Jesus was Fully God

One of the theological truths the early church wrestled with was the substance of Jesus. Was He human? Was He divine? Or maybe He was a bit of both?

Some argued He was only human, because in their minds, God cannot take on mortal flesh. If God did take on a human body, He would cease to be omnipresent (everywhere at every moment), and thus cease to be God. Therefore, they reasoned, Jesus was only human and not God.

Others argued that Jesus was clearly God based on the miracles He performed, but couldn't have been human because they saw the physical world as evil. If God had taken on physical, human flesh, He would be corrupted by the evil of the mortal world, and thus, would cease to be God. So Jesus, they reasoned, was only a divine hologram and not a physical human.

Others, though, saw Jesus as being at least a bit human, for He died a horrific, physical death like any human who had been crucified. But they also thought He must have been part divine, for how do you explain the miracles like His resurrection?

In the midst of all this confusion, the biblical writers had no question: Jesus was fully human AND fully God. He wasn't simply a divine apparition without human DNA. Nor was He merely human with no divinity. And He definitely wasn't half-human and half-God like some celestial mutant. Some of the biblical writers, like John and James, knew Jesus was fully human because they had personally seen Him eat, sleep, walk, cry, and bleed. But at the same time, they knew He was fully God, which was revealed in the way He taught, prophesied, stopped storms, and raised the dead.

Today's One Thought

This is why, for today's One Thought from Philippians 2:3-11, we hear the Apostle Paul in verse 6 say...

"[T]hough he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." (Philippians 2:6, ESV)

To say Jesus "was in the form of God" was not Paul's attempt to define the substance of Christ as being "like" God. Rather, he was definitively stating that Jesus was fully God. If He was in the "form of God," then His very substance was that of God. And the second half of the verse makes it clearer: Jesus did not use His divinity ("equality with God") to His own advantage or His own comfort ("a thing to be grasped"). Rather, Jesus willingly laid aside the privileges of His heavenly glory to take on mortal flesh in order to die in humanity's place through the cross.

So don't make the mistake many make by denying the humanity or divinity of Jesus. Rather, worship and exalt Him who was fully God from before time began, entered into time and became fully human, and lives eternally as both fully human and fully God, inviting you to be in eternal relationship with Him.