The Humanity of Jesus Christ
The biblical teaching and orthodox truth regarding Jesus Christ is that He is fully God and fully man. He is, as stated in Evangelical Convictions (pp. 98-99),
one Person in whom two distinct natures are united. Jesus Christ is truly God and truly man. He is fully and completely both at the same time, showing us the true nature of each. . . . The Son of God remained God – he never gave up being God, but he added to his divinity real humanity. As God incarnate, the divine subject made real human experience his own, and since the incarnation, the Son of God will forever be human. . . . [Jesus was/is] one Person and in this one Person are two distinct natures, which are divine and human in all their fullness.
This truth is especially pondered during the Christmas season, the time at which we are reminded that Jesus is fully God and fully man, with a special focus on His humanity in the incarnation.
Bruce Ware, Professor of Christian Theology at the Southern Baptist Theology Seminary, formerly Associate Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biblical and Systematic Theology TEDS, has written a new book on Christology, focusing on His humanity: The Man Christ Jesus: Theological Reflections on the Humanity of Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012).
D. A. Carson writes the following about this recent publication:
This delightful study of Jesus Christ the man probes deep and complex truths with a lucid clarity designed for ordinary Christian readers. I’m tempted to say that this is Warfield’s christology re-written for the devout layperson who wants to understand Jesus better and thereby trust, obey, and love him more whole-heartedly. The discussion questions at the end of each chapter promise that the book will be used widely in churches where one of the passions is to understand historic Christian truth in a fashion that is biblically faithful and spiritually nourishing.
Justin Taylor posted an interview with Ware about his new book, which is conducted by Dane Ortlund.
Taylor helpfully lays out the interview questions and identifies where they occur in this recorded interview:
00:30: What drove you (Bruce Ware) to write this book?
01:50: You start the book with a discussion of Philippians 2. Why did you choose to reference Philippians? Help us especially understand what it means when Paul says that Jesus “emptied himself” and became a servant.
03:57: When I (Dane Ortlund) think about the supernatural things Jesus did, my default mode is to think that Jesus is “falling back on his deity.” Help us understand the way you deconstruct and provide a corrective to that logic.
06:23: You have a chapter in the book that discusses Christ’s impeccability. What does it mean that Jesus was impeccable and how does that connect to his humanity? What does that mean for believers today?
09:25: Why did Jesus have to come as a man and not a woman?
11:43: What would you say to a woman who says to you, “Ok Dr. Ware, Jesus came as a male. Is it not true then that Jesus doesn’t really understand me as a woman?”
14:00: Why did Jesus have to come and be a man to save us? I can understand why only God could save me, but why did the second person of the trinity also need to become fully human and, it seems, do what Psalm 49 says can’t be done?
18:13: Is Jesus still a man today?
20:08: Why is knowing that Jesus’s incarnation is not a “parenthesis” cause for worship?
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