Have you ever wondered what we are as human beings? Most likely, you have assumed or been taught that we’re a soul and a body. Or maybe your understanding is a bit more nuanced. Either way, have you considered that what we are is a significant part of God’s plan to glorify his name in all creation?
Reflecting on the divine plan to have humans rule over all creation causes the psalmist to declare the majesty of God in all the earth.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands . . .
O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:3–9)
But what is the divine design of human beings that enables Christ and the rest of mankind to bear such creational significance?
Moreover, we know from church history that we must be careful when we think of Christ in relation to the rest of mankind. If we don’t, we can stumble into heretical positions quickly. It took a lot of work over a few centuries for the church to clarify that Christ is fully man, having a complete soul and body, yet that body and soul did not create a human “son” alongside the divine Son. So how do we define our human being without causing more confusion or reintroducing heresy?
Over the course of two longform articles, I want to help us address the what question of our human being by looking to Christ for the answer in a way that actually strengthens the intersection between our anthropology and Christology.
In this Part 1, we’ll consider that the answer to what we are is a crucial part of gospel logic, yet the main options for human constitution fall short and generate more heat than light. And taking a departure from the current debate, we’ll walk through the first two of five theses that summarize how the divine Son’s incarnation reveals the divine design of our human being. Specifically, we’ll consider the implications of Christ becoming the man and why it was necessary for our salvation.
Then in Part 2, we’ll finish defining human being in Christ by allowing the church’s confession that he is both fully God and fully man to govern the constitution of mere man. And we’ll highlight that doing so can reveal the depth of human dignity in connection with Christ, the wonder of divine wisdom in the incarnation of Christ, the potential for more unified ground in the church’s doctrinal confessions, and greater strength in our ability to confront the man-centered issues of our day in a Christ-centered way.
The Question
For Christians, the who question of our true identity and the how question of our daily life in this world might seem more important or relevant than the what question of our human being. Indeed, Scripture calls the people of God to be holy as he is holy, and to conform our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ as his disciples.
Even beyond the church, all humanity is made in the image of God and is thereby given a particular identity and vocation, all of which is deeply corrupted by sin but not completely destroyed. Indeed, as Psalm 8 tells us, human beings are crowned with a special glory and honor that distinguishes us from all other creatures. Compared to the heavenly beings above and the animal beings here below, God has set apart human beings to display his majesty most clearly.
Yet the what question of this article has a certain logical priority over the who and how questions. Really, it has an ontological priority.[1] That is, it seems there must be an actual, real, constitutional design that grounds the identity and enables the vocation of humanity in general and the church in particular.
1. In general, ontology is a branch of metaphysics in philosophy that addresses fundamental questions about reality and the existence of things. As used here, “ontological” refers to the basic reality and design of something that exists, like us as human beings and Christ as human and divine.
So what are we that makes us ontologically capable of bearing our creational significance and divine purpose?
The Significance
Maybe the best way to consider the importance of asking what we are is by considering another question: What made it possible for Jesus Christ to atone for our sins?
In the fourth century, Gregory of Nazianzus rightly insisted that Christ has healed only what he has assumed of our human nature. We’ll discuss the ontological implications further below. But here we can acknowledge the significance of Gregory’s point: Christ must be a complete man to completely save sinful man. If Christ did not live, die, and rise again as a true and complete human being, then his redemptive work would be incomplete, and we would still be lost in our sins.
Thus, whatever constitutes us as human beings, the Son must have become that in his incarnation to redeem us as the mediator between God and man.
And in that case, becoming clear as to what we are as humans also has implications for related doctrines, like justification and sanctification. Our redemption in Christ means that we are now justified, standing in a right relationship to God. Through faith, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, being counted as our own. And the Holy Spirit is sanctifying the people of Christ, conforming each of us to the image of Christ. Yet, again, it would seem that these glorious realities involve a certain constitution that supports them and makes them possible, both for Christ and for his people.
