Picture yourself attending a worship service where a man known by everyone in the community by sight and by reputation stands up to read these words from Isaiah: “He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor…to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Isaiah 61:1). This man closed the book and said, “Today this Scripture is being fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). It dawns on you that this man is claiming to be the Messiah! You think, “How can this man make such a claim? I grew up with Him. He doesn’t look like a king. Who does he think he is?” Would you be one of the people who took this man and tried to throw him off a cliff for claiming to be God?

The Bible says that God’s Son took on human flesh and became a brother to the human race. Jesusshared the same trials and temptations as all other people, yet He did not sin, not once. Jesus humbled Himself, that is, He set aside the use of His divine attributes in order to live as one of us. Even in this state of humiliation Jesus did not leave Himself without a witness that He is also God. With just a word Jesus performed many spectacular miracles: calming seas, feeding thousands of people, healing many others, driving out demons, and raising three people from death. From this evidence God led Peter to confess to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:15-16).

We also should be convinced by the evidence God has revealed in Scripture. For the Bible clearly teaches that Jesus is God, He is God’s Son, and He is equal to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Though we cannot comprehend the Person of Christ, this teaching is clearly stated in the Bible. Believing what the Bible says about Jesus as both God and man is vital to our faith.

First of all, God Himself declared it two times in Jesus’ life: at His baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration God said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). God would not lie to us about such an important subject. God was pleased with Jesus because He obeyed God’s law and perfectly did God’s will. God also spoke through the Psalm of David, “The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You’” (Psalm 2:7).

Secondly, Jesus plainly said, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). This divine unity is different from when Jesus prayed, “That they may be one as we are one” (John 17:22). Our unity with Jesus is by faith. Christ is one with God according to His essential nature. Only Jesus both knows God’s will and does it.

Thirdly, the apostles testify that Jesus is God. St. John called Jesus the Word who created all things and He added, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory” (John 1:14-15). John beheld Christ’s glory when He raised people from the dead, cured leprosy, drove out demons, calmed storms, was transfigured on the mount, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. He and the other disciples were eyewitnesses of Christ’s divine power and glory. They have attested that Jesus, the Man, was also true God.

Why must Jesus be both God and Man? From eternity God devised this way of rescuing people from sin. Because the living God cannot die, Jesus became man. The Bible says, Jesus “had to be like His brethren, that He might be a faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the people” and to “taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:17, 9). As true Man, Jesus put Himself in the place of all people to suffer death and to pay for the guilt of all. Furthermore, Jesus must also be God so that His keeping the Law and His innocent death would cover God’s just requirements of His law for all people. Only with God’s power could Jesus redeem all people, defeat Satan, and abolish death.

The season of Lent shows us the need for Jesus to be the savior of the world. When our human nature is compared to God’s holy law, such a comparison exposes our sinfulness and reveals God’s just wrath, since “all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory” (Romans 3:23). Imagine the wretched guilt that Adam and Eve felt as they were driven out of the Garden of Eden. They had ruined everything. But they also carried with them God’s promise to send someone powerful enough to destroy Satan. They believed that God Himself had to come and save them. The Bible declares that God did enter our world, “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily”(Colossians 2:9). God sent His Redeemer, “true God begotten of the Father and also true Man, born of the virgin Mary” to offer up His life as a sacrifice on the cross in the place of all people. Only as the God-man can Jesus reconcile us to God. He has done so and we can rejoice.