Christ the Human Hero
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 2:5
Missing in much of our theology is the humanity of Christ. We have emphasized His divinity to the neglect of His humanity but the Bible is abundantly clear that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. John said it plainly: “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:2-3).
Humanity desires to be involved in its redemption, and this fact is regularly demonstrated in today’s culture. The contemporary music of Globus, for example, is the artistic effort to present majesty and mystery, and inspiration, through music with a vague but human message. The doctrine of the Christian faith is almost entirely gone and only the musical emphasis of profoundness and depth remain. The spirit of the age is a desire to rise up by human attainment rather than to be lifted up by the grace of God.
In the gospel message we have both, actually: that God has redeemed us from sin, and He must take the first place in this arrangement, but that He has done so through Jesus of Nazareth, the Man Christ Jesus, our Mediator. We are normally quick to admit our inability to understand this mystery of the incarnation – and I am certain that we cannot understand it in its entirety – but we cannot remove the humanity of Christ and remain with the New Testament message.
There is an intended message of hope in His humanity (and forgive me if I jump to the application and forgo further development along doctrinal lines) that, as the Bible says, “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4). And, “Dear friend, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
The Christian message is that the Man Christ Jesus, sent from God, and even more than that, God in human form, is our leader. He redeems us by His blood and by His life he shows us the way to God, and promises us victory over the flesh and the devil, and this means over the evil side of human nature.
So the humanists are not entirely off in their desires for a human hero to rise and show us the way to live. Christ Jesus is this man, as the Bible insists, and we believers in Him must see in His humanity the hope for the world. God has a plan and a way to redeem us simple people, fallen seed of Adam’s race, from the sin, greed, pride, lust and anarchy here in our hearts and in our societies. He is doing this now through Christ in our lives, by His Spirit.
So we can look to the future in hope for humanity in Christ – even hope for you and me.