In short, as discussed more below, human constitution—what we are—provides part of the ontological framework for the work of Christ because all that he has accomplished for us is made possible by him being made like us in every way, except sin (see Heb. 2:6–9, 17; 4:15).
So our understanding about man (anthropology) has significant ontological implications for our understanding of the salvation and sanctification of sinful man (soteriology) through the person and work of Jesus Christ (Christology). The church should rejoice in the biblical revelation and coherence of these truths. And it should be concerned if our anthropology creates a tension or conflict with other doctrines, especially Christology and soteriology.
Moreover, the what question of human being bears upon some of the most important issues of our day. Whether it’s abortion, human trafficking, gender identity and confusion, the use and effects of artificial intelligence, or euthanasia and assisted suicide—from the beginning to the end of human life, we face questions that are fundamentally anthropological.
Simply put, then, what we are matters, and the definition of human being deserves the church’s careful attention.
The Current Debate
Despite its importance, the church does not have an orthodox definition of human being. In fact, if we count all the variations and modifications, the current debate in theological anthropology has produced no less than 130 versions.
It is true that substance dualism was the default teaching of the church for more than 1500 years. By the fifth century, Augustine had brought the soul-body composition of man into a dominant position in the West. And the church thereafter taught with near uniformity that a human being is a dual-substance being: an immaterial soul-substance that exists in and directs a material body-substance.
Yet, substance dualism was not the result of a deliberative consensus by the church. It was not produced by an ecumenical council and it never gained the authority of an orthodox formulation of human ontology that rejects others. And that provided the opportunity for challenges and alternatives.
In the seventeenth century, a shift in philosophy and metaphysics posited that a substance has only a material existence, even if it includes aspects that appear immaterial. Accordingly, all things, including humans, exist as wholly corporeal beings. An increasingly naturalistic worldview made an immaterial soul-substance ever more unnecessary and implausible.
And as a result of this shift over the past five centuries, there is a prominent “physicalist” judgment in theological anthropology today. That’s not to say most Christian’s think that. In fact, I would guess that most people in your circles would say we’re a body and a soul. But in the scholarship that eventually trickles down into our everyday lives, there has been a shift to see the “soul” as largely interchangeable with the “mind,” which is a higher-level function of the physical body, mostly located in the brain. Those proponents argue that each of us is a physical/material substance in which the activities of the mind/soul are really functions of the body.
Even with sustained attention and efforts, however, it appears theological anthropology is moving sideways regarding the basic definition of human being. Dualists say that man is a composite being of a particular body and a particular soul. Physicalists say that man is a corporeal being of a particular body that produces the function of mind/soul. So, despite the growing number of variations for each side, both use the same two ontological categories. They use the categories differently, and they have divergent presuppositions and debate the number and kind of substance(s). But dualist and physicalist models both define human being as a soul/mind-body being. Rather than this common ground producing a constructive consensus, it appears that each side is committed to further entrenchment.
But is there a way out of this stalemate? I think there is. We need to define what makes us human beings in the same terms we use to say that Christ is a fully human being.
Defining Human Being in Christ
Fortunately, the terms of the current debate are self-imposed. The church is not limited by Scripture, orthodoxy, or logic to consider only the soul/mind and the body as the categories for defining human being. So the church is not beholden to a soul/mind-body paradigm of human constitution.
Moreover, the societal and theological conditions of our day place the church in a unique position to (re)think deeply and biblically about the what question of human being. First, as discussed above, the issues in our current culture are predominantly and foundationally anthropological. Second, the rise of theological retrieval has reminded the church of its rich theological heritage and demonstrated the benefits of allowing past efforts—to the extent they accord with Scripture—to inform our present understanding and teaching. That’s especially true for retrieving the church’s orthodox confessions and doctrines. And third, there’s a general consensus in the church that our doctrine of man should be Christ-centered because Jesus reveals and provides the paradigm for all that is truly human.
