Over the last several months, I have been pondering this idea of Jesus being fully God and fully man (human). I am sure that you have heard that said of Jesus. But as I think about it more and more, this causes a problem. I don’t mean it is a problem because that saying is false. After all, it is 100% true. Jesus was fully God and fully man. I mean it causes a problem for us because of where we focus when we look at Jesus.
When the idea that Jesus experienced the same things that we do (Hebrews 4:15) is brought up, sometimes the response is “yeah, but He’s God.” This is the thought that doesn’t allow us to fully see Jesus as human because if He’s God then He already knows. He already knew that people were going to turn on Him because He’s God. He already knew how things were going to turn out because He’s God. He already knew what people were going to say because He’s God.
The truth of that, however, can’t be denied. Jesus was God. If He God wasn’t, He couldn’t have turned water into wine (John2). He couldn’t have healed the lame man (John 5). He couldn’t have raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11). He couldn’t have fed 5,000 people with just five loaves and two fish (John 6).
But the “because He’s God” thought causes was to miss an important part of Jesus. Jesus was human. Jesus understands our weaknesses and our emotions (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus understands all of it. Jesus can understand us because He did not cling to the fact He was God (Philippians 2:6). Jesus gave up being God to be born a human being (Philippians 2:7). We can miss all of this when the “because He’s God” thought comes into our minds.
When we look at when Peter betrayed Jesus by denying he ever knew Him, we can think that it didn’t hurt Jesus because He called Peter out on it (John 13:38). But if you think about it, just because Jesus knew about it, doesn’t mean that it hurt Jesus any less. If we think about it, we have all been betrayed by someone before. I bet we can all conclude that a betrayal is a betrayal and it hurts. Whether or not we knew about the betrayal doesn’t matter at all. Jesus knows what it is like to be betrayed by a friend or friends.
Then we might say that “Jesus doesn’t understand my stresses and anxieties. Jesus doesn’t know the pressure I’m under.” We might think this because of the “because He’s God” mindset. However, Jesus understands our stresses and anxieties. He understands the pressure we can be under. How? Because Jesus experienced great stress, anxiety, and pressure. Jesus knew what was about to happen to Him in mere hours. This is how the gospel of Luke describes Jesus in these final moments:
“He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.” - Luke 22:44 NLT
This is a very real, but rare, medical condition. Hematidrosis can be “caused by extreme distress or fear, such as facing death, torture…”[1]
This definition of what was happening to Jesus fits exactly what He was facing in His spirit. Jesus knows exactly what it is like to be stressed, anxious, and under pressure. I am even going to say that Jesus experienced those things to a level we might never experience them at. I am also not making light of anyone’s stresses or anxieties. What I am saying is Jesus understands them because He’s been there to a greater level. This is how Jesus can do what the author of Hebrews said:
“This High Priest [Jesus] of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.” - Hebrews 4:15 NLT
This post isn’t meant to dive deep into Jesus being God and Human. We can get lost in the complexity of that exploration. However, it’s still a good thing to do. This post was more to show that Jesus was human and that He understands us. Jesus was God while He was on Earth. But, Jesus was also human. When we strip away the fact that He was God, we see Jesus in a very different way. When we see Jesus as a human being that walked on this Earth and experienced all that we do (sometimes to greater levels), we bring Jesus closer to us. If we see Jesus as God all the time, we tend to push Him away because we don’t think He understands. But when we see that Jesus is human and that He understands, we bring Him closer in our experiences.
Jesus knows, understands, and cares so much for us. Bring Him in close.
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