I have a fascination with the humanity of Jesus. Knowing he was both God and man goes beyond the mind’s ability to fathom. More than ever, the humanity of Jesus brings God much closer and makes him more real and I think that is the whole point. From life’s first cry to final breath, I need Jesus to make sense of brokenness and be near. The gospel is given so that we can draw near to God through Christ as Christ came here as human.
An example that captivates is the temptations of Christ (Mt.4; Lk 4). This is a major story for sinners unpack. The benefits far outweigh what we read on paper. Adam and Eve were evicted from the garden and all its blessings. They knew isolation and self-consciousness for the first time. They experienced poverty; the first impulses of material and spiritual want. Instead of ‘Shalom’, they now entered a dark kingdom with evil forces and an enemy ruler. In this condition, there is no more harmony between man and nature; on the contrary, there is competition and fear–even hatred. The exile world is a place of rulers and subjects–the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. Man is warned that the world will be a place of toil, of meagerness; a place that never lets man forget that in the end, he is dust. Conflict will the human experience with one another, creation, and self.
In the temptation, Jesus comes to this world. A world that does not yield satisfaction for man. A world that is hard and full of vain things. Here, Satan tempted Jesus to use his power to rule. But the Savior refused to live as God in this world. Satan offered Jesus all the man-made kingdoms of this world. But the Savior would only rule after he had suffered and died to overcome his enemies.
Satan tempted Jesus with turning stones into bread knowing he had fasted for so long. Again, Jesus would not use a miracle to satisfy himself but would work just like man, by the sweat of his brow, to earn his portion. Where Israel failed in the wilderness, Jesus would succeed in trusting his good Father to provide. Jesus chose to trust God at his word instead of taking matters into his own hands where Adam and Eve originally fell, even in a garden food.
Again, temptation came by a perversion of God’s Word in order to have Jesus be protected by angels because God promised. But Jesus refused to put his Father to an ill-advised test for he would not be protected by supernatural means. Jesus chose to be vulnerable and weak so that he might become our sympathetic High Priest. He chose to be injured and insulted so that he would become approachable as perfect mediator. Unlike the Tree of Life in Eden which we cannot return, Jesus becomes the Tree of Life on earth that we can approach and be healed (saved). We can draw near through the suffering, bloody Christ who reconciles us to himself in laying down his life on the cross, the tree of life. Jesus, tempted to live as God, chose to live as a man in order to save sinful man and creation. Jesus did not have to prove he was God but that God would prove to become man.
Pastor Preston Atkinson
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