Written by Peter Rodriguez
Part 1: The Humanity of Jesus Was Real
Miracle-worker, and Still Human
Jesus’ powers do not diminish his humanity.
Other humans can perform the same miracles and wonders he did (John 14:12).
- Did he raise the dead? So did other humans (1 Kings 17:17–24, 2 Kings 4:32–37, Acts 9:36–42, Acts 20:9–12)
- Did he walk on water? So did other humans (Matthew 14:28–31)
- Did he cast out demons? So did other humans (Mark 6:13, Mark 9:38–40, Acts 8:6–7, Acts 16:16–18)
- Did he perform healings? So did other humans (2 Kings 5:1–14, Luke 10:9, Acts 3:1–10, Acts 9:32–35)
By God’s grant, the man Jesus of Nazareth had supernatural powers (Acts 2:22), just as other human beings can have (John 14:12).
Therefore, his powers do not diminish his humanity, since other human beings can have those same powers.
He truly became fully human.
Holy, and Still Human
Adam, our father, was created pure and perfect—free from sin and without inclination toward evil and disobedience.
His actions, thoughts, and intentions were always kind, holy, and pure. In his heart, there was constant praise for God and love for our Creator. He was more pure and innocent than a little child. His character was utterly spotless. Adam was perfect in every conceivable way, since the day of his creation.
At the same time, Adam was not shielded from temptation.
And he had the ability to choose, including the choice to rebel against his Creator.
Jesus, during his time on earth, was in the same condition as Adam—innocent and without sin, yet not shielded from facing temptation and having the ability to rebel against his Father. The Bible refers to him as “the second Adam” (Romans 5). As Adam before his fall, Jesus was free from the tendency or inner desire for evil; there was not a trace of imperfection in his life or character. He came to earth as a holy infant, pure and perfect from the very beginning.
- Jesus was a “holy-begotten thing” (Luke 1:35)
- Jesus was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from the sinners” (Hebrews 7:26)
- Jesus “knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
- In Jesus, “there is no sin” (1 John 3:5)
- Jesus was “without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19)
And despite enduring relentless and intense temptations from evil forces since his childhood, Jesus chose to remain sinless.
But being free from any inclination to evil does not mean that Jesus was not a human being.
It is not the presence or absence of sin what constitutes the human race. Adam, our father, also was one day sinless and free from corrupt propensities—yet he was entirely human. Even after falling into a sinful condition, Adam remained just as human as before. Scripture calls him ‘man’ both in his innocence (Gen. 1:27) and in his fallen state (Gen. 3:24). Humanity is not defined by the presence or absence of sin.
The same is true of Jesus.
His sinless and holy nature does not diminish his humanity.
Divine, and Still Human
Though being completely divine, Jesus is also completely human.
In his incarnation, Jesus truly became one of our kind. When the Bible says that he is a man, it means exactly what it says. This point should not be forgotten when we read certain biblical passages. We make many mistakes in our conclusions when we disregard the completeness of his humanity.
Naturally, as a true human being, Jesus fulfilled everything that is expected from humanity in their relationship with God.
As a man, he should obey the Father, and to the Father he rendered the obedience of a man.
- The Father was his God
- He obeyed the Father in everything
- He regularly gave thanks to the Father.
- He lived a life of prayer.
- He frequentely read the Holy Scriptures.
- He lived for God’s glory and purpose.
All this because Jesus is indeed a human being.
We should not forget this biblical fact when reading the NT.
To deny that Jesus was expected to fulfill the same duties toward God as all human beings is to deny his true humanity. Jesus is a member of the human family—he is our brother and a son of man. Just as the Father is our God, the Father is also his God. As he said to Mary Magdalene, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17).
So to Jesus, the Father was his God, just as the Father was God to other human beings.
Conclusion
Jesus is divine and without sin, but in all the other aspects—and this is the central point of this post—he is as human as we are.
- Jesus experienced hunger (Matthew 4:2) and thirst (John 19:28)
- He grew tired and needed rest (John 4:6)
- He felt joy (Luke 10:21) and sorrow (John 11:35)
- He formed close friendships, such as with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (John 11:5)
- He “suffered being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18)
- He grew in wisdom and stature as a child (Luke 2:52)
- He was subjected to Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:51), his parents
- He was subjected to God the Father, as all humans have to be
Jesus truly took human nature and participated in the life of humanity.
He lived and died as a man.
