Jesus lived the Victorious Life, not because he was God, but because he was perfect man; he lived as God planned that man should live. In a very true sense (though the statement would need certain qualification), our Lord took to himself no more advantage in the matter of winning victory over temptations than have we, his brethren.
Why He Emptied Himself
But he was God. Yes, all the fulness of the Godhead was in him, or he could not have made atonement for the sins of his brethren. But remember that Christ Jesus emptied himself. This does not mean that he ceased in any sense to be God. But there was something that he had as God, in glory with the Father, that he did not have as the God-man living here on earth. He was rich up there; he was poor down here (2 Cor. 8:9). Of what did Jesus empty himself? He emptied himself of the glory that he had with the Father before the world was. The full meaning of that none of us can fathom. But here again there is a very practical application to our everyday living of this profound doctrine of the humiliation of our Lord:
He emptied himself of that which would have prevented him, in the days of his suffering on earth, from being a true Son of man.
Jesus voluntarily gave up that inherent power that was his as God, and lived his life as God intended that man should live his life, in utter dependence on a power not his own.
When man fell, his sin was a declaration of independence of God. He thus made impossible the living of a true man’s life, for an essential part of a man’s life is to live moment by moment in utter dependence on another, his Maker.
That is why our Lord constantly pointed away from himself. “The Son can do nothing of himself” (John 5:19). “I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me” (John 5:30). “I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me, I speak these things” (John 8:28). “The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works” (John 14:10). Our Lord here speaks as the Son of man, not coming in his own name, or living in his own name, but in the name and by the power of Another dwelling within him.
The Son of Man’s Watchword
The secret of the Son of man, plainly written across the record of his earthly conflicts, is surrender and faith. “Not I, but the Father.” And “as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21).
The Son of man’s watchword is, “I will put my trust in him.” Only man can say that. Glorified God cannot say that.