On paper it seems so simple: “We believe in the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. As God’s Son, Jesus was both human and divine.” But trying to wrap our finite human minds around the concept of the full humanity and the full deity of Jesus is challenging!
First off, Jesus was fully human. Both Matthew and Luke record details about Christ’s physical birth, and the writer of Hebrews says that Jesus was made every bit as human as us (Hebrews 2:17).
But Jesus was also fully God. John records how God became flesh in the Person of Jesus (John 1:1-2, 14), and Paul tells us how Jesus chose not to use His deity when He came to earth as a human (Philippians 2:6-8).
I know that anytime we say, “God is like…” we’ve already sold ourselves short, but I’d like to try one analogy that’s been helpful for me.
Imagine a coin that has two distinct sides. While we are looking at one side (heads), we cannot see the other side (tails) but that doesn’t mean the other side has ceased to exist. In fact, if we were able to split that coin in half, so that there was only a heads and a tails, we haven’t cut the value of the coin in half, but we’ve made the coin of no value at all!
In the Greek language of the New Testament, there are a couple of words for “knowing”: one is gnosis and the other oido. Together these words combine head knowledge and heart knowledge, or knowledge by study and knowledge by experience.
C.S. Lewis captures the idea this way: “It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true Word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers, will bring us to Him.”
Just as Jesus was both God and Man, we are to use both our mind and our heart to know Him.
To focus on the “heads” side—the deity of Jesus—is to pervert gnosis into gnosticism, and deny the humanity of Jesus. To focus on the “tails” side—the humanity of Jesus—is to pervert gnosis into agnosticism, and deny the deity of Jesus. True gnosis keeps both sides in mind: Deity and humanity.
To truly know THE Word of God (Jesus) in all His humanity and in all His deity, we need to study the Word of God. We also need the help of the Holy Spirit. I like the Old English wording of this verse—Ye have an unction [charisma] from the Holy One, and ye know [gnosis] all things (1 John 2:20).
So read your Bible, but not just to read your Bible. Ask the Holy Spirit to make THE Word known to you. Live in the balance of gnosis as you get to know Jesus more deeply and personally.
This post is a part of our series studying our foundational beliefs. If you would like to read more about the first foundational beliefs we have discussed, check out this post on the inspiration of Scripture, and this post on the Trinity.
Craig T. Owens 
March 6, 2017 at 10:14 am
Son of God. Son of man.
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May 16, 2023 at 9:47 am
How can you say Jesus was 100% man when mans soul was missing?
We are a triniry- body ,siul and spirit.
If the a mans soul is missing he is not 100% man.
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May 16, 2023 at 9:56 am
What would lead you to believe that Jesus was without a soul? At Creation, God made mankind in His image, which included a soul (Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7). Then the New Testament tells us that Jesus was made like us, “fully human in every way” (Hebrews 2:14-17), which would also include a body, soul, and spirit.
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May 16, 2023 at 10:23 am
Thanks for your reply. It is great to discuss without arguing.
Jesus was without a mans soul because that how sin is transferred(human nature).
Why else was there an immaculate conception?
The soul travels through the man not a woman because Jesus soul would have been corrupted through Mary.
If you read scripture it talks about the generations of man but it never goes through women.
Also twice in scripture it talks about ” according to the flesh” indicating that is all that was transferred.
Acts 2:29
Psalms 132:11 …of the fruit of the body….
Why put it there if it was not important?
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May 16, 2023 at 10:35 am
Also Romans 1:3
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
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May 16, 2023 at 1:31 pm
Greg, I believe you are parsing these verses too stringently. Just because a verse does not specifically mention all three parts of body, soul, and spirit does not necessarily mean one of them is missing. I think there is an implicit understanding that when a see a human being standing in front of me, I know that there is a triune being there. As C.S. Lewis rightly stated, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.”
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May 16, 2023 at 1:54 pm
Well I thought you might want to think about these scriptures and pray about them.
Enjoyed talking to you and my the peace of the LORD be with you!
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May 16, 2023 at 1:58 pm
I really do appreciate you taking the time to share these thoughts and verses with me. It is indeed a weighty subject that our finite human minds have trouble fully grasping. I am always willing to learn, and I am looking forward to the day that we no longer have to see through a glass darkly, but we can see our Savior face to face! Blessings on you, my friend.
