Recently I was asked to explain how Jesus could be both fully man and fully God. This is the question that has a lot of Christians stumped, so let’s quickly try to deal with it.
First, we must understand that Christ was very active in the lives, and in the events of the people of the Old Testament. Jesus didn’t begin at Bethlehem, He has always existed as God in the Heavens. His presence is referred to many times prior to being born to Mary. He was often referred to as “Lord”, an “Angel of the Lord” or one of the “Let us” references. In fact, Paul tells us that it was specifically Jesus who created the world (Col. 1:16), and He was the God of Genesis (Gen.1:1).
The predictions of Jesus’ physical coming were all through the Jewish writings and the prophets. When He was born to Mary in Bethlehem, that began His human nature, but His divine nature had always been.
So we correctly say that Jesus was 100% God, while at the same time 100% man. Jesus did not simply occupy a human body during His years on earth, but He became man, and was man with all the human elements, except for one. He didn’t have a fallen sinful nature, the sin of Adam was not upon Him because He was born of a virgin.
The question arises, why was this needed? Why did He have to be both man and God?
The answer is simple, only a human being can understand perfectly my weaknesses and sin, and only a human can pay the price necessary to obtain my forgiveness. Yet, only a sinless God can perfectly and eternally forgive me. Only God can provide the sinless element of human blood to wash away my sin once and for all. Hebrews 9: 22 says, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Who is Jesus? He is God, who took on human nature, to be my substitute on the cross.
He is Emmanuel, “God with us”. This was the only way to create an eternal relationship between us and a holy God.