11:33-35)
The word for “deeply moved in his spirit” means to be moved with anger, to be filled with indignation. I believe that Jesus was intensely angry at sin as the cause of human death and as the reason for all of the sorrow and grief his friends were experiencing. Jesus was grieving too. He was about to burst into tears himself.
He was also “greatly troubled.” There was a disturbance deep within his soul. The people around him could probably see it by the look on his face and hear it in the sound of his voice. They were hurting. He was hurting. A dear friend had experienced death. People he loved dearly were in great pain. Overwhelmed with anger at sin as the cause of such pain, overcome with sympathy for the hurting people around him, Jesus asked, “Where have you laid him?” and set the stage for a miracle.
Jesus has felt what you feel. He’s been hurt like you hurt because he’s fully human. He’s also fully God, able to raise the dead. That’s the Jesus we serve and honor and worship.
I never thought about Jesus still being fully man. Thanks!