Alena Nicholson

THE 332

September 16, 2020

The Person of Christ

The theology of Christ has been debated since the early church began, arguably since the

moment Jesus was incarnated on earth. Regardless off the endless debates several theologians

and scholars had, the councils that had to be called, and heresies that happened because of the

struggle to pin down who Jesus is, Christians are still able to produce a foundation of truths

based in the Bible. One is able to conclude that Jesus is fully God and fully humans with the help

of the Nicene Creed and the results of the Council of Chalcedon. One can also better understand

Jesus by understanding Jesus’ works and how His atonement was necessary for us to be saved.

First, Jesus is fully God. Jesus never said outright that He is God but mentioned it

implicitly. First was the story in Mark 2 about the paralyzed man being lowered through the roof

by his friends. Jesus had the divine power to forgive him of his sins which is something only

God can do (which the scribes mentioned in verse 7). Here, Jesus is exercising His divine right to

forgive a man of his sins which implies that He is God. Another important passage that asserts

this is John 5:19-24. Verse 19 explains that the Son cannot do something unless He has seen the

Father do it. Verse 21 says “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the

Son also gives life to whom He wishes” which means the Son has all the same power as the

Father. Verses 23 and 24 affirm the fact that people have to go through the Son to get eternal life

and go to the Father.

 Even Jesus’ apostles assert Jesus’ divinity. In Colossians 1 verse 15, Paul sates that Jesus

is the image of “the invisible God”. This ties into His atonement (which is discussed later), but

Jesus is the image of God brought to us on earth so that everyone may be able to see God

through Him. Paul also refers to Jesus “as being or existing in the ‘form’ (morphe) of God. In

biblical and classical Greek this term refers to ‘the whole set of characteristics that makes

something what it is’” (McGrath, page 241, 2011). John speaks of Jesus as the Word where “the

Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1). In this verse, John says the Word is

divine but also separate from God which points to Jesus as fully God, yet still separate from

Him. The apostles even call Jesus “Lord” or kyrios. This word is used in the New Testament to

describe God the Father. The Greek word in it’s Hebrew equivalent is Jehovah or ‘adonai. It is

shown in Acts 2:20-21 that the word “Lord” (kyrios) is equivalent to “Lord” (Jehovah) in Joel

2:31-32 which points to the fact that the apostles meant to call Jesus “Lord” in its highest power.

(McGrath, 241, 2011)

The next truth that is concluded is that Jesus was fully human. He was not just sent here

from heaven as a full-grown man, he was conceived in a womb, starting as an embryo. He went

through the messiness of birth, the terrible twos, awkward puberty, and angsty teen years. He

lived a life as a carpenter for the majority of His life that is not portrayed in the gospel. The main

verse that shows that Jesus actually grew is Luke 2:52 where it states that Jesus grew in wisdom

and stature. Jesus also experienced hunger and tiredness but also died as humans do as shown in

Matthew 4:2, John 19:28, and John 4:6. Going back to John 1, verse 14 states that “the Word

became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the

Father, full of grace and truth.” Even when Jesus was resurrected, He had a physical body and

pointed out that ghosts/spirits do not have flesh like He does (Luke 24:39).
 As well as a physical nature, he had a psychological nature where he thought like a

human and had the range of emotions that humans have. “In addition to a physical nature, Jesus

had the same sort of emotional and intellectual qualities found in other humans- he thought,

reasoned, and experienced the full gamut of human feelings” (McGrath, page 249, 2011). Jesus

loved others greatly, especially one of His disciples (John 13:23) but also felt betrayal/distress

(Matthew 26:37), anger (Mark 3:5) and had a great amount of compassion portrayed throughout

the entire book of Matthew, but specifically in 9:36 and even Matthew 25:34-40. It is also shown

that Jesus did not want to be left alone, He wanted the company of His friends in times of

distress, specifically in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-42). His emotions and the way

he acted on them were certainly of human nature. (McGrath, pages 250-251, 2011)

An issue arises when believers and non-believers alike try to figure out how Jesus can be

both fully God and fully human at the same time. Finite minds cannot comprehend the infinite.

One way the church has helped people comprehend this is through the Nicene Creed. While this

also discusses God the Father and the Holy Spirit, the vast majority of the creed is about Jesus

Christ. The Nicene Creed was created due to the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. It was the first

ecumenical council which included all the church in the area, however only 318 bishops were

able to attend. The Council started because a man named Arius believed that Christ was less than

God, was born of the Father, and not just a man but an intermediary. He challenged the church to

solidify their beliefs which had not happened for 500 years. (Myers, ‘Challenge of Arius’, 2020)

While an extension of the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed was the solid foundation that

the church needed in order to combat people like Arius as well as the confusion that comes with

trying to put all the passages about Christ together. It mentions that Jesus is “God from God,

Light from Light, true God from true God,” as well as “he came down from heaven, and by the
Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” Added onto these important

truths about divinity and humanity, it also discusses Jesus’ atonement for us. “For our sake he

was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third

day…”(Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed)

Another important Council is the Council of Chalcedon. At this council in 451, Chalcedon

stated that Jesus is one person but has two natures that are not fused together, but not separated.

