Hebrews 2:14

Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.

The fact that Jesus was fully human was of crucial importance to the writer of this letter. Salvation depended upon it. In the first chapter, the writer spoke of the fact that Jesus was the divine Son of God; now he wanted to explain that Jesus was also fully human. This meant that, in common with every other human being, he experienced death and this enabled him to break the grip of the devil.

Through the centuries many people have struggled with the idea of Jesus’ humanity. This was a particular problem in the Greek world where gods were seen as being completely detached from this world. The idea of a god becoming human was nonsensical. All sorts of different approaches have been adopted to try to explain away Jesus’ humanity. Some have suggested that he wasn’t really human, that he just gave the appearance of it. But the writer to the Hebrews was adamant: Jesus was fully human and fully divine and that is how he was able to win our salvation through his death on the cross.

This truth isn’t easy for us to understand, but it stands right at the heart of the Christian faith. If it were not the case then there could be no Christianity and death would rightly be deeply fearful for all of us. The writer spoke about those who spent all their lives as slaves to the fear of dying (v15). He was clear that we are set free from that awful fear only because Jesus came as a human being and died for us. We need to praise God today that Jesus went to the lengths of becoming fully human.

Question

In what way do you find Jesus’ humanity an encouragement?

Prayer

Lord God, I praise you that Jesus took on human flesh and lived in our sinful, troubled world because of his love for us all. Amen