268Jesus: Divinely Human or Humanly Divine?

posted by Sam on February 2nd, 2007

Below is a guest post by Sam Davidson, president of CoolPeopleCare.org. His post is related to the Jesus, as Much God as You and I? post from January 23rd. You can read more by and about Sam samdavidson.blogspot.com and www.coolpeoplecare.org.

~Jeffrey

****************

Most Christians’ understanding of Jesus as divine is an amalgam of theology, history, doctrine, and nearly 20 centuries of thought, talk, heresy and opinion. For most, the question is a simple one, with a short justification: Yes. Jesus was divine because only a divine (which for many means sinless) being could save the non-divine from their sins.

Yet, for early Christians, there was a fundamental and very necessary question of how. How did Jesus get his divinity so that he could save humanity?

For Arius, Jesus was born as human as you or I. But, he never sinned. Because he was able to always choose correctly, he was rewarded with divinity. Therefore, by deliberate choice and consistent action, Jesus was able to save those of us who chose unwisely and sinned.

However, this was not good for Athanasius, who wrote several years later. For him, Jesus came to earth as divine. This had to be the case, because the risks of daily living made it possible for Jesus to sin. Humanity by nature was corrupt; Jesus could have no part of this because then he, too, would be corrupt and unworthy to die a salvific death.

Interlaced with these questions in a complex maze of salvation specifics, among them:

• What are humans saved from?
• Are humans saved through baptism, the Eucharist, pure belief?
• What exactly is the Word of God?
• Is Jesus different than God?

In other words, only several months spent reading old guys will provide a comprehensive understanding of how all this fits together. Suffice it to say that ever since the beginning, folks were trying to figure out if/how/why Jesus’ humanity mattered.

Add the Gnostics into this and you end up confused and crying on the floor in the fetal position due to the immense amount of prototypical ideas.

For us, the question is simply one of identification. Can we more deeply identify with the role of Jesus in our lives today if we understand his humanity better in relation to our notions of divinity we place upon him? If so, run with it. You won’t be the first (or last).