In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
Gospel of John 1:1 and 1:14
The Word, the Logos,232was from the beginning, from eternity. Not only was he with God from the beginning, but he was God himself. Then the unthinkable happened, something that only a few ancient prophets had vaguely predicted, a mystery that had been hidden since the dawn of time and that left everyone amazed: the Logos became flesh, of the same flesh of which men are made, mortal among mortals. The Creator lowered himself and became equal to his creatures, came to dwell among us, true God and true man. Nothing could have foreseen an event of such greatness, no religion, philosophy or ancient myth had ever imagined such a bewildering fact. It is from this surprising discovery, and with the same astonishment as then, that we will begin our study to understand the novelty of salvation, Immanuel, God with us.233
12.1. Immanuel, God with us
In the prologue to John's Gospel that we have just commented on, the lintel on which the foundation of revelation rests is the Logos who became flesh, sarx,234 a human being, not simply with a human appearance but flesh, visible, tangible, weak and corruptible. Why did we say that this event of the incarnation was puzzling? After all, as Christians, we take it for granted, we have heard about it hundreds of times and it no longer arouses great astonishment in us. On the contrary, we have to consider that for the Jews it was unthinkable that Yahweh, the God of the Fathers, could become man, it was not an option to be contemplated, because he was like a devouring fire235 of immeasurable magnitude and only approaching him required infinite caution. That God could become a flesh-and-blood man was unimaginable. For the Hellenistic pagans, however, whose thinking was dominated by Plato's236 world of ideas, it was absurd; all that was material was only an imperfect copy of the spiritual world, the world of ideas; the Logos, understood as perfect thought, could not have taken the form of imperfect flesh, it was as impossible as squaring a circle. This, then, is the shocking message that John wanted to convey in the prologue to his Gospel, the incarnate word. At the same time, in an entirely different way but similar in meaning, Matthew's Gospel opens with the long genealogy of Jesus, in order to root his human nature in history; for the Jews, genealogy was the source of personal identity, the foundation and root of every man. Presenting the genealogy at the opening, setting Jesus in his historical and social context, was thus communicating a powerful message about his full humanity.
It is important to note that Jesus, in the four Gospels, calls himself the Son of Man237 eighty-one times, while he refers to himself as the Son of God238 only five times.239 The term Son of Man was used in particular by the prophet Daniel in one of his visions,240 and was associated with the figure of the Messiah; Jesus was thus indicating his role as Messiah, as is also confirmed by the exchange he had with the High Priest during his trial, in which he quoted the very passage from Daniel.241 For the Jews, the expected Messiah would certainly be a man, a descendant of the house of David, who would gain sovereignty over Israel, gather the Jews from the four corners of the earth, and bring peace to the world.
And this is the point from which we must start, the Messiah man, inserted into history, who takes part in human events. Not just a God interested in human events, but a passionate one, so much to intervene in history, becoming a part of it personally, the main actor in an epochal change. And yet, John continues in his Gospel, the true light, the light that enlightens every man, the word of God, came into the world in the form of a man, into the world that was made through him, but which did not recognise him. On the contrary, the world rejected him because he testified that its works were evil and cast him out, outside the city gates, among the pariahs and the disinherited who had welcomed him. As Bonhoeffer said, we have driven God out of the world, onto the cross, because the religious man is not able to bear a weak and suffering God, a human God. Religiosity does not accept the human God because, in its anguish and desire for control, it yearns for the power of God to solve every problem in the world. The suffering Messiah, who does not help us from the height of his omnipotence but by virtue of his weakness, is the exact opposite of what the religious man expects. But the resurrection testified of him that he was indeed who he said he was, and there was nothing left to do but to get rid of him in another way, by making him an object of worship. All but listen to what he had to say, so as to evade the responsibility of men in the world, which is exactly the reverse of what God did, coming in the flesh to be a sharer in human affairs. Clarence Jordan242 said in one of his famous sermons:
We have reversed the incarnation. Instead of the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, we turn it around and we take a bit of flesh and deify it. We have deified Jesus and, thus, effectively rid ourselves of him even more than if we had crucified him. When God becomes a man, we don’t know what to do with him. If he will just stay God, like a God ought to be, then we can deal with him. We can sing songs to him if he’ll just stay God […] We can build our cathedrals to him. This is the bind we get in today. We reverse the action—from heaven to earth—and we turn it around and build it from earth to heaven. And salvation becomes something that we will attain someday, rather than God coming to earth to be among us. So, we build churches, we set up great monuments to God and we reject him as a human being. […] We can handle God as long as he stays God. We can build him a fountain. But when he becomes a man we have to give him a cup of water.243
After reading this commentary, Jesus' words take on new meaning when he said: “For I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink… inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”244 So, what began with the Jewish Messiah as a real man, ended with a deified Christ, and this happened under the pressure of eastern religions that placed Jesus beyond our reach, in the spiritual world, giving him a cult that some have called “Christolatry”. As Walter Rauschenbusch wrote: “Our universe is not a despotic monarchy with God above the starry canopy and ourselves down here; it is a spiritual commonwealth with God in the midst of us. We are on Christian ground when we insist on putting humanity into the picture.”245 Immanuel means God with us as man.
