Program / Course 9: Christology and Pneumatology / Lesson 1.1
What you will learn
- List the main ways the Gospels and letters show Jesus as a real human being.
- Explain why early Christians treated the denial of his humanity as a serious error.
- Distinguish between being truly human and being merely human.
- Describe how Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Christians each use the humanity of Christ in their teaching.
The big idea
The New Testament presents Jesus as a real man who was born, grew, ate, grew tired, wept, suffered and died. Nothing in the Gospels treats these things as appearances. The letters go further and say that his humanity matters for salvation: he shared flesh and blood so that he could help those who are human. Christians who go on to say that he is also divine do not take anything away from this. The church’s later teaching depends on taking his humanity as seriously as the Gospels do.
Key terms
- Christology
- The study of who Jesus Christ is, including how his divinity and humanity relate.
- Humanity
- In this course, the full human nature that Jesus shared with all people: body, mind and will.
- Incarnation
- From a Latin word meaning to take flesh. The Christian teaching that the eternal Son of God became a human being.
- Gospel
- An early Christian account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The New Testament contains four: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
- Epistle
- A letter. Most of the New Testament after the Gospels and Acts is made up of letters written to churches or individuals.
- Docetism
- An early view that Christ only seemed to have a body and to suffer. The word comes from a Greek word meaning to seem.
- Sinless
- Without sin. The New Testament says Jesus was tempted yet did not sin. Sinlessness is not a lack of humanity: Christians hold that sin is a distortion of human nature, not part of it.
Background
Before the councils, creeds and technical terms of later centuries, there are the books of the New Testament. Any study of Christology has to begin there. The first question those books raise is not about the divine nature of Jesus. It is simpler: what kind of man was he? The authors write about someone who lived in a particular place and time, whom people could see, hear and touch.
This matters because the church spent the second century defending exactly this point. Some teachers said that the Son of God could not really have a body, since matter was low or evil, and so his flesh must have been an illusion. The church rejected that idea. To see why, it helps to read how much of the New Testament depends on the plain fact that Jesus was a man.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The Gospels show ordinary human life
Luke tells of a birth and a childhood. He was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger (Luke 2:7), and later Luke writes that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). A child who increases in wisdom has a human mind that grows.
The Gospels show bodily needs. After forty days in the wilderness he was hungry (Matthew 4:2). John says he was “wearied with his journey” and sat by a well (John 4:6). Mark shows him asleep in a boat during a storm (Mark 4:38). Nothing in these scenes is meant to be hidden. The authors include them as plain facts.
Step 2: The Gospels show human emotion
The shortest verse in the English Bible is “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), at the grave of his friend Lazarus. John adds that he was troubled in spirit. Mark says he looked on a man with anger and grief at hardness of heart (Mark 3:5), and Luke says he rejoiced in the Spirit (Luke 10:21). He is moved with compassion again and again.
The clearest scene is Gethsemane. Mark writes that he began to be “sore amazed, and to be very heavy,” and said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death” (Mark 14:33-34). Whatever else a reader believes about him, this is the portrait of a man in anguish who asks his friends to stay awake with him.
Step 3: The Gospels show suffering and real death
All four Gospels describe the arrest, the beating, the crucifixion and the death. John adds that a soldier pierced his side and that blood and water came out (John 19:34). The evangelists present the death as an actual death, witnessed by soldiers, women and a centurion. He is taken down and buried.
The seriousness of this point is part of why the resurrection can be proclaimed as something new. A man who only appeared to die could not be raised from death. A later lesson takes up the resurrection. Here it is enough to see that the Gospels leave no doubt about the death.
Step 4: The letters teach the same humanity
Paul writes that God sent his Son “made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4), and that he was descended from David according to the flesh (Romans 1:3). He calls him “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). He says the Son came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3), a phrase that interpreters read as stressing both real flesh and the absence of sin.
The letter to the Hebrews is the most explicit. It says that because the children share flesh and blood, he “also himself likewise took part of the same” (Hebrews 2:14), that he had to be made like his brothers in every respect (Hebrews 2:17), and that he is a high priest who was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The letters of John make the confession of Jesus come in the flesh a test of true faith (1 John 4:2-3).
Step 5: What this means and does not mean
To say Jesus was fully human is to say he had a body, a human mind and a human will, and that he lived under human limits of place and time. Christian teachers add that he was not merely human, a point developed in the next lesson. Fully human does not mean “merely human.”
It also does not mean that he shared in human sins. The New Testament treats sin as something that damages human nature rather than as a necessary part of it. On that view, Jesus is more fully human than anyone else, not less.
- Which scene in the Gospels shows Jesus most clearly as a human being, and why?
- What would be lost if his suffering in Gethsemane were only an appearance?
- Why does Hebrews connect his humanity with his ability to help others?
- How does Luke 2:52 shape the way you think about his mind?
- What does it mean to call someone sinless and yet truly human?
- Which ancient error does 1 John 4:2-3 seem to be answering?
