Why is the humanity of Jesus important?
The Bible says the Word became flesh, and that one sentence carries the weight of the whole gospel. Why should it matter that the Son of God took a real human body, soul, and spirit — and what would be lost if He had not?
Not a Detail, but a Foundation
Some truths can be held loosely. This one cannot. Writers place the manhood of Jesus on exactly the same level of necessity as His Deity:
J. N. DarbyThat the blessed Lord was a true real man in flesh and blood is as essential to Christianity as that He was God... This lies at the root, and is the essence, of Christianity, and a blessed truth it is, unspeakably so to us human beings, that, if a sinless man, He was a true man, body, and soul, and, one may add, spirit. This was called in question by heresy as soon as His deity was.
Take it away and nothing is left standing:
A J PollockThe fact is, if our Lord were not a Man with human spirit, soul, and body (sin apart), we have no Christ at all.
He Became Man in Order to Die
God, in Himself, cannot die. So the cross required something first — a body that could be laid down:
Truth & TestimonyThe bare statement, "God died", needs important qualification. Firstly, the One who died was God the Son, not the Father or the Holy Spirit. Secondly, He did not die as God, but in the Manhood He had taken. However, to qualify a statement is not to deny it. To say it was the Son of Man and not God who died, is to divide His Person and make Him two Persons. The fact is that God the Son became a Man for this very purpose, that He might die... It is the infinitude of His Person that produces the infinite atonement.
Bethlehem and Calvary belong together — one happened for the sake of the other:
W. TrotterHow could He have suffered death had He not become the Son of man? How this links together the mysteries of Bethlehem and Calvary, the Incarnation and the Cross! The one was in order to the other. He came to die.
Two Sides of One Redeemer
Ruth's story turns on a near relative with the right to buy back what was lost. Both natures answer a different requirement:
G. F. VallanceHis humanity proves His right to redeem, for by it He became related to us — sin apart — while His Deity supplies the ability to redeem.
A Mediator Who Has Been Here
A go-between must know both sides. Job longed for someone who could put a hand on God and on man at once — and the answer is stated in terms of manhood, not merely of Deity:
F. B. HoleThese two passages in Hebrews make it abundantly clear that the truth as to the place of our Lord Jesus Christ as our Mediator and Priest hangs upon the fact of His becoming MAN in the full and proper sense of that word; hence the emphasis placed upon His manhood in 1 Timothy 2:5: "For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." He is, indeed, that "Daysman" whom Job longed for, who "might lay His hand upon us both" (see Job 9:32-33).
What He passed through on earth was not left behind at the ascension:
J. N. DarbyHe does not forget His human experiences: they are perpetuated by His divine power in the sympathising feelings of His humanity, according to the energy of that divine love which was their source and their motive power. He is still a man in glory, and in divine perfection... The conscience is purified by His work, the heart relieved by that which He was, and which He is for ever.
God Brought Within Reach
The reason a Man could show us God is that He was never less than God while doing it:
F. B. HoleAt last all that God is was revealed to men in a Man. He dwelt among us "full of grace and truth." The basis of all truth lies in the knowledge of God. Had that knowledge reached us apart from grace it would have overthrown us; but here was One full of both grace and truth, and dwelling among us.
A Humanity Like No Other
His manhood is real, but it is not ordinary — and writers warn that error here is not harmless:
George DavisonIt is necessary to stress continually the unique character of this blessed Man in view of some of the things that are taught today. God has approached us in One who is absolutely flawless — the humanity of Christ is unique. We see Him as Man, living by the Word of God. Teaching which is unsound regarding the humanity of Christ would endanger, spiritually, all who heeded it; the very fabric of the Christian faith is based upon this truth.
The End God Had in View
He did not become Man only to rescue and then withdraw. Commentators tie the incarnation directly to God's purpose for those He saves:
J. N. DarbyIt was according to God's counsel that we should be with Christ, the second Man, the last Adam, and in the same glory with Him. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He may be the firstborn among many brothers. It is for this that He became man.
Summary
- Essential — His true manhood is as necessary to Christianity as His Deity; deny it and there is no Christ and no atonement.
- Able — He took a body so that He could die; God as God cannot die, yet the worth of His Person makes the atonement infinite.
- Related — His humanity gives Him the right to redeem us as a near relative; His Deity gives Him the power.
- Near — as Man He mediates, sympathises, and still carries His human experiences in glory forever.
- Ahead — He became Man so that many would be conformed to His image, with Him as the firstborn among many brothers.