Christ's Humanity

• God in flesh - One of the most marvelous truths of Scripture is the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word “incarnation” means “in the flesh”. We read these words in the old hymn, “Out of the ivory palaces, into a world of woe. Only His great eternal love, made my Savior go”. Christ entered this sin-cursed earth at His “first coming” about 2,000 years ago. Although He was God in the flesh, He was fully human in every respect. Just as the disciples lived, ate, and fellowshipped with the Savior, we can, too, through His blessed Word. As they handled Him, we can likewise spiritually handle Him through the Bible.

John 1:1,14 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

Mat 4:16 “The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”

Mat 1:25 “And [he] knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.”

1 John 1:1 “That which [He who] was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”

• Christ's Humanity - He is the only one who has ever perfectly possessed both a divine nature as fully God and a perfect human nature as fully man as the Scriptures advise us in Col 2. Even as a young boy we see that the Lord Jesus was keenly aware of His purpose in being sent to earth as God and man. We see this demonstrated when Jesus’ parents found Him disputing with the teachers and leaders in the Temple.

Col 2:9 “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”

Luke 2:52 “Jesus [as a child] increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.”

Luke 2:49 “And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist [know] ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”

• Despised and rejected of men - We also learn from John 1 that there were those who were looking for this coming Messiah: And who can forget Nathanael’s response?! Jesus was identified as coming from the “other side of the tracks” in modern vernacular, and throughout his earthly pilgrimage He was despised and rejected as prophesied in Isa 53. Jesus fully understood such an attitude, as He stated in Mark 13. However, this was only the beginning of several tests that Christ had to endure.

John 1:45 “Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. 46And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.”

Isa 53:3 “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not”

Matt 13:57 “And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.”

• Second Adam - Unlike his human counterpart, the first Adam, He was completely successful in passing the severe test because He was God in human flesh. He was the only perfect human being and God, the Lord of glory, simultaneously. But His greatest test, the Atonement, was still to come. It would be the greatest test that any human being has ever faced to this day. No ordinary human being could ever face and successfully meet God’s strictest requirement, which was to become sin – not his Own sin – but to be laden with the sins of His people. Jesus Christ had to suffer the equivalent of an eternity in Hell for His people as their substitute. In Heb 4:15 we catch a glimpse of His total identification with mankind. This principle that Christ fully experienced the same human emotions that we do is evidenced in John 11:35, which is possibly the shortest verse in the entire Bible.

Heb 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”

Luke 4:1-2 “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Being forty days tempted of [tested by] the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.”

2 Cor 5:21 “For he [God the Father] hath made him [God the Son] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”

Rom 5:14 "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure [figure of Christ] of him that was to come."

Rom 5:19 "For as by one man's [First Adam] disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Second Adam] shall many be made righteous."

1 Cor 15:45 "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [Christ] was made a quickening spirit."

John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”

• It is finished - After the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane by Judas Iscariot, Jesus allowed Himself to be captured, humiliated, beaten, sentenced by Pontius Pilate, and crucified. Nevertheless, the slow torture He experienced on the cross (as terrible as it was), was insignificant to the spiritual torture he was undergoing as He was enduring God's Wrath Hell for His people. What had been “finished” was the Atonement for the sins of God’s elect – a crucial element of their salvation. No mere human could pay the enormous price of the sins of those whom Christ came to save. Only a perfect Being – Jesus Christ, Who was fully God and fully man – could pay the infinite price required by God’s justice for sin.

Heb 2:9 “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death [second death] for every man [every one of His people].”


Heb 7:26-27 "For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; 27Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself."

Isa 53:11 "He [God the Father] shall see of the travail of his [God the Son] soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."

John 19:30 “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”

Mark 15:46 “And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.”

• God raised Him from the dead - Many would like to believe that this is where the story ends, but we find this declaration in Acts 13 that Death could not hold the Lord Jesus Christ. His resurrection guaranteed beyond a shadow of doubt that every true Christian will end up in Heaven and every non-Christian will be judged for their sin and thrown into the Lake of Fire. In the face of this historical reality, may each of us heed the warning in 2 Cor 13:5

Acts 13:30 “But God raised Him from the dead.”

1 Pet 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively [living] hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Col 3:1-2,5 "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 5Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:"

2 Cor 13:5 “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?”