12.2. True God and true man?
The hypothesis on the nature of Jesus, which we take for granted today and is expressed in the accepted Christological doctrine, was in fact a hotly contested area in the first centuries of Christianity, until a definitive synthesis was reached at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. It is not possible here to recapitulate the various stages that led to the final configuration of the doctrine, since it took almost two centuries, five councils and a schism of the Church to arrive at the shared definition, which today is adopted by all the major Christian denominations, with the exception of some Eastern Churches.246 What needs to be emphasised is that the debate on the nature of Christ was by no means self-evident and that, at various stages, opposing sides challenged each other by all means, often resorting to tricks and manipulations not always aimed at the love of truth, as Gregory Nazianzen testified in the 4th century:
I fear councils; I have never seen one that has not done more harm than good, and that has had a good outcome: the spirit of controversy, vanity, and ambition dominate there; he who wants to reform the malicious exposes himself to be accused in turn without having corrected them.247 [...] We have divided Christ, we who loved God and Christ so much! We have lied to one another because of the Truth, we have harboured feelings of hatred because of Love, we have divided ourselves from one another!248
To simplify this long and troubled process, which led to the final declaration on the nature of Jesus, we can say that, once the gnostic heresy, according to which Jesus possessed only a divine nature, and the Arian heresy, according to which Jesus possessed only a human nature, were removed, there were two intermediate schools of thought; one referring to the school of Alexandria of Egypt, which focused on the divinity of Jesus, and the other represented by the school of Antioch of Syria, whose emphasis was on the humanity of Jesus.249 The long dispute ended with the following declaration:
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God,250 according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ.251
The declaration of Chalcedon therefore envisaged two natures in Jesus, human and divine, distinct but inseparably united in one person and hypostasis (substance), and this is the accepted formulation today. It is difficult to imagine a better definition than this, but among many Christians, the commonly held view is that of a divine Jesus in whom humanity is a subordinate nature.252 According to this misinterpretation, which is very similar to the gnostic idea, Jesus was not an ordinary man, but God on earth, with an accessory human nature, so to speak. It follows that Jesus would not have lived and suffered as we do, because he was a divine being; even the passion and torment of the cross would have been, in this view, more bearable for him than they could be for a real man. Carter Heyward, in his controversial book The Redemption of God wrote:
Nicaea and Chalcedon produced a Platonic image of a divine man whose humanity is incredible. Following Chalcedon, we know that we cannot do what Jesus did (divine acts in history) because we are not who Jesus was (divine).253 The theology which postulates this “God” denigrates humanity and that which is ultimately most meaningful to us in the world: God in-carnate.254
12.3. Jesus real man
The Gospels, on the other hand, tell of a Jesus who is truly and fully human:255 a) they speak of Jesus who was hungry when, on his way back from Bethany, he approached a fig tree to pick its fruit but found nothing there but leaves and became irritated;b) he was thirsty, in agony on the cross; c) he was tired when, on the long journey back to Galilee, he had to stop at a well to rest, in Sicar, in Samaria; d) he was sleepy, so much so that he slept in a boat in the middle of a storm; e) he was sad and anguished to the point of death;f) and was even afraid, in the Garden of Gethsemane, before his arrest. g) Jesus wept bitterly over Jerusalem when, as he drew near, he foresaw its impending doom; h) and was troubled that one of his beloved disciples would soon betray him;i) he was moved by the two blind men who, as he was coming out of Jericho, begged him to restore their sight; j) and he felt compassion for the crowds who were weary and exhausted because they were like sheep without a shepherd.k) But he also felt anger, so much so that he made a whip of cords to drive out the merchants of the temple by overturning the tables of the moneychangers;l) he lost his patience and lashed out at his disciples for their lack of faith;m) and insulted the Scribes and Pharisees because of their evil works. n) On the other hand, he rejoiced at the great faith shown by a Roman centurion, a pagan;o) and he had great joy that it pleased the Father to reveal himself to the humble.p) Above all, Jesus loved; he loved his disciples, especially John and Peter, all his friends, Martha, Mary, Lazarus and even those who were crucifying him, for he prayed for them;q) and he loved the Father above all else. r) He was unaware of when the end of time would come; s) he had a will of his own, personal and independent, so much so that he asked the Father to remove from him the cup of suffering that he was about to drink;t) and even went so far as to complain to God, on the cross, with the cry: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”And this humanity of his frightens us, because it confronts us with our own weaknesses.
