Why should Jesus be both divine and human?

The third in an extended series on the Seventh-day Adventist faith, covers God the Father and the Son

Woodrow W. Whidden, Ph.D., is professor of historical and systematic theology, Theological Seminary of the Adventist Institute of Advanced Studies, Silang, Cavite Province, Philippines.

Seventh-day Adventist statement of faith #3: "God the eternal Father is the Creator, Source, Sustainer, and Sovereign of all creation. He is just and holy, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The qualities and powers exhibited in the Son and the Holy Spirit are also revelations of the Father. (Gen. 1:1; Rev. 4:77; 7 Cor. 15:28; John 3:16; 7 John 4:8; 777m. 7:77; Exod. 34:6, 7; John 14:9.)"

Seventh-day Adventist statement of faith #4: "God the eternal Son became incarnate in Jesus Christ. Through Him all things were created, the character of God is revealed, the salvation of humanity is accomplished, and the world is judged. Forever truly God, He became also truly man, Jesus the Christ. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived and experienced temptation as a human being, but perfectly exemplified the righteousness and love of God. By His miracles He manifested God's power and was attested as God's promised Messiah. He suffered and died voluntarily on the cross for our sins and in our place, was raised from the dead, and ascended to minister in the heavenly sanctuary in our behalf. He will come again in glory for the final deliverance of His people and the restoration of all things. (John 1:1-3, 14; Col. 1:15-19; John 10:30; 14:9; Rom. 6:23; 2 Cor. 5:17-19; John 5:22; Luke 1:35; Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 2:9-18; 1 Cor. 15:3, 4; Heb. 8:1, 2; John 14:1-3.)" Seventh-day Adventist Church Manual, 7, 8.

It was Jesus' truly amazing claim: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him" (John 14:6, 7). 1

It is hard to imagine how Jesus could have been any clearer in His claim of profound identity with His Father. But the full force of this astounding self assertion did not seem to register on Philip: "Philip said to Him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.'" Jesus' response is even more astonishing: "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14: 8, 9).

To know Jesus is to know the Father. To study the person of the Son in His incarnate self-revelation is to see the most accurate portrayal of the divine person of the Father. So when we confess that God the Father is "immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, ever present," and "infinite and beyond human comprehension," we firmly hold that He has supremely shown Himself "through His self-revelation" in the incarnate Person of the God/Man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, what the Bible reveals about the divine Jesus, is also the revelation of the divine nature and character of the Father.

Is Jesus "forever truly God," "the Eternal Son," and "also truly man"? Seventh-day Adventists have forthrightly confessed that Jesus is both "truly God" and "also truly man."2 What is the bibli cal evidence for affirming Christ's full deity and genuine humanity? Why is such affirmation so essential to the effec tive carrying out of the Trinity's great effort to reconcile the sin-alienated human race?

The full deity of Christ

The Bible presents three major types of evidence to show that Jesus pos sessed an inherently divine nature that is the same as that of His Father:3 (a) The New Testament expressly refers to Jesus as God; (b) Jesus applied to Himself titles and claims reserved for the God of the Old Testament; (c) the New Testament writers apply to Jesus Old Testament names and titles for God.

The New Testament expressly calls Jesus God. Hebrews 1:7, 8 says that while God made the angels to be "spir its and His ministers a flame of fire," "to the Son He says: 'Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.'" Hebrews 1:8 is only one of seven direct New Testament applications of the Greek word for God (theos) to Jesus (the other six are in John 1:1, 18; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; and 2 Peter 1:1).

Let's be clear as to what the New Testament writers, especially the author of Hebrews, are saying in these verses: They are referring to Jesus as "God," and in Hebrews the writer is interpreting the Old Testament by applying to Jesus a psalm (45:6) originally addressed to the God of the Old Testament.

And let's make no mistake about the grammar of Hebrews 1:8—the expression "O God" is clearly in the Greek grammatical case of direct address (called the vocative case). In other words, the biblical writers are expressly applying the title "God" to Jesus.

