Fully God, Fully man... fully amazing!

Upon seeing the resurrected Christ, Thomas cried out, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28) 

I have started reading a book entitled, The Man Christ Jesus, written by Bruce A Ware,
that emphasizes the humanity Of Jesus, fully accepting that He was both Man and God.

Now there are many many concepts that boggle the mind when one reads scripture,
listens to God's word being taught and considers ideas that may or not be totally
beyond our ability to really understand. The notion that Christ Jesus was born of
a virgin, Mary, conceived through the Holy Spirit of God, thus truly being "genetically"
both divine and human, seems to me to be just another reason to be amazed by our
Savior and aware of the extent to which He "chose" to come here to die.

One notion that always seems to come out of a discussion of His dual-identity, if you
will, is whether or not He was both these things, consciously, at the same time. Mr.
Ware does great job, I think, of discussing Christ's willingness to "cover over" His
God nature with His human nature. In this process, He remains both, yet acts in the
realm of our human existence. 

We know that He had to come to this Earth and live a sinless life. He had to successfully
be the second Adam, the Adam that succeeded where the first could not. His march
to the cross had to be in complete submission to the Father and to a spotless. unblemished
life. He had to be the great high priest, the propitiation for sin; He had to become the sin
of our lives even though His life was sinless. These tremendous and unselfish endeavors
had to be as a human.

The fact that He was the son of God, that He possessed the same qualities of the
Father and was, therefore, God, is fully emphasized in scripture through the very
word and words of the Father.

 "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1: 14

Could Jesus have saved Himself from the pain and suffering he knew was to come?
Could he have called upon angels, throughout His ministry, to come to His aid? Could
He have, just once, allowed Himself to be God at the expense of the reason for His
coming? 

I think not because only Jesus Christ could have done for us what needed to be done
for the forgiveness of mankind. He is amazing, he is Lord..... He is God!

Praise Him!

How could they NOT have known?

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression^[a] and judgment he was taken away.  Isaiah 53

It has been said that Hebrew people were adept at memorizing the Hebrew bible; that

it was a certainty that young men, like Jesus, had memorized large portions of the bible

in their educational training. 

With that in mind, it seems amazingly ridiculous that Jesus was not recognized as the

Messiah when there were numerous Old Testament verses that clearly prophesied

both his coming and His death.

The disciples seemed, at times, confused and unclear as to who this Jesus was. Simon
Peter responded to the question by stating that "Thou art the Christ, the son of the
living God." Matt 16: 16 Yet they continued to seem dazed at events and His words.
It's true that the Hebrew people were, and still are, waiting for a messiah who would
come in power to save the nation Israel and overthrow the Roman government. Obviously,
Jesus arrived unspectacular and was characterized more for compassion and
servitude. He was carrying a powerful message in a humble way.

So what are we to make of this inability of those present to recognize who Jesus was?
He minced no words in directly claiming to be the Son of God; yet, they ended up calling
for His death.  Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” John 8: 58

I believe that the answer must surely be that God was working for His good plan by
making it impossible for the Jewish leadership to recognize what they most clearly
sought, the Messiah. There were just too many signs that this was the Son of God; yet,
He was destined to live out His purpose by being crucified and raised in victory over
Satan and death. It was God's plan, and like everything else that God does, it was good!

Praise our God!