Jesus Christ — the Word made flesh · The essentials of Christianity

In a minute

Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish man born in Bethlehem in Judea in about 4 BCE (or a little earlier), who grew up in Nazareth in Galilee, worked as a builder or carpenter, and then for about three years travelled as a teacher and healer. He was crucified in Jerusalem under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate in about 30 to 33 CE. Historians across faiths and none agree that he lived, taught, gathered disciples and was crucified.

Christians believe much more: that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah of Israel, and the Son of God, God's own Word who "became flesh and lived amongst us" (John 1:14, WEBBE). They believe he is fully God and fully human: one person who shows people what God is like, and what a human being is meant to be.

What it is and how it's lived

His birth: the incarnation

The creeds say Jesus was "conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary". Matthew and Luke tell how the angel Gabriel came to Mary in Nazareth, and how Jesus was born in Bethlehem and laid "in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn" (Luke 2:7, WEBBE). Christians call this the incarnation, from Latin in carne, "in flesh": God coming among people not in power but as a vulnerable child. It is celebrated at Christmas.

Christians honour Mary as the mother of Jesus. Catholic and Orthodox Christians give her particular devotion and call her Theotokos, "God-bearer"; Protestants honour her as a model of faith.

His life and teaching

Jesus taught in synagogues, on hillsides and by the lake, often in short stories called parables: the lost sheep, the mustard seed, the Good Samaritan, the lost son. His first message, in Mark's Gospel, was "The time is fulfilled, and God's Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News" (Mark 1:15, WEBBE).

The Kingdom of God was the heart of his teaching: God's loving rule breaking into the world, turning its values upside down. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) he blessed the poor in spirit, the gentle and the peacemakers, and told his hearers to love their enemies.

He ate with people others shunned, touched people with leprosy, welcomed children, and treated women as disciples. The Gospels record healings and other signs, which Christians call miracles. When followers of John the Baptist asked who he was, Jesus pointed to what was happening: "the blind receive their sight, the lame walk… and the poor have good news preached to them" (Luke 7:22, WEBBE).

He prayed often, sometimes all night: "Early in the morning, while it was still dark, he rose up and went out, and departed into a deserted place, and prayed there" (Mark 1:35, WEBBE).

Who do you say that I am?

Jesus once asked his disciples this question. Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16, WEBBE). Christians believe Peter's answer, and the creeds spell it out: Jesus is "God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God… And was made man" (Nicene Creed, Book of Common Prayer 1662).

In John's Gospel Jesus describes himself in seven "I am" sayings, including "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35), "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12) and "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11).

Its inner meaning

For Christians, the incarnation means God is not distant. He knows hunger, tiredness, friendship, grief and pain from the inside. At the grave of his friend Lazarus, "Jesus wept" (John 11:35, WEBBE), the shortest verse in most English Bibles.

It also means the way to know God is to look at Jesus: his compassion, his truthfulness, his welcome, his willingness to serve. "For the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45, WEBBE). So following Jesus is not only believing things about him but becoming like him.

Key texts

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1, WEBBE)

"The Word became flesh and lived amongst us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14, WEBBE)

Greek (John 1:14, opening): Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν — Kai ho logos sarx egeneto kai eskēnōsen en hēmin. The verb means "pitched his tent" among us.

"who, existing in the form of God, didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2:6–7, WEBBE — part of what may be one of the earliest Christian hymns)

"Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth… Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God." (Matthew 5:5, 5:9, WEBBE)

"Don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matthew 5:17, WEBBE)

From the Christian tradition

The Council of Chalcedon (451) said Christ is one person "in two natures", truly God and truly human, "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation" (paraphrased; Definition of Chalcedon).
St Athanasius of Alexandria wrote that the Word became human so that humans might share in the life of God (paraphrased; On the Incarnation 54).

Common misunderstandings, answered gently

"Christians think Jesus was a different God from the Father." No. Christians believe there is one God; the Son is God's own Word, "of one substance with the Father", not a second god beside him.
"Jesus wasn't Jewish" or "Jesus founded a new religion against Judaism." Jesus was Jewish, prayed the Shema, kept the festivals, taught in synagogues and the Temple. Many Christians today are keen to recover this and reject any idea that "the Jews" were to blame for his death, a teaching the Catholic Church formally rejected in 1965 (Nostra Aetate 4).
"Christmas is when Jesus was really born." The date was chosen by the early Church, and is first recorded in Rome in the 4th century. The exact date of his birth is unknown; Christians celebrate the fact, not the day.
"Christians worship a man." Christians worship God; they believe that in Jesus God himself has come close, fully divine and fully human.

Across the churches

All the main churches accept the Nicene and Chalcedonian teaching on Christ. The Oriental Orthodox churches (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syriac) did not accept the wording of Chalcedon and speak of Christ's "one incarnate nature", but modern joint statements with Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches have found they mean the same faith in different words. A small number of groups that call themselves Christian, such as Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses, do not accept the creeds' teaching on Christ.

Reflection

Jesus asked, "Who do you say that I am?" Whatever your faith, how would you answer about someone who has shaped your life?

In the other traditions

Judaism: Jews regard Jesus as a Jewish teacher of the first century but not as the Messiah, whose coming they still await, nor as divine; Jewish teaching holds that God does not take human form.
Islam: Muslims honour Jesus ('Isa ibn Maryam) as one of the greatest prophets, born of the virgin Mary, called the Messiah (al-Masih) and "a word from him" (Qur'an 3:45), but not as God or the Son of God.

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