Portrays Jesus in The Bible Essay

The Bible portrays Jesus as both 100 percent human and 100 percent God, hence having dual natures that are both complete. This has been disputed ever since the times of Jesus to today.

One of the reasons identified as an explanation of His humanity is the fact that he suffered human weaknesses such as got tired and slept, got hungry and ate in Luke we are told that he even wept. These are all characteristics of human beings that God could not probably suffer. This made those who did not believe in Him to believe that he was more human than God.

In the Bible we also learn of Jesus being God. This is expressed in prophesies that were made way before he was even born by prophets such as Isaiah. The prophets who prophesied His birth indicated that he would be God and those who lived during His time such as john openly identified Him as God. He also identified Himself as God which then led to a lot of criticism from the Pharisees.

He forgave sins and knew people’s thoughts as well as healed people cast out demons and raised the dead. All these acts show that he had power over nature which can only be credited to God1. By virtue of Him being the son of God and proclaiming this Himself, it therefore means that he sure was God. Those who came after Jesus also proclaimed that he was God and in this case Paul emphasized His deity by proclaiming in His letter to the Colossians that Jesus has authority over all things and that he existed before all things were created.

Jesus was a manifestation of God in an earthly form and for God to be an earthly being he had to be human. This means that the human form of Jesus was actually God. It is identified in the holy trinity that God exists in three forms which are God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Two of these forms are identified as being God the father and Jesus hence making Jesus God Himself just in another form.

The fact that Jesus was both God and man means that God needed to show His love for humanity by living among human beings and going through the same experiences that humans go through. It also shows that He wanted to relate with humans on a personal note rather than be a supernatural being that humans should avoid due to fear.

He needed people to believe more of Him out of reality other than just belief. This means that people would relate more to Him instead of believing in a power that they could not understand or relate to. In His incarnate form He dined with sinners and the poor, which portrays His humbleness and hence more people end up believing that He is in apposition to care about them and understand their needs.

The dangers of overemphasizing or, either the deity or humanity of Christ, lies in the breakdown of the belief in Christianity. It also leads to intolerance to those who don’t believe in Christ which then contradicts the teachings of Christ2. Some of the heresies that object the traditional understanding of Christology are Ebionitism, Gnostism, Euychianism, Apollinarianism and Nestorianism. They object that God could not be portrayed as a human being due to the weakness of man, and therefore Jesus could not be God.

Christ’s humanity teaches me that my human nature should not limit my belief in God since He also went through the human experience. His human nature teaches us how to overcome sin by not being tempted by our human needs.

Bibliography

Everett, Ferguson. “Baptism in the early church: history, theology, and liturgy in the first five centuries”. Journal of Religious Studies Review. 36, no 1, (2010): 24-67. Web.

Kalin, Everett. “The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning.” Currents in Theology and Mission 15, no.5. (2003): 113-146. Web.

Footnotes

1 Ferguson, Everett. “Baptism in the early church: history, theology, and liturgy in the first five centuries”. Journal of Religious Studies Review. 36, no 1, 42, (2010).

2 Everett, Kalin. “The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning.” Currents in Theology and Mission 15, no. 5: 138. (2003).