How was Jesus fully God and fully man?
The question of how Jesus could be both fully God and fully man is one of the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith. As F. B. Hole puts it: "What think ye of Christ?" is the pivotal point upon which everything turns. Scripture presents the Lord Jesus Christ as the true God who in grace beyond all comprehension became true Man — not by ceasing to be what He was, but by taking into His Person what He had not been before.
His Deity Declared
The Old Testament foretold that the coming Deliverer would be nothing less than God Himself. F. B. Hole traces this through Isaiah:
F. B. Hole"Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Take careful notice of this remarkable prophecy. It does not speak of some passing manifestation of God… "The mighty God" is the name of the Child who is to be born, the Son who is to be given.
And from Micah 5:2:
The Babe who lay in Bethlehem's manger was He whose "goings forth" had been from the days of eternity… Again we must say that there is only one word that will adequately set forth the real character and being of the Babe of Bethlehem, and that word is GOD.
The Gospel of John declares His deity with equal force. Hamilton Smith writes:
Hamilton SmithThe gospel opens with the sublime statement, "In the beginning was the Word." At once our thoughts are carried back into eternity, before time commenced or creation existed, to learn that the glorious Person Who is called "the Word" had no beginning. In the beginning of everything that had a beginning, the Word was, not "began"… We are definitely told that "the Word was God" — a divine Person.
Smith identifies six tremendous facts about "the Word" in John 1:1–4: eternal existence, distinct Personality, essential Deity, eternal Personality, creatorial originality, and essential vitality.
In the fewest and plainest words the Spirit of God in these opening verses has presented the Godhead glory of our Lord. The Word is an eternal Person, a distinct Person in the Godhead, a divine Person, and an eternally distinct Person.
His True and Full Humanity
Yet this eternal, divine Person truly became Man — not man in appearance only, but in the full and proper sense of the word. F. B. Hole draws attention to a critical passage:
F. B. HoleHebrews 2:16-17 plainly states that since He stooped not to take hold of angels but of the seed of Abraham, "in all things it behoved Him to be made like to His brethren." Note those three important words — IN ALL THINGS. If in all things then in spirit and in soul and in body.
The Lord Jesus clearly claimed each of these three for Himself. We find Him saying, "My spirit" (Luke 23:46), "My soul" (Mark 14:34), "My Body" (Matt. 26:12).
He was not simply Adam reproduced. Hole explains the unique character of His humanity:
The Lord Jesus was not Adam reproduced at all. He was the second Man. He was Man, indeed, for He was conceived by the Virgin Mary. He was an altogether unique Man of another order, for He was conceived of the Holy Ghost.
Every other man inherits the Adamic nature; Jesus did not. Every other man comes into the world under the sorrowful entail of sin and death and condemnation… In the case of our blessed Lord the entail was broken.
God and Man United in One Person
The wonder is that these two — full deity and full humanity — are not blended or confused but perfectly united in one Person. L. M. Grant devotes an entire article to this theme:
L. M. Grant"For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Col. 2:9). What marvellous, matchless fulness is here! It is far beyond the ability of the creature to understand the fulness of its significance, far beyond our understanding how this great manifestation can be true.
Grant shows how the Gospels display both natures in action at once:
Consider Matthew 8:23-27. On board a sailing vessel the Lord Jesus calmly slept. He is certainly therefore Man, for God does not sleep (Ps. 121:4). But when awakened by the disciples because of their fear of the raging storm capsizing the boat, He calmly rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. He demonstrated that He is God, the master of the elements. His sleep can be attributed only to the fact that He is Man; but His authority over wind and sea is attributable to His being God.
And on worship:
The Lord fully received the worship of this man. Peter would not receive worship (Acts 10:25-26); nor would an angel allow John to worship him (Revelation 22:8-9): for only God is to be worshipped. The Lord unquestioningly received worship on many occasions, for He is God. He is also truly Man, as the blind man said.
The Undivided Person
J. G. Bellett, in his meditations on the Son of God, presses the vital point that though we rightly distinguish the two natures, we must never divide the Person:
J. G. BellettI know we are not to confound the natures in this glorious and blessed One. I fully bow in faith to the truth that the Sanctifier took part of flesh and blood. I avow with my whole soul the true humanity in His person; but it was not an imperfect humanity… Is the undividedness of the Person throughout all the periods and transitions of this glorious, mysterious history kept in the view of the soul?
It was Himself, beloved, from first to last. He trod the mysterious way Himself, though He trod it unaided and alone. None other than He, "God manifest in the flesh," could have been there. The Son became the Lamb for the altar here; and then the Lamb that was slain reached the place of glory, far above all heavens. It is the Person which gives efficacy to all. Services would be nothing; sorrows would be nothing; death, resurrection, and ascension, all would be nothing (could we conceive them), if Jesus were not the one He is.
Bellett captures the grandeur of this union:
It is the link of links, this mystery we are here contemplating; and in the faith of it, all distances and intervals vanish. Heaven and earth, God and man, the Sanctifier and the sanctified, the highest and the lowest, are introduced to each other in ways of unutterable glory to God and blessing to us.
What Cannot Be Fully Explained
When pressed on how Jesus could be God and Man simultaneously, F. B. Hole gives a characteristically honest answer:
F. B. HoleWe hold no theory at all. Rather we hold that all theories on this sacred matter should be rigidly eschewed.
The Lord's own words were, "No man knows the Son but the Father" (Matt. 11:27), and that being so it shows that there are depths of mystery about Him which the creature, however favoured and exalted, can never fathom.
But what can be distinguished is the difference between what Christ is essentially and what He became positionally. On the question "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28):
We distinguish, therefore, between what the Lord Jesus was and is essentially — equal with God, and what He became relatively — subordinate to the Father's will.
And on the "Kenosis" theory — that the Son emptied Himself of divine knowledge when becoming Man:
It does not mean that He ceased to be what He was, or that He became ignorant and subject to the common opinions and delusions of His day… He divested Himself of all that made Him externally glorious till He was only known as the carpenter's son. Thereby He took a place in which He could receive from God all that which otherwise He might have had or done in His own right and power.
Scripture reveals that Jesus is not half God and half man, nor God wearing a human disguise, nor a man elevated to divinity. He is one undivided Person in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and who possesses a complete, true humanity — spirit, soul, and body — yet without sin. As the eternal Word, He had no beginning; as Man born of the virgin, He entered His own creation. He slept in the boat as Man and calmed the storm as God. He died on the cross in real human suffering, and that death had infinite value because the Person who died was the eternal Son. The "how" of this union transcends the creature mind — but faith gladly receives it and worships.