Often today, when asked the question “Who is Jesus?”, Catholics reply: “Jesus is the son of God.” While such a statement is true, it does not fully explain who Jesus really is. The problem is that we are all sons and daughters of God yet we are not God. So, while Jesus is the son of God, He is also God the Son. It is the second part of the statement “…God the Son…” which gives the real clue to understanding the person of Jesus. Unfortunately, some theologians today have downplayed Jesus’ divinity. They stress His human qualities; His compassion, love, justice, social conscience, and so on. In doing so they deny the fact that Jesus was not just a good man, not just someone chosen by God to do a special mission in Palestine. In fact, Jesus is God Himself.
The name Jesus means in Hebrew “God saves.” The name Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah” which means “Anointed.” Kings, priests, and prophets were anointed as a sign of their special calling. Jesus was unique in that he was at one and the same time a priest, prophet, and king. Jesus is a member of the Holy Trinity, truly God. St. Irenaeus of Lyons would say: “…in the name of Christ is understood he who anoints, he who has been anointed, and the anointing itself by which he has been anointed: He who anoints in the Father, he who has been anointed is the Son, and he has been anointed in the Spirit, who is the anointing.” (Adv. Haer, III,18,3)
Jesus Christ Is The True God and True Man
Because Jesus possesses fully the nature of a man, He has a human body and soul. Furthermore, His human soul, like ours, has intellect and will. (He is like a man in all things but sin). But Jesus has the infinite intellect and will of God as well as the intellect and will of a man. He is one divine person having two natures, the human and the divine.
In the gospels we see Jesus demonstrating that He possesses the divine knowledge and will of God when He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58). Yet He shows His human will when, in agony in the garden of Gethsemane, He cries, “Not my will but yours be done.” Luke 22:42)
A Deeper Understanding
When we understand the two natures of Jesus we can come to a deeper personal understanding of Him and commitment to Him in prayer and sacrifice. We can see how God could truly die for us, the greatest act of self-giving any person can make. Yet we know that God cannot die; that it was only after becoming man that Christ was able to die. In fact, it was in order to die for us that God did become man.
On the other hand, it is as God that Jesus is also the Creator of the Universe. He is the unique personal union (Hypostatic Union) of God and man intimately bound supernaturally and mystically. The perfect man upon whom to base our lives. Yet He is a real person who experienced human life, suffering, and death and is thus able to share our human pain and worries.
We who believe in the divinity of Christ have that unique privilege. We know that although Christ is spiritually present as God everywhere around us, He is also physically present nearby in His Body and Blood, God and man. In every tabernacle in every Catholic Church in the world, this same infinite, eternal, omnipotent, and all-loving God/man is really physically present just as He was after the Resurrection. He is available to us. We can enter His physical presence and be as close to him as the Apostles were during His life. Whereas they saw Him with their eyes, we can see Him with the eyes of faith. We need only enter a Catholic Church and we enter the physical presence of the mighty king, Lord of the Universe who lived as a humble village carpenter, suffered, died, and rose again for us.
Perhaps we could visit Him more often.
Taken from “The Catholic (Universal) Catechism”, #5: Jesus Christ, the Person, by Gerald Gaskin, Diocesan Director of Religious Education, Australia
