In our current series we’ve been going through an old list of questions and answers contained in the Westminster Larger Catechism published in 1648. Recently we’ve learnt about the covenant of grace by which God forgives sin and grants eternal life through the mediator Jesus Christ, who is fully God. This week I want to look more closely at who Jesus Christ is, in particular that he is fully human.

The Bible regularly states that Jesus Christ was fully human. The apostle John says about Jesus (whom John calls the ‘Word’): ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). God the Son came into the world in human flesh.

The apostle Paul also shows the humanity of Jesus by speaking of Jesus’ entrance into the world: ‘But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons’ (Galatians 4:4-5). Jesus was born like every other human being. He also had real ancestors as Paul makes clear in Romans: ‘Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God– the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord’ (Romans 1:1-4).

So we must remember that although Jesus is fully God, he is also fully human. Both truths must be affirmed if we wish to have God’s chosen mediator to go between us and God and obtain grace for the forgiveness of our sin. If we do not affirm either truths  we have constructed for ourselves a different Jesus and a different mediator who is no mediator at all. John warns against such falsehood: ‘Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist’ (2 John 1:7).

So do you have a mediator who is the eternal Son of God, of one substance equal with God the Father, and who became human? Joel Radford, Preaching Elder.