Becoming Human

              “It is finished” was the poignant sentence that Jesus uttered as He was dying on the cross.  What a profoundly evocative question which causes a stirring in us and brings us to the question: “what is finished?”  The aim of this article is to set out to discover the “it” that is “finished.”

                Before we get there, though, I propose that we take a second to ponder a deeply philosophical question: “Are zombies human beings?”  In other words and hypothetically, if I were to be bitten by a zombie in a zombie apocalypse and I eventually turned into a zombie, would I still be considered a human being in my zombified state?  Would I still be a “person” or would I lose my personhood, my humanness?  It is an intriguing thought, isn’t it?  In nearly every zombie movie or T.V. show I have ever seen, there is always that scene where a person from the surviving group gets bitten and turns into a zombie, and one of the frazzled members of the group refers to newly converted zombie as a “him” or “her” and is sharply rebuked by the others for doing so.  It is no longer a “him” or a “her” anymore but an “it.”  Pondering all of this is so intriguing for us because as we think through all of this we are immediately faced with the question: “What does it mean to be a human being?”  This is a question that we in our day think far too little about. 

                I am going to propose (in alignment with several others and John and his disciples) that the “it” that is “finished” is the formation of the first human being in the truest sense.  Before we get there, though, we need to examine how humanness is usually defined within Christian contexts. 

                There are many people out there who claim that our humanness is primarily defined by the fall of man into sin.  In their minds, we are pretty much sinful pieces of crap, and even though Jesus saves us, we will never really be much more than this.  Thus, to be human is to be sinful. 

                There are others who propose that humanity is ultimately defined by the way Adam and Eve were in the garden before the fall.  In other words, to be human is to exist the way that Adam and Eve did before the fall and the aim of salvation is to take us back to that pre-fallen state.  It means to take us back to the garden, so to speak. 

                Others claim that our humanity is mainly defined by the present reality in which we live.  It is defined by the love that Christ has for us in the present, and not much is going to change for us.  In this sense, we’ve already reached the fullness of our humanity at the moment that we are “saved” or “regenerated.” 

                All of these views seem to be insufficient for me and some more than others.  While all three of these views contribute a partial truth, they fail to lead us to the whole truth it seems.  Yes, we are sinful, but is that all there is to us?  What about Christ’s work?  What about pursing holiness?  Yes, human history did involve the garden and we are one day going to commune with God like Adam and Eve did in the garden.  However, there was a second Adam to which the first pointed as Paul tells us.  Plus, in the Bible, we start off with a garden and we end with a city.  There is a sense of progression in the Scriptures and never a sense of coming back to the way things were before.  And yes, we are in communion with God now and saved through Christ.  However, is Christ’s aim to simply meet us where we are at and leave us where we are at or is His aim to change us, to transform us? 

                We need to ask the question, “What is God making us into?”  The answer that the ancient Church fathers gave us is this: “God is making us into human beings.”  In other words, in their minds, we are not human yet, but we are to become human.  To them, humanness is not something inherent at birth but we become human gradually over time.  This is a radically different notion of what it means to be human than the ones we have today.  Today, we consider ourselves as human beings already.  For us, humanness is not something acquired but it is something we are born with. 

                The Church Fathers, particularly Irenaeus and Ignatius of Antioch (both came from John’s line of discipleship) had a much different view, though.  Hear what Ignatius says:

                “I am God's wheat and shall be ground by the teeth of wild animals. I am writing to all the churches to let it be known that I will gladly die for God if only you do not stand in my way. I plead with you: show me no untimely kindness. Let me be food for the wild beasts, for they are my way to God. I am God’s wheat and shall be ground by their teeth so that I may become Christ’s pure bread. Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God. No earthly pleasures, no kingdoms of this world can benefit me in any way. I prefer death in Christ Jesus to power over the farthest limits of the earth. He who died in place of us is the one object of my quest. He who rose for our sakes is my one desire.

The time for my birth is close at hand. Forgive me, my brothers. Do not stand in the way of my birth to real life; do not wish me stillborn. My desire is to belong to God. Do not, then, hand me back to the world. Do not try to tempt me with material things. Let me attain pure light. Only on my arrival there can I be fully a human being. Give me the privilege of imitating the passion of my God. If you have him in your heart, you will understand what I wish. You will sympathize with me because you will know what urges me on.”

