By Titus Azariah.
“Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever”.
Many think that Jesus Christ took the form of a human just for becoming a sacrifice for all our sins in cross. But, even now, he is fully God and fully man in one person. After the resurrection he ate fish, he showed the scars in his hands with his disciples. The only change was that his physical body was in glorious form. And that is how we will be after our resurrection.
Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man but in one person. He had both divine nature and human nature (without sin) to the fullest. There are many things in the incarnation of Jesus that we cannot comprehend, but we accept it by faith.
Scripture clearly asserts that Jesus was conceived in the womb of his mother Mary by a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and without a human father. The virgin birth made possible the uniting of full deity and full humanity in one person. He grew through childhood to adulthood just as other children grow: He was Thirsty and hungry like us.
The fact that Jesus “increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52) says that he went through a learning process just as all other children do. Even though he was omniscient and fully God in his divine nature, he had to go through everything like a normal human being with his human nature.
Jesus was “led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil”. The essence of Jesus’ temptations was an attempt to persuade Jesus to escape from the hard path of obedience and suffering that was appointed for him as the Messiah. Jesus had come to obey God perfectly in our place, and to do so as a man. This meant that he had to obey on his human strength alone. If he had called upon his divine powers to make the temptation easier for himself, then he would not have obeyed God fully as a man. Therefore, He is a a pattern for us to follow. “He who says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6), “imperishable...raised in glory...raised in power...raised a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44).
We needed a representative who was human, without sin and stayed obedient till the end. To be a substitute sacrifice, Jesus had to be made like us in every way, so that he might become “the propitiation” for us, the sacrifice that is an acceptable substitute for us.
Jesus could be a sympathetic high priest because He lived life like us.