- CHAPTER 8 -
The Son of Man & of God

When a person contracts a serious illness, they are referred to the appropriate doctor. If a person is having heart problems, they are sent to a heart doctor who specializes in this area. No one with a heart problem would see a foot doctor. No one with a foot problem would see an eye doctor. There may be many doctors, but not every doctor is suitable for treating every illness.

There are many religions, ideas, and people offering solutions to the human dilemma. However, there is only one doctor sent by God offering a cure for sin. The greatest problem of sin is the separation of God and humanity. As such, this doctor would mediate between both reconciling this great divide. Only a doctor with a deep understanding of both perspectives, who embodied both God and humanity, is suitable for such a task.

Jesus Christ came down from Heaven and was born as a man. He is God incarnate, in other words, the Word made flesh. (John 1:14) Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin woman named Mary. His blood was of human origin having descended from the lineage of Abraham and King David. His human spirit was the Holy Spirit meaning that He was God in flesh. His blood held eternal life. The fullness of God was within Him.

Jesus Christ was both God and man in one which is why He is called both the Son of God and the Son of man. If we say that Christ was only God, we deny His humanity. If we say Jesus was only man, then we deny His divinity. Both have great significance to fulfillment of His purpose. Christ came to bring reconciliation between God and man. He came to bridge the gap.

Let us explore each of these in context to better understand who Christ was and how He is our Lord and Savior.

The Son of Man & of God

Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The bible says concerning Him: “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” (Hebrews 1:3a) All things are sustained by the Word of the Son. This means that Jesus is the law holding the universe together as it functions according to His Word. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (Matthew 28:18) He has power over all things. What He commands, so it will be. The Bible says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:15-17) All things were created by Jesus and for Jesus. This means that you and I were created by Him and for Him. He is the creator and sustainer of the universe, and yet, this all-powerful and almighty God became a fragile babe.

Jesus came as a lowly and humble servant seeking to help others. He came as a babe born in a barn. He knew the full experience of being human. He cried to His mother as His little stomach growled from hunger pains. He felt the sting of the night air as it chilled His soft skin. He started life with a blank slate learning how to speak and walk just as everyone does. Christ was limited by physical space and time having yielded to human flesh. Though He was God, He “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” (Philippians 2:6-7)

Bearing all the majesty of God, He could have come down from Heaven arrayed with beauty unimaginable to our earthly experience. However, the Scriptures say of Him, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2b) Jesus was a common man without anything physically extravagant about Him. He was an average person. If He had lived in our day, He would have had difficulty pursuing a career in modeling or acting. There was nothing attractive about Him.

Jesus would later be raised in Nazareth, a town of ill repute. He would be called Jesus of Nazareth and known as a Nazarene. When the apostle Philip first found Jesus and told His friend, Nathanael asked, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46) In comparison to our day, it would be like being born in Las Vegas, Nevada. We would not imagine a holy God being born in a city where nothing is considered sacred.

Having all power over the universe, we would imagine God coming down shooting lightning bolts from His finger tips and performing wildly amazing feats of glory. What things would you do if you had such power? Thinking of this, I would not have lived as a pauper as Christ did without a place to lay my head. I would have built myself an enormous castle to establish the throne of my rule. I would have gathered together all the riches of the world to use at my disposal. I would have enjoyed the finest pleasures of life from bathing in sunny waters to flying over the most scenic views. Indeed, I would have helped others to appease my own goodness. I would have helped myself to whatever I wanted, from pleasing myself to pleasing others. However, Christ came not seeking to please Himself. He came, not to receive in selfishness, but to give in love offering all that He was for the betterment of those around Him. He did not deny His humanity or abuse His divinity. Rather, He submitted to His humanity and used His divinity to serve others in need.