“Our Lord’s exposure to temptation, and his consequent capability of yielding to its solicitations, has its foundations in his perfect humanity. It surely requires not an argument to show that, as God, he could not be tempted, but that, as man, he could. His inferior nature was finite and created; it was not angelic, it was human. It was perfectly identical with our own,– its entire exemption from all taint of sin, only excepted. A human body and a human mind were his, with all their essential and peculiar properties. He was ‘bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh:’ he travelled up through the stages of infancy, boyhood, and manhood; he was encompassed with all the weaknesses, surrounded, that belong to our nature. He breathed our air, trod our earth, at our food. The higher attributes of our being were his also. Reason, conscience, memory, will, affections, were essential appendages of that human soul which the Son of God took into union with his Divine. As such, then, our Lord was tempted. As such, too, he was capable of yielding. His finite nature, though pure and sinless, was yet necessarily limited in its resources, and weak in its own powers. Touching his inferior nature, he was but man. The Godhead, as I have before remarked, was not humanized,– nor was the humanity deified, by the blending together of the two natures. Each retained its essential character, properties, and attributes, distinct, unchanged, and unchangeable.” (Octavius Winslow, The Glory of the Redeemer in His Person and Work)
Part 2: The Son of God Humbles Himself
Psalm 8
3: כי אראה שמיך מעשי אצבעתיך ירח וכוכבים אשר כוננתה For I see your heavens, a work of your fingers, moon and stars which you have established.
4: מה אנוש כי תזכרנו ובן אדם כי תפקדנו What is a man that you are mindful of him? and a son of man that you care for him?
Son of man: What is a man that you are mindful of him? and a son of man that you care for him?
The term ‘son of man’ was frequently used by Jesus to refer to himself. By applying that term to himself, he sought to emphasize his identification with mankind, underscoring that he was human and shared in the human experience.
5: ותחסרהו מעט מאלהים וכבוד והדר תעטרהו And you made him a little lower than angels, and with honour and majesty you crowned him.
You made him a little lower than angels: Here, we encounter a doctrine that teaches that human beings are inferior to angels.
From eternity past, the son of God existed in heaven in the form of God. By his own will, he eventually took on him the form of man through the incarnation and walked among men as a man called Jesus. It was to reach and save mankind that he humbled himself, descending to such a lower sphere of existence than he originally held in heaven. In becoming man, he placed himself beneath the angels—just as all humans are lower than angels.
He became a little lower than angels because he became human (truly human).
Isaiah 53
2: לא תאר לו ולא הדר ונראהו ולא מראה ונחמדהו […] […] He had nothing in his appearance, nor magnificence, when we observed him; nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He had nothing in his appearance: There was nothing special or supernatural in his appearance.
One might imagine that Jesus on earth possessed a unique radiance or a supernatural aura that set him apart from ordinary humans. But, if you were transported back to first-century Palestine and laid eyes upon Jesus, you would see nothing outwardly extraordinary to distinguish him from other human beings. He was holy, yes, and his gentle demeanor, kind countenance, and serene eyes would have distinguished him from the majority of the people. But these qualities are also found in every godly person.
He had nothing extraordinary or supernatural in his appearance.
He truly became one of us.
Nor magnificence: Despite his royal lineage, he bore not even the pomp, splendor, or grandeur associated with kings.
3: נבזה וחדל אישים איש מכאבות וידוע חלי וכמסתר פנים ממנו נבזה ולא חשבנהו He was despised and rejected by men, a man of pains and familiar with weakness. And as one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised and we did not esteem him.
Familiar with weakness: The son of God became familiar with the infirmities and weakness of the fallen race.
Though he did not in the least participate in its sin, and in him there was no sin (let this be clear), it is true that the son of God took upon himself the human form in its fallen condition. He bore the accumulated infirmities and weakness that sinners had been imparting to the human nature since the fall of mankind. As it is written in another place, Jesus came “in the appearance of the flesh of sin” (Romans 8:3).
We need some context here.
When the father of mankind first came from God’s hands, he was—in God’s eyes—very good (Genesis 1:31).
In him there was no trace of weakness or infirmity. His body was strong and perfectly balanced. His mind was sharp and unclouded. Such was the extraordinary vitality God built into Adam that the human race has not gone extinct to this day—despite centuries of self-destructive habits, lawlessness, and the constant abuse people inflict against their God-given bodies in their eating and drinking.
This resistance stands as an evidence of the strength that God endowed Adam with.
Adam was not created with the present weakness and infirmities found in his sons.
For millennia, however, humanity has walked against God’s ways—the very paths that lead to happiness, well-being, long life, and health. This has brought about the degradation we now find in a race once so glorious. Now, deformities, imbalances, and congenital defects curse our fallen lineage. The weight of centuries upon centuries of sinful habits crushes us. In the dawn of humanity, however, people were healthier, taller, long-lived, and more noble in their form.
But Jesus did not take on the likeness of Adam in his prime; rather, he assumed the form of man after millennia of degradation and lawlessness.
He came “in the appearance of the flesh of sin” (Romans 8:3).
He stood no taller than ordinary men, nor was he extraordinarily stronger than the average. Yes, he was obedient to God’s laws and, because of this, he was healthier and physically more developed than the average human (the average human refuses to practice God’s laws). However, his strength was not extraordinarily greater than what any godly man of his time could achieve. The weakness of his ancestors ran through him as well, and he could not surpass the limits of that hereditary weakness.
The thing is, Jesus shared in our humanity completely, having even our debilities in his own being.