Jesus applies divine titles and claims to Himself. The most singular example of this is John 8:58: "Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.'" Jesus was telling the Pharisees that He is none other than the God of the Exodus, and He applied Exodus 3:14 to Himself: "And God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.'"

Furthermore, this "God" who speaks in Exodus 3:14 goes on in verse 15 to further clarify His identity as "The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." In other words, Jesus not only claimed to be the God of the Exodus but also the "Lord" (Yahweh) of the patriarchs. Is it any wonder that the unbelieving Pharisees "took up stones to throw at Him" (John 8:59)—the punishment for blasphemy?

Another startling claim, which was also considered to be blasphemy by the Jewish leaders, is found in John 5:17. The context is the accusation of Sabbath violation because Jesus performed a mir acle of healing on the Sabbath. "Jesus answered them, 'My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.'" His opponents and John clearly understood Christ's response to be a claim of divine equality with God the Father: "Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God" (verse 18).

Application of divine names to Jesus by New Testament writers. Hebrews 1:10- 12 applies the supreme Old Testament title for God (JHWH or Jahweh) to Jesus. The author does this by applying Psalm 102:25-27 to Jesus. It was not unusual for the New Testament writers to do this; but what is striking about this application is that Psalm 102 was addressed originally to the "Lord" (Yahweh) of the Old Testament. Thus the New Testament author is quite comfortable in applying passages that were originally addressed to the self-existent God of Israel to Jesus. The strong implication is that Jesus is the "Lord," the Yahweh (JHWH), of the Old Testament.

In Revelation 1:17 Jesus identifies Himself as "the First and the Last." John here is drawing on Isaiah 44:6: "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: 'I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me there is no God.'" What are we to make of this terminology that the writer reports as coming from the mouth of Jesus? Is it not obvious that John is telling us that Christ, our High Priest, is none other than the Lord, that is, JHWH, Yahweh, or Jehovah, of the Old Testament?

The divine Christ is fully human

While Seventh-day Adventists have forthrightly declared Christ's essential and substantive deity, they have also made it abundantly clear that His deity did not in any way compromise His full humanity as the incarnate God/Man. Scripture witnesses to the full humanity of Christ.

The most often cited passages are Hebrews 2:14 ("as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same") and Romans 8:3 ("sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh").

Besides these verses, Adventist writers have often employed numerous other passages, such as: Hebrews 4:15 ("He was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin"), Hebrews 2:17 ("in all things He had to be made like His brethren"), Hebrews 4:15 (He was "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" [KJV]), Hebrews 5:2 (He was "com passed with infirmity" [KJV]). Then there is Matthew 4 (the temptation of Christ) and Luke 1:31-35 (the Annunciation).

With such forceful evidence about the reality of Christ's humanity and His temptations, the debate among Adventist thinkers has never been over Christ's humanity, but over His sinlessness. While all affirm that He never sinned (neither in act nor thought), there has been much discussion about the proper interpretation of the phrase "likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3).

There is a growing consensus that while Christ's humanity was "affected" by sin (He was "weakened"), His human will was not "infected" with the animus of evil or sinful "bents," "inclinations," "propensities," or "tendencies" to do that which was contrary to His Father's will; that while He took upon Him our weakened sinful human nature, yet in Him Himself there was not the least taint of sin or sinfulness.

Theological implications of Christ's deity and humanity

The deity implications. The full deity of Christ is deemed to be absolutely essential to the efficacy of the Trinitarian effort to redeem sinful humanity. This involves not only the great provisions of Christ's death for the forgiveness of sins but also the work of the divine Son (by the Holy Spirit) to effect character transformation.

First, before the Trinity could bring the efficacy of Christ's saving life and death to bear on the salvation of sinful human beings, there was the urgent need to reveal to sin-alienated people what God is truly like. And the only Being who could offer such an arresting revelation of the divine nature would be God Himself. This was the primary mission of Jesus, the divine Son of God.