This was proven and displayed in His miracles. Christ had no place to lay His head and yet He went around healing anyone who came to Him. He gave sight to blind, cleansed lepers of a disfiguring illness, gave movement to the crippled, and even raised the dead back to life. At one point, He fed over five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. (Luke 9:10-17) At another time, Jesus commanded the wind and waves to be silenced during a storm. This amazed His disciples that even the natural universe would obey His command. (Matthew 8:23-27). The apostle John wrote of Him: “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)

Such display of power and authority testified to the deity of Christ. He was not merely a man, but the Son of God. Some of His followers believed this, while others did not. In countless other ways, Christ communicated that He was the Son of God. For instance, Jesus forgave the sins of a paralytic man. The teachers of law heard this and quickly accused Jesus of blasphemy as they said, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-12) Sin is a crime against God. Only God can forgive sin. In another instance, when the apostles were being accused of working on the Sabbath, Christ replied: “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” (Luke 6:1-11) At this, Christ was telling them that He was in charge of the Sabbath. Christ had made the law, given the law, and it is He who understood the full meaning of the law. At another time, Christ gave the disciples a new command. (John 13:34) Only God can give NEW commands. Lastly, Christ called Himself the “Son of God.” In that day, the Jews understood this to mean that Christ was claiming to be God. The bible says, “For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5:18)

Born from Abraham and the lineage of David, Jesus was a Jew. As such, He was born under the Law of Moses. At His birth, He was circumcised just as God commanded for all Jewish people from the time of Abraham. In addition, he observed the entire Jewish law to His death. He celebrated every Holy day including the Sabbath. He honored His parents as the law commanded. He did not steal, did not murder, did not bear false witness, and did not lie. He studied the Scriptures. And He refrained from eating pork. Though He created the law, Christ was not exempt from the law. As a man, He was held under the law. As such, if He should break the law, He would be just as guilty as anyone else.

The religious leaders of the day sought to kill Jesus due to His gaining popularity and power. Christ threatened their established power by proclaiming to be the Son of God. If Jesus were indeed the Christ, this meant the religious leaders were accountable to Him. They should have bowed down to worship Jesus who is the God they claimed to trust and obey. Rather, they did not want to bow down and worship anyone but themselves. In their position of leadership, they could manipulate the people for money, power, and prestige. Using the law, they could leverage their own selfish desires. They pretended to love God and obey Him while secretly stealing from God and abusing His law. Fully aware of their pretense, Christ called the religious leaders hypocrites and snakes. (Matthew 15:7-9; 23:13-33)

Christ was a threat to all power and authority as He was God incarnate. No one could pretend around Him. Christ knew all things seeing deep into the heart of every man. In addition, the righteousness of Christ was like a light shining in darkness. John the Baptist, one of the greatest men ever born at that time, said of Jesus “the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.” (John 1:27) When the apostle Peter first realized that Jesus was the Christ, “he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’ (Luke 5:8)” Jesus was the pinnacle of goodness. He was supremely righteous having never sinned. He was “without sin.” He is “one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.” (Hebrews 7:26) There was none like Him ever in the history of mankind even to this day and far into the future. Jesus is the Christ who knows no sin.

And yet, though He is supremely good, He was not without temptation. The bible says that God cannot be tempted. (James 1:13) This would make sense being that God exists above all things having all things in His possession. What could seduce God when He owns all things? Jesus, however, was also a man. As a man, he felt hunger, pain, thirst, desire, and more. In His flesh and weakness, He could be tempted. In fact, Christ “has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) Christ was tempted in every way meaning that He knows everyone’s temptation. No matter what temptation you have experienced, from the allure of sex, power, drugs, or money, Christ knows the suffering involved in resisting temptation. “Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:18) The temptation that Christ endured was no less than what we endure. He suffered just as we suffer. Unlike us, however, He never yielded. Christ resisted to the point of shedding blood. (Hebrews 12:4)

Christ became like us in every way except without sin. In becoming like us, Christ served the living God as a faithful and high priest. (Hebrews 2:17) Christ exemplified everything that the whole of humanity should be in one person. As such, Christ was called Teacher, Master, and Lord. He came to be our King so that we would have a leader to follow. This is significant because Christ did not just tell us how to live; He showed us how to live by His entire person. He is the Word of God incarnate. The Disciples of Christ could know God just by looking at Jesus. (John 14:9) This is far different from any other prophet or teacher that ever lived. Other teachers will say, “Do as I say.” People follow and obey their teachings which often times contradict their own lives. Jesus Christ, however, lived the words He spoke. Christ modeled true righteousness. His message says, “Do as I do.” His words were, “Follow me.” Christians do not just act like Jesus, they become like Jesus. They are transformed into the likeness of Christ. In this way, the fulfill God’s original purpose for humanity. They are recreated in the image of God.

By studying Christ, we can truly understand ourselves. He is both the Son of Man and the Son of God. He is our King who came to claim us as His own by laying down His life in exchange for ours.