For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. (Colossians 2:9)
Last week, I wrote on the deity of Jesus Christ. This is part of a series discussing some theology that is necessary in order to be considered to be a part of the Christian faith. If there be any alteration to these necessary doctrines, then we stray into heresy. If we get the primary doctrines incorrect, the consequences could mean eternal condemnation because you believed in a false god.
While Jesus is truly God, it is also true at the same time that Jesus is truly human. Even from the start of Jesus’ earthly life, there was a unity of deity and humanity. He was born of a woman but through the “power of the Most High” (Luke 1:35). This caused Jesus to lay claim to a Jewish identity and Davidic lineage in His humanity, while still possessing divine power in His deity.
The New Testament gives a lot of evidence that Jesus was truly human and lived the full human experience. In the Gospels we see Jesus' human nature in His physical development (Luke 2:40, 52). He had physical desires for food (Matt 4:2) and drink (John 19:28). He also became physically exhausted (Matt 4:11; John 4:6) and tired (Mark 4:38).
Before all of the New Testament was written, the apostles were already fighting against a heresy called docetism. The heresy stated that Jesus was not actually present in human flesh, but was more akin to a phantom. The heresy stemmed from the idea that the physical world was impure, therefore Jesus would not have come in a physical body. However several Scripture passages would contradict this idea. He ate meals with the apostles (Luke 24:42–43; John 21:9, 13). He bled when he was injured (John 19:32–34). Most scholars think John’s letter was written to deal with docetism. He opened the letter with, “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” (1 John 1:1; cf. Luke 24:39).
This balance of Jesus being both truly God and truly man is often summarized with the doctrine of the hypostatic union. The Chalcedonian Creed said it best in 451 A.D.
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [coessential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ: as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations, vol. 2 [New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890], 63).
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