Of course, it could be argued that he was not such a “normal” man after all, since he performed miracles and healings, raised the dead and cast out demons. But he said that we too would do the same and greater things than he had done.256 Is it not true that his disciples also performed miraculous healings and wonders,257 raised the dead258 and cast out demons?259 Peter also walked on water for a while, and none of them was a superman, quite the contrary.
What would be the consequences of reconsidering the full humanity of Jesus, free from the arcane conditioning of Gnosticism, recovering it from the stories of the Gospels? I believe that this re-appropriation would give us back our dignity and responsibility as human beings, it would tell us that human nature is worthy of God's love, it would restore us from the condition of misery into which religion has relegated us by blaming us for the sin of Adam and Eve; it is a Manichean-derived narrative, which for centuries has demonised everything human. It has caused us to live a crippled life, devoid of hope for humanity, and it has trained us in an abstract belief in which we are called to put our faith in a “magic Christ”. It is pagan thinking, according to which we can delegate responsibility for our lives to the deity and expect a miraculous intervention, the touch of a “magic wand” that will fix everything, while we struggle to make ends meet or live solely for our own interests, disconnected from all that Jesus preached. Immanuel is God with us, not God in our place, as some theology teaches, which sounds so persuasive because it is the easy way to de-responsibility. No wonder pagans often look down on Christians for the inconsistency of their lives with the life of the man Jesus. Mahatma Gandhi260 said that he liked Jesus Christ, but that he did not like Christians, because “Christians are so different from Christ”, and added that if Christians really lived according to the teachings of Jesus, the whole of India would have become Christian long ago.
Instead, Jesus, a true man with his weaknesses, makes us responsible for living a life consistent with all that he taught, because as he lived as a simple man, we too can live in the same way. To deify him, is to demonise us, and judge us incapable of doing all that he commanded us; as he lived, we too are called to live, without justification, this is the message implicit in his humanity; writes a Baptist Pastor:
Ironically, when I believed Jesus was God, I didn’t take him seriously. But when I let him be an imperfect, but courageous and compassionate human being, I discovered a compelling interest in becoming like him. When I believed Jesus was God, he was so “high and lifted up” that he was beyond my reach. When l let him be a human being I awoke to my responsibility to carry forth his agenda (as in Luke 4:18-19). I could no longer hide behind his deity.261
In reality, the disciples themselves and the early Church did not understand Jesus as a divine being, but considered him to be a man through whom God had worked great wonders: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know”262 said Peter to the people of Jerusalem. His complete deification was a process that began later and led to the absorption of his human nature into the divine, depriving us of the human Jesus accessible to us mere mortals.
