Posted on 12/08/2016 4:09:16 AM PST by metmom
“. . . Made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7).
Christ was fully God and fully man.
In his Systematic Theology theologian Charles Hodge wrote, “The Scriptures teach that Christ had a complete human nature. That is, He had a true body and a rational soul. By a true body is meant a material body which in everything essential was like the bodies of ordinary men. . . . It is no less plain that Christ had a rational soul. He thought, reasoned, and felt.”
Hodge’s assessment is correct, for Christ was given all the essential attributes of humanity. He was more than God in a body. He became the God-man, being fully God and fully man. Like a man, Jesus was born and increased in wisdom and physical maturity (Luke 2:52). Hebrews 2:14 says, “Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same.” Christ had the same flesh and blood that we have. When He came into the world, He came in normal human flesh that experienced all the effects of the Fall. He knew sorrow, suffering, pain, thirst, hunger, and death. He felt all effects of the Fall without ever knowing or experiencing the sin of the Fall.
Hebrews 2:17 points out how Christ’s humanity has a direct bearing on your life: Jesus “had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest.” For Christ to feel what you feel, He needed to be made like you. He experienced all the tests and temptations you do, but He never gave in to sin. That’s why He is such a faithful and understanding High Priest. Be encouraged, for we “do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15).
Suggestions for Prayer
Thank Christ for being your faithful High Priest.
For Further Study
What human characteristics did Christ show in the following verses: Matthew 4:2; 9:36; 23:37; John 4:6-7; 11:34-35; 19:30?
Studying God’s Word ping
Immanuel has come unto his creation...’and to as many as received him, to them he gave the power to become the Children of God, even to those who believed upon his name, Jesus (Yeshua), the actual son of the eternal living God.....born & laid in a humble manger....to be received by all those who will humble themselves....
I was just reading about this concept this morning. It’s hard to imagine Jesus’s being tempted to holler profanities at people who left the stove lit again or knocked over stuff in the refrigerator and left it again.
I should be more grateful that I even have a stove and a refrigerator.
just re-read Mere Christianity by CS Lewis.
Lewis’s explanations of why God had to send His Son to us as man - is excellent.
God beget’s God, man beget’s man, God cannot reconcile himself with us directly as we are not gods but created men, but thru the power His Holy Spirit God sent Jesus to us as both man and God, both created and begotten.
It’s thru this God-man Jesus Christ that God could redeem His fallen creation back to and for Himself and for us.
Present tense may apply to this. In fact it is something of a misnomer to speak of Christ Jesus as if He were a mere figure of the past, or as if God went through various modes to accomplish our salvation. True enough, Christ in human flesh was manifest for a brief period of time as we know it. Yet as Alpha and Omega, the very image of God, He together with the Father and the Holy Spirit have been unchanging in essence. That is why we pray, praise, and given thanks at all times in all places despite evidence to the contrary.
Settled doctrines do have their purpose. Or, how it is that the Messiah can walk the earth, interact with humanity, do everything he is supposed to do with the character he is supposed to have [according to Scripture], and not be recognized by the religious teachers and devoted students of their doctrines.
Nope, it couldn't possibly be that guy.. he's just the nice, quite neighbor whose professional credentials we respect and whose parents and siblings we know. He's hardly the god-man we expect to swoop down from the sky.
The insight available through the election process of Donald Trump and the way he does things, far surpasses the wisdom churned out by career theologians.
DJT - a man never before elected to public office - is walking right past the career diplomats and expert politicians and bureaucrats, choosing instead a people for himself and the nation who will work to make America great again.
"Everybody knows" that's not how things are done, yet there it is.
Ex 3.
1. And Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock far away into the desert, and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb:
2. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed:
3. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt:
4. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses; And he said, Here am I:
Interesting days ahead.
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