Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 53:1 (Mar 2010)
Article: The Man Christ Jesus
Author: Bruce A. Ware

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JETS 53:1 (March 2010) p. 5

The Man Christ Jesus

Bruce A. Ware

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40280, delivered this presidential address at the on November 19, 2009, in New Orleans, LA.61st annual meeting of the ETS

I. Introduction

The theological question that has given rise to the reflections of this paper is as follows: What dimensions of the life, ministry, mission, and work of Jesus Christ can only be accounted for fully and understood rightly when seen through the lens of his humanity? Put differently, while Christ was (and is) fully God and fully man, how do we best account for the way in which he lived his life and fulfilled his calling—by seeing him carrying this out as God, or as man, or as the God-man? I would argue that the most responsible answer biblically and theologically is the last, “as the God-man,” but that the emphasis must be placed on the humanity of Christ as the primary reality he expressed in his day-by-day life, ministry, and work.

The instinct in much evangelical theology, both popular and scholarly, is to stress the deity of Christ, but the NT instead puts greater stress, I believe, on his humanity. He came as the second Adam, the seed of Abraham, the son of David, and he lived his life as one of us. Now again, he was fully and unequivocally God, and some of the works of Jesus, in my view, displayed this deity—e.g. his forgiving of sin (Mark 2), the transfiguration of Christ (Matthew 19; Mark 9; Luke 9), his raising of Lazarus from the dead as the one claiming, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11), and most importantly the efficacy of his atonement whose payment for our sin, only as God, was of infinite value—these and others show forth the truth that he lived among us also as one who was fully God.

But while he was fully God, and while this is crucial to understanding rightly his full identity, life, and the fulfillment of his atoning work, the predominant reality he experienced day by day, and the predominant means by which he fulfilled his calling, was that of his genuine and full humanity. Paul captures the significance of the humanity of Christ with his assertion, “There is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5).

In this address, I wish to support this claim by appeal to two features of the life and ministry of Christ.1 Though there are many other factors we could consider, both of these are central to his identity a...

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