Scripture is clear throughout, God will save his people himself. God will work salvation and he will get all the glory for it. If Jesus is only a man, we have a created being stealing the glory that rightly and properly belongs only to God. But if Jesus is fully God, and the Bible says he is, then God is the one who works salvation and all glory remains firmly with him.

Yesterday, I said this about the Incarnation:

At the incarnation we see God become man. Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, took upon himself human flesh. In doing so, he didn’t cease to be fully God nor did he become something more than man (either a demi-God or a super-human). Jesus became the God-Man; fully human and yet fully God with two separate natures united in one person.

I didn’t spend any time showing where such beliefs come from in the scriptures. I am simply assuming here that you know the scriptures teach these things. What I am more interested in doing here is thinking about why it matters. Yesterday, we considered why Jesus had to be fully human so, today, we will think about why it was necessary for him to be fully God.

To Bear the Weight of Sin

If Jesus was merely human, even if he somehow managed to live a perfect human life as a second Adam, though he might be classed a sinless, spotless representative, he would not be able to bear the full weight of sin. As a mere man, Jesus would only be able to pay for sin in the same way as any other human being; namely, finitely. That represents something of a problem when we are faced with the infinite offence of sin against an infinitely holy God.

For sin to be paid for in full, it had to be paid for in a person with an infinite nature. That is to say, only God himself could take upon himself the full weight of sin and have any hope of being able to say, ‘it is finished!’ For full satisfaction, for the penalty of sin to be paid in full, required an infinite nature. If God himself did not take the punishment of sin upon himself, the price could not be paid and our sin would remain unatoned for.

To be a Suitable Mediator

1 Tim 2:5 tells us ‘there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.’ Yesterday, we saw how Hebrews demanded a human mediator who is just like us so they could adequately represent us. But that cuts both ways! Whilst we need a mediator acceptable to us, God needs a mediator acceptable to him.

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