We’ve devoted this week to the Bible’s teaching on God’s immutability—his inability to change. What about Jesus? Scripture says that He “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man”? (Luke 2:52, ESV) How can Jesus be God if He grew and changed?
The answer is best expressed in the Athanasian Creed, which was confessed by many of our brothers and sisters long ago,
Now this is the true faith: that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is both God and man, equally. He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is man from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely man, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity. Although he is God and man, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God’s taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one man is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and man.
Jesus is fully God and fully man. As a human, Jesus does experience change. Jesus was born, He grew, traveled, had changing levels of energy or emotion, and died. Yet, as God, He remains immutable. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58), alluding to Exodus 3:14. What’s more, the author of Hebrews writes, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (13:8) The apostle John beautifully sums up Christ’s divinity and humanity in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The eternal Word of God, Christ—the second person of the Trinity—who is the unchanging God, enters the changeable world as a creature.
Understanding how Jesus can be fully God and fully human can be a headache inducing exercise. In fact, trying to understand God’s attributes in general is a headache inducing endeavor! But my encouragement to you is this: yearn to learn more about God the way a spouse yearns to learn more about their beloved.
Our hope is not to simply list facts about who God is, but to experience God in the union we share together.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
- The Athanasian Creed was written in the 5th or 7th century. Does it surprise you that your Christian brothers and sisters have been confessing this truth about Jesus for so long?
- What does that tell you about our Christian faith?
Church Reading Plan:
- Today, June 28: Isaiah 60; Matthew 8
- Saturday, June 29: Isaiah 61; Matthew 9
- Sunday, June 30: Isaiah 62; Matthew 10