                In this letter, he is urging his fellow Christians to abstain from interfering with his impending martyrdom and from seeking to dissuade him from following through with it.  Then, he goes on to say something quite shocking: “Only on my arrival there can I be a fully human being.”  Only on his arrival to God through martyrdom can he be a fully human being. 

                Irenaeus says something profoundly similar:

                “The glory of God is a human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.”

                The first half of the saying would fit rather well into modern philosophical thought.  We like the notion of being alive and living life to the full and this phrase, “the glory of God is a human being fully alive,” seems to cater to the notion of “being true to oneself.”  However, the last part of the phrase will not let us go there because he goes on to say that “to be alive consists in beholding God.”  In other words, the more we behold God, the more alive we are and the less we behold God, the less alive we are.  We are not alive; we are not human, unless we behold God.  This parallels Ignatius’ thought significantly because no one fully beholds God until they have passed through death.  Thus, we do not gain the fullness of our humanity in this life but the fullness of humanity is something which yet awaits us in the future. 

                Now, we can come full swing back around to our starting point and address the saying which Jesus uttered from the cross right before He died: “It is finished.”  Here we will explore parts of the book of John, who discipled Ignatius of Antioch and the man who later was disciple by another of John’s disciples, Irenaeus.  We are also going to look at parts of the book of Genesis.  Let us explore the possibilities of what Jesus meant by His saying upon the cross.

                Did He mean that His suffering on the cross was now finished?  Did He mean that our salvation was now finished?  Usually, people translate the phrase as referring to one or both of these things.  However, I don’t think this paints the phrase in adequate light.  It seems like John is seeking to show us something bigger in what Jesus is saying here.  It is not just about His suffering coming to an end or the plan of salvation reaching fulfillment, even though both of these things certainly fit into the scenario.  We need to remember that John frames his gospel in a very creation-narrative sort of way.  He parallels Genesis in many respects.  There is much more that can be said on this, but this is a fairly well known fact and much has been written on it, so I am not going to delve into it too much.  I will just provide one example.  Both books, Genesis and the Gospel of John begin with the saying, “In the beginning…”  John didn’t choose these words by accident but was using them to point to something.  He is showing us that Christ fulfills what the creation story set out to achieve.  It is this that “is finished.” 

                In Genesis 1, God said, “Let us make a human being in our own image, after our own likeness.”  This is interesting because in the rest of the creation story, God makes a command, “let there be,” and things spring into existence.  With humanity, however, we see something quite different.  To quote John Behr:

                “He announces His own project, no with an injunction, but He announces it in the subjunctive….God doesn’t just say, ‘Let there be,”  but, ‘Let us make,.’  It is the only thing that is not followed by the words ‘and it was so.”  It is a project.” 

                  God’s project is to make a human being and that project is one that apparently does not reach completion in Genesis 1, even.  If I am correct in my Greek studies, the “make” in “let us make” in 1:27 is a first aorist active indicative verb.  This is significant because the aorist signifies here an action that has yet to be fully completed.  So, this would mean that the “image of God” here would serve more as a template, not as a completed action.  It’s not that Adam was made into God’s image but that Adam was shaped after God’s image; that, Adam is shaped in accordance with God’s image.   This is even further enhanced by the words (Kat’ eikona), made “according to the image” or “down from the image.”  This is very significant: Adam and Eve were not made into the image of God.  They were made in accordance with the image of God.  The creation of humanity into the image of God should be seen as a progressive thing in the Scriptures.  Mankind was meant to progress towards image-bearingness.   

                  Now, we can finish with the Gospel of John.  As I said earlier, there is a lot of symbolism in John as he parallels the creation-narrative with his Gospel-narrative.  Both Genesis and John begin with the phrase, “In the beginning…”.  John is being quite intentional with his language.  Where the Apostle Paul points us frequently to the fact that Jesus was the fulfillment of Israel in many of his letters, the Apostle John here is pointing us to the fact that Jesus was/is the fulfillment of humanity, of the image of God.  Where Paul tells us in Galatians 3:16 that the promise given to Abraham did not involve many people but one “seed,” so to John is telling us in his Gospel that God’s promise to make an image bearing human being, a true human, is fulfilled in one man.  Both promises pointed forward to one man, one “seed.”    

