*Jesus’ Human Spirit, Soul & Body

When we say Jesus is Fully Man, what do we mean? We mean all that man is, Jesus is. Paul wrote concerning Jesus, ". . . who was born of the seed of David" (Rom 1:3). Jesus is of the essence of humanity, He is fully man himself. We mean the same thing when we say Jesus is Fully God. Again Paul wrote, "Who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:4). Jesus is of the essence of God the Father, He is fully God Himself. As a result, Jesus is one person who is fully God and fully man.

If Jesus is Fully Man, what is man in all his humanity? Moses wrote in Genesis 2:7 about the creation of man:  "Then Yehovah Elohim formed man of dust from the-ground, and breathed into his-nostrils the spirit of lives; and man became-a-living soul."¹⁷⁴  Moses tells us that God created man's body from the dust of the ground. He then breathed into man a living human spirit and when the spirit and the body combined, a living human soul was created. Moses tells us that God created Man a tri-part being: a spirit, soul and body. The Bible teaches us that man's spirit is the means by which he has God-consciousness and the means by which he communicates with and has relationship with God. Man's soul is the means by which he has self-consciousness and the means by which he communicates with and has relationship with himself. Man's body is the means by which he has world-consciousness and the means by which he communicates with and has relationship with the world. Jesus had a human spirit, soul and body. This means also that He had a human will, heart, mind and emotions. It means that Jesus was fully a human being in all that that means. Like us, Jesus through his human spirit had relationship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, through his human soul he had relationship with himself and through his human body he had relationship with the world.

Jesus being Fully Man does not mean that He stopped being Fully God. Just as Jesus is Fully Man so also He is Fully God. Jesus has all the attributes of God and all the attributes of man. This does not mean that Jesus’ Humanity and Jesus’ Divinity are combined into a hybrid. Jesus is One Person but with two completely distinct and separate Natures. This means that Jesus has a completely distinct and separate Divine Nature and a completely distinct and separate Human Nature. That Jesus is One Person means that though He is Fully God and Fully Man, His two natures do not work independently or against each other, but rather in complete and absolute unity with each other while at the same time remaining separate and distinct. This means that He has a separate divine mind and human mind, divine heart and human heart, divine will and human will, divine emotions and human emotions, divine soul and human soul, divine spirit and human spirit and a human body. His Human spirit, soul and body are completely human and separate from His divine nature. Jesus is One Person with a fully distinct and separate Divine Nature and with a fully distinct and separate Human Nature. What we want to focus on in this Chapter is the evidence of Jesus Full Humanity in the Bible.

Like us, Jesus had a finite human spirit. Finite meaning it was dependent on God. Though Jesus was fully God, while a man on earth He humbled Himself and did not draw upon his divinity once in any capacity during His 33 ½ years on earth. How far did Jesus take this. The Apostle Paul tells us in Philippians 2:6-8,

"Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied¹³⁰ himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness¹³¹ of men. And being found in appearance¹³² as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient¹³³ to the point of death, even death on a cross.

How far did He take it? To the point of being as fully vulnerable as any other man to the evil acts of man. To what extent? To the extent that we were able to kill Him and He did not draw upon his divinity to resist or stop it.

As a man He was completely dependent on God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Like any other human being, Jesus looked to God the Father through His human spirit for His needs. When dealing with men the Bible does not say that Jesus read men’s minds which He was able to do through His deity, but rather that He perceived by the Holy Spirit through His human spirit what was going on around Him (Mark 2:8). Jesus’ Divinity knows all men’s thoughts all the time, but Jesus’ human spirit required the inspiration and quickening of God the Holy Spirit through His spirit to discern circumstances that He encountered. Like ourselves, Jesus many times was grieved in His human spirit (Mark 8:12). Matthew tells us that when Jesus on the cross gave up His human spirit that His body died (Matt 27:50). The book of James and the book of Psalms teach us that the body only lives while the human spirit is present, that when the human spirit departs the body dies (James 2:26; Ps 104:29, 146:4). Jesus the man, like ourselves, was also depended on the power of the Holy Spirit for His needs.

Though Jesus’ Divine Nature has all the infinite power and attributes of God, His human nature had all the finite limitations and attributes of a man. Like any man, Jesus’ soul grew in wisdom and in understanding (Luke 2:52). Though his soul was alive, like our soul, his soul could not give or create life in others. Jesus said in John 6:63, "It is the Spirit who creates-life¹²³, the flesh profits nothing." The flesh represents our humanity and Jesus tells us plainly that the human soul cannot give or create life, only God’s Divine nature has the power to create or give life to another. However, because everything the man Jesus said and did was only out of the initiative of the Holy Spirit through His human spirit, everything He did and said brought the creative life of God to the person being ministered to. Herbert Lockyer writes concerning the human soul and the human spirit:

"A distinction between ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ can be stated thus: ‘soul’ expresses man as apart from God, a separate individual; ‘spirit’ expresses man as drawing his life from God (John 10:11; 19:30)."^119/115

Concerning Jesus’ human soul, The Apostle John wrote: "We know love by this, that He laid down His soul for us; and we ought to lay down our souls for the brethren" (John 3:16). Jesus gave up his soul, His earthly life, in order that our souls, the life God has planned for us, might be saved.

Yehovah prophesied through Isaiah in Isaiah 9:6 that Jesus Christ, God the Son, would become a man:

"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, El-Almighty¹³⁴, Father-of-Eternity, Prince-of-Peace." (Isaiah 9:6, Zechariah 13:7)

In Chapter 3 of this Section we showed how the Bible teaches us that God is one composed of three individual Persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. God the Father declares about Jesus, God the Son, in Hebrews 1:8: "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." Therefore God the Father affirms that not only is Jesus Fully Man but that He is also Fully God as well.

Jesus states about his Humanity, recorded in Hebrews 10:5, "Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me." Jesus tells us in this passage that God the Father prepared a body for Him so that He could offer it up as a sacrifice for our sins. Concerning this the writer of Hebrews tells us that "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Heb 10:10).

As a man on earth, Jesus humbled himself to all of the limitations of a man (Phil 2:5-8). This meant that while He is God, while a man on earth he did not draw upon His Divinity. Luke tells us in the Gospel of Luke that like any other man, Jesus grew physically as well as mentally (Luke 2:52)