Our Great High Priest: A Study Of The Book Of Hebrews. Day 5, The Humanity Of Jesus

In order to carry out the plan of salvation for mankind, God the Son had to become a man. In becoming a man He temporarily laid aside the honor and glory that are His and became "lower than the angels" for the purpose of bearing our sins on the cross. This doesn't make Him less worthy of our worship, but more worthy of it. Since bearing our sins on the cross, dying, rising from the dead, and ascending to the Father, Christ now has the highest honor and glory and is seated at the right hand of the Father and has been given the name above every name.

As I said once before in our study of one of the gospel accounts, downplaying the humanity of Jesus actually takes away some of the glory that is due Him. I occasionally hear preachers or Bible teachers, who have good intentions, saying things that enhance His deity while taking away from His humanity. They are doing this because they think they are honoring Him by denying that He ever felt temptation and denying that He dreaded the excruciating pain of the cross. In my opinion, the fact that He did feel these things in His humanity actually adds to His honor, for I can't imagine the power and self-control it must have taken to resist all the temptation Satan threw at Him and to remain on the cross when He had the power to set Himself free. Jesus could have immediately put a stop to all the opposition He faced, and He could have ordered Satan to silence, and He could have come down from the cross and overthrown all governments and set Himself up as Lord and King of all the earth. But He didn't do any of these things because He couldn't have saved our souls unless He adhered strictly to the plan of salvation. So I won't downplay the humanity of Jesus. It took more strength than you and I could ever imagine for Him to endure what He endured. When I'm going through unpleasant things, the only thing I want is to make the unpleasantness stop, but that's not always within my power. It was within Jesus' power but He didn't use His power because doing so would have left us without hope.

Because Jesus was obedient unto death in order to save mankind, He will someday be Lord and King of all the earth. God the Father is going to give God the Son this dominion because He willingly lowered Himself so that He could carry out the plan of salvation. "It is not to angels that He has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking." (Hebrews 2:5) Though Jesus set aside His glory for a time to become a man and be a lower order of being than the angels, the greatest glory of all is now His. As the author of Hebrews has already told us, we are never to worship angels. The angels themselves worship Christ. 

"But there is a place where someone has testified: 'What is mankind that You are mindful of them, a son of man that You care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; You crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet.'" (Hebrews 2:6-8) The author is quoting the words of David from Psalm 8. David is viewing the heavens and the creation and wondering why a God powerful enough to make all these things would concern Himself with weak and sinful mankind. He's asking God why, since man is so unworthy, He gave man dominion over the earth and everything in it. But this is all part of God's plan and, in order to carry out God's plan, Christ also had to be a man. If He were not a man, He would not possess the dominion over the earth that has been given to man. And if He were not a man, He could not have borne our sins and taken our place. And if He were not a man, He could not have become our great high priest----the mediator between God and man. 

There were things the Lord wanted to do for us that had to be done in the flesh. This meant that Christ had to temporarily lay aside the glory He had with the Father before the world existed. (John 17:5) In order to save us, He had to become like us. He had to be born under the law and perfectly keep the law so that as a spotless Lamb He could give His life for us. This is why the Apostle Paul says that God "made Him who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God". (2 Corinthians 5:21) Under the law, sin was symbolically transferred to the sacrificial animal. When Christ, the Lamb of God, hung on the cross, our sins were transferred to Him---but in a literal sense during a transaction that took place between the Father and the Son. This sacrifice was so perfect that it never has to be repeated, unlike the sacrifice that was performed yearly on the Day of Atonement. This sacrifice was so holy that it literally transferred our sins to Christ once and for all. 

So I will try never to say anything that strips Christ of one speck of His humanity, for doing so would strip Him of some of the honor due Him.