Colossians 2:9 tells us that the fullness of God dwells in an actual human body and, in other words, Jesus Christ was and is truly human. Jesus was not just the shell of a human with God inside or, perhaps worse, a ghost of some kind; Jesus was actually human. “The Christian doctrine of the incarnation claims that the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, became fully man, Jesus of Nazareth; they been doing so he did not for a moment ceased to be fully God; and that he did this ‘for us and for our salvation.’”[1]
Jesus' humanity enabled him to be our atoning sacrifice; without the shedding of blood, there would be no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22). Obviously, he needed to have a human body in order to shed his blood. His deity ensured that his blood, in its perfection, would be able to satisfy the wrath of God (1 Peter 1:18-19). We cannot rely on any righteousness other than the perfect record of Christ. Jesus' humanity assures us that he is able to sympathize with our weaknesses as our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16). And his deity reminds us that his compassions for us never fail (Lamentations 3:22-23). In his humanity, Jesus showed us dependent obedience to the Father by doing nothing on his own initiative (John 8:28, 42). In his deity, no mere man could forcefully take Jesus' life; he laid down his life on his own initiative (John 10:18). Jesus' humanity tells us that we must die (Matthew 10:38, John 12:24). His deity tells us that we will live (John 6:54).
It is incredibly important to keep Jesus' humanity and deity in view. To ignore either is a grave error.
[1] Garrett J. Deweese edited by Fred Sanders and Klaus Issler One person, Two natures in Jesus and Trinitarian Perspective (B&H publishing, Nashville Tennessee, 2007) p. 115
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