Jesus: Accomplishments through His Humanity

The following are my comments on the lesson for April 19, 2008 - Lesson 3: The Reality of His Humanity.

Jesus was all God and all human. Last week discussed the former. This week discusses the latter. The combination, the incarnation, is a mystery. Science as we understand it today cannot explain it. It remains then, ultimately, a matter of faith.

However I believe there is ample Scriptural evidence in the Gospel accounts that show that Jesus was human. He got hungry, got thirsty, got tired, evidently got frustrated with the people around him, cried, got angry (though not for selfish reasons), was born, grew up, held a job, bled, died, was resurrected, and ate some fish just to prove that he was still a physical being (Luke 24:42-43). So just as I believe Jesus was divine, I also believe he was human.

For what purpose did God become human in Jesus? This is the question for this week.

Some of the more common reasons include: To become an example for those who follow him. To show what it means to depend upon and trust in God in all things, and how people can do the same. To identify with human experiences including temptations, trials and sufferings. To portray God's image in terms understandable to humans. To save the world.

In my comments I will focus on the last one -- to save the world -- to save humankind -- to save me. The Study Guide goes into discussions on the atonement later this quarter so I will not dwell on the various theories this week. What I will do is to keep things at the big-picture level.

In the daily devotional, The Gospel from Patmos by Jon Paulien, on April 16's (p. 115) comments on Revelation 5:1-4 part of which reads, "No one was found worthy to open the scroll:"

The point of this scene seems to be that the universe has a huge problem, one so large that God Himself is reluctant to handle it on His own. It has to do with the right to rule. God is certainly powerful enough to seize control if He wanted to. But might does not make right. So ultimately only a "worthy" person can solve this difficulty.

A few pages later on April 21 (p. 120) Paulien comments on Revelation 5:6-7 which contains, "A Lamb... slaughtered... And He [the Lamb] came and took it [the scroll]...:"

Since divinity cannot die, humanness was a prerequisite for opening the scroll. The Creator had to become a creature. Because the Lamb was human, He could also die to redeem the human race...

Jesus is worthy not only because He is human and He died, but also because He is divine...

Philip Yancey, in Rumours of Another World, writes (p. 103-4)

Most of the science fiction films I have seen circle around the same basic plot. Human beings, weak, error-prone, fools of passion, dangerously "free," encounter aliens who at first glance seem superior... Yet somehow by the end of the movie it is the humans, not the extraterrestrials, who save the universe.

... As the movie plots suggest, despite our complaints we deeply cherish our humanity, notable for its freedom...

It seems there is more truth to what Yancey writes than what he probably intended, or we typically might allow ourselves to consider.

Here is how I understand why God had to become man in order to save the world. I think God could have saved the world without having to come as man and dying; e.g., God could have destroyed sin and caused all beings fall in line. But that would mean using force, as Paulien suggests, thereby violating freedom of all created beings. Without freedom there can be no love. And because God is love, salvation through coercion is something God simply could not do. In other words, I believe that if God tried to save via any method using his powers and prerogatives as God, it would ultimately be tantamount to employing coercion and force.

What could God do? There was just one solution: God had to limit himself. He had to save through love. Not only that, I believe that for the war with evil to be fought and won without giving any grounds for excuse for which the adversary could claim unfairness. God had to not only limit himself, he had to disadvantage his natural powers below that of the adversary's. Limiting himself to a human being allowed God to do just that as well as accomplishing other necessary and/or desirable purposes. In other words, I believe that salvation of humans could only be accomplished by a human being who showed perfect God-love. Only Jesus could meet those qualifications -- i.e., "the Lamb" of Revelation 5.

As a human being who chose to constantly abide in his Father, Jesus won the war against sin and evil (John 12:31; 16:11, 33).

In addition to winning the war against evil, in coming as a human being, I believe Jesus affirmed the value of humans as physical beings.

Yancey (ibid, p. 104) continues the earlier quote:

(And to Christians, whose faith centres in Jesus, the God who became man, it seems clear that God cherishes humanity as well.)

In doing so, Jesus refutes any philosophy that devalues what is physical and material. Through the incarnation Jesus gives equal worth and value to what is physical and seen and to what is spiritual and unseen. The physical world has value. Our daily lives and experiences, however mundane or however difficult, they are valuable. Jesus' incarnation should put to rest any thought that all that Christians are supposed to do is be spiritual and wait for the Second Coming. It should put to rest any notion that it's okay to abuse this world and any of its inhabitants.

What Jesus shows is humans as they were meant to be. Jesus is the complete human, the founder or pioneer of salvation and life in faith (Hebrews 2:10-11) for all who follow him.

Although we are never God, we can have the Holy Spirit abide with and in us just as Jesus did. In so doing, I believe that an aspect of the miracle of incarnation repeats itself in each person who chooses to abide with God and open the door to let him abide in them (Revelation 3:20).