Issue 30-4 – Pulpit Resources – The “Dual Nature of Jesus Christ” – Gordon Magee

The “Dual Nature of Jesus Christ”

By Gordon Magee

THE First Epistle of Paul to Timothy, the third chapter and the sixteenth verse—let us read it very carefully.

“And without controversy great is the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God was manifested in three persons, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

You would almost think that it read that way, to hear some folk talk. This is how it actually reads:

“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.”… The Bible, in its entire sixty-six books, knows nothing at all about a mysterious three-person godhead. The great mystery of godliness is the incarnation—God manifest in the flesh.

There are multiple proofs in the Scriptures of the genuine humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. I will mention just a few of them. Listen to this composite word-picture and tell me if it does not portray the Lord Jesus as having a genuine human nature.

Matthew 4:2, “. . . He was . . . an hungred.” The same genuine pangs of physical hunger which grip your body and mine when we have been without food the Lord experienced. He was human enough to be hungry.

Matthew 8:24, “. . . But He was asleep.” The same sensation of oblivion which comes to your eyelids and mine which we call sleep was experienced by the Lord Jesus Christ. Another proof of His genuine humanity.

John 4:6, “Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the well.” If He over exerted Himself, so actual was His humanity, that the same weariness which enters your limbs and mine when we have over-exerted ourselves came also to Him. He was genuinely human in every aspect and in every detail.

John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” He was human enough to weep in a tempestuous emotional moment.

Luke 22:44, “And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly. . . .” Jesus knew what it was to have degrees of earnestness. I would not for one moment tolerate the suggestion that there ever was a time in Christ’s experience when He was not earnest but the Bible teaches us that He knew degrees of earnestness. Just like you. Sometimes you pray and you are intensely earnest. Other times you pray and you are earnest, but not so much as before. That is because we are human. It is quite impossible for you and me to live in the same elevated emotional plane all the time. We experience fluctuating degrees of earnestness Jesus was the same He was human.