‘Jesus – human AND divine?’

A lot of people have a lot of problems believing in the Christian faith. This is

not a modern phenomenon; it has always been the case. It is today, it was in

medieval times, it was in the first century AD or, so as not to upset the secular

atheists, the first century ‘CE’ (Common Era)

People have issues not only in general but in particular - in particular articles or

tenets of Christian doctrine or teaching. And one of those particular articles of

Christian belief – probably the greatest one, and certainly one of the greatest

problems people have in believing – is the belief that Jesus was both human

and divine; that is to say that he was at one and the same time both a man and

God – God who created the world and all life itself. But even if we believe that

there is such a thing, or, rather, person, as God, how can such a thing possibly

be?

To the modern mind, steeped as it is for so many ordinary people, in notions,

usually rather vague, of Evolutionism or Darwinism as the explanation for our

existence; or to the non-believing professional scientists with their very

prescriptive laws of materialistic science which determine what they will and

will not allow as evidence, the very idea seems quite absurd. So why even

bother with it?

Well, setting aside for a moment the fact that not only have millions and

millions of people for the past 2000 years, including very intelligent men and

women, and even Nobel Prize winning scientists believed it, I would have to

admit that the idea is extremely puzzling. How could an ordinary man,

however unsurpassed his moral teaching, however wonderful his character,

however unique his suitability as a role model for humanity, also be God?

Ironically, one of the first major heresies or erroneous beliefs within the early

Church was the belief that Jesus was so amazing in every way that he could not

possibly have really been human; he just gave the appearance of being so. But

today the reverse is the case: how could an ordinary man possibly be divine?

Now some will argue that those poor, simple minded, uneducated,

unscientifically qualified first century Christians were simply emotionally,

psychologically, and intellectually overwhelmed by the personality and

charisma of Jesus. As many people at the time said, ‘No one ever taught like

him.’ Or again, ‘No one ever did miracles on the scale he does them.’




And to support their argument those same people will point today to the

naivety and gullibility of the thousands who are taken in by some manipulative

US TV evangelists who have been shown to be quacks and charlatans.

But there is all the difference in the world between Jesus and such men: Jesus

did not wear crocodile skin shoes and live in mansions, whilst those charlatans

who have died did not rise to life again three days later – appearing on one

occasion to over 500 people at the same time - as proof that everything he

taught and claimed and did and promised could indeed be believed!

More importantly, not only did Jesus himself claim to be God – something no

other person in history (who was not known to be either evil or stark raving

bonkers) has ever claimed, he also claimed to be the God who created all life

and whose purpose in becoming human was to save humanity from its Self.

And that – his claim to be God - as history relates, was the reason why he was

executed – for blasphemy, precisely for claiming to be God.

As C.S. Lewis so famously put it, ‘Either Jesus was mad, bad, or God: the

evidence leaves us no other choice.’

Of course, some will argue about the reliability of the evidence for all this – his

teaching, his miracles, his claims, and of course his resurrection. But even

atheist historians and archaeologists will admit that the literary and

archaeological evidence for Christianity’s claims are second to none when

compared with the then contemporary events, but also for events of the next

1500 or more years!

Richard Dawkins’ caricatures of Christianity are just that: caricatures. Even his

sincere atheist colleagues are embarrassed by them. (I did hear one wonderful

story of an atheist scientist who came to faith in Christ because he realised

that Dawkins’ caricatures were not the real thing and because there were far

too many bright people who did believe Christianity, many of whom were

scientists and some Nobel Prize winning ones!)

As with pretty much everything in life, rational people believe something

because the quality of the evidence convinces them to put their faith in it even

if they do not fully understand it. For example, I don’t fully understand the

theory of flight, but I am happy to fly in a plane. I don’t understand gravity, but

I was happy to jump out of them as long as my parachute was attached …. Oh,

and my reserve!




I’d like to give you just three principal reasons or pieces of evidence that have

convinced me that Jesus was both human and divine, both man and God.

