The Person of Christ
When discussing and proving the person of Christ, there are two basic laws that must be addressed and proven. First you must prove that Christ is one hundred percent human (humanity), then you must prove that at the same time Christ is one hundred percent God (deity).
As human, Christ had a body, he had a soul and spirit, he had human characteristics, and he was called by human names. In Luke 2:52, it is written that Christ, even though he had a virgin birth, He was born with a human body that was conceived by a human body. Christ's humanity included both the material and immaterial aspects of the human body (he was flesh but at the same time he was also Soul and Spirit).
For Christians,
"The elements of the Person of Christ are to be established; the faith which accompanies the theoretic process always presupposes their unity; this is for faith immediately certain, though not as yet narrowly defined, not as yet mediately cognised through the knowledge of the distinct elements, which
in it are combined (Dorner History of the Development Doctrine Person of Christ p.85).
Christ was fully human. "He was hungry, thirsty, grew weary, experienced love and compassion, he wept, he was tested, and he died. Christ was called by human names as he designated Himself as the "Son of Man". This name linked Him to earth and His mission on earth (Ryre Basic Theology p. 287)." Christ was, not only as a deity, but also as a human, all of these things.
"We cannot indeed overestimate the importance of the fact that Jesus' redeeming influence on the world-all that has induced men to call Him Lord and Savior-owes to His humanity at once its individual and its social power, and is complete with the com...
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...ipture it is specifically shown that God has a one-ness, that though it is not directly stated, it is implied that there is a Trinity, and it is also specifically stated that Christ was fully human (his humanity) and fully God (his deity) at the same time.
Bibliography
Dorner, J.A.. History of the Development Doctrine Person of Christ.
Volume I. 1970
Dorner, J.A. Doctrine of the Person of Christ. Volume II. 1970.
Gruden, Wayne. Systematic Theology. California. 1994.
Mackintosh H.R. The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ. New York. 1912.
Mackintosh H.R. The Person of Jesus Christ. New York. 1948.
Ryre, Charles C. Basic Theology. The Lockman Foundation, La Habra,
California. 1986.
Vawter, Bruce. This Man Jesus. New York. 1973.
One of the main principles of Christianity is the belief in both the divinity and humanity of Jesus, that these two natures are combined harmoniously in one being. In general, all modern Christians believe that Jesus was human, he was considered to be “The Word was made flesh” (John, I: 14). However, Jesus was more than just a human, despite being subjected to pain, suffering and death like all other human beings, he was sinless and also possessed the power to heal and to defy death in order to ascend, both body and spirit, into heaven. He was all man and all God, a combination of these two elements, remaining distinct but united in one being. The deity of Jesus is a non-negotiable belief in Christianity, which is referred to in many parts of scripture, “God was revealed in the flesh” (I Timothy, 3:16). The Christian faith does not perceive Jesus as God but rather a reincarnation of God, a mysterious deity who is the second person of the Holy Trinity. Throughout history, controversy has surrounded the issue of the humanity and divinity of Jesus, leading to the formation of Docetism, the belief that Jesus was fully divine but not fully human, Arianism, that Jesus was superior to all of creation, but less divine than God, and Nestorius, that there were two separate persons within Jesus. This the proportion of the divine and human within Je...
With each religion comes things to learn and understand. Some things are easy to grasp onto, while others can be impossible to comprehend. Why was it necessary for Jesus to be human? How did Jesus overcome the most powerful of human leaders? Why did God send His only son for us? In the book On the Incarnation by Athanasius, these questions are thoroughly explained. Beginning with the creation of man, God promised to protect and care for us. This promise He fulfills through Jesus His son.
b) Biblical Foundation Many question if Jesus ever claimed to be God. First, Jesus claimed to be the unique Son of God, resulting in the Jewish leaders stoning Him ‘because you,’ the leaders said, ‘a mere man, claim to be God’ (John 10:33). On another occasion, a High Priest asked him: ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?’ to which Jesus replied ‘I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven’ (Mark 14:61-62). Jesus also claimed to possess the same attributes of God. In the Bible, Jesus has never been recorded saying the exact words, “I am God.” However, Jesus’ original spectators seemed to think He said “I am the Father.” They were even ready to kill Him right there. The controversy is: Jesus didn’t have to say the specific words “I am God,” to claim this. Jesus did, however,...
