“God did not need to send His Son. Saving sinners was God’s free choice. But to save sinners, God the Son had to become a man. God’s own justice demanded it. This is one of our greatest causes to praise the Lord, for we need nothing as much as we need Jesus.
While remaining fully God, the Son became truly “man” (Rom. 5:15; 1 Tim. 2:5). He is human in body and soul.
Christ has a real human body. He has a head, hands, and feet (Matt. 8:3, 20; 15:30). He slept, spat, and wept (Mark 4:38; 7:33; Luke 19:41). Jesus is not a spirit that merely appears human. He has flesh and bones that can be grasped and felt (Luke 24:39).
His body is in one place at a time. We read of Jesus “walking by the sea of Galilee” and “walking in the temple” (Matt. 4:18; Mark 11:27). After He rose from the dead, the angel announced at His tomb, “He is not here” (Matt. 28:6).
The body of Jesus was susceptible to pain and death during His state of humiliation. He felt hunger (Matt. 4:2; 21:18) and thirst (John 19:28). He could be struck and injured (Matt. 27:26, 29–30). He died on the cross (Mark 15:37). Only after His resurrection is it said that “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him” (Rom. 6:9).
When we survey the Bible’s teaching on Christ’s human body, it is striking how ordinary Jesus was among men. His neighbors scoffed, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mark 6:3). It is only now, in His state of exaltation, that Christ’s human body is “glorious” (Phil. 3:21).”
–Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Essentials of Reformed Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2025), 382–383.
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