“I’m only human.”

Image by Fergal of Claddagh via Flickr

Do you respond to your mistakes with that line?   I often do.  It’s our little way of saying to one another that we know we’re less than perfect.  That’s a good perspective to have.  It follows the same line of thinking that 17th century British poet Alexander Pope had: “To err is human, but to forgive is divine.”

But maybe a more correct way of apologizing is to say “I’m not yet fully human.”

Huh?

Who you and I really are can be seen prior to the Fall, when Adam and Eve perfectly reflected the image of God, before that reflection was distorted by sin.  After the Fall, we could not do what we were created to do as humans (bear God’s image).  In fact, because of sin’s wingman, death, we were in danger of disappearing from creation altogether.  Athanasius, the early church father (who we owe much for his defense of orthodox Christianity and his New Testament canon) put it this way:

As, then, the creatures whom He had created…were in fact perishing, and such noble works were on the road to ruin, what then was God, being Good, to do? Was He to let corruption and death have their way with them? In that case, what was the use of having made them in the beginning?…It was impossible that God should leave man to be carried off by corruption, because it would be unfitting and unworthy of Himself.

Simply obliterating man and starting over would not be consistent with God’s love for us.  It would also have allowed Satan to defeat God’s plans for his creation, thereby defeating God, which is impossible.  But God, because of his righteousness, could not simply ignore sin and remove death’s hold over us.

So the Word, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who executed the will of the Father in creating man, now engaged in a loving act of re-creation by becoming a man.  In the manger in Bethlehem, when the infant Jesus breathed air for the first time, it was the first truly human breath since God breathed into the nostrils of Adam.  A new Adam was born.

Because of the first Adam’s sinful choices, we faced death, but because of the righteous choices of the second Adam and our faith in him, we now have life (Romans 5:12-21).  And that life we live, because of grace, is the life of Christ (Galatians 2:20).  Christ is making us truly human again.

May the grace and peace of Christ renew and restore you into who you truly are this coming year.

Jim