by Tad Lindley
Skip ahead if you already know this, but for those that don’t know it, I will start here. About 2,025 years ago God was manifested in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16). In other words, God, who is a Spirit, showed himself in human form. This happened when the Holy Spirit overshadowed a teenage girl who at that time was still a virgin, named Mary (Luke 1:35). Mary gave birth to the only begotten son of God, who was known by the people as Jesus of Nazareth. Those of us who receive him and believe on his name, have power to become the sons of God (John 1:12), but we are not the begotten sons, since every one of us was begotten by an earthly dad. Jesus is different from us in that way, he was begotten by the heavenly Father.
Fully God
In fact, Jesus was fully God. All of God existed in that human form. How could he be so big that he could measure the volume of the oceans in the palm of his hand (Isaiah 40:12), and yet fit inside of a human body? I guess that is the mystery of godliness, that he was manifested in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16). And for anybody that might think, “It was just part of God that was in Jesus,” let me refer you to Colossians 2:9: For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Because he was fully God, he was able to work many, many miracles. He raised the dead, he calmed the sea, he healed leprosy, opened blinded eyes, delivered mutes, and on and on. In spite of all of this, Jesus also was fully human.
Fully human
Remember when Jesus got hungry in Matthew 4. He had been fasting for 40 days and ended up hungry. Later on though (as God), he took 5 loaves and 2 dried fish and fed thousands of people! When his friend Lazarus died, as a man, Jesus wept (John 11:35), but as God, shortly thereafter, he raised Lazarus from the dead. On the cross, as a man he said, “I thirst,” (John 19:28), but in John 7:37 as God he says, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink! The Bible focuses on the mighty God in Christ, but when you look closely you see that although all of God was in Jesus, he still was a man. In fact…
…Jesus was tempted to sin!
As a man Jesus experienced every temptation that we do, but as God he did not submit to temptation. In Hebrews 4:15 (GW), we read, We have a chief priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He was tempted in every way that we are, but he didn’t sin. Perhaps you’ve never considered this before. Jesus as a man was tempted to talk back to his mom and step-dad, to skip church, to smoke cigarettes, to gamble, to use opiates, to commit sexual sin, to say swears, but as God, he rose above it.
Jesus: “Nobody gets between me and the cross!”
Remember that time that Jesus was describing how badly he would be beaten and then be killed? Peter pulled him aside and said something like, “No way Jesus, I’ve got your back, I will never let this happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Matthew 16:22-23 NIV)
He was intent on going to the cross where he would become sin for us.
Also Jesus: “Can I skip the cross?”
On his human side, Jesus prayed. And the very night he got arrested, we see the man Jesus asking if he can skip the cross. And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me… Think about that, Jesus was tempted to skip the cross. So much so, that he prayed about it. The cup that he refers to is the cup of God’s wrath against sin. Fortunately for us, Jesus finished that prayer with these words: Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. (Matthew 26:39) As a result, he went to a cross that he did not want to go to, and there he became sin who knew no sin, so that we could walk out of darkness into his marvelous light!
Reverend Tad Lindley is a minister at the United Pentecostal Church in Bethel, Alaska.
