Jesus; God-Man

It is not likely that most persons perceive Jesus to be the unique creation that he was for earth and history, and, that he will always be the God/man.  We do not have full knowledge.  Theology records the long story of agreement/disagreement on the nature of Jesus.  The most common viewpoint taken from Scripture is that the birth of Jesus was the arrival on earth of incarnate God (God appearing in the form of mankind).  That is to say that God entered the human experience as a participant, and that without denying himself – something God cannot do.  He identified as a human being but noted his divine identity.  

This God/man has been the object of considerable study and wide speculation in the centuries since his death/resurrection.  His death provides the human factor for death.  The controllers of his earthly society found him guilty of the uttermost sin of Israel’s culture, blasphemy – the claim that he and God were the same: I and my father are one, he said.  Even those holding that he possessed both human and divine natures are often unsure as to how the affirmations fit.  There are no comparisons, and questions rise begging for answers.  We may be comforted that even the disciples, during ministry with Jesus were on different wave lengths about the nature of Jesus, even though they believed in him and that he represented the promised Messiah to them.  Uncertainty appears to be the position of Thomas until the confrontation after the resurrection.  Judas must have missed the understanding of both factors – the humanity and the deity.  So Judas may have taken the interpretation of the priests that Jesus may be a hoax, a blasphemer.  (He might also have had to cover a personal sin.  As treasurer of Jesus’ disciple team he may have dipped into the team treasury.  There is hint of it.  He may have felt that by miracle Jesus might evade death.)

I have detected in my own studies that when Jesus talked to the public, the groups, the ordinary people, he tended toward human logics, even while maintaining the style of parables in what he said, so to call persons to human understanding.  He was speaking with authority but the parables always seem to hold questions in them requiring response from listeners.  On occasion as with Nicodemus in John 3, the questions poured out in response to his parable.  Ye must be born again, said Jesus.  Nicodemus thought: Can’t be.  But he came back to Jesus, knowing this was not a word game, and that Jesus wasn’t joking: Can a man return to his mother’s womb and be born?  (Nature question, not experience parable)  Depending upon how the question was asked we detect the facts of nature.  The person of nature that Nicodemus was, we don’t detect any disrespect in his question.  It was a scientific question.  Jesus’ response took him seriously, and both men pressed on with the search for truth.  The questions and answers have prevailed to us.

Sometimes a responder hit right on, and Jesus would commend the responder: thou art not far from the kingdom of God.  Other times he would suggest that they were not following, not finding consistency, not searching for truth.  On occasion the response was stern (unchanging).  It either turned them to the business at hand, or they walked away, sometimes with ill will toward Jesus and his replies.  Perhaps they would do him harm and he walked away.  At the last he refused to walk away.  He did point out something that is very challenging, commonly missed by us, in his expectations and disappointments in the workings of the human mind: If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?  (John 3:12)  The realities of daily life and faith were a part of what Jesus included in his teachings.  They were issues that could be verified in his observations, but many did not even accept that practical test.  How then would they ever arrive at the spiritual truths he would convey?  They said they followed Moses’ writings, and Jesus pointed out the current errors and hypocrisies that proved they did not fulfill well what they claimed to be their guide.  That not received and analyzed but rejected, how would they ever accept his message for what they could not verify in the natural setting?  Moderns are faced with the ancient issues, and fumbling with human contradictions about natural life we miss the truth of Christ about heavenly meaning.  We fail in fumbling.   Life (visible) is the great evidence of God (invisible).