Philippians 2
5: ΤΟΑΥΤΟΔΕΦΡΟΝΗΜΑΕΣΤΩΕΝΥΜΙΝΤΟΟΠΟΙΟΝΗΤΟΚΑΙΕΝΤΩΧΡΙΣΤΩΙΗΣΟΥ Let this mindset be in you, which also in Christ Jesus,
6: ΟΣΤΙΣΕΝΜΟΡΦΗΘΕΟΥΥΠΑΡΧΩΝΔΕΝΕΝΟΜΙΣΕΝΑΡΠΑΓΗΝΤΟΝΑΗΝΑΙΙΣΑΜΕΤΟΝΘΕΟΝ who, existing in form of God, did not consider the to be equal to God a thing to be grasped.
Form of God: The contrasting phrase “form of servant” in the following verse sheds light on the meaning of “form of God”.
7: ΑΛΛΕΑΥΤΟΝΕΚΕΝΩΣΕΛΑΒΩΝΔΟΥΛΟΥΜΟΡΦΗΝΓΕΝΟΜΕΝΟΣΟΜΟΙΟΣΜΕΤΟΥΣΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥΣ Instead, he neutralized himself, taking form of servant, coming to be in likeness of men.
He neutralized himself: He stripped himself and made himself void.
Instead of clinging to his equality with God, he neutralized himself. Instead of retaining the form of God, he took on the form of servant—coming to be as we are.
“The two latter clauses (there being no conjunctions, ‘and … and,’ in the Greek) expresses in what Christ’s ’emptying of Himself’ consists, namely, in ‘taking the form of a servant’ (see on [2384]Heb 10:5; compare Ex 21:5, 6, and Ps 40:6, proving that it was at the time when He assumed a body, He took ‘the form of a servant’), and in order to explain how He took ‘the form of a servant,’ there is added, by ‘being made in the likeness of men.’ His subjection to the law (Lu 2:21; Ga 4:4) and to His parents (Lu 2:51), His low state as a carpenter, and carpenter’s reputed son (Mt 13:55; Mr 6:3), His betrayal for the price of a bond-servant (Ex 21:32), and slave-like death to relieve us from the slavery of sin and death, finally and chiefly, His servant-like dependence as man on God, while His divinity was not outwardly manifested (Isa 49:3, 7), are all marks of His ‘form as a servant.’ This proves: (1) He was in the form of a servant as soon as He was made man. (2) He was ‘in the form of God’ before He was ‘in the form of a servant.’ (3) He did as really subsist in the divine nature, as in the form of a servant, or in the nature of man. For He was as much ‘in the form of God’ as ‘in the form of a servant’; and was so in the form of God as ‘to be on an equality with God’; He therefore could have been none other than God; for God saith, ‘To whom will ye liken Me and make Me equal?’ (Isa 46:5), [Bishop Pearson]. His emptying Himself presupposes His previous plenitude of Godhead (Joh 1:14; Col 1:19; 2:9). He remained full of this; yet He bore Himself as if He were empty.” (Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary)
Taking form of servant: “The phrase ‘form of a servant,’ should be allowed to explain the phrase ‘form of God,’ in Philippians 2:6. The ‘form of a servant’ is that which indicates the condition of a servant, in contradistinction from one of higher rank. It means to appear as a servant, to perform the offices of a servant, and to be regarded as such.” (Albert Barnes, Barnes’ Notes on the Bible)
8: ΚΑΙΕΥΡΕΘΕΙΣΚΑΤΑΤΟΣΧΗΜΑΩΣΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣΕΤΑΠΕΙΝΩΣΕΝΕΑΥΤΟΝΓΕΝΟΜΕΝΟΣΥΠΗΚΟΟΣΜΕΧΡΙΘΑΝΑΤΟΥΘΑΝΑΤΟΥΔΕΣΤΑΥΡΟΥ And being recognised in outward appearance as man, he humbled himself, coming to be obedient to the point of death—death even of a cross,
9: ΔΙΑΤΟΥΤΟΚΑΙΟΘΕΟΣΥΠΕΡΥΨΩΣΕΝΑΥΤΟΝΚΑΙΕΧΑΡΙΣΕΝΕΙΣΑΥΤΟΝΟΝΟΜΑΤΟΥΠΕΡΠΑΝΟΝΟΜΑ wherefore, also, God did highly exalt him, and gave to him a name that [is] above every name,
10: ΔΙΑΝΑΚΛΙΝΕΙΕΙΣΤΟΟΝΟΜΑΤΟΥΙΗΣΟΥΠΑΝΓΟΝΥΕΠΟΥΡΑΝΙΩΝΚΑΙΕΠΙΓΗΙΩΝΚΑΙΚΑΤΑΧΘΟΝΙΩΝ that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow — of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth —
11: ΚΑΙΠΑΣΑΓΛΩΣΣΑΝΑΟΜΟΛΟΓΗΣΗΟΤΙΟΙΗΣΟΥΣΧΡΙΣΤΟΣΕΙΝΑΙΚΥΡΙΟΣΕΙΣΔΟΞΑΝΘΕΟΥΠΑΤΡΟΣ and every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.
