JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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● "The Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, 'Yes, you know Me,
and you know where I am from. I am not here on My own, but He who
sent Me is true. You do not know Him, but I know Him because I am from
Him and He sent Me'" (vv. 28-29).
● "For I do not speak of My own accord, but the Father who sent Me
commanded Me what to say and how to say it" (12:49).
● "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me?
The words I say to you are not just My own. Rather, it is the Father,
living in Me, who is doing His work" (14:10).
It is remarkable that while Jesus makes the very highest claims possible, He does so in
such a way that they sound like disclaimers. The higher the claims the more they point to God
the Father. Although it is a real man who is making these claims, they are simply not human
claims at all. There is no claim to human achievement or attainment. As Karl Barth points out,
the holiness of Jesus means that He did not treat His own goodness as an independent thing. He
renounces all claim to ethical heroism. His claims are made on the basis of God's grace. This
God-Man is the only man who claims nothing for Himself. But He does claim all for God. This
powerfully shows His total dependence.
HUMAN TEMPTATIONS
Jesus was subject to temptation just as we are. He who made man was to learn what it
felt like to be man. It is ironic that He who made the angel who became the devil (Lucifer) was
in a state (manhood) in which He could be tempted.
At the very beginning of His ministry He was tempted in the desert, and at the end, in
Gethsemane. He was also tempted on other occasions as is evident from Luke's statement that
the devil left Jesus "until an opportune time" (Lk 4:13). The temptations are another important
evidence of the true humanity of Jesus. For as James points out,
"For God cannot be tempted by evil" (Jas 1:13).
Yet Jesus was! And His temptation was real:
"Because he Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who
are being tempted" (Heb 2:18).
Jesus' temptations were not a charade. He was not play acting. He "suffered" when He
was tempted. There was struggle and wrestling as most graphically depicted in the Garden of
Gethsemane. Because of this Jesus knows how enticing and tempting temptation is.