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April 3, 2017 at 6:02 am
[…] But who could bridge this chasm? Who could be a mediator between God and man? The only possible candidate would have to be Someone who was both fully God and fully Man—that is Jesus Christ! […]
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May 13, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Holy Scriptures say that the things created are an example of the things not seen and that we can understand God and the Godhead by the things that are seen. Nothing in this world is 200%. Jesus was not 100% man and 100% God.
1. The fallen soul of man was not in Jesus because of the immaculate conception. Part of man was missing.
The soul did not come through Mary because Scripture indicates that the soul travels through the male.or else Jesus would have been contaminated by sin through Mary. For all have come short of the glory of God, that includes Mary.
2. If Jesus was 100% God then he would have all authority. However when asked to place two of this woman’s sons on the right-hand of Jesus, Jesus said it was not his to give but the father only.
3. When asked when the end of the world will be, or rather when the and of the era will be, he replied no man knows the day nor the hour nor the angels in heaven nor the Son of Man. He did not know everything.
4. Jesus gave up some of his glory. Which indicates that he was not 100% God or else everyone see in him would have been burned up and in his presence.
5. Scripture says that Jesus is a mediator between God and man. It makes sense that he was 50% man and 50% of God before the resurrection. He was a perfect mediator.
6. This does not in any way distract that he was the son of God and Savior.
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May 23, 2018 at 1:36 pm
Greg, thank you for your thoughtful reply, but I must respectfully disagree with your syllogism.
First of all, 100% human and 100% God doesn’t mean 200% of something. Jesus was still 100%—He was both fully human and fully God. The amazing part of Christ’s incarnation was that He chose not to use His deity while He was on earth (see Philippians 2:6-7 and Hebrews 4:15).
Jesus believed Himself to be fully God even while He was here on earth as fully human (see John 8:57-59; Matthew 26:63-65); God the Father declared Jesus to be a full part of the Godhead even as Jesus stood on earth as a human (Luke 3:21-22); religious leaders knew that Jesus the Man was claiming Himself to be God (John 10:33), and His followers knew Him to be fully Man and fully God (John 1:1-2, 14; John 20:27-28; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:7-8, 2:6-17).
The early church leaders affirmed this doctrine as well. The Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) gave a term for the dual nature of Jesus: the hypostatic union of Christ. The Council said,
And at an even later date, church leaders clarified this point even more in the Westminster Confession—
I realize this is a difficult concept for us to wrap our finite human brains around, simply because God is infinite and our minds have limits. But to head down a path trying to diminish the full “Godness” (if I can make up a word) and at the same time the full “Manness” of Jesus is a slippery slope toward diluting other biblical concepts.
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January 23, 2021 at 6:19 pm
[…] I’m working on the next lesson in our Spiritual Self-Defense series. It’s a tough topic to address: the deity of Jesus, who was fully God and fully Man. […]
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March 8, 2021 at 6:03 am
[…] I feel a lot like this when I look at the first part of our third foundational truth statement: “We believe in the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.” (As a side note, I covered the second part of this statement—“As God’s Son, Jesus was both human and divine”—in another post, which you may find here.) […]
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January 31, 2022 at 6:03 am
[…] in Hebrews were Jesus and Christ. The third-most used title in Hebrews is high priest (14x). Only the Human Jesus and the Divine Jesus could be the perfect High Priest and Mediator that Job longed for, and that you and I have to […]
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March 14, 2022 at 6:03 am
[…] note that there are no chairs. That was because the earthly priest’s work was never done. But our fully human, fully divine High Priest completed everything that needed to be done, so He could sit […]
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March 21, 2022 at 2:17 pm
[…] Only One who is fully Man and fully God could know our dis-ease and heal our dis-ease. Jesus is our Healer! […]
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March 25, 2022 at 2:19 pm
[…] Yes, Jesus is fully God. But He is also fully Man. And it was as a Man that He defeated temptation. […]
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May 16, 2023 at 9:50 am
Did you notice that it says that “according to the flesh” and the flesh only, no soul.
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May 16, 2023 at 10:18 am
Hebrews 2:11 says both Jesus and us are all from the same Father. And then verse 17 says Jesus was made like us in every way—that phrase in itself includes body, soul, and spirit.
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May 16, 2023 at 10:27 am
It also say the the first Adam was a living soul and the second Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Jesus did not have in him the Godhead bodily until after the resurrection.
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