Outside of the created universe and before its existence, God the Son was. John, the Apostle, begins his gospel by making this point. Those who would demote Jesus to the first created being have to argue with John, for his statement is clear. He tells us that “in the beginning,” that is, before anything was created, the Word—which he later identifies as Jesus—existed. This makes him part of the creative source, not a part of creation. Mark and Luke begin their gospels with a much less of a theological introduction. Mark basically says, “Here it is.” 

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What sort of world did God the Son enter—and how did he submit himself to its limitations? Was it a charade—or did he really have the same limits as you and I? The Bible records that outside of the power the Holy Spirit—which each trusting Christian has—Jesus exercised no divine power while he walked the earth. He was God who was—really man. 

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The fact that Jesus was 100% God and 100% man offends our math. Too often, men have assumed their math was right and missed God. The key is to understand who man is. In Genesis we are told that man was made “in the image of God,” that is, a small model of the real thing. The only difference between a good model and the real thing is that the model lacks the original’s size and powers. 

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Man, then is a “model” of God. Like God, his major personality characteristic is creativity—significantly limited in power, but existent, nonetheless. God, without his unlimited power, would be the perfect image—that is, the perfect man. Paul tells us in Philippians that Jesus laid aside the “very nature of God”—that is, his unlimited power—and took the nature of man—that is, our human limits. He was God without his divine power; therefore, he was perfect man.

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