I decided to read through What the Bible Teaches, by R.A. Torrey again. It’s a great book – you can download a free PDF here – so we’re doing a little Bible study every Thursday. The collection is here. Subscribe over there to make sure you don’t miss anything, but come back and add your voice in the Comments! >>>

The divinity of Jesus and the humanity of Jesus considered together may be one of the most humbling ideas available to the human mind.

The concept itself is evidence to me that our faith is not designed by men. No one but God could take Himself, or the idea of Him, so lightly. No other religion has come up with this. Incarnations and manifestations, maybe, but not deity eternally joining to creation – unless maybe as some eternal punishment by a higher ranking god.

Torrey proposes:

1. Jesus is called a man even after His ascension.
2. Jesus is called the Son of Man 77 times, even after His ascension.
3. The Eternal Word was made flesh/had a true human body.
4. Jesus had a true human body after His resurrection.
5. Jesus still has a human body in glory.
6. Jesus had a human parentage and ancestry.
7. Jesus was subject to the physical limitations of human nature.
8. Jesus’ knowledge was subject to limitations.
9. Jesus obtained power for work and moral victory through prayer, as other men do.
10. Jesus obtained power for divine works by the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
11. Jesus was subject to limitations in the exercise of power during the days of His humiliation.
12. Jesus bore the relation of man to God the Father.

Fully God and yet He became, and will always be, fully human at the same time.

There are pieces of this reality that are difficult to wrap my mind around. Aspects of this just don’t make sense, but I remind myself that He is bigger than my reality. I live and move in Him, not the other way around.

We don’t have to always understand the How to appreciate the What and the Why. However He does it, He does. The point is that He didn’t have to do any of it. 

He exists as God and as a man, Hebrews 12 tell us, for “the joy set before Him.” For His people, for anyone who chooses to believe. He limited Himself, He confined Himself, He humbled Himself more than anyone else will ever understand humility, and He suffered for it at the hands of His created and His benefactors … for the possibility that some of those He loves will believe and turn toward Him.

Fully God became fully man so He could empathize with our weakness (Hebrews 14), and so He could die in our place.

Why?

Love.

We celebrate this reality every Christmas and Good Friday, but it never gets old.

Last Christmas, our local church wrote a program called Scandal in Bethlehem. I got to perform a spoken word piece for the evening, and it ended like this:

You came
A scandal
For every child born without a good name
In weakness
Penniless
To know this:
Our trials and pain
Our weakness
Our brokenness
Our struggles
Our shame 

You came like this because You came for more
Than “Out of Jail Free” and settling a score

Listen
He came like this so He could meet you and say
“I know
“I know, and soon it will all be okay”

It’s done. Like it or not. What will your response be.