Hold On With Both Hands!
The Paradox of Christmas
As I write this, Christmas Day is a week away. Wow! Where did 2025 go? December 25th is the day we celebrate Jesus’s birth, but we really don’t know exactly what day he was born. The scripture is silent about the timing of his birth. However, we know that he was actually born of a virgin, and that day changed the world forever. Here is an abbreviated scriptural overview of Jesus’ birth.
The Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and said,
“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.
Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. -- Luke 1:31,34-35 NLT
The Gospel writer Matthew tells us that…
All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.” -- Matthew 1:22-23 NLT
The Apostle John adds to this, saying that Jesus is the Word and telling us...
In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. -- John 1:1-3 NLT
The Apostle Paul further clarifies Jesus’ eternal existence and his participation in creation.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth… -- Colossians 1:15-16 NLT
John continues in chapter one of his Gospel…
So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son. - John 1:14 NLT
It is a fact that the second person of the Trinity (Jesus), also known as the Son, became a human being. Thus, God became Immanuel (God with us). This presents us with a dilemma. If God became a human, did he remain God? Was he fully human or part God, part human? The answer is that Jesus was fully God and fully human! But how can that be? How can Jesus be fully God and fully human at the same time? These are two extremely different beings! This truth presents us with one of the great paradoxes of the Bible. How can Jesus be fully God and fully man at the same time?
A paradox is defined as “a situation or statement that seems impossible or is difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics.”[i] God is the infinite and supreme creator and ruler of the entire universe. Humans are finite mortal beings, created by God himself. How can Jesus be both?
Paradoxes can never really be resolved! If they could be comprehended, they would cease to be a paradox. However, we can use analogies to help us understand them to some degree, but they can never be totally understood. Here is my attempt at an analogy that can help us wrap our minds around the paradox of Jesus being fully God and fully human.
We can look at the paradox of Jesus being fully God and fully human by considering it to be a continuous metal rod. One end of the rod represents Christ’s deity. The other end represents his humanity. The rod is one continuous object – unbroken. If you pick up one end of the rod, you also pick up the other end. And vice versa. When you pick up the rod, you pick up the entire rod—not just a part of it. You cannot pick up one end without picking up the other end. When we “pick up” Christ’s humanity it cannot be separated from his divinity. When we “pick up” his divinity, it cannot be separated from his humanity. They cannot be separated! This means that we need to “pick up” the rod with both hands. We dare not consider only one end of the rod. Jesus is both fully God and fully man!
When we focus (pick up on Jesus’ deity) without picking up his humanity, we forget that one reason he was born a human was to show us how to truly live as humans. God’s greatest desire for our lives is that we become more like Jesus. When we focus only on his humanity and push his deity to the background, we see him just as our “buddy.” We forget that he is God—that he deserves our adoration, honor, and praise. We must embrace the paradox and “pick up” both ends of the rod!
While I am stretching your imagination, also think of the rod as being made of a metallic substance that nothing existing can break. No matter how hard people try, the rod cannot be broken. It is impervious to destruction. Nothing known to mankind can break this metal rod! It is the same with what the analogy represents—Jesus being fully God and fully man. That he is fully God and fully man is truth. People can deny it, but that would be like denying that gravity exists. Truth is truth, no matter whether a person believes it or not. The truth is that Jesus is fully man and fully God.
As God, Jesus is eternal—both in the past and the future. He has always existed and will always exist! He had no beginning and will have no end! But what about his humanity? It began when he was born of Mary and “the word became flesh.” When he was born into this world of ours, he became fully God and fully man. When that happened, just like the two ends of the rod, his humanity and deity became inseparable.
What does this mean to us today, as we celebrate the birth of our Savior this Christmas? Here are four paradoxes (each a miracle) concerning the birth of Jesus that should cause us to praise God.
A virgin became pregnant (disregarding biology)
Jesus’ birth was prophesied hundreds of years before it happened. How did the prophets know this?
The infinite, immortal God became a finite, mortal human being.
Jesus was fully God and fully man!
Jen Pollock Michel, in her book Surprised by Paradox, says…
“…it is God who walks through the walls we frame around an idea or problem, God who breaks the bonds of our eithers and or. …it’s the paradox of the incarnation that reminds us that God is the author of both and and.[ii]
This Christmas, I encourage you to reflect on the wonderful miracle of Jesus’ birth and how he is fully God and yet fully human. Here are some questions to ponder.
1. Where have you placed walls around your idea of who Jesus is?
2. Do you focus mainly on the humanity of Christ or his deity? Why?
3. How easily do you embrace “both-and” instead of “either-or.”
4. What are ways that you can fully appreciate the magnitude of this awesome paradox?
I would love to hear your thoughts on the content of this article. Please use the comment button at the bottom and give some feedback. Let’s get a discussion going!
[i] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/paradox
[ii] Jen Pollock Michel, Surprised by Paradox: The Promise of And in an Either-Or World, 2019