Skip to main content

Is Jesus Less Human Than Us? - Looking at the Incarnation, pt. 5

This one isn't based on any particular verse or passage, but rather a misguided assumption. Since Jesus is God and didn't sin, then he must be not quite fully human. To put it another way, Jesus was special in his humanity in a way we are not. While I obviously absolutely defend the uniqueness of Jesus as being fully God and fully man I do not think Jesus was some sort of superhuman.

We look at Jesus and see all the wonderful things he did and the fact that he lived a perfect life and just assume that he wasn't quite as human as the rest of us. After all, to err is human. Part of what it means to be human from our experience is to fail, but Jesus never failed. So, he must be something unique.

The truth of the matter is it isn't Jesus who is less than human but us. God created human beings in his image, to live with him and for him. We routinely fail to live up to our own design. God sets the standard for what it means to be human, and it looks like we have all failed. Failure and sin do not make us human. They make us less than human.

Jesus, then, is not some special, weird thing but rather a human being truly alive and fulfilling his purpose. He is what we should be and can be with God's help. When we look at the amazing life of Jesus we are seeing what we are supposed to be like. 

The hard truth is that many dismiss Jesus' full humanity because it places the burden squarely on our shoulders. If Jesus was completely human, then what is our excuse? After all we have the Holy Spirit of God living within us, empowering us and sanctifying us. If Jesus isn't fully human, then it gives us an excuse not to live up to God's standard and design for our lives. 

Recognizing and celebrating the full humanity of Jesus is important for all Christians. As I've said before, it is because of his complete, perfect humanity that we can see his complete, perfect divinity. Jesus' humanity is the lens through which God is revealed perfectly.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...
3 comments
Read more

What is Theology?

Greetings all! For the first true post I have decided to cover what will be one of the defining aspects of this blog; theology. I know that when I was growing up theology wasn't a word that was used in the churches I attended. In fact I don't recall ever hearing the word until I was in high school, and even then it was used negatively like theology was a bad thing. Theology is inseparable from Bible study, Christian living, and being a disciple of Jesus in general. It is an indispensable part of being a Christian. The thing is we haven't always treated it that way. We have allowed our theology to fall by the wayside, believing it to be useless or not appropriate. So what is theology exactly, and why is it so important? What is Theology? The word theology simply means "the study of God." The goal of theology is to reveal who God is, and when we know God we also come to know ourselves, sin, the world, and so on. What we've done in the past (and this may ju...
1 comment
Read more

The Name of God

In the book of Exodus we are introduced to many important elements that appear throughout the rest of the Bible. This is where we meet Moses, the first prophet sent to the nation of Israel. It is in Exodus that we first learn of the tabernacle and God's intention of living among his people. It is in Exodus that we witness the first Passover, which is the type of what is to come in Jesus. There are several other events that we could look to in Exodus, but there is one in particular that is very important that we have largely ignored; God revealing his name. We typically only refer to God by his titles. We call him Lord, Father, Judge, King, and God (yes, God is technically a title). I would like to emphasize now that there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing so. In fact I would say that it is right for us recognize the power and authority of God in what we call him. What today's post is about is the fact that we have forgotten or even ignored the fact that God reveals his n...
1 comment
Read more