We were talking last night in class about the fact of Jesus being fully God and fully man.  It got me thinking about how this can be and an earlier discussion on “kenosis”, or the self emptying of Christ(Philippians 2:7).  If you think about it, how is it that God Himself in the flesh,  can live as a man on this earth.  Crazy stuff, but necessary to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins.  But how does this happen?  Kenosis is best described as, ”a voluntary act, consisted in the surrender of the independent exercise of the divine attributes”.   All of these words are important and necessary, and this description has been debated for a long time and all the smart guys have agreed that it is correct. 

•  You have a divine person in the fullest sense of the word and He remains fully divine throughout eternity past, the incarnation, and eternity future. This fits best with the phrase that He is the “same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8)
•  You have a man who was perfect. He was a man of like nature that was tested and tempted in like manner as we(Hebrews 4:15). He was fully relying upon the Holy Spirit for His strength. 
• You have the perfect union of both divine and human. He was just as much God as if He had never been man and He was just as much man as if He had never been God.

 As we are studying the history of the church and the ongoing disagreements about this, as it has been an issue with the church for a long time.  The early church especially had an issue with this and the Arian heresy became a big thing in the 4 and 5 century.  Constantine even conveined the Council of Nicaea to address this issue in 325.  Even after condemning the Arian heresy, it would not go away and even became stronger as Constantine was sympathetic of it.  But the following Council of  Contantinople in 381 finally put an end to it.  This idea of Jesus not really being God incarnate, or that He only had the “spirit of God” which was with Him in between His birth and crucifixion, was popular then, as it is still around today.  Those who deny the incarnation of Jesus and the fact of Him being fully God and fully man are probably not saved in the first place.  God Himself is the only one who can be a perfect sacrifice for our sins. 

Anyway, just something to chew on.