10. The Humanity of Christ
“The Man Christ Jesus”
The Humanity of Christ
“THE SON OF MAN.” “The Man Christ Jesus.” How close those designations bring our Lord to us! The reality of His human nature links Him with the whole human race. It assures us of His unfailing interest and sympathy. Although we must not divorce the humanity from the deity of the Master, we should draw all the comfort and help we can from the fact that He took part in historic manhood and was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3). We can rejoice with one of the early Fathers that “He who is always, before all ages, perfect God, became Himself perfect man at the end of the days for us, and for our salvation.” Within Himself He holds those two natures in perfect balance. His humanity was real and not feigned. It was genuine and not faulty.
The early Christians prostrated themselves in adoration as they recalled the descent of the Son of God to the lowliness of our nature and the pressure of our need. “And just because of this,” writes D. M. Mclntyre, “—so hard is it for us to preserve mental equipoise—there was in the Church a tendency to think less seriously of the true humanity of our Lord. The complaint of a master of theology, ‘We allow His humanity to hide his deity,’ is deprived of its point in our day: we are so deeply absorbed in our Lord’s life of manhood in the flesh that we are apt to ignore, if not to question His very deity. But in the sub-apostolic period it was otherwise.”
Denial of Christ’s Real Humanity
The writers of the four gospels were never in doubt of the reality of Christ’s humanity, but this doctrine has not been undisputed in the history of die church. Appolinarius, Bishop of Laodicea, denied the existence of a rational soul in Christ’s human nature. Regarding the soul as the seat of sin, he argued that therefore the sinless Son of man could not have possessed a human soul.
In our own day Christian Science pursues a similar line. “Christ is incorporeal, spiritual,” wrote Mary Baker Eddy in her Miscellaneous Writings, thus denying the reality of His body and His real humanity. John trenchantly denounced this heresy. “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist” (1 John4:3).
Proof of Christ’s Real Humanity
In contrast to those heretical denials, let us; examine the definite teaching of Scripture on the subject.
Details of His human ancestry are carefully preserved in the gospel records. He was born of the virgin Mary, and “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3; cf. Acts 13:23). The names of His brothers are given, and His genealogy on both sides of the family is given in detail.
He was normal in His human appearance. So far as the woman of Samaria was concerned, at first Jesus was only another hated Jew. She noted nothing unusual in His appearance (John 4:9). To the two dispirited disciples trudging along the Emmaus road, He was only another fellow-citizen, strangely out of touch with recent events (Luke 24:18). Even after the resurrection when Jesus appeared in His glorified body, Mary at first mistook Him for the gardener (John 20:15). His own intimate friends mistook Him for another man when they returned from their fishing; expedition (John 21:4–5). These incidents all combine to underline the naturalness and humanness of His physical appearance.
So far as the essential elements of His human constitution were concerned, He possessed the normal powers and faculties of a man. He spoke of His body. “In that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial” (Matthew 26:12). He referred to His soul. “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38). He spoke of His spirit. “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). These elements are essential to humanity. “I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, italics added), wrote Paul.
When addressing Thomas, Jesus appealed to the normality of His human constitution as a basis for belief. “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see” (Luke 24:39). We must be careful to distinguish between “human nature” and “sinful nature.” They are not synonymous, for Christ never possessed the latter, only the former. Sin is no necessary element in human nature. It is a satanic intrusion.
As to His human reputation, Jesus called Himself “Son of man” thirty times in Matthew, fourteen times in Mark, twenty-five times in Luke, and eleven times in John—eighty times in all. He wanted to be thought of as linked with man. By that title He claimed to be the representative of all humanity. Even when acquiescing in the title “Son of God,” sometimes He immediately afterward substituted the title “Son of man,” as though to emphasize His possession of two natures in the unity of His person (e.g., John 1:49–51; Matthew 26:63–64). Then, too, He was called “man” by others; for example, see Acts 2:22; 1 Corinthians 15:21.
Augustus Strong has this to say concerning Christ’s claim to be Son of Man: “Consider what is implied in your being a man. How many parents had you? You answer, two. How many grandparents? You answer, Four. How many great-grandparents? Eight. So the number of your ancestors increases as you go back, and if you take in only twenty generations, you will reckon yourself as the outcome of more that a million progenitors…. What is true of you was true on the human side of the Lord Jesus. In Him the lives of our common humanity converge. He was the Son of Man far more than He was the Son of Mary.”
He evidenced human infirmities and was moved by instincts normal to human beings. The gospel records afford satisfying evidence that Jesus was subject to all the ordinary sinless infirmities of our human nature. “There is not a note in the great organ of our humanity which, when touched, does not find a sympathetic vibration in the mighty scope and range of our Lord’s being, save, of course, the jarring discord of sin.”
Like every other man, He hungered (Mark 11:12). But God does not hunger (Psalm 50:12). After days of strenuous work He was weary (John 4:6). But God is never weary (Isaiah 40:28). He slept (Matthew 8:24). But God neither slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:4). He was moved by human sympathy and wept (John 11:35). He craved human sympathy Himself (Matthew 26:36–40). He was tempted (Hebrews 4:15). But God cannot be tempted (James 1:13). He died (John 19:30). But God cannot die.
Our Lord’s consenting to be subject to human limitations was part of the mystery of His great self-humiliation. While in His incarnate state He did not renounce His divine powers. His intelligence was so subject to human limitations that He submitted to the ordinary laws of human development. He was no exception. As noted in an earlier chapter, He acquired His knowledge through the ordinary channels open to the other boys of His day; through instruction, study, reflection. It would appear that He even voluntarily renounced knowledge of certain future events. “But of that day and of that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32).
Like ourselves, Jesus was not self-sustained, but needed prayer and communion with His Father for the support of His spiritual life. In all the great crises of His life, He resorted not to the counsel of men but to prayer to His Father for guidance (e.g., Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:18, 28). He was subject to human limitations of power. He obtained the power for His divine works not by drawing on His inherent deity, but by depending on the anointing Spirit (Acts 10:38).
That we are in the presence of mystery here is conceded. We find it difficult to reconcile these human limitations with His possession of divine attributes. But could He not have possessed them and yet not exercised them?
One of the strongest evidences of the reality of His humanity was His experience of human suffering. He knew the salty taste of pain. Every nerve of His body was racked with anguish. Though He was God’s Son, He was not exempt from suffering (Hebrews 5:8). His sufferings of body and of spirit have formed the theme of a thousand volumes. The fact that He was sinless made Him more sensitive to pain than His sinful contemporaries. We read of His “being in an agony.” The accompaniments of the death of the cross assure us of His ability to sympathize with human suffering.
He displayed the ultimate in human perfections. By friend and foe He is acknowledged as the only perfect Man. All attempts to depict a perfect character other than those of the four evangelists have been marred by the unmistakable evidences of the imperfections of the author. To conceive and portray a perfect character is beyond the powers of erring man.
Then how could these Galilean fishermen conceive such a life? The simple answer is that they did not. They merely recorded faithfully the life of One who had lived in their midst and whose inmost life had been open to their scrutiny as they held daily intercourse with Him.
If any fact stands out crystal clear in the New Testament, it is the complete and genuine humanity of Jesus Christ.
O Lamb of God, on whom alone
arth’s penal weight of sin was thrown,
Have mercy, Saviour, on Thine own;
For Thou art Man, The Virgin gave
To Thee her breast, the earth a grave
O Lamb of God on whom was laid
The debt of all worlds never paid,
Have mercy, Saviour, hear and aid;
For Thou art God….
Thus, Christ, we turn from all to Thee,
Miserere Domine.AUTHOR UNKNOWN