A preacher once said that Christmas is often a time when people buy presents with money they don't have for people they hardly know who will then take the gifts back for a cash refund. So goes the typical "holiday season" in America. But Christians know, even those who don't celebrate Christmas as a holiday (like the Puritans of old), that the commercialization of Christmas is a disgrace and that what should be the reason to celebrate on both December 25, and any day of the year, is the fact that "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," said the apostle Paul (1 Timothy 1:15), and on the cross, He accomplished the redemption of His people.

But as we think about the entrance of Christ into this world, questions surface about how Jesus could be both God and man. Perhaps two statements will help us to begin thinking through the relationship between the humanity and the divinity of Christ.¹

"Jesus has always been God."
In John 1:1, Jesus is referred to as "the Word," and the opening verse of John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John says that Jesus was present "in the beginning," specifically that He "was." The tense of the verb for "was" shows that Jesus did not come into being "in the beginning," He already was! Another way of saying it would be, "In the beginning, the Word continually was," meaning he was already there. Jesus existed before the beginning; He is eternal.

John concludes, "the Word was God," which means Jesus is God, and since he was there "In the beginning," He has always been God. Therefore, in relationship to His humanity, it is correct to say that there was a time when Jesus was God and not man, but there never was a time when Jesus was man but not God; Jesus had existed forever as God before he became a man. This refutes the idea (found among Jehovah's Witnesses, for example) that Jesus was a created being.

"In becoming a man, Jesus remained God."
In the Incarnation, subtraction didn't happen—Jesus did not lose some of His deity in order to become a man. In the Incarnation, division didn't happen—Jesus did not become a combination of man and God (50% man and 50% God, or 60-40, or 70-30). In the Incarnation, addition happened—Jesus became what He had never been, man, without ceasing to be what He had always been, God. He didn't turn into a man, He became a man while remaining God, "For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9).

Theologian J.I. Packer remarks, "(Jesus) was not God minus some elements of His deity, but God plus all that He had made His own by taking manhood to Himself."² The baby born to the virgin Mary was not simply half-man, half-God. He wasn't even just "God with skin on," not really man even though He appeared to be a man. Christ is now two natures united in one person forever. His deity was not humanized, nor his humanity deified; He is fully God, and fully man, and each nature remains distinct, yet Jesus is only one person.

Jesus did choose to limit His deity on occasion, but this doesn't nullify His divine nature. It simply shows that not only is Jesus God, but Jesus is man, thus He is the God-man. Packer is right, "The mystery of the Incarnation is unfathomable. We cannot explain it; we can only formulate it."³

A Practical Implication:
If Jesus was not fully God but just a mere creature like us, then he could not bear the wrath of God against the sins of His people. If Jesus was just a good man dying upon a cross as an example of love, then ultimately He was just one guy dying for one man named Barabbas (cf. Matthew 27:26).

But when we say that Jesus was not just a man, but He was the God-man, then the cross becomes an act whereby God demonstrates His love for sinners, because the God-man truly atoned for the sins of any who will repent and put their faith in Him. He had to be God, because only God could accomplish such a feat, and He had to be man, because only a man could pay the penalty for the sins of men.

O come, let us adore Him, Jesus Christ the God-man.

____________________________________