The Man Christ Jesus (Theological Reflections on the Humanity of Christ) by Bruce Ware

First of all I would like to thank Crossway Books for providing this book to me in exchange for a review.  I appreciate their reviewers program and have almost always been pleased with the products they publish.

Dr. Bruce Ware's book on the Man Christ Jesus is a wonderful new book that looks at the Divinity and the Humanity of Christ and how those combined to bring to mankind the needed Messiah, the perfect Sacrifice to pay for the penalty of our sins.

Most books when they look at this subject tend to dwell on the Divinity of Christ as that seems the most important fact to uphold and explain how Jesus was truly the Son of God and the second member of the trinity.  In doing that they dwell on Divinity and often don't write or defend the thesis very well as to the humanity of Jesus.

Dr. Ware wrote this book to explore and express the truth about the humanity of Christ Jesus.  The book gives what I believe is the best defense theologically for the humanity of Christ and the necessity of that humanity to fully satisfy the payment for the penalty of our sins.  Also the books gives great insight in to how important it is for us to understand that Christ Jesus was truly a man who lived in a human body and was tempted by all of the things that tempt mankind.  The difference between Jesus and us is that he lived his human life without sinning!  How is that possible?

Dr. Ware takes great care to develop the fact that Christ Jesus was able to live a perfect sinless life because he walk in union with the Holy Spirit and depended on the Holy Spirit to give him the strength and guidance to live such a life.

Would it be possible for us to also live a sinless life?  Well our sinful human nature makes that impossible, because in Adam we have all sinned.  But in theological terms yes we could if we were truly dependent on the Holy Spirit for complete guidance in all of our life situations.  The problem is that no one ever gives fully over the Holy Spirit every situation, because sin is satisfying to our decaying human sinful flesh.

Do we have the power of the Holy Spirit?  Yes.  Does the Holy Spirit live in us?  Yes, if we have surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ and accepted his substitutionary payment for our sin on the cross.

So, Dr. Ware asks this question, "Why don't we depend more on the Holy Spirit?"  That is a great question and each of us will have to answer that on our own.

There are many other details that Dr. Ware delves into regarding the Divinity and Humanity of Christ Jesus.  But I was so pleased with his approach of looking mainly at the humanity side and giving us such good teaching on why the Son of God had to be a man and also be God.

I would recommend this book for every pastor and layman.  You will enjoy it and it will become one of the favorite books in your library.

Thank you Dr. Ware for such a timely and masterfully written text.