It was and is this self-revelation of divine love that reaches out to the sod den senses of the lost race and brings them to an awareness of what Christ has done, is doing, and will do to bring about a full reconciliation between God and struggling humanity. And only One who is fully divine could truly represent what the Godhead is all about.

When it comes to the actual provision for salvation, especially in His atoning death, only One who is equal with the Father in divine nature could offer a sacrifice that would fully satisfy God's divine justice. And only the fully divine Christ would be powerful enough to re-create scarred human beings into the likeness of divine nature.

In other words, only the divine Son could effect the conversion of the new birth and bring about character changes consistent with the divine likeness. To sum it up, only the Son, who is love incarnate, could manifest such a trans forming "love, so amazing, so divine."

The humanity implications. What is it about Jesus' full humanity that is so acutely essential to the saving efficacy of His life, death, and intercession, and the dynamic application of personal salvation to responsive sinners? The divine self-revelation had to be clothed with humanity or the raw presence of deity would destroy sinful humans. Thus, Christ "clothed His divine nature with the garb of humanity, and demonstrated before the heavenly universe, before the unfallen worlds, and before the fall en world how much God loves the human race."4

God's love was thus manifested in the following ways:

First, the climactic revelation of divine love came at Calvary. Since deity cannot die (1 Tim. 6:16), it was absolutely necessary for Christ to take on human nature if He was to offer Himself in death as a sacrifice for sin. This unique combination of deity and humanity formed the basis of a powerful sin offering: Though His deity did not literally die, it consented to His human death every step of the way. Therefore Christians can truly confess that, in a very special sense, "God died." The sacrificial death of the Man was given divine value because of the constant consent of His deity.

Second, Christ's humanity was absolutely essential to His work as our great Exemplar. Since God cannot be tempted (James 1:13), Jesus had to become a human in order to experience temptation and give us the effectual example of His own victory over the wiles and deceptions of our arch enemy.

Adventists have consistently made two key points: (1) The temptations of Jesus were as real as His humanity (with the possibility of His yielding to them); and (2) the key issue in all His temptations was whether He would rely on His deity or trust solely in the imparted power of His Father. His inherent divine power made the temptation to trust self (the heart of all temptation) much more difficult to resist.

Third, the sinlessness of His human nature and perfect obedience (His character) were essential to the efficacy of His atoning sacrifice. One trace of sin would have disqualified Him from being our atoning substitute and sacrifice.

Fourth, the profound union of both His victorious humanity and self-sacrificing deity uniquely fitted Him to be the "one mediator between God and men" (1 Tim. 2:5, KJV). Only one who is fully human could give empathetic help to fallen humanity and only one who is fully God could stand before the Father as our victorious Advocate.

In His role as our divine/human Advocate and High Priest in heaven, Christ has forever immortalized Calvary as the effectual plea of redeeming love for the doomed race. Could there be a greater manifestation of love than that which has been personified in the Person of Christ, our great Substitute and Surety before the Father? And could there be any greater, more comprehensive or effective plan for saving fallen human beings, than the one conceived of and offered in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ?

1 Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture passages are from the New King James Version.

2 All the expressions in quotation marks in this and the two previous paragraphs are taken from the two fundamental beliefs that lead off this article

3 For an extensive discussion of the evidence, see my chapters in Section One of The Trinity: Understanding God's Love, His Plan of Salvation and Christian Relationships (Hagerstown. Mil Review and Herald Pub Assn . 2002), 16-119. These chapters also deal with pas
sages that are most often cited by anti-Trinitarians to deny the eternal deity of Christ. See especially chapter 6 and its Supplement 92-112.

4 Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, 5' 114.

 

 


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Woodrow W. Whidden, Ph.D., is professor of historical and systematic theology, Theological Seminary of the Adventist Institute of Advanced Studies, Silang, Cavite Province, Philippines.

March 2003

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