“Jesus’s humanity was and remains a true, genuine, real humanity consubstantial with ours. His humanity is not merely like ours, nor does it merely overlap with ours. It is ours.
That is why the apostle Paul is at pains to say that he is our mediator and that he is true man (1 Tim 2:5). He is the God-Man, but he is still a true man. This is a major burden of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Jesus did not come for angels, nor was he an angel (Heb 2:16). He came for the sons of Abraham. The author writes:
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Heb 2:14–18 ESV)
Our assurance is grounded in the truth that our representative, our substitute, our federal head Jesus is like us in every respect (sin excepted; Heb 4:15), and it is as if when he made propitiation, we too made propitiation (i.e., turned away God’s wrath; Gal 2:19–20). This is why there are no more sacrifices, not even memorial sacrifices. His was the once-for-all sacrifice to turn away God’s wrath. He is the Lamb, the Mediator, the sacrifice, the priest, and the temple. “It is finished” (John 19:30).
Only we sinned, and only God could save us. Having willed to save us, he could do so only by becoming incarnate, and he did so “of the Virgin Mary.” The doctrine of the virgin conception of Christ was much disputed by theological liberals at the end of the nineteenth century.
That Christ was born of a virgin is the teaching of Scripture. It is the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (ESV). Matthew 1:23 expressly says that the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Virgin Mary and thus fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah (see also Luke 1:31).
“It behooved the Messiah to be born of the Virgin according to the predictions of the prophets, that he might be a High Priest without sin, and the type or figure of our spiritual regeneration, which is not of the will of flesh, but of God.” Conceived and born sinless, “in the fullness of time… born of a woman” (Gal 4:4), he alone is the fulfillment of the promise made in Genesis 3:15. As Olevianus writes, the
basis and foundation of the royal priesthood of Christ, and thus of the eternal covenant between God and humanity, is contained in this article of the person of Christ. These two natures, divine and human, belong to His substance and being and are thus bound together in such a way that they form an essential, actual Christ while still retaining their distinctive attributes. This is, in God’s decree, the beginning and cornerstone of our salvation.
His humanity was and remains as real as ours. He really was in Mary’s womb. He had an umbilical cord. The conception was miraculous, but his birth was truly human. His humanity, like ours, was frail.
He wept (John 11:35). He ate (Luke 24:43). He suffered. When they beat him, it hurt. When they nailed him to the cross, it hurt. When he struggled for breath on the cross, it hurt. He died a true, human death.
It was a real, cold, lifeless body that they buried in the tomb, and it was that very, true body that was raised on the morning of the third day (Luke 24:39–40).”
–R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological & Pastoral Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2025), 255-257.
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