(c) He was moved by the instinctive principles, and he exercised the active powers, which belong to a normal and developed humanity (hunger, thirst, weariness, sleep, love, compassion, anger, anxiety, fear, groaning, weeping, prayer).
Mat 4:2—“he afterward hungered”; John 19:28—“I thirst”; 4:6—“Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well”; Mat 8:24—“the boat was covered with the waves: but he was asleep”; Mark 10:21—“Jesus looking upon him loved him”; Mat. 9:36—“when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them”; Mark 3:5—“looked round about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardening of their heart”; Heb. 5:7—“supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death”; John 12:27—“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour”; 11:33—“he groaned in the spirit”; 35—“Jesus wept”; Mat 14:23—“he went up into the mountain apart to pray.” Heb. 2:16—“For it is not doubtless angels whom he rescueth, but he rescueth the seed of Abraham” (Kendrick).
Prof. J. P. Silvernail, on The Elocution of Jesus, finds the following intimations as to his delivery. It was characterized by 1. Naturalness (sitting, as at Capernaum); 2. Deliberation (cultivates responsiveness in his hearers); 3. Circumspection (he looked at Peter); 4. Dramatic action (woman taken in adultery); 5. Self-control (authority, poise, no vociferation, denunciation of Scribes and Pharisees). All these are manifestations of truly human qualities and virtues. The epistle of James, the brother of our Lord, with its exaltation of a meek, quiet and holy life, may be an unconscious reflection of the character of Jesus, as it had appeared to James during the early days at Nazareth. So John the Baptist's exclamation, “I have need to be baptized of thee” (Mat 3:14), may be an inference from his intercourse with Jesus in childhood and youth.
(d) He was subject to the ordinary laws of human development, both in body and soul (grew and waxed strong in spirit; asked questions; grew in wisdom and stature; learned obedience; suffered being tempted; was made perfect through sufferings).
Luke 2:40—“the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom”; 46—“sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them, and asking them questions” (here, at his twelfth year, he appears first to become fully conscious that he is the Sent of God, the Son of God); 49—“know ye not that I must be in my Father's house?” (lit. “in the things of my Father”); 52—“advanced in wisdom and stature”; Heb. 5:8—“learned obedience by the things which he suffered”; 2:18—“in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted”; 10—“it became him ... to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”
Keble: “Was not our Lord a little child, Taught by degrees to pray; By father dear and mother mild Instructed day by day?” Adamson, The Mind in Christ: “To Henry Drummond Christianity was the crown of the evolution of the whole universe. Jesus' growth in stature and in favor with God and men is a picture in miniature of the age-long evolutionary process.” Forrest, Christ of History and of Experience, 185—“The incarnation of the Son was not his one revelation of God, but the interpretation to sinful humanity of all his other revelations of God in nature and history and moral experience, which had been darkened by sin.... The Logos, incarnate or not, is the τέλος as well as the ἀρχή of creation.”
Andrew Murray, Spirit of Christ, 26, 27—“Though now baptized himself, he cannot yet baptize others. He must first, in the power of his baptism, meet temptation and overcome it; must learn obedience and suffer; yea, through the eternal Spirit, offer himself a sacrifice to God and his Will; then only could he afresh receive the Holy Spirit as the reward of obedience, with the power to baptize all who belong to him”; see Acts 2:33—“Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.”
(e) He suffered and died (bloody sweat; gave up his spirit; his side pierced, and straightway there came out blood and water).
Luke 22:44—“being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became as it were great drops of blood falling down upon the ground”; John 19:30—“he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit”; 34—“one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and straightway there came out blood and water”—held by Stroud, Physical Cause of our Lord's Death, to be proof that Jesus died of a broken heart.
Anselm, Cur Deus Homo, 1:9-19—“The Lord is said to have grown in wisdom and favor with God, not because it was so, but because he acted as if it were so. So he was exalted after death, as if this exaltation were on account of death.” But we may reply: Resolve all signs of humanity into mere appearance, and you lose the divine nature as well as the human; for God is truth and cannot act a lie. The babe, the child, even the man, in certain respects, was ignorant. Jesus, the boy, was not making crosses, as in Overbeck's picture, but rather yokes and plows, as Justin Martyr relates—serving a real apprenticeship in Joseph's workshop: Mark 6:3—“Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?”