Essentials: Jesus Christ
Hello friends!
This is the 3rd post in the 5-part series of the basic essential elements of Christianity. The first week I wrote about the name of God and last week I wrote about the Trinity. This week, I want to discuss the nature of Christ. The final blog in this series will discuss salvation, so I will not be talking about that element of Christ in depth today, but rather focusing on His nature as both God and man.
Our understanding of and belief in Jesus Christ is the central tenet of the Christian faith. As Roger E. Olson writes in his Mosaic of Christian Belief, “…the person of Jesus Christ is the most important reality for Christianity; therefore, believing rightly about him is absolutely crucial to preserving authentic Christianity” (Roger E. Olson, The Mosaic of Christian Belief, 226).
Orthodox Christian doctrine, that is, what is accepted as standard Christian belief, states that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, meaning that He is fully God and fully human. He is not a mixture of the two natures in that He is any less than 100% both; rather, He is God who became fully human while still retaining 100% of His divinity. He is no less than fully God and no less than fully human.
Last week I spoke about the Trinity, and I think Roger E. Olson again has a beautiful quote which helps in our understanding of the dual nature of Christ within the context of the Trinity. He says, “…the doctrine of the Trinity says God is one what and three whos – one divine substance shared equally by three distinct persons – so Jesus Christ on earth and now in heaven because of the incarnation is two whats and one who – two distinct but never separate natures (divine and human) and one integrated person, the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity” (230).
The doctrine of Christ’s dual nature is found in many places of Scripture. In his gospel, John explicitly states the divinity of Christ, that He is God, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1-4 ESV). The humanity of Christ can be seen in Luke 2:52 which states, “52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (ESV), showing that Christ went through human growth and development. Furthermore, both the divinity and humanity of Jesus can be seen in the angel Gabriel’s message to Mary in Luke 1:30-38.
The dual nature of Christ as both God and man is essential to our salvation. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned causing a divide between God and humanity. Because of their sin, humanity was no longer allowed to partake in the divine communion of the Trinity. However, the story of the Bible is the story of God relentlessly pursuing humanity to mend that broken relationship. In that pursuit, however, humanity kept sinning and falling further and further from God. As God desired to mend His broken relationship with humanity, the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, who is God Himself incarnate, to do what only God can do. He lived a perfect life as the new Adam, without sin, and took on humanity’s sin and suffering on the cross. Christ’s death was necessary for human salvation (Romans 3:21-26, 8:11, 2 Corinthians 5:15, 1 Peter 2:24) because His death on the cross allowed Him as God to take on the burdens, sins, and suffering of all of humanity, and in so doing reunite humanity unto the Father, allowing us to once again join in the desired communion with the Trinity.
It is vitally important to understand that Christ’s two natures, divine and human, were never separate and that He never acted as only one or the other- all that Christ did was done as fully God and as fully man because in His humanness, Jesus overcame the power that sin had on humanity by living a sinless life; in His divinity, He redeemed humanity by sacrificing Himself on the cross and taking on the weight of humanity’s sin, and then in His resurrection He conquered death, allowing us to have eternal life with God should we accept the salvation He offers us.
I will spend an entire post talking about the nature of our salvation and how it is possible in two weeks, so I will leave it there for now. Next week I will write about the Holy Spirit- His nature and role in the early church and in our lives today. I believe that any Christian must have a robust understanding of the Holy Spirit because He is such a vital, yet often neglected member of the Trinity, and is absolutely necessary for our salvation. But we will get into that more next week :) Stay tuned!
As always, send me any comments, questions, or topics you would like me to cover through the contact page. I want you to know that I am so incredibly thankful for all of you! See you next Monday!
