This post attempts to answer a question received recently about why it was necessary for Christ Jesus to be fully human.
As Luke 3 and 4 suggest, Jesus’ ministry involved establishing a new humanity, a humanity which fulfills the purpose for which we were created and which our first father Adam’s disbelief and disobedience subverted.
Luke 3:21-22 gives an account of Jesus’ baptism, culminating with the Father declaring Jesus to be His beloved Son with whom He is very pleased.
Luke 3:23-38 gives Jesus’ genealogy, which, unlike Matthew’s genealogy, goes backward and ends with “son of Adam, son of God.” It thus makes the point that Jesus’ lineage ultimately goes back to Adam, who was himself created to be God’s son.
Luke 4:1-13 gives Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, after which He immediately begins His public ministry.
As Genesis 1:26-27 says, Adam was created in the “image and likeness of God.” In fact, as scripture affirms, all humans were created in what theologians call the imago dei (or “image of God”), but it doesn’t explicitly tell us what that means. Even so, the only other place in scripture “image and likeness” language appears is in relation to Adam and his son Seth in Genesis 5:3. Here the point seems to be that Seth was truly Adam’s son. So “image and likeness” language seems to be the language of sonship (cf. Romans 8:29).
Interestingly, though I won’t pursue the point here, both Paul (in 2 Corinthians 4:4 and Colossians 1:15) and the author of Hebrews (in Hebrews 1:1-4) make the point that Christ isn’t merely “created” in God’s image but rather is Himself the very image (as per Paul) or exact imprint (as per Hebrews) of the Father.
The point about Adam and Eve, who (as per Genesis 2:23) was “taken out of Adam,” being made in God’s “image and likeness” seems to be that they were created to be God’s children. But by his disbelief and disobedience, Adam alienated himself from his divine Father.
According to scripture, a father’s true sons (and daughters) do what their fathers do. Since this post is already too long for such a straightforward question, I’ll not pursue the principle here, but it explains Jesus’ emphasis on His own submission to God the Father: He, and He alone, is by His very nature the true Son of God the Father. By his disbelief and disobedience, Adam alienated himself from his Father and thus showed himself to be a false son (that is, no son of God at all). Because true sons and daughters do what their fathers do, all Adam’s children, including you and me, are born disbelieving and disobedient; thus, like our father Adam, “in him” we are alienated from God because we ourselves disbelieve and disobey.
Now Jesus’ ministry involves establishing a new humanity of which He Himself is the head, a human family which has God Himself as its Father and into which the disobedient sons of Adam — who are, in Adam, “children of wrath” (cf. Ephesians 2:3) — may be adopted and thus become “children of light” (cf. Ephesians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:5).
In order to establish such a humanity and to be the first and best representative of it, Christ “undid” what Adam had done (or, if you will, accomplished what Adam failed to accomplish); in other words, He did what Adam failed to do — namely, believe and obey the heavenly Father. Whereas Adam failed to “trust and obey” in the most favorable circumstances in which a man could find himself (namely, in the Garden of Eden in a world not yet fallen), Jesus was faithful in the most difficult of circumstances (namely, during His temptation in the wilderness and ultimately the events of His passion).
In contrast to Adam’s disbelief and disobedience in the garden, Jesus believed and obeyed His Father in the wilderness and on the cross; moreover, just as Adam’s disbelief and disobedience found their ultimate expression in response to a forbidden tree, so also Jesus’ belief and obedience found their ultimate expression in response to a cursed tree.
In order to establish a new humanity — a new human family — with Himself as its head, Jesus Himself had to be a man. Were He not one of us, He couldn’t represent us as our father before His Father; and were He not truly divine, He wouldn’t be the true Son of God the Father. So Jesus had to be both fully divine and fully human in order to serve as the bridge between God and humans, being both the true Son of God and the true father of a human family characterized by belief in God and obedience to Him. So when we trust (and obey) Christ, we become His true sons and daughters, being no longer “in Adam” but rather “in Him.”
Among conservative Protestants, Christ’s atonement is usually understood almost exclusively in transactional terms: He paid a debt we ourselves owed by taking on Himself the wrath of God that we ourselves deserved. While it is certainly true that Christ took on Himself divine wrath which we ourselves deserved and thus paid a debt we ourselves owed, the atonement involves more than a transaction by which His assets (so to speak) are transferred to our accounts (so to speak). Not less than that, of course, but certainly not just that either. Historically — and here early church fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons come to mind — the church has had a very rich and multifaceted understanding of Christ’s atoning ministry as both priest and sacrifice.
Blountly Stated 