The Essence of Human Being

Creation and the Incarnation reveal the true and inherent nature of humankind, the essence of human  being. The creation of humankind reveals that we are made in the image of God and to be like God:

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
     So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)

This is what it means to be human, and the essence of who we are. Though through the disobedience of Adam death entered into the world and came upon all, whereupon all sinned (Romans 5:12), yet this did not change our true, inherent nature. Indeed, it could not, for nothing can change the nature of anything God has made. Though mortality and sin did distort and obscure the image of God in us, but could not destroy or remove it from us. Nor did they become part of what it means to be human; though all are affected by them, they are not essential to human nature. We remain made in the image of God, and to be like God.

In the Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ united divinity with humanity, God with humankind. This shows that human nature is able to bear the image of God and to be like God. For Christ, who united himself with human nature, and so with all humankind (for we all partake of the same human nature, the only one there is) is God.

The Incarnation also shows that sin is not inherent to being human. For though Christ was fully human as well as fully divine, he did not sin.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

Sin is not essential to what it means to be human but, quite the opposite, takes away from it. It is the same with mortality; it is not essential to human being but is an aberration. We are made in the image of God and to be like God. Death is not essential to God, and so it is not essential to us. Death does not even come from God. It is not a creation of God. It has no being but is a lack of being. Just as darkness is not a thing in itself but is the absence of Light, so death is not a thing in itself but is the absence of Life. Likewise, sin and mortality are a lack of human being and not inherent to it.

By the Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ defines what it means to be human. For he did not become merely a human being but he has become human being itself. All humankind is summed up in him. United with us by the Incarnation, he is what God intended from the beginning for humans to be, and in him we are made complete and become partakers of the divine nature. It is, then, in Jesus Christ that we are made in the image of God and become like God.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. (Colossians 1:15)

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. (Colossians 1:9-10)

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:4)

Christ the Singularity

In Colossians 1, we discover that Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, is the creator of all things. Through him, by him, for him, and in him all things are created — not merely created, as if once and done, but continually sustained through and by and for and in him. 

Yet, he who is Creator has also become part of his Creation. He did not leverage divinity for his own benefit, but taking on the form of a servant, he became human. For our sake, he made himself subject to the mortality of our humanity, even to the point of a shameful death on the cross, crucified by our own wicked hands. But he being Life, death could not hold him, and by his death, he put death itself to death, and was resurrected.

This is of great significance not only for humankind but for the entire cosmos as well. All Creation is transfigured by his Cross and Resurrection. For he is, as John the Revelator says, the Lamb Slain from the Foundation of the World. Indeed, Christ Crucified and Risen is the foundation of the world, he who is the “firstborn from the dead” is the “firstborn of all creation.” The language of “firstborn” (Greek, prototokos) is not the time bound language of chronology but the eternal import of his absolute primacy in every way. 

It is not merely that Christ who created all things, including time, would one day be crucified in time and raised from the dead — that is all true, of course — but it means that Christ, who is eternal and has transfigured time by his coming into the world, is eternally the Crucified and Risen One. And it is as the Crucified and Risen One that all things are created through him, by him, for him and in him. Christ Crucified and Risen is the singularity from which all of heaven and earth explodes into being.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:15-20)

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:6-11)

What We Become By Grace

We are created by Christ, through Christ, for Christ and in Christ, as indeed are all things. “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17).

By the Incarnation, all humankind is united with Christ — divine being made one with human being. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” (John 1:14). “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

So are we included in the death of Christ on the Cross, and so also in his resurrection. “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). 

Through the Creation, the Incarnation and the Cross, we become by grace what Christ is by nature. Indeed, in Christ, we become partakers, participants, sharers in, the Divine Nature. 

His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

There is No Separation

All things are created by Christ, through Christ, for Christ and in Christ. In Christ, all things consist, and in him we all “live and move and have our being.”

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)

God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. “For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.” (Acts 17:27-28) 

There is no separation between us and God — and never has been. The only separation there has ever been has only been in our own minds at enmity against God. It was never in the mind of God but is purely an idea of our own deluded thinking and does not correspond to reality.

God is not a being among other beings, not even the greatest of beings. No, God is Being itself, of which everything that has existence partakes. So there is nothing that is external to God, nor can there be. Everything that has being exists within God. God has never separated himself from us, nor can we separate ourselves from God, for if we could, we would simply cease to be. That we exist at all is evidence that we are not truly separated from God.

Sin is the foolish imagination that we can somehow exist independently of God. When in our minds we pull away from God, that is never the end of it. For in turning away from God, we turn away from all other persons and things, for all have their being in Christ alone. So we come to odds not only with God but with each other and with all of creation as well — even with our own self — alienated by our own darkened understanding.

The gospel is the good news that God was in Christ reconciling the whole world to himself, not counting our sins against us (2 Corinthians 5:19). “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:19-20).

Notice the direction of reconciliation here. God did not need to reconcile himself to us, because he never turned away from us, and certainly never separated from us. But in Christ, God has reconciled us to himself, for we were the ones who turned away from God, hostile to God in our own minds.

Repentance becomes very important here, for it is a renewing of our mind, reorienting us back toward God, each other, and the world God created. It is a return to wholeness of mind, so that we are not longer at odds within our own self. Such repentance is a gift, for as Paul says, it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance (Romans 2:4). It is only because God has already reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, not counting our sins against us, that we are able to repent.

Through Christ, God has reconciled us to himself, for he is not only God’s faithfulness toward us, he is also our faithful response to God. So Paul says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20). This call to be reconciled to God is a call to repentance, to let ourselves be transformed and our minds renewed by the truth that we are not separated from God but are reconciled in Christ, in whom we have always had our existence.

Who Can Forever Resist the Love of God?

If there were a being who was eternally impervious to God, forever able to resist the Love of God, would not such a being be greater than God? Indeed, would not that being then be God? But we are created by God to be the image of God, which is to say, the image of Love, for God is Love. We were made by Love and for Love, to be loved and to love. It is inherent to our true nature, what it means to be human. The evil that has invaded the human heart cannot change that but can only obscure it.

Yet, our Lord Jesus Christ has come to deliver us from this darkness of heart, this depravity of mind, this enmity of the will against Love, which is to say, against God. This is the truth of the Incarnation, in which Christ has united divinity with humanity, God with humankind, Love with the human heart. And it is the truth of the Cross and Resurrection, by which Christ has defeated death and the devil (who held the power of death), and all of the powers that blind us and pull us away from Love. 

In self-giving, other-centered, cross-shaped love, our Lord Jesus submitted himself to shameful death by the wickedness of our own darkened hearts. And by that one death defeated death for all, for Love is stronger than death. Who, then, could forever resist the love of God?

There is no heart so hard
that the Love of Christ
cannot soften it,
No mind so darkened
that the Light of Christ
cannot enlighten it,
No will so bound
that the Truth of Christ
cannot set it free.
And so shall God
be All in All.