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Jesus Is Man
We have seen that Jesus is God, but Jesus is Man, too.
Some cults try to say that Jesus only looked like a man or took on a human appearance. This is not possible. Jesus had to be a real man or salvation could not happen.
God designed His natural creation to be ruled by representation. The idea of representation is all around us. Government leaders represent the people under them and make decisions on their behalf, employers make decisions that affect their employees, a Pastor represents his church, etc. This is how life was designed to operate on many levels.
Adam
was created as the peak or king of creation. He was given the
responsibility of representing mankind and all the natural creation
[Gen. 1:26]. Adam and Eve were given one simple test to prove their
loyalty. They were not to eat from a specific tree.
When Eve disobeyed she sinned for herself; however, when Adam, as the human representative, sinned he introduced sin into the entire creation [Rom. 5:12]. The penalty of sin is death [Gen. 2:15-17]. From Adam onward every human being would be born with sin and therefore subject to death.
Because Adam represented humanity into sin, it is possible for someone else to represent humanity out of sin. The problem is that in order to represent us out of sin, the person would a] have to be human, and b] have to have no sin of his own. Since every human being after Adam was born with sin, we were in a hopeless position - locked into a dark destiny.
What does this have to do with the fact Jesus is Man?
In order to truly represent us out of sin, God, Who has no sin, would have to become a man. He would have to be a real man, not a fake or look-alike. Only a real man could be a representative. Anything less or more would not work. Jesus is Man or we have no salvation.
So God the Son became Jesus Christ. He was born as a baby - He had to be virgin born to prevent receiving the sin nature which is passed down through the man. As we saw in Jesus is God, He had no memory or knowledge of His life before birth. He had to learn Who He was the same way we learn about God: through study of the Word, enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and faith. Jesus as Man could have no advantage that Adam before the Fall did not have. Jesus had no advantage that any of us do not have, except He had no sin nature.
Jesus Is Man
Jesus is truly Human. He felt hunger. He knew deep sorrow. His adopted father, Joseph, likely died sometime when Jesus was between the ages of 13 and 30. He had to assume the care of His mother and brothers/sisters. Jesus knew what it was like to be cheated and taken advantage of as a small business person. He felt all our emotions. Because of this Jesus can identify with everything we feel. He knows from personal experience what we go through [Heb. 4:14-15].
Jesus is Man. In fact, He is the only real man since Adam. Sin corrupted our nature and made us all subhuman. Jesus is not superhuman - He is an example of what God intended every human to be like. If you want to know what being a "normal" human was supposed to be like, study Jesus.
When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
Paul, The Message
Jesus is Man. He had to be. The Bible states that He laid aside His Divine rights [Phil. 2:5-8]. He became a genuine human being. In fact, He seemed to take a delight in the title: Son of Man.
Jesus then had a duel nature. Jesus is God and Jesus is Man. As God He could reveal the Father to us, as Man He could represent us out of sin by dying for our sin as an innocent Person. We look at this beautiful duel relationship in The Making Of A Blood Covenant.
The divine nature and the human nature were both in Jesus without being mixed and without Jesus being a split personality. It is mystery that we will never completely understand. Nevertheless, Jesus never called on His divine nature when He walked on this earth. He never did anything that we cannot do by the power of the Holy Spirit living in us.
For more information about Glenn Davis, see our About Glenn page or visit Glenn Davis Books.
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