How does our humanity differ from the Lord

How does our humanity differ from the Lord’s?

Ours is fallen humanity (Romans 5:12, 14, 19), while His is holy humanity. Three words carefully and precisely define the Lord’s humanity: form; likeness; fashion (Phil 2:7, 8). He took the form of a servant when He assumed a human body (Hebrews 10:5), expressive of a new essence He possessed. In the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3), He resembled our humanity in every observable way. Because He was in fashion as a man, nothing about His conduct or mode of life contradicted His being truly human.

In important ways, though, His humanity differs from ours mentally, morally, and materially. In contrast to His omni- science, our understanding is darkened (Ephesians 4:18). Unlike His holiness, fallen human- ity prefers sin (Isaiah 53:6; Romans 7:18, 23). Different from our bodies, His body was not under the condemnation of death because of Adam’s sin (Romans 5:16-18). Paul deals with the material and moral implications of our fallen humanity in Romans 5-8. Our physical flesh, linked with Adam is subject to death (7:24) and is presently insepar able from the moral principle within, the flesh, which cannot please God (8:8). The Lord was not subject to death (John 10:18), nor was His body dying. He grew with age (Luke 2:52), but was not subject to the processes of dying that begin to function in our bodies at conception. Attempting to explain that scientifically is impossible; its cause is supernatural (Luke 1:35). Primarily, the physical substance of our Lord differed from ours because His essential manhood was totally without sin. That moral difference entails His freedom from the condemnation of death that blights all else in creation.

D. Oliver
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