                  We find the most startling evidence for this in a few verses in John in particular.  The first is the startling proclamation given by Pilate to the angry mob. 

                  “One more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.’  When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, ‘Behold the man!”

                  I don’t think these words, “Behold the man,” (or, “behold the human being”) are accidental.  John is placing them in here on purpose.  John is using Pilate’s words to reveal to us that Jesus is the true human being.  He is the true image bearer.  Furthermore, I don’t believe it to be accidental that the quote that we looked at earlier from Irenaeus seems to echo John so much here.  John points to Pilate’s words and says, “Behold the human being,” and Irenaeus says that a human being is one who “beholds God.”  Irenaeus was a good student of John’s and there is a definite connection here. 

                  Finally, we’ve come back to Jesus’ saying on the cross, “It is finished.”  What is finished?  I believe that John is saying, “the project of God to make men and women into true humans, into image bearers, is finished”  The human project is that which is finished in Christ’s life and death.  The endeavor that God undertook in order to make a true human being finds its recapitulation in Jesus’ dying and last words on the cross.  Certainly, it also means that our salvation is also won and that Christ’s agony has come to an end.  However, the “it” which was “finished” spans further back than Jesus’ own human life and it is certainly broader than just our salvation.  It is the summing up of the project that God started in the beginning.  It is the fulfillment of the creation narrative, John tells us.  Jesus is the fulfillment of the human endeavor.  This bears even greater significance whenever we look to the verse which follows Jesus’ cry from the cross:

                  “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’  With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.  Now, it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath.” 

                  Earlier on, Jesus said to His accusers in John 5:16-17 that, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”   He said this in response to the Pharisees’ persecution.  They were ridiculing Him because He was working on the Sabbath.  Just like God in the Genesis account, Jesus tells us that He, to, was working.  After Jesus let out His cry from the cross, John is showing us how Jesus rested as God did in Genesis.  The Sabbath day immediately followed Jesus’ statement and death.

                  Lastly, and succinctly, we are going to look at what this means for us.  Jesus certainly isn’t the only human that has or ever will exist but He has opened up true human existence for us.  To delve into this would require another work for another time; one which will take a second look at the theology of the saints and reexamine the true meaning or holiness.  Now, though, it will suffice to say that through Christ, we have the opportunity to truly be human!  I would like to give two exhortations to close.

                  First, for us to seek our humanness, we must do what both Pilate inadvertently and Irenaeus directly tell us to do: “Behold the man!” and “Behold God!”  If the human being fully alive consists in beholding God, we must seek Him, then, with everything that we are and everything we have.  We must pursue Him with all of our might not just so that we will be “saved” but so that we can start becoming human here in now.  We must acknowledge that in pursuing God we fulfill our humanity and in neglecting God we diminish our humanity.  The denial of God is the loss of personhood.  So, “behold the man!”

                  Secondly, Jesus said in John 14 that anyone who loves Him will obey what He commands.  What does He command?  Well, He sums it all up with love.  Love God and love one another.  What did it look like for Jesus to fulfill His humanity, to love both the Father and us?  What did it take?  It took the denial of His very self.  It wasn’t until the cross that His humanity was fully fulfilled.  Like Christ, we to must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him if we wish to be true human beings.  Why is this the case?  Why does it have to be this Way?  Why is the Way of the cross necessary for all of us in order for us to become true humans? 

                It is necessary because God is love.  In Christ, in His life and actions, we see the Way of the Triune God’s existence revealed to us.  He gives us a glimpse of the Way in which the Father and Son and Holy Spirit have always existed together.  He shows us that self-denial and the Way of love is the Way God exists in Himself and we are being made in accordance with God’s image.  Jesus is showing us how to exist as God does, to be as God is.  He both enables us and teaches us how to be love in the Way that God is love.  To be human is to fully bear God’s image.  To fully bear God’s image we must be love as God is love.  In order to be love, we must live as Christ did.  In order to live as Christ did we must respond to His commands and follow Him.  So, again, “behold the man!”