Thus, given the theological significance of human constitution and the anthropological significance of Jesus Christ, the church should take this opportunity to (re)examine the what question of human being by looking to the man himself through the teachings of orthodox Christology in the Chalcedonian tradition.
The Chalcedonian Definition (451 AD) produced at the fourth ecumenical council provides the core of the church’s orthodox confession that Christ is fully human (while also being fully God). But in doing so, it also provides the key to confessing how Christ is a fully human being (and how he is fully God). And the fuller Christology that developed around the Definition helps us understand what we’re confessing when we say that the divine Son is now “consubstantial with us” (same substance) according to his human nature (while also being consubstantial with the Father). In that case, retrieving the fully human being of Christ from Chalcedonian Christology should govern our answer to the what question of our own human being.
So I want to use the rest of this article and the next one to summarize in five theses what I’m calling a “Chalcedonian anthropology” that defines human being in Christ by looking to the Definition as the statement of his human constitution.[2]
2. The theses are taken from my work in Michael A. Wilkinson, Crowned with Glory and Honor: A Chalcedonian Anthropology, Studies in Historical and Systematic Theology Series (Bellingham: Lexham Academic, 2024).
In the two theses below, we’ll begin with Scripture by looking at the ontological implications of Christ becoming the man and why it was necessary for our salvation. Following the biblical logic of what makes the gospel “work” will give us good biblical warrant for defining human being in Christ
1. Jesus Christ is the man and ontologically definitive for human being.
A biblical anthropology should begin by recognizing that the man Jesus Christ is the man, and thus the standard of what we are as human beings. Following Scripture, we should take seriously that Christ is presented as the true man (anthrōpos; see John 19–20),[3] the last Adam and the man from heaven (see 1 Corinthians 15), and the true image of God as a man (see Col. 1:15). As such, Christ is the unique and climactic revelation of what it means to be human. The concrete and historical particularities about Jesus of Nazareth are important, even if not all of them are universal. But all that is universal about humanity is found first and foremost in the paradigmatic human being of Christ. At all times, the man Jesus Christ is the archetype of mankind and the Archimedean point from which we can define what a human being is accurately and fully, including ontologically and constitutionally.
3. Unless otherwise stated or required by the context, “man” is synonymous with “human being,” which includes women and children.
In short, the man Jesus Christ is ontologically definitive for all human beings. He alone reveals and defines all that is truly human, including the basic constitution of what makes us fully human. In this sense, looking to the incarnation as the full revelation of human being gives the church an anthropology “from above.”[4]
4. “From above” here refers to God’s revelation in Scripture being the primary source of doctrine. That’s in contrast to the disastrous method and result of grounding doctrine in human reasoning and experience, which is “from below.”
Of course, moving from Christ to the rest of humanity should be worked out pursuant to a methodology that recognizes both similarities and differences. There is a risk of flattening the real differences between Christ’s humanity and ours, and we must remain vigilant to prevent the collapse of anthropology into Christology. While he is fully human, he is not merely human as we are. So we will need to make certain adjustments to account for the fact that Christ is both fully man and fully God, and we are not.
2. The work of Christ requires a sufficient correlation between his human being and ours.
Scripture presents what I call “biblical analogies” between the theological and ontological identities of its characters. God himself assigns a theological identity that defines who a character is in the unfolding drama of God’s glory. And that theological identity is accompanied by an ontological identity that determines what a character is that enables the part to be played well. For example, Scripture presents the Christ as playing a central role in bringing God’s promises to fulfillment. And to do so, Scripture tells us (and shows us) that the Christ had to be both God and man.
Now let’s look briefly at two other biblical analogies where the theological identity of Christ intersects with the theological identity of man: the incarnate image of God and the redeemer of sinful man. Considering these significant theological identities will highlight that Christ’s work of revelation and redemption entails a sufficient ontological correspondence between his human being and ours.