Examples
The well at Sychar
In John 4 Jesus sits down by Jacob’s well because he is tired and asks a woman for a drink. The same chapter shows him speaking of living water and knowing details about her life. The scene holds both a very ordinary need and unusual insight in one story.
A constructed classroom case
A student reads only the miracles and concludes that Jesus never felt anything. A teacher asks her to list every emotion named in the Gospels. After reading about compassion, anger, joy, grief and distress, the student revises the first impression. (This is a constructed example.)
Hebrews on temptation
Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus can sympathize with weakness because he was tempted in all points as people are. Christian writers have often noted that the argument only works if the temptations were real and not staged.
Different perspectives
Catholic
The Catechism teaches that Jesus has a real human body and a rational human soul, with a human intellect and will. Catholic teaching rejects any view in which his humanity is a costume. Devotion to his Passion and to the Eucharist rests on the reality of his body.
Orthodox
Orthodox theology makes the humanity of Christ central to the idea that human nature is healed and joined to God. The Orthodox defense of icons also rests on the claim that the Son truly became visible in the flesh.
Protestant
Protestant churches have stressed Christ as the true man who obeyed God where Adam failed, and as the mediator who stands in the place of sinners. Reformed, Lutheran and evangelical writers alike point to Hebrews 2 and 4 to show that he understands human weakness.
Scholarly historians
Historians of many beliefs generally accept that Jesus was a Jew of Galilee who was crucified under Pontius Pilate. They disagree widely about what else can be said with confidence. This lesson sets out what the New Testament authors claim, not what historians can verify.
Why it matters
Every later argument in Christology rests on this lesson. If Jesus was not truly human, the cross, the resurrection and the claim that God shared human life all lose their meaning. The early church saw that clearly. It is also a point that Christians can hold together even when they differ over much else, so it makes a good starting place for fair study.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Calling Jesus divine means his humanity was only an outward form.
Correction: The mainstream of Christianity has always taught the opposite. The New Testament and the councils insist that his humanity was complete. Divinity is added to this teaching, not substituted for it.
Misunderstanding: If he was sinless, he cannot have been truly tempted or truly human.
Correction: Hebrews says he was tempted in all points yet without sin. Christian writers have argued that sin is a defect in human nature, so a sinless person is not less human. Some add that resisting temptation to the end involves more struggle, not less.
Misunderstanding: Only liberal or modern scholars emphasize his humanity.
Correction: Emphasis on his humanity runs through the New Testament itself and through writers from Irenaeus to Luther and Calvin. What changes over time is the questions people ask, not the basic claim.
Knowledge check
Name four things the Gospels say Jesus experienced that show a real human life.
He was born and grew (Luke 2), he was hungry in the wilderness (Matthew 4:2), he was tired at the well (John 4:6), and he wept at the grave of Lazarus (John 11:35). The Gospels also show his distress at Gethsemane and his death on the cross. Any four of these, with the reference, is a good answer.
What does Hebrews 2:14 say about why he shared flesh and blood?
Hebrews says that because the children share flesh and blood, he also took part in the same. The letter goes on to say he did this in order to deal with death and to help those who are tempted. The argument is that he can only help human beings if he truly shares their condition.
What is docetism, and why did the church reject it?
Docetism taught that Christ only seemed to have a body and to suffer. The church rejected it because it contradicts the Gospel accounts of his birth, suffering and death, and because it would make salvation depend on an appearance. The letters of John already warn against denying that Jesus came in the flesh.
Does sinlessness make Jesus less human?
Christian teaching says no. Sin is understood as a distortion or wound in human nature, not a necessary part of it. Hebrews 4:15 says he was tempted in all points yet without sin, which means his temptations were real. On this view he shows what human life is meant to be.
Why can a lesson on his humanity come before a lesson on his divinity?
The Gospels first show people who see, hear and touch a man, and only later come to say more about him. Starting with the humanity follows that order in the text. It also prevents readers from treating his humanity as an afterthought once divinity is in view.
Think it through
- Which of the human details in the Gospels do you tend to skip over, and why?
- How does the picture of a Jesus who wept change the way you read the miracles?
- Why might people in any age be tempted to make Jesus less than fully human?
- What would be at stake in your own tradition if his humanity were only an appearance?
Independent assignment
A catalogue of his humanity
In your own notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Read the Gospel of Mark through chapter 6 and list at least ten verses that show Jesus acting or feeling as a human being. Beside each, write one sentence on what it shows. Then read Hebrews 2:14-18 and 4:14-16 and write one paragraph explaining how the letter uses his humanity. Do not send this to anyone.
Further study
- Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation of the Word Read the early chapters on why the Word took a body.
- Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies Read selectively where Irenaeus argues against those who denied the real flesh of Christ.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the section on Jesus Christ true God and true man.
- Luke 2:52 Jesus increased in wisdom and stature.
- John 11:35 Jesus wept.
- Hebrews 2:14 He shared flesh and blood.
- Hebrews 4:15 Tempted in all points, yet without sin.
- 1 John 4:2 The confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.