Was Jesus recognized in the ancient world as both fully God and fully man?

Dr. Michael Kruger, Chancellor’s Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, addresses the fact that while many in the early world acknowledged Jesus as divine, some denied his humanity. The church had to emphasize that he was both God and man, truly living among us and dying in our place for our salvation.

The following is a transcript of the video above. 

Was Jesus recognized in the ancient world as both fully God and fully man?

One of the topics that’s front and center in any discussion today about the person of Jesus is whether he was, in fact, God in the flesh. In fact, we spend most of our time as believers in our modern world trying to defend the idea that Jesus was divine, that he wasn’t merely human, that he wasn’t just a good moral teacher, but that he was God come down to be with his people. Now, that’s where we spend most of our time, but you might be surprised to know that in the ancient world, that wasn’t always the thing Christians had to argue for. In the ancient world, you might be surprised to see that it was often the opposite. There were certain groups that were quite happy to call Jesus God. Certain theological groups were quite content to acknowledge that Jesus was divine, but they weren’t quite sure Jesus was really human. And so, what you find in the ancient world is that certain heresies and types of false teaching circulated, affirming the divinity of Jesus and even the full divinity of Jesus, yet raising questions, doubts, and hedging around his humanity. Why would a person do that? Why would they be convinced Jesus is God, but not so much convinced he’s man? Well, it has to do with the way people viewed the physical world.

Certain Gnostic groups believed that the physical world we live in —the world around us, which includes trees, rocks, houses, sunsets, and other such things—is not real. They believed a false deity, an evil and bad god, created the physical world. If the Gnostics believe that, then they think the physical world was inherently corrupt. And if the physical world was inherently corrupt, how could God ever take on human flesh? He could never do that. He could never taint himself by taking on human flesh. So there were Gnostic groups that believed that Jesus just appeared to be human, but really wasn’t human at all. And that is one of the heresies that really dominated the early Christian movement. And so they had to spend a lot of their time doing something unthinkable to us, actually making a case that Jesus was a real human being. They really understood our lives, lived like us, had real flesh and bone like us, and was weak and vulnerable like us in a fallen world. That’s what the early Christians wanted to advocate for about Jesus. Yet and all that was without sin, if you think about that, it is really essential to our faith. One of the things that early Christians recognized is that if you’re going to have a Savior, you can’t just have a Savior who’s God because you need a Savior who can actually represent you and be a substitute for you. And if someone is going to be a substitute for a human being, they actually have to be a human being.

So here’s a thought for you today as you think about the person of Jesus. Don’t merely rejoice that he is God. Also rejoice that he is man. Because we need his humanity as much as his divinity for us to be saved. Because it’s Jesus taking on that humanity that pays our debt, allowing his death on the cross to pay for our sins. He lived the life we could never live, and he did that all because he was a real human being.