Thursday, March 28, 2013

How did Jesus live his life?

I have already gone on record as being positively affected by Bruce Ware's recently published book on the humanity of Christ called The Man Christ Jesus ( see here and here). I continue to be encouraged by this book as I reflect on the message it sends regarding the God-man Jesus Christ. One of the main contention of the book is evidenced in a question, and its answer, that Ware presents early on in the book:
What dimensions of the life, ministry, mission, and work of Jesus Christ can be accounted for and fully understood rightly only when seen through the lens of his humanity? Put differently, while Christ was (and is)
 fully God and fully man, how do we best account for the way in which he lived his life and fulfilled his calling-by seeing him carrying out this as God, or as man, or as the God-man? I would respond that the most responsible answer biblically and theologically is the last, as the God-man, but that the emphasis must be placed on the humanity of Christ as the primary reality he expressed in his day-by-day life, ministry, and work (32).
Ware continues to answer this question with the following: "But while he was fully God, and while this is crucial to understanding rightly his full identity, his life, and the fulfillment of his atoning work, the predominant reality he experienced day by day, and the predominant means by which he fulfilled his calling, was that of his genuine and full humanity" (33).

This is an approach that Ware takes that is foundational to understanding the book and undergirds almost everything he argues for. Remember, Ware is a staunch proponent of orthodox trinitarian doctrine as has written on the subject. What he makes note of in this book is that to understand Christ, and some of the mystery surrounding his life as he lived it, is found in perceiving Jesus with lenses that emphasize his humanity as the predominant reality through which he lived on this planet.

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