Jesus came to earth in order to save man from sin (Matthew 1:21; Luke 19:10). This was God’s plan from the beginning (Ephesians 3:11) and was put in motion shortly after sin entered the world (Genesis 3:15). In order to save us, Jesus first had to be made like us.
“Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).
How was Jesus made like us? Completely? Or was there some sense in which He already like us?
For years, there has been controversy over the deity of Christ. The Bible plainly teaches that Jesus is God (John 1:1, 14), that He never surrendered His deity in coming to earth (Matthew 1:21; Acts 20:28), and that He continues to be God today (Hebrews 13:8).
In refuting the error that Jesus forfeited His deity when He came to earth, many brethren have resorted to using an oversimplification: “Jesus was fully God and fully man.” Of course, being 100% of one thing and 100% of another is illogical. Some brethren admit that this may not make sense but insist that this is just what happened. After all, Jesus did not surrender His deity (this is certainly true), so He must have been fully God and fully man. They assert this as if this is the only alternative to the view that Jesus gave up His deity.
The claim that Jesus was fully God and fully man, while being used to refute error, leads to or supports another incorrect concept about Christ. It is the idea that Jesus had two spirits – a human spirit and a divine spirit. The divine spirit would be the perfect spirit of God. The human spirit would be a weak, fallible human spirit inherently inclined to evil. There would then, naturally, be a struggle between these two spirits in the person of Christ. As a result, many believe that Jesus had periods of weakness, struggling with temptations, even desiring to escape the cross shortly before His arrest.
This idea fits right along with the teachings of John Calvin. One of the tenets of Calvinism is the total depravity of man – the idea that man is born already inclined to evil. This human spirit, many say, is what Jesus inherited when He came to earth.
Those who affirm the deity of Christ and also believe that Jesus inherited a human spirit when He came in the flesh, do believe one important fact: Jesus had a divine spirit. Now, when Jesus was “made like His brethren in all things,” did He need to be given a human spirit? Actually, no. Humans are already made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27). We know this has to do with the spiritual nature, not physical, since “God is spirit” (John 4:24). Therefore, since creation Jesus was already “like His brethren” in the fact that He, like created man, was a being with a spiritual nature.
So how was Jesus “made like His brethren”? The answer is in the context:
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
What was Jesus lacking in order to be able to come to earth and “make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17)? He lacked a physical flesh and blood body.
The Hebrew writer made this point later in the epistle: “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me” (Hebrews 10:5). “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). The Father prepared a body for Christ so that He could come to earth and offer that body and shed His blood (cf. Hebrews 9:11-14, 22) to make atonement for the sins of mankind.
Giving Jesus a human spirit was both unnecessary and impossible. Jesus had to offer His body and shed His blood. Having a “human spirit” was unnecessary for this. Jesus was already like man since creation when the first man, Adam, “became a living being [soul]” (Genesis 2:7). Unless man’s spiritual nature became inherently flawed as a result of Adam’s sin (as Calvinism teaches), Jesus could not have been made any more like man with regard to a spirit than He already was.
If we wish to counter the idea that Jesus gave up His deity, while not leading people toward the Calvinistic notion that the human spirit is naturally inclined to evil, we should be more careful with our words. Instead of saying that Jesus was fully God and fully man, it would be more accurate to say that Jesus was fully God in a fully functioning human body. In Jesus’ earthly existence, we see the spirit of God housed in a human body. We do not need to assign a corrupt spirit to man and, by extension, to Christ when the Bible does not do this.
It is important that error is refuted. But it is also important that we are careful with the arguments that we make. A careless refutation of error can lead us to another false concept. We must be careful to speak of things as the word of God does.