Hellenization of Jesus evolved from, and resulted further in, a spiritualization of the human Jesus. The councils located Jesu’s primary significance in who he was (the eternal Logos, consubstantial with the Father, in two natures: fully human, fully divine) rather than in what he did (preached, prayed, taught, healed, befriended, and so forth). In establishing Jesus’s essence as central to Christian faith, the church relegated his actions to a place of derivative and rather unremarkable significance.263
12.4. Jesus true God
We have seen, therefore, that the tendency since the first centuries of Christianity has been to deify the figure of Jesus and this has had the consequence of alienating him from the natural world and removing him from our reach. On the other hand, however, it is unthinkable to go too far the other way, that is, to consider Jesus only as a man and ignore the fact that he was true God. Seeing Jesus only for his human aspect would have the effect of making him not very different from the prophets who had preceded him, from Moses to John the Baptist or other men in the history of religions, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, etc.; on the other hand, keeping firmly aware of his divine nature allows us to give him pre-eminence over everything that others in history have preached. This should lead us to reflect on his word because, from the fact that he was truly the word of God, it follows that everything he said is true and relevant to our lives; John said that the Logos, which is synonymous with truth,264 became flesh. “What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate; truth is the original information, flowing directly from the source, not intermediated, interpreted or manipulated, but proceeding without interruption from the very origin of all things, that is, from God. Jesus said that no one had ever seen (known intimately) God except the one who proceeded from God and made him known.265 In other words, he was saying: “I bring the original information, that which comes from God.”266
Jesus never encouraged adoration (deification) of his person, he does not need our churches, altars, processions, offerings, incense, sacrifices, prayers, etc., but only asked to be heard and believed, that is, that we pay attention to his words, hold them true, keep them in our hearts and put them into practice in our lives, in our relationships and daily choices. For example, when he said: “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you”,267 he was not engaging in high-level intellectual speculation or expressing transcendental philosophy, he was simply asking people to do exactly what he said, as he did on the cross when he prayed that the Father would forgive those who were crucifying him. Nothing more, nothing less. That is what is most remarkable about the revelation of Jesus' divinity, the truthfulness of his proclamation and the importance for our lives of all that he commanded.
To conclude the Christological matter, it is therefore central to our faith to safeguard the concept of Jesus' full humanity so that, as he lived, we too can live, without however losing sight of his divinity, which bears witness to the truth of everything he preached and the absolute relevance of his words for our lives. I would like to close with the following summary, which I hope will help us to understand what we have seen: Jesus was true God and true man, as if he were not God; that is, the Logos, the word of God, in which all the fullness of divinity actually dwelt,268 emptied himself,269 became truly man in Jesus, and lived without the privileges of God.
12.5. The theology of proclamation
Having clarified the Christological question, the point we want to make now goes beyond the humanity or divinity of Jesus Christ because, if we stop there, we risk falling back into idolatry, whether Christolatry or anthropolatry.270 We must therefore go beyond this and focus on Jesus' words, teachings, message and what he announced, the Kingdom of God,271 a new vision of the world; only in this way can we re-appropriate the divine truth and the human Jesus without running the risk of distorting the purpose of his mission.
Recapturing his full humanity and his proclamation enables us to believe that what he did is also possible for us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit we have received from him. We can have confidence that we are able to live in the same way as he lived and that it is possible to follow his teachings, it is a choice within our reach, it is not a fantasy. For the words of the Gospel tell us of a human Jesus, active in the world and working with people through the power of the Holy Spirit. They tell us of a friend of sinners, outcasts, the oppressed and marginalised in society, one who spent far more time with people than on the mountain praying (though he did that too). His full humanity, together with his action in the world and his proclamation, restore dignity and purpose to the human condition. By his works he showed us that we are worthy of love and that the Father loves us just as he is loved by the Father, and he invites us to work equally and unreservedly on behalf of all those who suffer. He thus restores to us the meaning of life, which finds its highest expression in the commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.”272 There is a purpose in our existences, there is a meaning in creation and we are not here by mistake; it is a call to love, to cultivate relationships based on intimacy and authenticity, to exercise respect for others and ourselves by working for mutual edification, by practising a passion for life, just as he did; to live fully by employing our talents, by putting to good use, here and now and for the common good, all that he taught. He tells us that life is important and worth living and that what we are and do matters and can make a difference in the world. It is a call to love those close to us and to take responsibility for our lives and relationships; it is also a call to social commitment, to live his principles and take them into the world, and to the protection of the environment and all its creatures as God's work entrusted to our care. It is a journey together, God with us, with someone who knows joy and gratitude, as well as suffering and the weight of defeat, and who accompanies us step by step, leaving no one behind who places trust in him. He is not the idealised and detached god of the philosophers, but he is a man like us, with his weaknesses; Jesus, fully man as if he were not God, announces to us that it is possible to remain faithful to his principles and have the same life that he had, because we are no