Jesus is God the Son Incarnate. He is fully God and fully man. In a previous step, we clarified what we do not mean when we say, with the Bible, that Jesus is fully human. In this step, we will expand on what we do mean.
God the Son became a man. The eternal Word added to himself a human nature as he came to dwell among us and display God's glory. Jesus is fully human. As Paul writes:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
—Philippians 2:6-11
But what do we mean when we say that Jesus is fully human?
Do you remember how the Bible defines humanity in the first act of the biblical story (Genesis 1-2)?
Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
—Genesis 2:7
It is only when God created both a body and a soul that Adam became “a living being.” God created the first human as a body-soul, and he called both our bodies and souls "very good." To have a human nature is to have a body and a soul. So, we affirm that Jesus had both a human body and a human soul.
1. Jesus has a human body.
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’ ”
—Hebrews 10:5-7
Scripture is clear that Jesus has a fully human body.
He was conceived miraculously, but he developed within the womb of his mother. She gave birth to him and nursed him at her breast. He was circumcised on the eighth day. He ate. He drank. He learned and grew and developed. As a man, he traveled around on foot and by boat. He grew weary and needed rest. He sought quiet places to pray. He suffered physically and felt pain as soldiers whipped him and pulled out his beard. His blood was not merely metaphorical or symbolic. He spilled real, red blood—his blood—to redeem us from our sins and reconcile all creation to God (Colossians 1:20 NIV). He died a brutally physical death, exposed naked upon the cross as he took upon himself the naked shame of Adam’s race to clothe us with the honor of his righteousness.
I offered my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard;
I did not hide my face
from mocking and spitting.
Isaiah 50:6
And, of course, it matters that he descended physically from Eve, from Abraham, and from David:
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
—Matthew 1:1
3 ...the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, 4 and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:3-4
3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. 4 Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
—Romans 9:3-5
But we must also note that God resurrected Jesus physically. Jesus did not abandon his body in the tomb when he rose again, and he did not leave his body upon the earth when he went up to sit at the right hand of the Father in heaven. He has a resurrection body now, and his resurrection body remains fully human, the archetype for the resurrected bodies of the new humanity. And so, when he returns, we will feel the gentle warmth of his hands as he wipes all the tears from our eyes.
36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
—Luke 24:36-44
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, 44 it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
—1 Corinthians 15:42-49
What other places in Scripture describe Jesus's body? What do these verses add to what we know about Jesus's body?
Scripture also teaches that Jesus has a fully human soul, complete with a human mind and human will.
The New Testament portrays Jesus exhibiting a full range of human emotions, needs, and characteristics. He was moved to pity, compassion, love, and affection (Matt. 9:36; Mark 1:41; 8:2; Luke 7:36-50; John 11:5; 13:34; 15:9-13); he was distressed (Mark 7:34; 8:12; Luke 22:15, 44); he became angry (Mark 3:5; John 11:33, 38); he experienced joy (Luke 10:21; John 15:11); he got annoyed (Mark 10:14); he was surprised (Matt. 8:10; Mark 6:6) and disappointed (Mark 8:17, 9:19); he remained subject to his parents (Luke 2:51); he suffered hunger and thirst (Matt. 4:1-2; Mark 11:12; John 19:28), fatigue and weariness (Matt. 8:23-24; John 4:5-6), and temptation (Luke 4:2, 13; 22:28), and he offered up prayers with loud cries and tears (Matt. 26:36-46; cf. Heb. 5:7).
(Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate, 213)
Indeed, we gain insight into the truly human soul of Jesus when we read the Psalms as the cries, prayers, songs, laments, and worship of the Messiah:
2 Have mercy on my, LORD, for I am faint; heal me, LORD, for my bones are in agony. 3 My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long?
—Psalm 6:2-3
(1) Read Psalm 22; (2) Highlight references to Jesus’s body in BLUE; (3) Highlight references to his soul (mind, emotions, will) with YELLOW
We can probe deeper into Jesus’s humanity by considering the two petitions in his Gethsemane prayer.
In his first petition, Jesus prays, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will” (Matt. 26:39). Far from opposing God’s will for him, Jesus is expressing the natural fear of death and aversion to pain and suffering that is quite proper for a human facing crucifixion. In this sense, Jesus does not want this “cup”’ –everything in him shrinks from it. The words used to describe Jesus’s mental state are graphic: “troubled (adēmonein), “greatly distressed” (ekthambeisthai), and “sorrowful (perilupos), even to death” (Mark 14:33-34). This is the inner life of a man facing a cruel and horrible death, and this for the sins of his enemies…
In his second petition, Jesus prays, “but as you [Father] will” (Matt. 26:39). Even with certain terror and agony hanging on his decision, Jesus aligns his human will to the divine will and submits in his humanity to the Father...if Jesus did not have a human will then the agonizing drama of Gethsemane is a complete farce and we are left without a human representative substitute to suffer for our sins and make us part of a new humanity. But the humanity of Christ on display in Gethsemane is not fictional. God himself has revealed through the New Testament authors that the divine Son who became incarnate chose to bear the cross out of love for the Father and for his people. We can have confidence that Christ hung on the cross in the fullness of humanity by considering how he made that decision. Jesus willed to do as a man what he initially and rightly did not want to do as a man, such that a man lived and died in perfect obedience to God for our salvation and the completion of God’s glorious plan for humanity and the rest of creation.
(Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate, 216)
How does the display of Jesus’s fully human obedience in the Garden strengthen you in your struggle against sin?
Before we move on to consider how and why God the Son became a man, let’s note one more reality. Jesus chose to live within the limits of his humanity. As a human, he remained fully God with all the divine attributes of omniscience, omnipresence, and eternality, but out of love he chose to confine himself to humanity. Wellum notes:
Here we simply need to recognize that God the Son incarnate lived (and still lives) a fully human life, and that in obedience to his Father and for our salvation, Jesus chose to live within the limitations of his humanity unless his Father allowed otherwise.
(Stephen J. Wellum, God the Son Incarnate, 214)
Indeed, Philippians 2:6-11 beautifully confirms this wondrous truth.
How do we see Jesus's love for the Father and love for us as we consider that he chose to confine himself to the limits of his humanity?