CANAAN COMMUNITY CHURCH

I have been teaching on Jesus as the ultimate example of living on Earth as it is in heaven.  In this series I have repeatedly stated that we have to stop looking at Jesus as a superhero!  Not in the sense of what he did for us on the cross for that was truly heroic. In the sense that he had super "God" powers that allowed him to live according to God's will.  What we do is use these special unaccessible powers to dismiss ourselves from the same standard.  Many Christians make the excuse that Jesus was not like us he was more of a "special" human, so the stuff he said in the "Red Letters" is stuff we really can't do.  Well, my contention is that Jesus MUST be like "us" or his sacrifice is of no effect. 

A member of our church has been struggling with this notion and emailed me a response I thought would be interesting to share.  She researched, prayed, and received quite an answer from the Holy Spirit as to how to deal with her struggle with Jesus being FULLY human as well as FULLY divine. Although we still have some points to discuss, I find her insights thought provoking and am sharing them with you. Here are her thoughts:

Pastor J, I went back and researched what we talked about and thought that I had found the answer that Jesus was 100% flesh and not 100% human. (This was her original argument)

1 John 4:2 tells us that the Word became flesh and 2 John 7 tells us that anyone that doesn't believe that Jesus Christ came down as flesh is the deceiver. But my spirit was not comfortable with this assessment because I do believe that Jesus came down as flesh and was human (Jesus was born (Luke 2:7). He grew (Luke 2:40, 52). He grew tired (John 4:6) and got thirsty (John 19:2) and hungry (Matthew 4:2). He became physically weak (Matthew 4:11; Luke 23:26). He died (Luke 23:46). And he had a real human body after his resurrection (Luke 24:39; John 20:20, 27. )

However, my argument was that He was special and different because He wasn't conceived the way human beings were conceived (with an earthly father), He didn't sin, and because quite frankly…He was God. 

Well I began talking to the Lord and asking Him to clarify this for me. He spoke in my spirit this: He said "Jesus was not a different kind of human, He was what "The Original Human" was before sin…what humanity was intended to be. ..He was perfect."  I couldn't’ accept that Jesus was 100% percent human because I was comparing Him to what Humanity is today…not what humanity was supposed to be in the beginning; and to say that He was like me…like humanity is today... was wrong!

My second argument was that Jesus was different because of the way He was conceived. By definition a human birth consist of both an earthly mother and an earthly father…surely by this definition, He was not human like me…the Holy Spirit as a father and a virgin mother is not a typical human birth!  

The Holy Spirit told me to examine the way Adam was created. Adam was formed in the dirt and God breathe life into Him…was He not Human? He formed Woman out of a rib that He took from Adam…Was she not Human? Sin changed everything...My human birth, by definition was "different"…different from the creation of the original Human.

Jesus’ Humanity was a glimpse into how the original human was before sin and the inspiration of who we are supposed to be now. By all accounts, my birth was different, my humanity is different...I am the "different one" not Jesus! 

Hopefully, we will have the opportunity to share this with everyone because I definitely want to clarify any misconceptions!

Thank you Holy Spirit!!!! And thank you Pastor for your patience!

Well...What do you think?