First, Jesus Christ is the ultimate image of God, who perfectly reveals the real presence of God on the earth as a human being. A close look at Genesis 1:26–28 reveals a constitutional priority to the imago Dei. The grammar of the passage requires us to recognize a correspondence with God himself (not just his character) that leads to the functional purpose of his design. So the best reading is, “Let us make man as/according to our image, as/according to our likeness so that they may have dominion.”
Moreover, when we consider the context of this passage, a truly remarkable ontological truth comes into view. The Bible’s own terms give us the primary context, which begins with the immediate textual horizon of Genesis 1. Yet part of considering the meaning of verses 26 through 28 is considering the language and concepts of the culture that were used to serve the purposes of God’s revelation in those verses. When we put all that together, we can see that the divine-human correspondence of the imago Dei is one of ontological representation. Not that we become God. But just as a statue of the ancient kings proclaimed their rule over a particular area, each human being is a creaturely icon of God himself that proclaims his dominion over all creation.
Thus, when we look further to the Bible’s covenantal and canonical horizons and see that Christ comes as the man and the image of God (see 2 Cor. 4:4-6; Heb. 1:3), we can see more clearly that his fully human being is the ontological representation of God himself on the earth.
Second, Christ is the redeemer who actually atoned for our sins as a human being. God’s gracious provision of a sacrificial system for Israel (see Leviticus 1-7) indicated the need for atonement through a representative substitute, which climaxed on the Day of Atonement (see Lev. 16:1–34). But the repetition of those sacrifices also indicated that the means for true atonement was not among the herds but on the horizon. Animals cannot atone for humans because “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:3–4). Rather, true atonement requires ontological correspondence. So the divine Son had to become a fully human being so that he was ontologically capable of substituting himself for sinful human beings (Heb. 2:14–18; 9:12).
Through these biblical analogies, a simple but significant principle emerges: God deals in ontological realities. Becoming a truly and fully human being was an ontological requirement for the divine Son to take up his mission in the divine plan of salvation. And his incarnation provided him with a constitution that made him ontologically capable of completing his mission. The revelatory and redemptive work of the man could be effective for mere man only because his human being is sufficiently like ours.
Moreover, it’s crucial to recognize that the divine Son himself, the one who became incarnate, was the subject of all his accomplishments as a man on our behalf. According to the biblical storyline, the one through whom all things were created in the beginning is the same one who lived, died, and rose again as the man and our redeemer.
Thus, the human being of Christ must (1) account for the divine Son, and (2) have the same basic constitution as ours.
Conclusion
As we look to Christ to understand what we are as God’s human creatures, we look first to Scripture for biblical warrant to proceed. By presenting Christ as the man, the image of God in man, and the redeemer of sinful man, Scripture points us to an ontological correspondence between his human being and ours. That’s how he was able to accomplish his works of revelation and redemption. That’s how the divine Son’s incarnation made him ontologically capable to be our substitute, priest, and king. In short, ontological correspondence between the man and mere man is a key to the logic of the gospel.
But we need to complete what we have started here. Seeing the grace of God in greater ontological depth is glorious and worthy of meditation. And that will surely increase our affections for Christ in our discipleship to him. Yet there is more. We still need an answer to our what question. Scripture points us toward Christ for that answer. But what makes him a fully human being? Christ holds the key to the divine design of human being. But what’s the shape of that key? What are we that we can bear the weight of being crowned with glory and honor beyond the rest of creation? And how do we answer that question in anthropology without creating heresy in Christology?
In the follow-up article to this one, we’ll finish defining human being in Christ. And by the end of that article, we’ll have an anthropology “from above” that gives us a greater appreciation for the depth of human dignity and the wisdom of God in the incarnation of Christ, that fortifies a critical link in the church’s systematic theology, and that equips the church to confront the man-centered issues of our day in a Christ-centered way. You don’t want to miss it.
