Jesus: the Importance of His Personality in Christianity

The essay about Jesus. Who is he? Jesus is the focus of Christianity, the object of divine revelation, symbol of God and exemplar of human life.' A main aspect that makes Jesus so central to the Catholic faith today is the concept of Jesus being both fully human yet fully divine at the same time. This is one of the godly mysteries of his being. It establishes a bond for understanding and exemplary living to followers because like themselves Jesus was human and shares the same fears, emotions, and convictions of humanity, but also at the same time he was the word of God, divinely God in the flesh. The “incarnation” is the Christian belief that God took human form by becoming Jesus. It literally means to take on flesh. The incarnation means that for Catholics, Jesus is fully God and fully human. He shows characteristics of both these states. In the essay about Jesus Christ the importance of the person of Jesus Christ in Christianity will be considered in more detail.

In examining Christology, it is important to note that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine but that does not mean he is a mixture of the two natures with one nature ever being more prominent over the other. It must be noted at the first place that Jesus is not half God and half man; instead, he is fully divine and fully man at the same time, i.e. he has a dual nature. He is not merely a human being who neither “had God within him” nor is he God who manifested his principle through a physical person, rather, the two distinct natures co-exist and unit in the person of Jesus, which is also called the “hypostatic union”. In examining Christology, we must have to go deep to understand the nature of Jesus through Jesus in history (Jesus' life) and through Jesus in Faith.

He is everything, he is alfa and omega, everything centres upon him and revolves around him (John 1:3), his name above every other name, he is standing and falling of our faith. Jesus is the fulfilment and combination of all the greatest institutions of Israel. Think of temple, think of prophesy, think of Tora, think of law, think of covenant. All of these designed to bring divinity and humanity together to reconcile God and his people. Jesus is present consistently in all the Gospels is the one speaking and acting in the very person of God. The Gospels is here to say that he is God. It was clearly taught in the Bible that Jesus was regarded as more than human: he was called God (John 20:28) and Son of God (Mark 1:1), was worshiped (Matt. 2:2) and honoured the same as the Father (John 5:23), was omniscient (John 21:17) and resurrects (John 5:39). In Mark, Mathew and Luke shows mostly the humanity of Jesus. But in John shows the high Christology of divinity.

Being called the Son of God and Son of Man in the New Testament, Jesus seemed to receive these titles to fulfil a messianic purpose. Jesus is not only considered as fulfilment of the Law, but also as the logos ('word'), i.e. “the mediator between the seen and unseen worlds”. In the gospels of John, Jesus is described as the Word who was God and was with God and was made flesh, (John 1:14), which confirms again the intrinsic dual nature in the person of Jesus. Every Sunday we Catholics are proclaiming the creed. Not saying a word about his teaching, but all know he is God from God, light from light and true God from true God begotten not made consubstantial with the father. Jesus compels a choice, a decision in the way that no other religious founder or figure does. We want to proclaim Jesus divine and human with confidence, with joy and thus we can find our missionary vocations fulfilled.

Various movements or heresies namely Ebionites, adoptionism, Docetism, Arianism, Pelagianism and Gnosticism believed not as fully human and fully God. Ebionites believed in one God and taught that Jesus was the Messiah and was the true prophet mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15. They rejected the Virgin Birth of Jesus, instead holding that he was the natural son of Joseph and Mary. Adoptionism, the belief that God “adopted” Jesus as his son when he saw that the human Jesus led a sinless life, claims Jesus attained his divine status or received his adoption after he passed the temptations set before him by the devil in the wilderness. Arianism is the teaching that “Jesus was not eternal”, that he was a created being, created within the framework of earthly space and time, and thus not fully God. Docetists believes that Jesus Christ was a totally divine being who only 'appeared' to be human which is the opposite of Arianism. Pelagianism believes that human beings can, by their own effort, keep themselves from sinning and thus be able to (at least in some sense) save themselves. Gnosticism on the other hand believes in the spiritual world with full of deep secrets and special knowledge. Second Vatican council changed how the Church interacted with the modern world, with other Christian and non-Christian denominations and with practices within the Church.

To conclude who is jesus christ essay, he must be a true man because the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should pay for sin. He must be a righteous man because one who himself is a sinner he cannot pay for others. Jesus had to be a man so that he could identify with us, suffering in our place and sympathizing with us in our weakness. Because the penalty for sin requires suffering in body and soul. And only a human can do this. Jesus did not only share in our nature but also he had to identify with us in the experiences of the fall (Heb. 2:17-18). But it was essential that Christ himself did not sin in this identification with us. Otherwise, how could he pay for our sin?

Jesus had to be truly God so that he could satisfy God's wrath and secure for us true righteousness and life. So that, by the power of his divinity, he might bear the weight of God's anger in his humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life. There is no way any mere human could bear and fully satisfy God's wrath. By nature, this wrath is infinite in quality. To bear the weight of wrath, it is essential that the Saviour be divine. But also, to satisfy this wrath, he had to offer a sacrifice of such a value that God would be pleased to accept it. Last for Jesus Christ essay, but not the least for this topic: only Christ as God could bring a sacrifice of infinite and eternal value to God that he would propitiate heaven's wrath. By virtue of his divine nature, he can earn for us eternal life and favour with God.