Yeshua: The "Both-And"
Theology for Pilgrims, Part 2: Christology
Picture this: it’s northern Israel-Palestine, north even of the Sea of Galilee. The countryside is riddled with hills and cliffs, and on the horizon you can see Mount Hermon rising triumphantly into the sky, its melting snowcaps becoming the Jordan River. The man you’ve dedicated your life to learning from turns to you and asks what people have been saying about him. You list off some of the guesses you’ve heard, but then Yeshua of Nazareth looks you in the eye and asks, “What about you? Who do you say I am” (Matt. 16:15)? How would you answer that question?
As you contemplate your response, join me as I present my own answer to the question. This article is an exercise in what theologians call: Christology. This is the category of systematic theology that speaks on the God the Son, specifically focused on His existence as the incarnate one. Yeshua is not an idea to affirm; He’s a person to follow. Through His incarnation, God the Son has become what I call “the both-and.” He is both our Brother and our Lord, He is both the Messiah of YHWH and the Image of YHWH, and He is both the Servant of the Father and the Son of the Father. Let’s try to behold Him as such.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews writes a short but poignant statement about Yeshua; they write, “That is why He is not ashamed to call [those the Father has set apart] brothers and sisters.” As one of my favorite professors often liked to quip, “Jesus had a belly button.” Yeshua was born to a Jewish mother, He was circumcised, and He was raised, like any Jewish boy, in the Torah. The Jewishness of Yeshua is not incidental; it has a great theological significance. Yeshua fulfills the story of Israel as the son of YHWH who is a light to the nations (Exod. 4:22; Isa. 49:6; cf., Matt. 2:14-15; John 8:12). He represents the faithful remnant and the true seed of Abraham. Yeshua was not merely YHWH coming to us, but YHWH becoming one of us! He actually grew up, experiencing everything that comes along with that, from poopy diapers to a pubescent, cracking voice. He wept and grew angry in the face of death, suffering, and intolerance. He sweat, bled, and suffered under the sun, torture, and injustice of the world. He was and is truly human.
But He is more than a great teacher or moral leader—He is the eternal Logic behind the universe (John 1:1-3). As Paul says, He is the personification of full deity (Col. 2:9), and while He was on earth, He forgave people’s sins, commanded creation, and received worship (Matt. 9:2; Mark 4:39,41; John 9:37-38). These are acts of YHWH; only YHWH can forgive people’s sins (Exod. 34:7; cf., Luke 5:21), only YHWH commands the weather (Jer. 10:13; Ps. 147:15-18), and only YHWH is to be worshiped (Exod. 20:3-5; Deut. 6:13-14). Finally, after Yeshua’s crucifixion, He was raised back to life in the same body He died in, and after He spent an additional 40 days with His followers, He was lifted up into the heavens—this is known as His ascension. Peter explains that through the resurrection and ascension of Yeshua, God the Father made Him both the Messiah of the Jewish people and the King and Master of the universe (Acts 2:36). Yeshua is both “very God of very God”[1] and the carpenter from Nazareth.
Both of these realities are not just true, they have tremendous significance for satisfying the justice and mercy of YHWH. It is the God-Man and only the God-Man who can be our mediator (1 Tim. 2:5). Only as fully divine could Yeshua be the one to liberate us from our own rebellion and its just consequences. Our position is so dark and hopeless, only the One who is omnipotent can do something about it. However, it is only as a true and full human being that Yeshua could represent us. If the justice of YHWH isn’t directed at a human being, then we still bear our guilty conviction and must serve our just sentence for our guilt. Only as the God-Man is Yeshua the true High Priest, the second and final Adam, the completely faithful Israelite, and the perfect Image-Bearer. It is only through the God-Man that we can both, be adopted into God’s family and have Yeshua as our older brother (Rom. 8:29).
It is important here to talk about Yeshua as the Messiah; that should not be meaningless to us because we are not Jewish. If we profess to be Christians or followers of Yeshua, we should recognize and celebrate His Jewishness. Yeshua does not erase the Hebrew Scriptures; instead, He fulfills and embodies them. His incarnation is rooted in Israel’s story. Firstly, He fulfills the Festival of Tabernacles. This weeklong festival was to be celebrated by all natural-born Israelites through constructing small shelters out of tree branches to live in as a reminder of their time wandering in the wilderness from Egypt to the Promised Land of Israel. Just as the Israelites took on lesser shelters as their homes for a time, so the almighty God took on a lesser nature and form as a human being in the incarnation of Yeshua of Nazareth. The difference is, while the Israelites only lived in these shelters for a week, God the Son has forever bound Himself to a human nature and body.
In bringing the Hebrews out of their Egyptian enslavement, YHWH instituted the Passover, which required the Hebrew people to slaughter a pure and unblemished lamb so that divine judgment might pass over them. This is embodied in the crucifixion of Yeshua, the “lamb of God” (John 1:29) whose slaughter allows divine judgment to pass over those who trust in Him so they can be the people of YHWH and YHWH can be their God.
YHWH instituted a festival in which the Israelites would offer the first of their crops to yield a harvest in celebration of God’s provision and in faith that the rest of their crops would produce (Lev. 23:10-11). This festival is given fulfillment in the resurrection of Yeshua, who is called “the firstfruits” of the dead (1 Cor. 15:20-23). Yeshua’s embodiment of the festival of firstfruits means we all, too, shall be resurrected—our physical death is not the end. I encourage and challenge all Christians to celebrate and honor the Jewish roots of their faith. Do not ignore or, worse yet, “spiritualize” them away.
Yeshua’s full humanity and full divinity can make it confusing or difficult to know how to rightly relate to Him. Unfortunately, our culture seeks simplicity, and in our post-Enlightenment age, we find it difficult to sit in mystery or hold two truths together. Compartmentalization and exclusive mutuality are the kings of our social-emotional and mental lives. But just as Yeshua is the “both-and” so the way we relate to Him must be multifaceted, varied, and deep. He’s not just someone we are to “believe in,” He’s someone we are to follow, but what does that mean?
Yeshua is Lord, Master and King of everything, and so, to follow Him as such means that we obey Him. We do what He says to do and don’t do what He commands us not to do. He is the Christian’s older brother and friend, which means we can and should draw near to Him for comfort, wisdom, and help in all things and at all times. Like the best big brother, He is always available to us, ready and willing to help us with whatever we need. As the perfect Image-Bearer, He is our great example, and so, we should imitate Him in all of our relationships and every other area of our life; how we lead or follow our leaders, how we think about and use our time, in the balance between expressing creativity and consuming another’s content, and what we consider entertaining or funny.
Yeshua is not an abstract doctrine. He is the embodied Logic of YHWH who walks with us. He is fully human; having been born, grown up, gone through puberty, navigated difficult interpersonal relationships, got hungry and thirsty, grew tired, was falsely tried, and was tortured and executed. He is also fully divine. He chose to be born as a human, He has authority over who is forgiven and who isn’t, He commands the weather and death and they obey Him, and after offering Himself in the place of rebellious humanity, He brought Himself back to life by His own power and authority, and even now He rules over the universe as King. But hear me when I say this: He is not ashamed of you, nor is He distant. The risen and reigning One calls you brother, sister, friend; trust in Him.
“The [Logic] became flesh and lived among us. We observed His glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
[1] This is a quote from the Nicene Creed, which all major branches of Christianity (Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox) affirm. https://www.ccel.org/creeds/nicene.creed.html.