There are mechanics, and then there are master mechanics. You’ve probably met both. One can change your oil and rotate your tires, but he hands you off to someone else when things get complicated. The other one has been doing this for forty years. He can put his hand on the hood of a running engine and tell you what’s wrong from the vibration.
Now imagine a mechanic who didn’t just learn the car but designed it. That’s the picture I use in Under the Hood to answer one of the biggest questions anyone can ask: who is Jesus? Christians believe he is fully God and fully human, both completely, not half of each. It sounds strange at first, and it gets more astonishing the longer you think about it.
Not just a good teacher
Most people think well of Jesus, whatever else they believe. They’ll call him a great teacher, a prophet, a good man who said wise things about love.
The Bible says a whole lot more than that. Here’s how the Gospel of John opens:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1–3)
“The Word” is John’s name for Jesus. A few verses later he says it outright: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
So John is claiming that the man from Nazareth was there at the beginning, and that everything that exists was made through him. He doesn’t just understand the design. He drew it up.
Fully God
When Christians say Jesus is God, we don’t mean he was a very spiritual man, or a man God was especially pleased with. We mean that the God who made the universe, the living, personal God who designed everything on purpose, was present in Jesus. Paul puts it this way: “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9).
Why does that matter? For a practical reason. If you’ve got a problem deep in the design, you need someone who knows the design from the inside. Only the one who made us can truly diagnose us, and only he has the authority and power to remake us.
Fully human
People sometimes forget this half. Jesus wasn’t God wearing a human costume; he was a real man.
He was born and grew up and got hungry and tired. The Gospels show him falling asleep in a boat (Mark 4:38). When his friend Lazarus died, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). He had friends who let him down and one who betrayed him, and he suffered injustice, and he died.
The book of Hebrews says it this way:
“We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
“High priest” is an old word for someone who stands between people and God. So Jesus isn’t watching human life from a safe distance. He’s been in it, and whatever you’re going through, he knows what it’s like from the inside.
As I put it in the book: “The one who made the design became part of his own creation. The engineer got on the floor of the shop.”
The early church fought hard over this. In the fourth century, some teachers said Jesus had a human body but not a fully human mind or soul. Gregory of Nazianzus answered with a sentence the church has never forgotten: if Jesus didn’t take on all of our humanity, then he didn’t heal all of it. He had to get all the way onto the shop floor, in other words.
That which He has not assumed He has not healed.
“Yet without sin”
There’s one difference between Jesus and every other human being, and it’s in the last three words of that verse.
Jesus faced everything we face, but he never drifted from the original design, not once, in thought or word or deed. That makes him the only person who ever fully became what all of us were meant to be.
And that’s why he can do something for us no one else can. Every other mechanic has his own damage to deal with, and Jesus had none. He’s the one person who didn’t need the repair, which is exactly why he can do the repair for everyone else.
Why both halves matter
It’s tempting to hang on to one half and let the other one go. Some people want Jesus as a kind and relatable man but not as God. Others want a distant, powerful God but not one who got his hands dirty. The Christian faith insists on both, for good reason:
- If Jesus is only human, he can sympathize with us, but he can’t save us. He’s one more car in the shop.
- If Jesus is only God, he can save us, but he stays far away. He’s an engineer who sends instructions from a distant office.
- Because he is both, he knows you completely, understands you personally, and has the power to fix what’s broken.
Who do you say he is?
Jesus once asked his closest friends, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). It’s still the right question, and everyone answers it one way or another.
So how do you begin working on your answer? Here’s a place to start this week:
- Read the Gospel of John. It’s the one we recommend to people who are new to the Bible. A chapter a day will take you about three weeks.
- Keep two lists. On one, write down every time Jesus does something only God could do. On the other, write down every time he does something ordinary and human.
- Ask the honest question. If he really is who John says he is, what would that change about how you think about your life?
You don’t have to have it all figured out by the end. You just have to look. If you’d like company while you do, the Under the Hood leader guide has questions for a small group or for two friends at a kitchen table. The first one for this chapter is simple: before now, who did you think Jesus was?
If you’re going to trust anyone with your car, it ought to be the person who knows it best. Same goes for your life.
Enjoyed this article?