That word human has come to have two meanings.  The first true meaning, and a second, that has grown up through sin, and sin’s taint and trail.  The second has become the common popular meaning; the first, the forgotten meaning.  It will help us live up to our true possible selves to mark keenly the distinction.  The first is God’s meaning, the true.  The second is sin’s, the hurt meaning.  Constantly we read the effect and result of sin into God’s thought as though that were the real thing.  This is grained in deep, woven into the adages of the race.  For instance, “To err is human, to forgive divine.”  Yet this catchy statement is not true, save in part.  To forgive is human—­God’s human—­as well as divine.  Not to forgive is devilish.  It is not human to err.  It is possible to the human being to err, as it is with angels, but, in erring, man is leaving the human level and going lower down.

To understand what it means to say that Jesus is human we must recall what human meant originally, and has properly come to mean.  Man as made by God before the hurt of sin came had certain powers and limitations.  His powers, briefly, were, mastery of his body, of his mental faculties, and powers in the spirit realm so lost to us now that we cannot even say definitely what they are.  And mastery means poised, mature control, not misuse, nor abuse, nor lack of use, but full proper use.  Possibly there were powers of communication between men in addition to speech unknown to us.  Then, too, he had dominion over nature, over all the animal creation, over all the forces of nature, and not only dominion, but fellowship with the animal creation and with the forces of nature:  dominion through fellowship.

He had certain limitations.  Having a body was a limitation.  The necessity for food, sleep, rest, and for exertion in order to move through space acted as a constant check upon his movements and achievements.  He could not go into a building except through some opening.  The law of growth, of such infinite value to man under his conditions, was likewise a check.  Only by slow laborious effort and application would there come the discipline of mental powers and the knowledge necessary to life’s work.

The Hurt of Sin.

Now, in addition to these natural limitations sin has made other changes.  It has lessened the powers and increased the limitations.  There has been immense loss in the power over the forces of nature, though now, by slow and very laborious efforts, after centuries, much is being regained.  Instead of fellowship there has been an estrangement between man and the lower animals and between man and the forces of nature.  All of this has immensely added to man’s limitations, though it is true that most men do not know of what has been lost, so complete has the loss been.