Reading: The Cross of Christ, pg. 149-155
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
Isaiah 53.2-5
“Amazing love! How can it be
That thou my God, should’st die for me?”
The reason why both scholarly and simple Christians have felt able to use this kind of language is of course that Scripture permits it. When the apostle wrote of the cross, they often indicated by a tell-tale expression who it was who died there and gave it its efficacy. Thus, he who humbled himself even to death on a cross was none other than he who “being in very nature God” made himself nothing in order to become human and to die (Phil 2.6-8). It was “the Lord of glory” whom the rulers of this age crucified (1 Cor 2.8). And the blood by which the robes of the redeemed have been washed clean is that of the Lamb who shares the center of God’s throne (Rev 5.6, 9; 7.9)
What are some of the problems with viewing Jesus as only human or only God? Why did He have to be truly both?
He left His Father’s throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race;
‘Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me.
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me!
-Charles Wesley