He seemed to leave it intentionally vague as to try not to define all aspects of Christ. He simply

put “guard rails” so as to not lead people astray, but kept it mainly a mystery. (Myers,

‘Conjunction of the Human and Divine in Christ’, 2020)

In order to fully understand Jesus, we have to understand His works and the importance of

them. Before His passion and atonement for our sins, He did a lot in the short span of his

ministry. The first is actually his incarnation. “What Jesus gave up in coming to earth was

immense. From a position of ‘equality with God,’ which entailed the immediate presence of the

Father and the Holy Spirit as well as the continuous praise of the angels, he came to earth , where

he had none of these” (McGrath, page 270, 2011). He came in the form of a servant, was born

into a modern family, and laid in the humble manger at his birth. During his ministry he taught,

healed, and cast out demons. We see this in Matthew 10:8 where Jesus says that He (and the

apostles and they went were to) “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out

demons.”

The next step in Jesus’ works include His death. Jesus’ passion was the ultimate work of

Jesus. He stepped down in the body of a servant, committed no sin yet was tortured by His

creation for His creation. “He experienced a type of execution reserved by the Roman Empire for

grievous criminals. It was slow, painful death…” (McGrath, page 271, 2011). His voice was
halted, and He could no longer preach, heal people, or grieve with broken hearted. However, he

was resurrected. This demonstrates that He trampled sin, cleansed us all, and fulfilled the Old

Testament prophecy to it’s fullest at that moment.

The importance of Christ’s work in our lives is that He mainly revealed God to us. He

became human, took on flesh so that we may see God on earth. Before Jesus, he was and

“invisible God” but Jesus was the window, the mirror of God so that we can live closer to our

Creator. He revealed God when He was alive and when He died, but Jesus’ atonement was the

ultimate revelation of God. Jesus’ atonement is the most important part of His ministry, not the

sole reason He came to earth, but arguably the most important. It is that which brings us into

oneness and right relationship with our Creator. In order to understand Jesus’ work of atonement,

one must understand the different theories of it.

The most important of these theories being the satisfaction theory, often called the Penal-

Substitution Theory. This theory “… emphasizes that Christ died to satisfy a principle in the very

nature of God the father. Thus the atonement did not involved any sort of payment to Satan”

(McGrath, page 279, 2011). In short, humans cannot rescue themselves, rendering us helpless

and in need of a savior. Christ, being fully God and a fully sinless human did not deserve to die.

Thus, His death on behalf of the human race (which he was part of) satisfied God and Jesus was

able to atone for sins. As a result of His death, Jesus gave us a perfect example of the dedication

we are to have for God, demonstrates the infiniteness of God’s love, emphasized the important of

sin and God’s righteousness, liberated us from the power of sin, and satisfied the Father our sins.

(McGrath, page 280, 2011)

The basic meaning of atonement can be broken down into four factors: sacrifice,

propitiation, substitution, and reconciliation. Sacrifice is seen in the Old Testament often, and
best explained in Hebrews 9:6-15. In atonement, Jesus is the spotless sacrifice, the priest doing

the sacrifice, as well as the tabernacle where it is taking place. He fulfilled the entire sacrificial

system (Myers, ‘The Works of Christ’, 2020). Propitiation is often talked about in the Pauline

writings, but is not limited to those writings. Leviticus 4:35 points to an appeasement of God’s

wrath. Substitution is best seen in Isaiah 53 and John 1:29. On Jesus laid the iniquity of us all

and took away the sins of the world. Reconciliation mentions the alienation between humans and

God. However, even though humans mess up time and time again, God wants to initiate the

reconciliation. (McGrath, pages 287-289, 2011)

In conclusion, humans are in need of saving. We are not able to save ourselves or save

each other by our sinful nature. Not one of us are able to atone for the sins of us all. Thus, Christ

had to be the one because He was fully God and truly human. He had the divine power to forgive

sins and heal people but also experienced humanly temptation. He was perfect yet understood us,

lived among us. It was not an outsider who died for us, He was truly one of us and sympathized

with us. As a result of Him being fully divine we can also truly know who God is. John 14:9

states that “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” Redemption is also available to us

because it was the infinite perfect God who died for us.