The first is philosophical: but please don’t be scared; Year 3 two years ago at

Brenchley and Matfield Primary (that’s 7 and 8 year olds) got this pretty much

straightaway. We do have high hopes for some in that year group but it does

remind me of Jesus’ words that it is children who understand the mysteries of

God and His kingdom so much more easily than sophisticated grownups.

If you were a wizard or a witch and could magic anything at all – I did say Year

3 remember – and you wanted to know, because you really loved them, what

it was like to think like a rabbit and feel like a rabbit and truly experience what

it was to be a rabbit, how could you best do that? Don’t worry, to avoid

embarrassing you I won’t put anyone on the spot to answer that this morning.

And so, yes, if you are God, and you love the human race you created and you

want not only to communicate with them in an unthreatening way but also be

as them, exemplify human life, and then save them, how best might you

accomplish that? Is there not a very compelling love AND logic in God’s

incarnation, in choosing, in one of his forms of being God, to become human?

But moving quickly on to my second piece of evidence: how did it happen that

the God-man Jesus came about? Often wrongly referred to as ‘the virgin birth’,

the ‘virginal conception’ of Jesus is the unique and only way that, biologically,

it could have happened. And the point is this. God’s Spirit, not Joseph’s seed,

bearing the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, combines with Mary’s

egg so that no new person is created: instead, the Second Person of the Trinity

embraces and assumes his humanity from her and is born as the infant Jesus.

Those who suggest that Joseph had been intimate with Mary beforehand or

that Mary might not have been the innocent the New Testament records her

being are simply woefully ignorant of Jewish society and culture of that time.

My third piece of evidence is what Jesus had to say about himself and how he

proved his claims about himself to be true. By his teaching and by his miracles

Jesus proved his direct and indirect claims to be the two things which got him

executed - that he had both authority over all life and that he could forgive

peoples’ sins. And of course the supreme piece of proof he gave was his

promised rising from death to new life again, the evidence for which is

thoroughly compelling but will never be sufficient for those who choose not to

believe it.




Does it matter? Does it matter that we believe that Jesus was God incarnate?

Well the writers of the New Testament are quite adamant that it does. St. Paul

wrote (Romans 10:v9) that such a belief is required if a person is to be saved

and reconciled to God; while St. John provides a sobering warning that anyone

who denies Christ’s true humanity as well as his deity is lost to God of their

own volition.

Does it matter today? Well if what you want is just a moral code for life, then

perhaps no. But if you are honest enough to admit that you cannot live up to

that moral code and realise that, without faith in Jesus Christ - God’s chosen

unique yet universal way to salvation - God cannot accept you, then yes indeed

it does matter.

Or if all you want from the Church is a cosy little group that leaves you feeling

good about the world and about yourself, then probably no. But if you are

troubled by bad habits, a bad conscience, and, yes, the other side of death, and

want to be saved from these, then yes indeed it does matter.

Or if you simply want a cultural or academic interest in some aspect of

Christianity such as music, architecture, church history, or New Testament

Greek, then, no, it probably doesn’t matter. But if you want to become an

effective disciple of his and live not just the comfortable and comforting parts

– not ‘just up for the craic’, as the Irish would say - but the serving and

suffering aspects too, then yes indeed it most certainly does matter because as

Jesus himself said, ‘Without me you can do nothing’.

Jesus embraced humanity because he wants to embrace each one of us now

and for eternity, each person he brought into being: but we can only know that

embrace and respond wholeheartedly to it once we know and believe who he

truly is, God himself who became one of us in order that you and I could be

with him for ever. All the while we doubt him, doubt that he is whom he

claimed to be, our hearts will be deficient in Christian love, our minds short-

changed of the truth, our discipleship ineffective.

He will not force his love upon us because that is not the way of love. Instead,

he leaves the choice up to each one of us. I pray that if you have not already

done so you will choose wisely and open or reopen your life to him: he is

always ready and longing to forgive and to come in.