On Being Fully Human

What does it mean to be fully human? I came across the phrase recently and only then did it really stick out to me, that I'd been hearing that phrase a lot lately, in video clips, sermons, books and online articles. So many sources referencing the gospel of Jesus Christ, alluding to the fact that part of the essence of the gospel, salvation or God's redemptive plan is to restore fallen humanity to the good state that God created it in.

As with most things that sound "too good to be true", it makes me want to look into it more. I have the tendency to be initially skeptical of novel or non-traditional things that might feel comforting in general. So that makes me curious about two things.

1. Is the concept Biblical in nature? Does the Bible use the phrase "fully human"? If not, is that simply semantics or interpretation, and does the Bible describe what it means to be "fully human" as we would explain that in our time? Or is that just a new phraseology to describe humanity-as-God-designed-it-to-be? I assume, based on the character and context of what people seem to mean when they use the phrase, that being fully human is, in some measure, part of what God's redemptive plan includes. I'd still like to flesh that out more. Is being "fully human" a similar phrase to Jesus' statement of His purpose, to bring us "abundant life" or life to the full? Etc...

2. To what extent can we become fully human in this life? What are the means to grow in that direction? Discipleship... Devotion... Obedience... What is God's role in the process? If it is a process, what can we legitimately expect to experience along the way?

I've been reading in Devotional Classics, and one of the classical authors referenced being fully human, which sparked this post. In my experience, we typically talk about being a good Christian versus a good human. It seems we think of Christian morality as a subset, a higher plateau, of regular morality. I don't think we equate being a good Christian with being a good human being. Like a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not necessarily a square, I think we think that someone might be a "good person" in a general sense, but we wouldn't call them a "good Christian" unless certain other things were true of them. Does that make sense? But from that, it seems that we have forgotten, on some level, what it means to be human, which is why the phrase "being fully human" stood out to me. Almost by implication that being human is a bad thing, stained with sin, etc. So, that's why, the news that the gospel might mean that God's plan is to redeem humanity, to restore us to His intended design for humanity, sounds like such good news.

What does it really mean to be fully human? What did God intend for us? What does God desire for us now, post-Fall and post-Christ's Incarnation? In light of the eternal salvation we believe we've received through God's grace and mercy, by faith in Jesus, how should we then live? What is the essence of what our time left here on the Earth was intended look like?