If you spend much time around church, you will probably hear a good amount of talk about the divinity of Jesus. To that we say, “Yes and amen.” Jesus is fully God. He always has been fully God. When he walked on this earth, he was fully God. As he shouted from the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, he was fully God. This truth just tends to be one of the givens in church. It is what Christian worship is all about. However, one of the clear teachings of scripture that is equally true and equally important, but just doesn’t get quite as much airtime is the full humanity of Jesus.
We don’t tend to think too much about or sing songs about the truth that Jesus got tired and hungry and got blisters and needed to take a nap and that he may have felt lonely at times or even self-conscious about the way he looked. The fact that Jesus experienced common human feeling such as these is the reason that we need to talk more about the full humanity of Jesus. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was able to empathize with our weaknesses. He didn’t have superpowers, and the fact that Jesus is also God, doesn’t mean that he cheated at this humanity thing. Being God doesn’t mean that he was less human. He was fully and completely human in every way that you and I are, only more so. In fact, the verse goes on to say that Jesus was also “tempted in every way, just as we are,” but then adds the all-important clincher, yet he did not sin. That last phrase is the reason that we need to remember Jesus humanity more! This means that Jesus is not only our best image of what God looks like (see Col. 1:15), but he is also our best image of what a successful and thriving human looks like.
So, of course, if you want to know more about who God is, then you need to study the life of Jesus. But, if you want to know how you can be a truly successful and thriving human, then you also need to study the life of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is God, our Savior. But at the same time, Jesus is Human Being, our Example. Worshipping Jesus as savior, will save your soul in eternity, but following Jesus as example, will save your life in the present.
Think about some ways that you can follow Jesus’ example of living as a full human today.
Josh Rose
Pastor of Adult Ministries