Who is Jesus? What is Christ? Christians have been debating for centuries about the nature of Christ’s mission, his role in our life, and the substance of his personality.
Some declare that Jesus is God, the creator, himself. In their view, God took on flesh, departed His heavenly throne and came down to live among men. Thus, while Jesus was on the earth, God was not present on His throne in heaven.
Yet this doesn’t correspond to Jesus prayer, “Our Father, who art in Heaven.” It would seem to confirm that Jesus is not God himself.
Some declare that Jesus is just a man, certainly a good man, but no more than a man. In their view, Jesus was good and wise. His mission was to teach us about the truth. We observe Jesus displaying traits of his humanity in Mark 9:21, Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?" "From childhood," he answered. If Jesus were God himself, would he have to ask this question?
But could a mere man raise the dead? Jesus called Lazarus out of the tomb. There have been many good men in history, but could they even begin to imagine how to raise the dead? Jesus did many more things that seem to indicate that he was not a mere man like you or me. What then, a prophet?
Many see Jesus as one of the prophets. Certainly in Caesarea Philippi and in Judea when Jesus asked, “who do the people say that I am,” many responded that Jesus was a prophet. Many of the Islamic faith have a deep respect for Jesus as a prophet. Many of the things that Jesus did were similar to the works of the prophets of old. Jesus called for repentance. He warned of dire consequences if repentance was not forthcoming. Like Elijah, he raised the dead and performed other impressive miracles.
But Jesus said and did things that no prophet had ever done before. Mark 2:5-7:
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
Who can forgive sins except God? Jesus forgave sins. No prophet can forgive sins and certainly no ordinary man. Then Jesus must be God! We are back to square one.
The voice of scripture describes Jesus as all of these. It is our own inability to reconcile the relationship of divinity with humanity that stands at the heart of our confusion about the nature of Christ. This inability is another manifestation of the historical enmity between the spiritual and physical components of each human. Paul describes this plight in Romans 7:22-25:
For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
The human experience with the flesh is one in which defiance of God’s Will is the norm. Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, asserted: “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” In the Christian view, therefore, for Christ to take on flesh as a human was extraordinary.
For most Christians, Jesus stands as both God and man. He is integrated into the Trinitarian construct of God the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Ghost. Inevitably, in pursuit of understanding Jesus’ divinity, theology has subtly de-emphasized his human side. Thus, the “man” Jesus is a mystery, as is the expression of his divinity, increasingly through time, more detached and otherworldly