McManners, John. "The Oxford History of Christianity." The Oxford History of Christianity. New York: New York Oxford Press, 2002. 28.
He is God incarnate who became flesh to take away the sins of the world. He was a poor servant, an obedient child who grew up with wisdom and understanding and became man so that the Word became flesh to dwell among humanity (Weaver, 2014). For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Jesus’ ministry was to preach and teach about the Kingdom Of Heaven and these teachings are the revelations that mankind are to live by in order to get into Heaven and find salvation (DiVincenzo, 2015). The teaching about the Kingdom was for God to restore his creation into the right relationship with himself (DiVincenzo, 2015). This was established so that he and his people can be together in peace, justice, and truth (DiVincenzo, 2015). This identity of Jesus and the work that he did on earth is important to the Christian worldview because it shows that God fulfilled his promise of the Messiah to save the world and it also fulfilled the scripture of the one that was to come. This is an essential element to the beliefs as a
"And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."(New Revised Standard Version, John 1:14) As the only son of God in the Christian theology, Jesus Christ was tasked with a multitude of trials, and horrors the common man would have rebuked and refused to undertake. However, as a demi-god born of the divine Christian deity and the mortal, virgin Mary, Jesus was not the average mortal man.
New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Anthony Flew and Alasdair MacIntyre, London, S.C.M. Press, 1955, p. 152.
It's hard to summarize what makes a person human. It can be agreed that everyone of us is human already, physically speaking that is, but it's more than physically being being a human that matters.
There is too much factual evidence that he was a real person. The most factual evidence for me was the Roman crucifixion record. In their record, there was a real person named Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and died in one day. I think this is the best factual evidence for Jesus. I also believe Jesus was the Son of God. All of what is mentioned in the Bible to me proves he was. Even certain sections of the Koran prove this to me. Also The book of Isaiah strengthens my belief in Jesus. He fulfilled all 353 prophesies of Isaiah and the Old Testament. For him to fulfill only ten would be a probability of 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. (christiananswers.net
Kerr, H. (1990). Readings in christian thought (2nd ed.). H. T. Kerr (Ed.). Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Luke’s Jesus is able to identify with certainty that he is human through his relationships and actions, but the same can also be said about his understanding of his own divinity. Luke allows Jesus to recognize his divinity at an early age. Even when he is only twelve, Jesus understands that he is the “Son of God.” According to Fitzmyer, Jesus’ words in Luke 2:49 are “the Gospel’s first pronouncement story…It puts on the lips of Jesus an implied statement about who he is, making manifest to his parents the way in which he is related to Yahweh—as an obedient Son of his heavenly Father.” Even more importantly, “the first words attributed to Jesus in the Lucan Gospel form a statement about his relationship to
Jesus had a human mother, Mary (see Luke 1:30-31 for example), but his father was God (see John 3:18 for example). Jesus was human, not God. Consider 1 Timothy 2:5:"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;" There could not be a clearer statement that Christ was a man.
...ons. Jesus is the most qualified of the three Divine persons because Jesus wants to be on with us and with the world. Everyone in the world was born by a woman and men work with hard labor, this is the human consequence for not following the law of God. Jesus is the light of the world, he came to save is from all sin by being condemned to death. I also believe that the Incarnation matters because if the Incarnation did not happen, the world may be different.
...hristianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church. Grand Rapid, MI: Zondervan, 1954.
was a faithful Jew and followed all the Jewish customs. Jesus was a human being.