2. He was also, as a man subject to intellectual and moral limitations.
We read in Luke 2:52, "Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man." As we are told here that He grew in wisdom, He must have been more perfect in wisdom after He grew than He was before He grew, and as He grew in favour with God and man, He must have attained to a higher type of moral perfection when He grew than He had attained to before He grew. While in the Babe of Bethlehem God was incarnate, nevertheless He was a real babe and grew not only in stature, but in wisdom and in favour with God and man. As a man He was limited in knowledge, He Himself says in Mark 13:32, "But of that day and that hour (i.e., the day and the hour of His own return) knoweth no man; no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son but the Father." Of course, His knowledge was self-limited: to set an example for you and me to follow in His steps, He voluntarily as man put away His knowledge of the time of His own return.
Furthermore still, we are definitely and explicitly taught in Heb. 4:15 that Jesus Christ was "In all points tempted like as we are." But in bearing this in mind as being clear and complete proof of the reality of His humanity, not only physical but mental and moral, we should also bear in mind what is stated in the same verse, that He was tempted "Apart from Sin," i.e., that
there was not the slightest taint or tinge of sin in His temptation, not one moment's yielding to it in thought or desire or act. Nevertheless, He was tempted and overcame temptation in the same way that we may overcome it, by the Word of God and prayer. He Himself voluntarily placed Himself under the essential moral limitations that man is under in order to redeem man.
3. He was also, as a man, subject to limitations in the way in which He obtained power and in which He exercised power. Jesus Christ obtained the power for the Divine work that He did while here upon earth, not by His incarnate Deity, but by prayer. We read in Mark 1:35, "And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose up and went out, and departed unto a desert place, and there prayed." And we read also that before He raised Lazarus from the dead, called him forth from the tomb by His Word, that He lifted up His eyes to God and said, "Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me," showing conclusively that the power by which He raised Lazarus from the dead was not His inherent, inborn, Divine power, but was power obtained by prayer. It is mentioned not less than twenty-five times that He prayed. He obtained power for work and for moral victory as other men do, by prayer. He was subject to human conditions for obtaining what He desired. He obtained power for the divine works and miracles which he wrought by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. We read in Acts 10:38, that "God
anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him." And we are taught, furthermore, that He was subject during the days of His humiliation to limitations in the exercise of power. He himself said just before His crucifixion and subsequent glorification, in John 14:12, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; for I go unto my Father," the evident meaning of which is, that during the days of His flesh there was a limitation to His exercise of power, but after His glorification, when He was glorified with the Father with the glory which He had with Him since the world was, there would be no limitations to the exercise of His power, and therefore, that we, being united, not to our Lord Jesus in His humiliation, but in His exaltation and restoration to His divine glory, will do greater works than he did during the days of His humiliation.
IV. THE HUMAN RELATION OF JESUS CHRIST TO GOD
The completeness of the humanity of Jesus Christ comes out in still another matter, and that is, the relation that He bore to God as a man was the relation of a man, so that God was His God. He himself says to Mary in John 20:17, "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the father:
but go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God." The evident meaning of this is that Jesus Christ's relation to God, the Father, was the relation of man. He speaks of God the Father as "My God." Though possessed of all the attributes and exercising all the functions of Deity, Jesus Christ the Son was subordinate to the Father. This explains utterances of our Lord which have puzzled many who believe in His Deity, such utterances, for example, as that in John 14:28, where Jesus says, "Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: For my Father is greater than I." The question is often asked, "If Jesus Christ is God, how could the Father be greater than He?" The very simple answer to which is; that He, as the Son, was subordinate to the Father, equal to the Father in the possession of all the distinctively Divine attributes and exercising all the Divine offices, and as an object of our wholehearted worship, but subordinate to the Father in His office. Jesus Christ's relation to the Father is like the relation of the wife to the husband in this respect, that the wife may be fully the equal of the husband, but nevertheless, the "Head of the Woman is the Man," she is subordinate to the man, just as we are told in the same verse (1 Cor. 11:12) "The head of Christ is God," i.e., Jesus Christ the Son is subordinate to the Father.
It is evident from what we have read from God's Word, that Jesus Christ in every respect was a true man, a real man, a complete man. He was made "In all things" "like unto his brethren" (cf. Heb. 2:17). He was subject to all the physical, mental and moral conditions of existence essential to human nature. He was in every respect a real man. He became so voluntarily in order to redeem men. From all eternity He had existed "in the form of God" and could have remained "in the form of God," but if He had so remained, we would have been lost. Therefore, out of love to us, the fallen race, as we are taught in one of our texts (Phil. 2:5-8), He "Counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross." Oh, wondrous love! that out of love to us He should take our nature upon Him, turning His back upon the glory that had been His from all eternity and taking upon Himself all the shame and suffering that was involved in our redemption, and becoming one of us that He might die for us and redeem us! Oh, how wondrous the "Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich." (2 Cor. 8:9.) He partook of human nature that we might become partakers of the Divine nature. The philosophy